Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2023 i Computer Music

: Can you give us an overview of just how DAACI works, and what benefits it brings for musicians and composers? Rachel Lyske: “We created DAACI to be the next step in the evolution of music creation and to be an industry leader when it comes to AI and music. Our goal would be to empower the composers of today and tomorrow, allowing them to create music like never before with the power of collaborative and assistive AI technology. “One of the major innovations with DAACI is that it isn’t just a generative AI that ingests loads of pre-existing music and puts out its idea of what that sounds like. DAACI’s team, is made up of composers and musicians who all respect the creative process and the rights of artists,…

Let’s face it, we all need pads! Once you’ve addressed your drums and bass in your mix, the chances are you’ll find yourself turning to pads to help bolster your track’s harmonic core, while adding interest to the sonic spectrum. The problem is, pads often get a bad rap, and for good reason… Many of the impressive-sounding pads which we have heard over the years have acquired something of a date stamp, and nothing exemplifies this more than the glass pad. Thanks to its sharpness of sound and resonant colour, it doesn’t do itself any favours, as it immediately conjures imagery of dated soft-rock tunes, performed by musicians with mullets! You’ll be pleased to know, this is not where we are taking a trip with the ZebraCM today, but we…

When it comes to orchestral and cinematic sample libraries, EastWest’s catalogue is pretty formidable. Their Hollywood-styled sounds embrace orchestral, vocals, world and even rock and pop, with some formidable technologies, such as Word Builder, which allows the user to get a sampled choir to sing an inputted lyric. Fantasy islands ahead Having provided the industry with some of the finest orchestral sounds around, some years ago EastWest decided to place more emphasis upon their spiritual and literal Hollywood home, with a series of Tinseltown-inspired packages, adopting soundstage acoustics and a leaning toward the cinematic. These packages were quite a hit, but did leave us begging the question, ‘where next?’ The answer, it would appear, would be their new and unraveling Hollywood Fantasy Orchestra, which is being released over a series…

The piano is a complicated beast! It can be tricky to play well and provides plenty of challenges on the recording front, not to mention the cost of the instrument itself. But EZKeys 2 could get you out of a pianistic jam, while providing you with the unique sound of one of the most coveted pianos in the world. Talking Italian The first and arguably most obvious update to EZKeys is the inclusion of a new core library. This is centred exclusively around a Fazioli 212 grand piano, a 6’9” instrument, manufactured by the bespoke piano company, based in Italy. Fazioli have a highly enviable reputation for beautiful European-sounding instruments, with endorsees such as legendary musician, Herbie Hancock. The sample capture of this Fazioli was undertaken at Riksmixningsverket Studio in…

The original D16 LuSH-101 was released in 2012, then the 30th anniversary of the synth it was emulating, the original Roland SH-101. That instrument has gone down in history as not the most powerful of Roland synths, but a big-sounding mono, with a cute approach – you could strap it on and play it like a synth guitar – and now fetches up to a grand secondhand (although even that is still fairly cheap for an original early ’80s Roland). The 2012 D16 was a hotly anticipated release, then, but actually turned out to be eight SH-101s stacked on top of one another – so it could act like a multitimbral synth – each with double the number of envelopes and LFOs, effects and a total voice count of 32.…

Bingoshakerz Progressive House $20.95 Cool house beats, wistful synth work and an old-school flavour with new-school sheen. It makes for a super sweet selection of classic prog vibes, all packaged up with some great track-starting elements to be pulled and played with. The FM bass grooves sit pretty, and the melodies and musical riffs have emotional weight and substance. All the drum patterns and hits are solid and swinging, with MIDI tagging for added flexibility and creative possibilities. With over 650mb of cool and classy content, you’ll be dipping in and out for heartfelt heat all summer. www.bingoshakerz.com 7/100 Minimal Audio Circuit $15 Modern drum & bass business abounds in this budget-conscious package of loops, chops and rhythms. Inside you’ll find fast and furious drum beats, filled out with a…

