Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2018 i Computer Music

“Tap into that intangible state we call creativity” Here at cm HQ, we’re especially proud that our magazine brings you everything you need to Make Music Now, every single month, no matter your skill level or setup. But what about the underlying psychology behind our unique musical craft? How do our minds work in the studio? In this month’s cover feature (p18), we’ll get those synapses firing and tap into that intangible state we call creativity. From brain-training tricks and inspirational strategies through to hands-on techniques designed to trigger new ways of working, you’ll have more than enough to inspire your sessions and help you start – and finish – incredible music today. Finding out how other producers work can be just as inspiring, of course, which is why we…

CREATIVITY POWER-UPS Expert video guides to help kickstart new ideas and freshen up your sessions Read the full article on p18 1 Using a sequencer plugin instead of your piano roll 2 Using just one note to sequence a bass riff 3 One-note chords with your DAW’s MIDI effects 4 Generative beats with Ableton Live’s MIDI Effects 5 Using an arpeggiator to creatively sequence drums 6 Repeatedly resampling for inspirational results cm Producer Masterclass SOLARDO In this exclusive video, one half of the tech-house power pair reveals how their Hot Creations hitTribesmen came together Note: this video is only available using the link on page 45 Read the full article on p44 MICROFUSE See and hear your new Surreal Machines plugin in action, and discover how it works Read the…

“It’s all digital in the end, isn’t it? That gives us so much freedom” cm What’s the Surreal Machines ethos? MJ “We stand for making fun, musical ideas. Our focus is on sound quality that resonates with us. That might not always model something exactly, but it’s informed and inspired by the past. We care most about the experience of using a product; the technology behind it is only a vessel. We think of ourselves as artists, but instead of writing an album or a movie score, we’re inspiring others through engagement and discovery. So far, we’ve focused on ‘turning around’ classic ideas.” cm What previous experience do you guys have in the industry? MJ “I’m an American who’s been designing music software for nine years in Berlin. I’m working…

We’re constantly exposed to a world of competition. As companies vie for our attention, they cast out messages that tell us we can be better. You can lose weight if you buy our stuff; you can look good if you buy our stuff; and, inevitably, you can make better music if you buy our stuff. We hear messages like this so often that it’s hard to tune into the truth… you can make better music with what you have right now! We’ve all experienced it: those times when you can’t get on with your work are inevitable parts of the creative experience. You procrastinate, you put things off, and when you finally do get some work done, you fall into the same old habits, towing the company line and making…

Cycling in loop land The problem It’s every producer’s nightmare, but it’s an inevitable part of life. You create a loop that works, and sounds great, but then you stop there! The reason? You’ve made a short clip of music that’s so good, you can’t help but keep cycling through it, playing it back over and over again. You only get deeper into loop land as time goes by – the more you hear your perfect eight-bar loop, the more ingrained in your skull it becomes, and the harder it is to change it. How to fix it One solution to the ‘loop land’ problem is this: don’t get there in the first place! The problem begins the moment you close the loop – as soon as every element of…

The bits in between How do you build a beat from scratch? From the ground up – kick, snare, then everything else, right? It might have never occurred to you that there could be any other way, but why not turn the usual procedure on its head? Instead of laying down the key elements first, begin with the others. In other words, start with hi-hats, percussion and ghost notes, then add the kick and snare later. Do this with the metronome off, but kick it back in every so often to check that you’re on the right lines (literally). The kick and the snare are, as a rule, the most repetitive parts of the beat; the top line is something you can be a little more creative with, and something…

“I did release some other stuff, all Rave eJay tracks. But they were terrible!” Sola power Solardo are Mark Foster and James Barlow, and their brand of bass-heavy house has seen them catapulted to stardom practically overnight. However, like many quick success stories, the reality isn’t nearly as straightforward as it might appear. We hooked up with Mark to find out how he produces the pair’s pumping tech-house sounds, and learn more about his convoluted career – from early days as dubstep pioneer Mark One (aka MRK1) to current superstar DJ status. cm: How did you get into making music? MF: “I went to uni at 18, and got into DnB. I met a friend there who had a program called Rave eJay! We started making tunes on it, which…

Unlike a guitarist and their favourite guitar, or a drummer’s trusty go-to drum kit, the computer musician is faced with a crippling number of options when it comes to even starting a track, let alone finishing one. And once you’ve finally laid a few parts down in your DAW, it’s easy to hit a creative roadblock. By the time you’ve fished through umpteen virtual instruments and processing effects, that musical spark has vanished, and your window of creative opportunity has slammed shut in your face. The Baron Of Techno, Dave Clarke, summed it up in last month’s cm: “Modern production can accentuate FOMO [Fear Of Missing Out]. You become so worried that you haven’t got this sound or that loop, that it becomes impossible to finish…

