Creating professional-quality music on the Mac has traditionally been a costly and intimidating proposition for amateur musicians. Enter Arturia Storm — a stand-alone recording studio packing virtual synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, and a host of effects options into a relatively affordable, easy-to-learn package.
After a quick and painless installation, Storm launches with a Studio Builder window, which you can stock with up to four instruments and three effects from onscreen palettes... Studio also houses transport controls, a 400-bar sequencer, a mixer (two channels per instrument and a stereo master channel), and a master transposition module.
Additionally, you can download new Studio modules from Arturia’s Web site as they’re developed — so Storm grows with you at no extra cost. The Web site also offers tutorials, support, and development news. Throw in the comprehensive paper documentation, and you’ve got an incredibly user-friendly package.
In use, Storm is versatile, supporting real-time and step (non-real-time) sequencing. We got our groove on in real time: composing patterns by clicking synth keys and drum sounds in the relevant modules as the sequence played (and we listened), and building songs by stringing together the patterns linearly.
You can control Storm’s keys, buttons, knobs, and faders externally via MIDI input, and the software performed well as a VST Instrument in popular sequencers (we tested it with Cubase VST and Emagic Logic). The effects quality is impressive — especially when we routed effects back to each other to create deeply layered sounds. Once the song’s finished, you can export it as an audio file in WAV, AIFF, or MP3 format.
The biggest downside of Storm is that it limits you to only four instruments and three effects per Studio session. Also, Storm’s sample-import option is slow, especially with bigger samples; and its groove quantization is limited to an unimpressive shuffle option.
Overall, Storm is a great tool, especially (but not only) for musicians at the beginning of their game or on a limited budget. Storm offers flexibility, choice, and growth without any major hamstrings — a rare combination in its price range.
Freid, Andrew. (January 2001). Storm 1.5. MacAddict. (pg. 60).
Arturia
Applications
out of 10 (3 votes)
188 / 
2017-04-12 / 
2017-04-12 / 
e1f104c8d51a793110e6760acd622f5da11dcca0 / 
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Arturia_Storm_1.5.toast
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
QEMU