Full stream ahead Minimal Audio brings a ‘non-intrusive’ means of accessing their ever-expanding sample and sound libraries Minimal Audio has launched Stream, a brand new ‘eco-system’ of content which is, effectively, a new method of organising and curating their samples and sound packs. As with several of the larger sample repositories, Minimal Audio has spent countless hours crafting, organising and tagging its sound library to make the experience of browsing and auditioning a breeze. What makes Stream so unique is Minimal Audio’s non-disruptive ethos, as CEO Jake Penn explains on the company’s blog; “Minimal Audio represents how we get inspired to make music. We don’t want to be disruptive; in fact, we want to be invisible. We want to be so effective, elegant and most of all performant that using…

galen tipton Deep down in TikTok’s digital abyss lies a treasure trove of strange, unearthly, and brain-tickling sounds; a warped, bizarro realm, populated by alien sonics, otherworldly textures, disembodied vocals and imaginary instruments. Welcome to the weird and whimsical world of producer Galen Tipton, who is pioneering an experimental new sound called ‘brain scratch’. Tipton’s work explores the phenomenon of ASMR through the lens of experimental electronica, collaging synths, samples, field recordings and MIDI instruments together in music that alloys the aesthetics of hyperpop, IDM and video game soundtracks with the improvisational anarchy of free jazz, the sonic curiosity of musique concrète and a generous sprinkling of cuteness and whimsy. Brain scratch has found an enthusiastic reception on TikTok, where Tipton’s music soundtracks viral clips you might find on the…

De-essing is the process of reducing the sibilance in vocal recordings. These bursts of high frequencies are primarily produced by the letter ‘s’ (hence the name), but can also be created by ‘t’ and to some degree ‘f’, ‘sh’ and ‘ch’. Sibilance is at its worst when close miking and there are various tips and tricks you can use to reduce it at the recording stage. Nevertheless, here we’re focusing on mixing and we’ll assume you have some existing sibilant vocals that need sorting out. Often when you first hear a vocal, the sibilance is not that obvious. However, once you start compressing it or boosting higher frequencies to add air and sheen, the sibilance gets magnified and becomes a problem. If we don’t address it at the mixing stage,…

Although Brainworx’s first pair of Amek-inspired plugins, the bx_2098 EQ and bx_console 9099, are based on specific original Amek hardware, the subsequent AMEK EQ200 and AMEK EQ250 plugins have no direct relationship with past Amek glories. Instead, they are a more general melding of the characteristics – and circuits – of vintage parametric EQs that are particular favourites of Brainworx’ head honcho, Dirk Ulrich. The company has taken a similar approach with its new AMEK Mastering Compressor. The plugin’s circuit models aren’t based on any OG Amek hardware but are instead taken from Ulrich’s own GML 8900 compressor, a highly regarded and exclusive processor that has never – so far as we know – been modelled and plugin-ified before now. Brainworx has expanded on the original hardware’s somewhat austere control…

If you thought Hammond was all about organs, you’d be very wrong. They were also one of the first companies to produce early forms of synthesiser, in an era long before micro-chips and transistors. The Super-Nova-Chord The Novachord was quite an astonishing machine; utilising 163 vacuum tubes and well over 1,000 capacitors, it’s gone down in history as one of the first fully polyphonic electronic instruments, packed full of vintage electronics which would give your central heating a good run for its money. Weighing in at 500lbs, you’ll not be taking one on a pub-gig anytime soon, but thankfully Cherry Audio has lovingly crafted the Novachord into a virtual form. Despite its limited architecture, the charm of the instrument lay in its purity of tone. The beautifully designed interface provides…

The string section is commonly the largest of the orchestral units; you need that many players to balance with the wind, brass and percussion, but sometimes string scoring requires smaller forces, for a more intimate performance. That’s where OT enter the frame, with a new package inspired by composer Peteris Vasks, and specifically his chamber string work, which is ironically titled ‘Voices’. Three desks good! Vasks Strings is a deeply sampled chamber strings library, offering all of the usual articulations, with a host of more unusual ‘gesture’ articulations, providing some new and enticing colours for the string palette. Let’s deal with the forces first. The main library is sampled from six first violins, five second violins, four violas, four cello and three basses. The sample capture was performed by Sinfonietta…

> Free software Here at Computer Music we like to provide you with a wide range of free audio production tools and we work hard with a number of developers to keep the offers flowing. This month we return to one of our favourite fledging developers, Caelum Audio. This time round, we have a slightly different offering. Caelum Audio recently introduced a new advanced chorus and unison plugin, Choric, and they have also been working on a slimmed down version, Choric Quartet. This month we are providing early and free access to this future pay-for plugin, and you can grab your personal activation code via the form on our downloads page. Choric Quartet uses the exact same engine as Choric, but as the name implies, it offers a slightly more…

bonus free plugin Developer Excite Audio launched back in 2022 with debut plugin Lifeline Expanse, a multi-effect that combined elements of distortion, reverb and amp-sim. A second release, Lifeline Console, followed hot on its heels. Much like Lifeline Expanse, Console takes analogue-style processing and places it into a modern, versatile interface that can be rearranged to suit a host of different processing duties. The focus here, however, is on the sort of mixing tools offered by vintage consoles and outboard hardware found in iconic recording studios. Lifeline Console features five modules, focussing on Pre-amp emulation, EQ, Compression, tape-style Modulation and Wear, which can emulate mechanical noise and analogue-style artefacts. Each features a range of parameters to tailor the sound, and every module can be bypassed or rearranged, allowing users to…

