Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2017 i Computer Music

“A behind-the-scenes, all-access experience…” Of the thousands of recording studios past and present, none are as iconic nor recognisable as London’s Abbey Road Studios. As the creative environment where The Beatles recorded 90% of their music, and having accommodated countless other pop and rock stars over the past sixty years, it’s the ultimate mecca for music fans, pop artists and studio pros. It isn’t a museum, though – it’s still the go-to scoring house for some of the biggest blockbuster movie soundtracks; as well as a well-oiled recording, mixing and mastering machine for established and up-and-coming artists alike. So to give you a behind-the-scenes, all-access experience of these iconic studios, flick to p22 and come with us on a tour of the various live rooms and control rooms within. After…

Just two issues ago we filled you in on UAD v9.1, which brought five new plugins to Universal Audio’s ace DSP platform. Well, things are moving fast as a SHARC at UA, as v9.2 is out already, featuring another five fresh effects. Hang onto your overdraft as we walk you through ’em… First, the logical counterpart to v9.1’s updated SSL 4000 E Channel Strip: the SSL 4000 G Bus Compressor (£229). This official emulation improves on UA’s older plugin of the same name (now rebadged ‘Legacy’). The algorithms have been rewritten, making this an “authentic end-to-end circuit emulation” of the master bus compressor from SSL’s 4000 series mixing console, famed for its punchy, mix-gluing sound. It also now features a sidechain high-pass filter, mix knob, and…

WE’RE ALL EARS Hearing loss is something that all musicians fear, but scientists at Indiana University think that, in the future, it might be possible to reverse it by rebuilding parts of the inner ear using stem cells. Don’t rely on it just yet, though: this kind of ‘cure’ could be years off. ABLETEACH Even we have to admit that Ableton’s new interactive learning website is pretty slick. It shows you how a track is put together and also touches on a range of music theory concepts. You can even export parts you create for use in Live. Find it at learningmusic.ableton.com BLADE OF GLORY? Last month saw the release of the first trailer for Blade Runner 2049, the sequel to the cm1982 sci-fi classic. We’re especially keen to find…

“We were first into hard house and happy hardcore, then I switched to more housey stuff” Making music on Acid Since 2014, Ben O’Connor and Jon Verde have been recording as OC & Verde, racking up releases on some of techno and house’s finest labels, including Knee Deep in Sound, Suara, Bedrock and Glasgow Underground. We caught up with them in their Lancashire studio to find out how they made their epic Solstice , which was released earlier this year on Steve Lawler’s VIVa Music. Computer Music: Jon, what are your earliest memories of music production? JV: “Do you remember Dance eJay? I think I was about 12 or 13 when I used that, and before that it was Magix Music Maker. It was running…

Apple Logic Pro X cm 195 » 9/10 » £140 “We use this to make every track. It gets better and better with every release, and although they’ve made it look a little bit like GarageBand, it’s easier on the eye than Ableton Live when you’re staring at it for long periods of time.” www.apple.com Native Instruments Maschine cm 198 » 10/10 » £829 “We make our drums in Maschine. It’s just so easy to use. And whether you’re using the hardware or the software, it’s really quick to get something down. We’ve got a big library of our own drum samples in there now, too.” www.native-instruments.com Moog Music Sub 37 cm N/A » N/A » £1249 “Most of our basses are from there, and most of the deep Reese-type…

Ronan Macdonald Having previously served as Editor of drummer’s bible Rhythm as well as Computer Music, Ronan is clearly the right man for this particular gig. He’s been playing drums for over 30 years and making music with computers since the 90s. With today’s multisampled drum kits able to reach exquisite levels of detail, authentic jazz drums are genuinely achievable within the software-based studio. And while jazz itself – by which I mean modern, not trad for this particular tutorial – might come across as too intellectually demanding, jazz drumming fundamentals are easily learnt, and understanding them can have a profound effect on your approach to drums and beats. When putting together a virtual jazz drum track, your choice of sampled kit will have an obvious impact on the results.…

Why look to the future when you can get nostalgic creating rave tunes of past? This massive pack of samples is the producer’s equivalent of a trip down memory lane, bringing you those sought-after rave and old-skool sounds that are priceless in today’s retro-inspired landscape. Get some vibes into your tunes by grabbing this pack from the cover disc or the Vault. 1000 WAV SOUNDS including 100 130bpm loops 97 136bpm loops 106 140bpm loops 100 148bpm loops 81 Drum and perc 15 Root breaks 135 Root breaks – slices…