Before you start furiously whacking synth keys and twisting knobs like a crazed studio scientist, it helps to prepare your jam session for the task at hand. Are you setting out to create raw material for a sample pack? Or are you coming up with musical ideas for one particular track? If it’s the former, you’ll probably want to switch presets mid-session, and try to coax out a wide variation of sounds – perhaps in a multitude of keys and tempos – to help build up a diverse collection of one-shots and loops. However, if you only want to generate one or two musical ideas within your chosen genre, it can help to stick to one key and one BPM, and explore as many ideas within that framework as possible.…

In electronic music, bass is probably the most important element to nail, which is why I’ve spent years perfecting my bottom-end tones. Designing your own bass patch from scratch lets you control and customise the end result to a greater degree. Usually, I create bass from the ground up with a software synth, or twist up a gritty reece or sub-bass sample. From there, it’s my effects processing that adds movement and flavour. Although softsynths have a fast workflow, come loaded with features, and are usually cheaper than outboard instruments, analogue synths are known to output thick tones which take time and effort to emulate using virtual instruments. For instant warmth, then, there’s something about an intense, expressive tone from an analogue synth, which can then be modernised and stereoised…

Samplestate Apollo 84 Sub-Low Tech £25 The debut soundware release from Apollo 84 is simply one of the best tech-house libraries we’ve heard. 55 supremely punchy drum loops partner with 100 mix-ready percussion and top loops for mixing and matching, while the Music Loops folder is bursting with quality basses, pads, synths, vox and more. A ton of one-shots are also supplied as WAVs and Apple Loops, and rolled into tasty Instrument and Drum Racks for Ableton Live. A must-have for house heads. www.loopmasters.com n10/100 Noiiz Dirty Flute Subscription This funky collection of 137 loops and 53 one-shots, performed and produced on the titular instrument by multi-instrumentalist Stargazer, focuses on more aggressive blowing, but finds the time for mellower moments, too. The performances are sublime, serving up everything from intensely rhythmic…

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…

DISTORTION/SATURATION Fuzz up your signals with custom dirt – from waveshaping to saturation and soft clipping, this diverse bunch of plugins are guaranteed to play as rough as you like with any audio material Mercuriall U530 CM • Emulation of ENGL’s E530 preamp • Customisable Clean & Lead circuits • Presence, Contour, Chorus & Gain • Changeable mic/speaker position • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit www.mercuriall.com Lindell 6X-500 CM • Classic preamp emulation with EQ • High/low boosts for musical tone • Modelled on Lindell’s 6X-500 hardware preamp/EQ • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit www.lindellplugins.com Cableguys WaveShaper CM • Graphically editable distortion • Design curves by dragging nodes • Input vs output oscilloscope • Not based on an existing plugin • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit www.cableguys.com Sonimus Satson CM • Classic mixer channel emulation • Subtle warming saturation…

ROLAND CLOUD Roland have called back to their legendary Jovian giants more than a few times since insisting that the MKS-80 was the most super of Jupiters. The most recent attempt to claim the top (red) spot comes in the form of a VST and AU emulation available through their subscription service. www.rolandcloud.com ARTURIA JUP-8V Don’t let the absence of Roland’s logo and truncated name fool you – this cross-platform plugin started as a proper clone bearing the Jupiter name. It still packs a punch that harkens back to the JP-8, and the ability to respond to both velocity and aftertouch give it some of what made the MKS-80 so desirable. www.arturia.com GTG K1 POLYSYNTH Roland are quite aggressive when it comes to protecting their intellectual property, so few developers…

GOOGLE’S SUPER SYNTH Who needs sound design skills when you’ve got the NSynth Super? Made by Google, with a little help from machine learning and neural networks, the device can produce more than cm100,000 new sounds from just cm16 source sounds. We’ll get our coats. GAME ON Gaming often gets in the way of productivity, but not if you start jamming with the new Squarewave Maker. This is a side-scrolling game that makes you ‘play’ music in time to progress, and comes with the tools to design your own levels. The best of both worlds, then. NOTE-WORTHY If you know the name of the chord you want to use but don’t know how to play it on a keyboard, pay a visit to the Note Kitchen. This can visualise any…

Ever heard that we only use 5% of our brains? It’s not true. We may use a small proportion at any one time, but the rest will be used sooner or later, when we start working on different tasks. While we can’t exactly increase our overall brain power, we can leave more to be readily available where it counts. Here’s how. The US president (let’s talk about the previous one and ignore the current) didn’t choose what he was going to eat. He didn’t even choose what he was going to wear; he had people to do it for him. Similarly, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously wore the same sweater, jeans and sneakers every day. While this may seem odd to us mere mortals, there’s a rational reason for…

