Computer Music's goal is to help its readers create great music with a PC or Mac. Each month find easy-to-follow tutorials for all sorts of music software, unbiased reviews of the latest products and answers to technical questions.
“Keep calm and carry on making damn music” I’m not even going to try and comment on the current world ‘situation’ (as I’m no expert and I’m probably standing here as open mouthed as you are). Still, with some British stiff-upper-lip resolve (and not the type that grabs toilet rolls willy-nilly), I have decided to keep calm (ok, just a little bit panicky) and carry on making some damn music. And by reading this it would suggest you have too, and hopefully we’ve got the issue of Computer Music to help get that smile back on your face. Or should I say ‘smiley’. Yes, I find that there’s nothing better, when faced with tough issues in the present, than to bury my head in the sand and reach for a…
Tracktion Waveform 11 Pro The unique, underappreciated DAW gets a doozie of an update! Maintaining their annual update schedule, Tracktion Software have released version 11 of their brilliant Waveform Pro DAW, introducing a raft of new features. The new Edit Overview puts a full-length thumbnail of your Waveform Pro Edit (project) at the top of the interface, with a resizable ‘view port’ for navigating and zooming in the main window below, as well as the ability to click the playhead to any point on the timeline. Almost all Edit window panels can now be broken out into their own windows for secondary monitor placement, too, with saving of complete window states; and you can even set your second monitor to be the default display for all plugins. The Arranger Track…
Sub-bass desires Audiokit’s Bass 808 is a different proposition to your standard 808 drum machine emulation. Rather than being a slavish reboot, it’s a synth that’s designed specifically for creating sub-bass and kicks. It runs standalone and as an AUv3 and takes up just 20MB on your iPad. What’s more, unusually, is that it’s a limited edition app: you’ll only be able to buy it for eight weeks, so act fast if this sounds like your cup of low-end liquor. Bass 808 costs £2.99. audiokitpro.com Filterstep this way Audiomodern’s Filterstep has several things going for it. For a start, this ‘creative motion filter’ has a clean, concise interface, and it’s also easy to use. It has a sequencer that syncs to host (it runs as an AUv3 plugin), and you…
cm Tell us how United Plugins came to be. JT “We – SounDevice Studio, FireSonic and JMG Sound – worked on several projects together over the years, and the Internet knows no boundaries, so online collaborations led to the current state of United Plugins, where part of the team is in the Czech Republic and JMG Sound is in England. Prague’s music production scene is basically a village, so we were all kind of connected anyway. ” cm How helpful has having the involvement of MeldaProduction been? JT “Well, MeldaProduction is the catalyst. United Plugins uses some of their programming capacity and their licensing system, and a lot of their experience, too. Building such things from scratch could have been hard, causing all our initial enthusiasm to fade away before…
We presented a beginner’s guide to mixing in June 2010, with the tutorial simply stating ‘if it sounds right, it is right!’ We also went all Doctor Who on your creative ‘asses’ by showing you how to play ‘tricks with time’, though based on the evidence of 2020’s hit parade, we didn’t convince all that many people to stray too far from the well-trodden 4/4 path, in the long-run. In the News section, we noted that Korg was celebrating the launch of Apple’s iPad by releasing an app version of Electribe for it, and Ohm Force announced their internet-powered Ohm Studio collaborative music studio. In these isolated times, we could all do with that right now. Our editor, meanwhile, used his Welcome column to announce that had finally joined Facebook…
IT’S NOT ALL BAD... Good news is scarce right now, but devs including Moog, Korg, Native Instruments and Arturia have stepped up and offered free stuff for use while stuck at home. Apple also launched a 90-day Logic Pro X demo, so stay in and keep on creating! GO WITH THE FLOW You may not consider this good news, but Sony Computer Science Labs have created an AI-assisted production platform. Known as Flow Machines, this can operate as a plugin and help you write basslines, chord progressions and melodies in various styles. BEHRIN-DAW Having shaken up the hardware synth market, Behringer now have their sights on software, confirming that they’re working on a free DAW, to come with samples, plugins and support for third-party VSTs. A lot to promise, but…