Step 1 On your PC or Mac, go to vault.computermusic.co.uk, then either register for a new Vault account, or log in if you already have one. Step 2 Click ‘add a magazine’ in the top bar, select the issue you want to add to your Vault (eg, this issue is 245), and answer a few simple security questions. Step 3 Go to ‘my vault’ to see all your mags – click a cover and use the links to download! You can download as much or as little as you like. PLUGIN FREESTYLE CM Find out how to install and use this issue’s awesome free plugin host and signal chainer, p58 SAMPLE PACKS STEREO TOOLKIT Get more between two speakers with these 500 wide hits, layers, soundscapes and multisampled instruments, p104…

It’s taken them a while – the PC/Mac version was released years ago – but Sugar Bytes have finally seen fit to make their Unique synth available to iOS users, too. Given that it’s designed to create classic analogue-style sounds, you might argue that it’s anything but ‘unique’, but there are some funky things going on in the filter section – notably the vowel filter, which enables you to link vowel formants and play them back. Unique is compatible with both Audiobus and Ableton Link. It’s £14.99/ $14.99 on iPad and £4.99/$4.99 on iPhone. sugar-bytes.de Klevgrand are knocking out new iOS/PC/ Mac products at a pretty impressive rate. The company’s latest release is Syndt, a polyphonic synth that’s got “lots of possibilities” and enables you to morph between…

“Our Burning Question asked why some plugins were so CPU-intensive” The iPad didn’t arrive until 2010, but the news section of 115 reminds us that Microsoft’s first Surface device was launched in 2007. We marvelled at its 30-inch screen and ‘multi-touch’ abilities, so why didn’t it sell by the bucketload? The $10,000 price tag, probably, although we noted that this kind of technology might hit the mainstream soon… We also heard rumours that Apple was about to retire the Mac mini. You can still buy it, but when you consider that it hasn’t been updated since October 2014, you wonder if the company has forgotten it exists. There was also talk of a MacBook ‘mini’ with no disc drive and an SSD, which turned out in 2008 to be the…

Thomas Davis “Serum – the presets alone have much more quality than any synth I’ve tried.” Patryk Scelina “For me it was Omnisphere 2. I waited a long very time before I finally decided to buy Omnisphere, simply because it’s quite expensive… but now I regret not buying it sooner! I love it because it’s a self-sufficent instrument. You can literally score an entire game or film using just Omnisphere.” Keith Clarke “MPC Studio. I’d never worked with a hands-on piece of hardware, but it’s made it a lot more fun!” Neil Gardiner “Hardware-wise it’s gotta be the Korg Nanokey 2 – so easy to take around and chuck ideas out with.” Marco Ferreira “FL Studio 6. Until I got it, I was just struggling to make tunes. The sheer…

“I think a lot of balance judgements are easier when it’s quiet” Mixing at Abbey Road After our enviable tour of Abbey Road Studios’ various rooms, we’re shown into one of their two newest studios – The Front Room – where we’re greeted by Gordon Davidson. He’s worked on numerous blockbuster scores including The Hobbit , Spectre , Thor and Iron Man ; as well as engineering for artists such as Sir Paul McCartney, Ian Brown and will.i.am. Before we even get a chance to sit down, Gordon’s already checking out the audio stems of the project we’ve asked him to mix for us. Before our A-list engineer gets fully stuck in, we take the opportunity to…

The Beatles toyed with tape speed in various ways throughout their career. From the early days, one practical application was to record tricky parts at half speed (and an octave lower) before bringing them up to the right tempo and pitch. This was a George Martin speciality, adopted as early as his piano part on Misery , and the deceptively slick solo on A Hard Day’s Night where he and Harrison had to be in perfect sync. Later, on Pepper , this was the secret to the dazzling Wurlitzer and Hammond organ runs on Mr Kite . A landmark here is In My Life , where the producer’s piano sounds like a harpsichord when…

In this month’s Easy Guide , I’m looking at one of the most compelling mysteries you come across when exploring music theory for the first time: what is an octave, and why are they called octaves when they contain twelve notes? OK, that’s two mysteries, but to address one means addressing the other, so let’s start picking at the thread and see where it leads. It’s become a sort of unofficial Easy Guide tradition to start off with a diagram of a C major scale, largely because an understanding of how a scale is formed is integral to so many other aspects of music theory. An explanation of octaves is no different, but what you’ll have noticed if you’re a regular reader (and why wouldn’t you be?)…

“I had this idea of trying to write a fully programmed dub song in MIDI, actually clicking in echoes and off-kilter hi-hats” Coldcut’s Jonathan More and Matt Black have packed a lot into their 30-odd year career. Pioneering DJs in the days before acid house. Pioneering producers – their 1987 single, Say Kids, What Time Is It? is arguably the UK’s first sample-based single. Pioneering remixers – even today, the Erik B and Rakim/ Ofra Haza mash-up, Paid in Full , still sounds gorgeous. Pioneering pop stars with 1988’s Doctorin’ The House . Pioneering label bosses – in the early 90s, More and Black formed the still-respected Ninja Tune label, variously home to the likes of Bonobo, Roots Manuva and…