01 USE ONE SYNTH FOR ALL YOUR SOUNDS The same paltry selection of waveforms was once the starting point for almost every type of sound – from bass to leads to drums and more. What with all the types of synth around these days, we can sometimes forget that they all do (pretty much) the same thing – so get back to basics and choose a single synth to make every single part in a track! Whip up basses, leads and pads in the usual way, program drums using noise sources and quick envelope modulation, and create FX sounds like risers and drops, all using the same virtual instrument. This’ll force you to push the boundaries of what your synth can do, testing your production and sound design chops in…

01 QUICK AS YOU CAN We can spend far too long agonising over decisions. The longer we think about a manoeuvre, the likelier we are to get ‘paralysis by analysis’. This is just human behaviour, but it’s certainly not rational. It’s the 21st century, and a digital project can always be changed. Maybe you can’t find the perfect snare now, but that’s no reason to derail your entire track for 20 minutes! The challenge is: when loading a project, get every element you’ll likely use – drums, bass patch, lead patch, vocal and anything else – down in the first ten minutes. Make your decisions quickly and focus on getting everything ‘on the page’. This way, you can move forward immediately and replace any duds later on. 02 ONE GENRE…

Microfuse is a special edition of Surreal Machines’ Diffuse plugin for Mac and PC, incorporating all of its features but boiling the more advanced adjustable controls down to a selection of nine preset Styles that define its overall sound and behaviour. Like Diffuse, Microfuse is a combination delay and reverb hybrid effect inspired by the hardware units of the 70s and 80s. The delay side of things is analogue-modelled, while the reverb is a classic digital design, and, crucially, there’s no operational distinction between the two. A diffused delay with a unique tap pattern and a straight delay are split by the Size knob, which sets the percentage balance between the two, making it easy to morph between echoes, ambience and everything in between. Throw in up to 1000ms of…

Step by step 1. Recording a synth jam 1 Before recording our hardware synthesiser, we set our DAW’s BPM to 170. Instead of listening to a boring metronome as we play, we’ve laid down this basic kick and snare rhythm to keep time. Next, time to pipe the hardware synth’s signal into our DAW… 2 An XLR cable is patched from the synth’s mono audio out, then the other end is plugged into our audio interface’s second line input. Back over the computer, we create a new audio track in our DAW, with its input set to receive Ext. In 2 and Monitor flipped to In. 3 Hurrah! When we play a note on the Little Phatty, the signal is heard through the audio channel we just created. After increasing…

Drum fills are often a secondary consideration when it comes to building beats, with many producers rarely opting for more than a couple of snare hits or a cursory tour of the toms every eight or 16 bars. Put as much thought into these all-too-brief percussive excursions as you do you main drum parts, though, and your tracks will thank you for it. There are countless ways in which drum fills can be made more interesting. A few of the most effective include programming them by hand, rather than just reaching for a sample library; laying on creative effects treatments to take conventional drum kit sounds to places new; and getting freaky with sampler and instrument automation to add dynamism and character to rolls and runs. And, of course, you…

Secure and safe online access, from anywhere Free access for every reader – print and digital Download only the files you want, when you want All the downloads from all your issues, in one place Get started 01 Register your FileSilo account and log in. Even if you have a subscriber ID, you’ll still have to unlock each mag separately or migrate your old Vault account (see step 3) 02 Head back to the Computer Music page (filesilo.co.uk/computermusic) and choose an issue to unlock. You’ll need to answer one question to prove you’ve purchased the issue 03 You can migrate your old Vault account over to FileSilo to retain the issues you’ve added – head to filesilo.co.uk/vault and enter your Vault email address. Reset your password via the email you…

Minimoog Model D The Minimoog Model D is one of the most emulated synths around, but it’s taken until now for Moog to create their own app version. As you’d expect, this has the original look and features, but also goes beyond in several key respects. Rather than being monophonic, the Model D app gives you four notes of polyphony to play with, and an arpeggiator, too. There’s a realtime looping recorder with unlimited overdubs, a tempo-syncable ping-pong delay module, and the Bender, a stereo time-modulation effect. Model D works on all 64-bit iOS devices. Get it for £cm1cm1.99. www.moogmusic.com RouteMIDI Your iOS device makes a great self-contained music-making platform, but it can be used as the hub of a wider setup, too. Further evidence of this comes in the…

“Our Burning Question asked why loud music is better – it just is, OK?” It was time for a guide to techno in June 2008 ( 126), as we sought to show you that there was more to the genre than the 909 – well, a bit more, anyway. Speaking of drums, we also decided to tell you the unvarnished “truth” about them. Spoiler: they’re pretty important. In News, we reported on Apple’s patent application for “a head-mounted display system, with image-processing and generation going on in a box of tricks that you clip onto your belt, which ferries the graphics up to the specs using laser technology.” We’re still waiting for that one, but you never know… Our Burning Question asked why loud music is seen as better –…

