Customer Reviews

Future Music

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This magazine is invaluable for the present-day producer.
I produce hip hop tracks and find that this particular magazine is tailored perfectly to the producer who works much with virtual instruments, plug-ins and the like.

Each month's issue also comes with a bonus CD that includes plug-in demos (often free fully-functional plugins), tutorial videos, sound samples, etc. This, for me, puts "Future Music" in a different league than other magazines.
Mags like Mix and EQ are great - covering a wider scope of music and music-for-film production, but for the producer working with a Digital Audio Workstation, "Future Music" is probably the best "get right down to business" audio magazine available.

Highly Recommended.

The earlier reviewer commenting on the price is referring to the US edition of the magazine, which is about $20 per year, and is no where near as well put together. This is a great magazine, I had the subscription for it and bought it in pounds and got the bill once it had been converted to dollars, needless to say I only did it for one year. It's still less than buying it at the newsstand which is around $16 per issue I think. If you like to get new audio samples, tutorials, plugins and virtual instruments every month, this is "the" magazine to get, if you like that stuff but don't want to pay the charge for having it sent over the pond, consider the US version, but realize they are not the same and the US one is not nearly as good.

This mag is not publish anymore as told in previous reviews. They won't tell you instead I got a note that said I would get Guitar World, and got 1 issue only. Not only I just got 1 issue, but I never asked for guitar world. Please take note that Amazon is very good at everything except mag subscriptions. They send you with the publisher to deal with. No refund are made this way. Also this happened with the Mental Floss mag subscription. Your are on your own with magazine subscriptions.

Just like another reviewer, I sent in the card for a preview issue. I did receive one issue, which I found to be of limited value anyway. I have since been bombarded with collection agency notices. I can't believe I may have to get legal help for this. Absolute rubbish.

Don't buy this magazine sub! The company no longer makes FM for the US. I have a two year sub and they never told me they stopped making FM US. They just started sending me Guitar World. I don't even play guitar!!!

DON'T BUY THIS SUBSCRIPTION.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED...

I sent in a card for a preview issue and never recieved it. Since then I've been bombarded with with forceful Must Pay notices. They've now turned me over to a collection agency. I've not to this day subscribed.

Hate to Amazon-bash (since I love shopping here), but you can get this magazine/CD subscription for pretty much $20/y at any other web site. No clue why Amazon is charging cover price for a subscription....

I agree with most reviewers. I also had the problem with the collection agency threats, which are absolutely annoying and a shameful practice too, since in theory they let you try one before subscribing. The funny part is that my girlfriend did give me a subscription as a present when I was not sure if to get it or not, and for the longest time I kept receiving this threats (since she subscribed with her card)! Very very annoying. The magazine is OK I guess, but as another reviewer pointed out nowhere near the UK edition, which is awesome. One of the big flaws of this magazine is that they seem to love ALL the products they review. I mean, to begin with they don't grade the products they review (as their UK sister magazine does), and then they focus only on the best things about the products they are reviewing. If they ever criticize something it is done in an extremely careful and brief way, only to go straight to the best qualities of that product. Perhaps they are afraid to annoy the company and lose some precious ads,who knows. Needless to say this makes it impossible to know what product is worth buying, and if everything is outstanding you might as well not even bother reviewing anything at all. In this sense Electronic Musician seems a lot better, but the down side of that one is that EM does not come with a CD, as this one does (even though the UK version ships with a DVD!) I did send them an email complaining at how benevolent they are with their reviews, but never got any reply.
Bottom line: For some unknown reason the US magazines that deal with music + computers + recording are like an amateur version of their british counterparts. Of course they are also cheaper (in the broad sense of the word cheap), so don't expect much out of them. As I said Electronic musician has better reviews (or should I say REAL reviews?) aimed to the buyer and not to pleasing the companies. On the other hand Future Music has the CD with demos and samples, so it's a tricky decision. If EM started shipping with a CD I would turn to them immediately. As it is I guess I'll have to stick to Future Music.