Fuchs Overdrive Supreme 50 is the latest guitar amp plugin from UAD Direct Development Partner Brainworx, and is included in the v9.1 update (VST, AU, RTAS, AAX). Following in the footsteps of existing Fender, Marshall and Ampeg designs, the Fuchs is also Unison-compatible, providing software integration with UA’s Apollo preamps and making it suitable for playing and recording as well as mixing. The plugin features the key aspects of the original hardware design coupled with some extras added by Brainworx: Noise Gate, Amp Filters, Delay, individual pre- and poweramp Bypass, and Power Soak. There are also 82 cabinet and mic Recording Chains, including various Fuchs cabinets, to deliver mix-ready tones. The amp itself is a single-channel design with a switchable overdrive mode. In this second mode, the primary clean channel…

The equivalent of opening up a real Space Echo and swapping its tape loop out, Outer Space’s three tape modes let you change the frequency response, saturation qualities and noise characteristics of the delay path with a flick of a switch. The three options are RT (the original tape in AudioThing’s very well maintained Space Echo), New (a cleaner, toppier modern tape) and Old (a noisier, darker alternative). Each one not only has its own sound right out of the gate, but also varies in the nonlinearities worked in by the Wow/Flutter knob, and the distortion brought in by overdriving the input signal. Wow/Flutter modulates the pitch and volume, from gentle fluctuations at low settings to all-out ‘busted pinch roller and capstan’ beyond about 50%. As with real tape, the…

The cm Plugins collection is a suite of complete, limitation-free instrument and effects plugins. It’s an incredible resource, boasting more than 70 pro-quality plugins that you won’t find anywhere else, all for PC and Mac, in VST and AU formats. All of the included software is created exclusively for us by respected commercial developers such as D16 Group, u-he, AudioRealism, Ohm Force, KV331 Audio, Cableguys, XILS-lab, AudioThing, Vengeance-Sound, Rob Papen, zplane and more. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Enough talking! Where do I get these plugins? You can grab them all on the cover DVD with out print edition, or as a download from our Vault (see p5 for instructions on how to access). How do I install Plugins? It depends on the plugin. Some have dedicated installers, while other just drop…

HYBRID SYNTHS Our synths have been created by the best software developers in the world to bring you a suite of sound-making tools for all music production scenarios u-he Zebra CM • Blendable oscillator waveforms • Super-programmable step LFOs • Slick delay, reverb and chorus • Original synth designed just for CM • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit www.u-he.com Enzyme CM • Scanned synthesis sound generator • Easy-to-use preset-based synth • Assign parameters to controls • Based on the full Enzyme synth • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit humanoidsoundsystems.com KV331AudioSynthMasterCM • Dual wavescanning oscillators • Multimode filter and built-in effects • FM/AM synthesis modes • Based on SynthMaster 2.5 • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit www.kv331audio.com Cableguys Curve 2.6 CM • Design-your-own-waveforms synth • New waveform capabilities for v2.6 • Phat 16-voice Unison mode • Based on Cableguys Curve…

DYNAMICS Check out this huge collection of processors – from classic compressors to modern digital creations, we’ve got everything you need to shape your signals eaReckon CM-COMP 87 • Slick, punchy compressor • Mix knob for parallel compression • Limiter to keep the output in check • Clear VU- and LED-style metering • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit www.eareckon.com LVC-Audio Transector CM • Transient tweaking and saturation • Define and process envelope stages • Useful metering/display functions • Mix control for parallel processing • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit www.lvcaudio.com Audiority TS-1 CM • Flavoursome transient shaper • Set attack and sustain gain • Blend control for parallel processing • Based on the full TS-1 plugin • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit www.audiority.com Unfiltered Audio G8 CM • Get toight dynamics or creative FX • Includes advanced gating controls…

“Every VST developer needs to solve copy protection, file browsing, undo and so on” cm What are the challenges in adding VST support into a mature DAW, rather than building it in from the very start? MH “I think we have more advantages than challenges. Our experience with Rack Extensions and focusing the user experience means that we had the opportunity to think one step further about how we’d like Reason’s VST implementation to be done. It’s not all a walk in the park, though. We started fresh with plugin compatibility. This means a lot of time needs to be spent identifying plugin behaviors that other DAWs might’ve had a long time to create special solutions for.” cm The VST standard has been around for a while. Considering your own…