Graffiti City Music “I accidentally pressed ‘reverse’ on a vocal reverb, so I printed the reversed reverb and chopped up the audio. It made for some haunting backing vocals.” Lee Whitfield “By accidentally transposing a whole arrangement down by a channel, I found that distorted congas make a great substitute for a chugging guitar riff!” Article “When I move a MIDI region onto another instrument’s MIDI track on the sequencer and it sounds better. I do it now and again when my ideas are running low.” Zach Gormley “Too much reverb into pumping compression. And selecting all the tracks in a bridge section and moving them down one track to occupy the below tracks’ plugins, volume/pan settings, automation settings, etc.” David Daytona “I put my drum machine through a bass…

The more time you can dedicate your focus to the task in hand, the better. Nothing kills creative flow like a slow boot-up or software update, so make sure your system is ready to go. Sort your samples, set up new project templates to cut to the chase, and so on. Similarly, switching between too many tasks – sound design, arrangement, mixing and mastering duties – in one session is also counterproductive. This sort of frenetic multitasking will have your subconscious playing catch-up, with an excess of ‘background tasks’ to chew over. Instead, separate your creative effort into relatively long periods of doing the same thing. Music production is usually broken down into discrete stages anyway. Although there’s room for interpretation, the expectation these days is that you focus separately…

Ableton Live’s Resampling input selector makes it quick and easy to resample your output – and since it takes its lead from whatever’s coming out of the master bus, what you hear is what you get. Not all of us are Live users, of course, but there are plenty of other ways to play the resampling card, whatever your host software. Users of other DAWs don’t have it too bad – by setting up a new audio track for resampling, selecting that track’s input as an empty bus, then sending the required tracks out to that bus, you’ll be cooking. Alternatively, create your own dedicated ‘resampling’ channel. Route the main stereo output into an empty audio track’s input, set its output to ‘no output’ (to prevent ear-shredding feedback), solo any…

Moog Little Phatty “The [now discontinued] Little Phatty is the synth we started with. It’s the first thing we bought, along with our audio interface. It’s the centrepiece of the whole studio, really. We use it in most tracks – it’s incredible!” www.moogmusic.com Universal Audio Arrow cm256 » 9/10 » £449 “I’ve just ordered the Arrow. I’ve used a Focusrite Saffire in the past, but it’s time for an upgrade. With this, everything will always be set up and ready to go – I’m trying to make our workflow a lot quicker.” www.uaudio.com Genelec 8040s “I love these! I’ve had so many different monitors – Adams, Mackies, etc – but mixes transfer really well from the studio to the club with these. I’m looking into getting the new Genelec 8330s,…

Like most musical terms, the word ‘ostinato’ is Italian, its literal translation being ‘obstinate’. An ostinato is an insistent, repeated musical phrase that digs its heels in and keeps on going, so you can see how the term came about. It’s most commonly applied to orchestral or classical music, in which case you could think of an ostinato as kind of a drum loop played by string instruments – a repeated, rhythmic phrase. But this doesn’t mean that an ostinato can’t be played on a synth or applied to contemporary music production, and neither does it mean that the pitch of the notes can’t be changed. Ostinato is actually a pretty broad term that can encompass many different types of part – a bassline, a lead riff or a rhythmic…

Ahead of his interview with Computer Music, Alexis Taylor warns me that he’s not what some people would call a studio ‘expert’. “I love making music with technology,” he explains, “but I use it in a limited way.” As an example, the Hot Chip frontman recounts the story of his search for a suitably twisted drum loop during the recording of his recently released solo album, Beautiful Thing. “After I put together this particular beat, I sent it through various hardware phase and flange effects, recorded that onto CD, then played it back on a CDJ so I could radically mess around with the speed. When I worked out what I needed, I recorded that back into the computer. “People will read that and say, ‘But you can do all…

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 tight dynamics or creative FX • Includes advanced gating controls…

Roland MKS-80 With the current market for synths now bursting with monophonic and modular machinery, musicians are again clamouring for affordable analogue polysynths. Of course, we’ve been here before. There was a mad race among 1970s manufacturers to produce a viable polyphonic synthesiser – one won easily by Dave Smith with his Prophet-5. A classy, costly instrument, it was followed by alternatives from competing synth companies, including Oberheim and Moog. Roland had some ideas of their own, releasing a string of pricey polyphonic synthesisers bearing the name ‘Jupiter’. The first was the four-voice, single oscillator Jupiter-4, followed quickly by the massive eight-voice Jupiter-8, an instrument that now commands stratospheric prices among collectors. At the time, synthesisers were primarily seen as keyboard instruments – there were few (if any) desktop or…