> cover feature There was a time, before the total dominance of computer-based DAWs, when the vast majority of bedroom producers really had no idea what mastering was, or why you’d want to entertain it. We understood mixing, because faders are fairly self-explanatory, but not so with the aural depth of mastering. Before we look at how we can now handle this process ourselves, let’s take a moment to reflect on its legacy. Mastering is the final process in the production chain; it’s where you take your finished mix and give it that final bit of spit and polish, before you send it up the wire to your chosen streaming service for public consumption. Make no mistake, a good master can breathe life into a mix, but how is this…

For many readers, Chris Lake will need little introduction. The Norwich-born DJ, producer and artist first achieved recognition in the mid-2000s with the single Changes featuring Laura V. After a rapid-fire assortment of increasingly impressive collaborations, his high-profile work with deadmau5 on the album 4x4=12 garnered Lake a Grammy nomination. From then on, Chris’s star rose meteorically, with record-busting remixes of tracks such as Jess Glynne’s Hold My Hand and Calvin Harris and Disciples’ How Deep Is Your Love reaping tens of millions of streams globally. All the while, Chris displayed a Midas touch when it came to writing modern house classics, such as the mighty Boneless (with Steve Aoki), Turn off the Lights and the mesmerising euphoria of last year’s In The Yuma. We met the now LA-based…

ROLI’s original Seaboard Grand keyboard was the first of the company’s MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) controllers, utilising a rubber-feel keyboard to explore the many different dimensions of touch that the MPE format offers. The futuristic keyboard introduced these dimensions to a curious public and MPE has since become something of a new norm – standardising these extra control and performance options, and broadly increasing the dynamic appeal of the MIDI protocol. At £2,399, the original Grand was expensive, so the Seaboard Rise was developed as a cheaper entry point, with two versions: 25- and 44-note keyboards plus a smaller Block version. The Rise 2 comes after a tumultuous period for ROLI during which they declared bankruptcy and relaunched as Luminary, although Rise is very much still branded as a ROLI…

Because of the wealth of effect plugins you get with your DAWs these days, third party developers are having to think outside the box to keep their wares attractive. Consequently, we’re seeing effect plugins becoming more creative, more able to multitask, and just, well, better. With Pluralis, for example, United Plugins/SounDevice Digital are taking the humble delay, doubling it up and processing the two strands in ways not yet seen before. And they might well have struck gold in doing so. Pluralis has two regular effect engines and you could just use it as a regular double delay plugin should you wish. However, each of the two delay signals can be processed in four different ways but also as a combination. The four main Pluralis modes are Mid/Side, Left/Right, Quiet/Loud,…

A powerful AI-powered music-making tool has just been unveiled by world-dominating tech giant Google, as part of the company’s extensive research into artificial intelligence. MusicLM (LM is short for “language model”) is a text-to-music sound generator that operates using an AI model that has been trained on thousands of hours of existing music. MusicLM is capable of generating sounds and musical ideas on demand in response to detailed instructions. According to Google, the AI can understand prompts relating to genre, mood and type of instrument, it can adjust the experience level of the ‘musician’ it’s emulating, and it can create music that’s appropriate for a given context, like studying or working out. All you’ve got to do is type in your prompt, hit enter, and you’ll receive two 20-second audio…

Seamless Drones Robbie at Cyclick brings out both his axe and virtual instrument arsenal to mount a sustained drone onslaught… “The drone underpins so much music around the globe. Drones are a seemingly infinite resonance that can be soothing, trance-inducing, joyful, unnerving, and aggressive, often at the same time. This sample pack provides drone loops in seven tempos (90, 100, 110, 120, 130, 140 and 170bpm), with each tempo folder featuring six drone types, which are explained within the PDF within the download folder. “Most of the drones have been created as seamless loops, with contiguous start and end points to prevent any clicking, but when you do this with often complex stereo waveforms, start and end samples may be mid-phase, and therefore they will click/clip if played as a…