Vinyl ($249) “There are loads of ‘crackle’ plugins around, but no one’s really sampled the Neumann cutting rack, tried different cartridges, different playback decks, or even a pre- and post-factory sound. We went into deep forensics.” J37 Tape ($299) “This replicates the incredible sonics of EMI tape. That tape is amazing, indestructible stuff – it never needs to be baked in an oven like ‘regular’ old tape.” Reverb Plates ($249) “The amount of time it took to sample those plates… I drove the engineers crazy! Each plate sounds different – one’s a valve, hybrid of transistor and valve, and two are transistor-based.” Reel ADT ($249) “This was a fun one for us to make. A bit of an oddity! You can grab the varispeed and shift the signal around, just…

Rain (Paperback Writer, 1966) Released two months before Revolver, Lennon’s hypnotic B-side previews several of the technical treats that defined the album. ADT makes an early appearance on John’s vocal track, which is then reprised in reverse in the closing maelstrom. Rain also demonstrates the textural effect of recording backing tracks at a faster tempo and then slowing them down (in this case some ten percent); the resulting drop in pitch reinforcing the song’s introspective, LSD-inspired lyrical theme. A Day In The Life (Sgt Pepper, 1967) The orchestral cacophony that links the two song sections required some serious logistics, including a British debut for syncing two four-track recorders using a given frequency. Sgt Pepper’s showstopper is also a masterpiece of mixing, with Lennon’s ghostly vocals panned progressively around the stereo…

The legendary Vengeance-Sound continue to have significant influence in music production. Their sample packs have become industry standards and can be heard all over electronic music, delivering the power and impact that modern genres require. Plus, alongside their samples, soundsets and the ever popular ROMpler Nexus, they also output world-class effects and the mighty synth VPS Avenger. Their output is consistently outstanding, making their tools must-haves for both production and performance. Here, we’re going to look at three effects processors from Vengeance: Philta XL, Tapestop and Glitch Bitch. Although sharing a similar interface, each plugin has a different focus: Philta XL is a hugely powerful filter; Tapestop provides classic pitching effects; and Glitch Bitch can slice your audio into crazy stuttering edits. All three are deep and creative plugins which…

“Acquire tools that sound unique and force you to work in a different way” Ilpo Kärkkäinen Ilpo – aka Resound – is a veteran drum ’n’ bass producer who’s worked with many of the scene’s biggest labels. As well as being an in-demand game soundtrack artist and mixing and mastering engineer, he runs a popular production blog focused on productivity. After 20 years in the game, Ilpo still has a passion for pushing the boundaries of production. www.resoundsound.com More music is being made right now than ever before. As the number of people making music has risen, it’s become increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd. Of course everyone wants to sound unique, but how do you actually get there? How about developing a clear strategy for achieving your…

Our promise We bring you honest, unbiased appraisals of the latest computer music products. Our experts apply the same stringent testing methods to all gear, no matter how much hype or expectation surrounds it. What the ratings mean 1-4 A seriously flawed product that should be avoided 5 This product’s problems outweigh its merits 6 A decent product that’s only held back by a few flaws 7 Solid. Well worth considering 8 Very good. A well-conceived and executed product 9 Excellent. First-rate and among the best you can buy 10 Exceptional. It just doesn’t get any better than this! See and hear the latest software in action in our ‘2 Minutes With…’ videos! Wherever you see the icon, head straight to your DVD, the Vault download area, or our YouTube…

Established in 1999, Fuchs is a boutique amp manufacturer based in New Jersey, and is best known for its Overdrive Supreme amp, which has been produced in various power ratings and design finishes. With manufacturing quantities small and unit prices starting at over a couple of thousand pounds, they’re clearly at the upper end of the boutique market. Design features include regulated DC powering for the preamp valves, plenty of hand wiring, internal cabinet damping, fan assisted cooling, and extremely low noise, even with the drive cranked up. For all its boutique mojo, though, the Fuchs actually owes its beautiful clean-to-driven tones to an even rarer boutique amp, namely Alexander ‘Howard’ Dumble’s Overdrive Special. Said amp is one of a handful of custom designs from Dumble, and with only around…

Yamaha TX81Z Few instruments could be said to have changed the music world as thoroughly and quickly as Yamaha’s DX7. Unleashed in 1983, this affordable, all-digital FM polysynth was primed to take over the stage and studio alike. Thanks to a burgeoning new wave scene’s addiction to all things electronic, and a glut of boring old analogue synths on the market – not to mention those mysterious ‘MIDI’ ports round back – the DX7 was a blockbuster success. And nothing breeds success like success, and Yamaha were determined to ride the FM wave through the rest of the decade, releasing an endless stream of instruments cast in the DX7’s mould. A few, like the diminutive DX100, were cut-down, cut-priced options with fewer operators (Yamaha-speak for oscillators), less polyphony and less...…