Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2022 i Electronic Musician

You don't need to be a synth historian to work out that Model 82, the latest instrument plugin from the Softube stable, is designed to emulate Roland's classic SH-101. The name (the 101 was released in 1982) and the interface both give the game away, as does the majority of the feature set. Softube's plugin is said to precisely model the sound of the hardware while making the sequencer and arpeggiator more DAW-friendly. There are a few additional features, such as stereo doubling and drive, but for the most part this looks like a loving nostalgia trip. Even the original red, silver and blue color schemes are emulated. As well as the standard version of Model 82, those who buy it will also get five modules to run in Softube…

Neve are the latest high-end console manufacturer to get into the desktop audio interface game with the launch of the 88M. Promising the same mic preamp as you'll find in the classic 88RS console - as used in the likes of AIR, Abbey Road and Capitol Studios - this 10-in/10-out device also has transformercoupled inputs, meaning that your vocals and instruments should all benefit from the classic Neve preamp sound. There's also a pair of TRS outputs for your studio monitors - controlled from a dedicated monitor pot - and a professional headphone amp, while both preamp channels feature a balanced insert send and return loop. Premium AD/DA conversion and latency-free monitoring are also on the table. Although it's much smaller than the 88RS console, the 88M promises a similarly…

Imagine a compressor without attack or release controls, no threshold or ratio. This is exactly what you get with Playfair Audio's new plugin. Dynamic Grading, which aims to approach compression as if it had just been invented. How would dynamics processing work if it had just been dreamt up in 2022? The plugin starts by displaying two histograms, one for input and one for output, each taking readings of average level of the incoming signal against how long that average level is maintained. It's hard to express in words, but that goes to show how novel this concept can be. Come with us as we tackle a new way to compress. 1. Figuring out the visuals Let's try Dynamic Grading on drums. When we load it up, the histograms on…

$40 bleass.com Strengths AddsFMcharacter to audio Widerangeof great distortion effects LFOandstep sequencer are great for rhythmic effects Attractiveeasy-to-use control panel Limitations -Oscpitchoffsetrange is small No free timing mode for step sequencer French plugin developers BLEASS started the year with the launch of Omega, an easy-to-use four-operator FM synth. Working on Omega gave the company the opportunity to embark on a deep exploration of FM, which led to an interesting idea: using FM as the soundprocessing engine in an effects processor. That idea is now realized in the form of Phase Mutant, a new effect plugin for Mac, PC and iOS. The notion of using FM techniques in an effect processor isn't entirely original – see Logic Pro's Phase Distortion effect and Kilohearts' Phase Distortion plugin, both of which allow an…

$99 babyaud.io Strengths Fabulouslycleanreverb Cangocompletely wild and still keep everything in time Lovelyeasycontrols Greattimingand ducking options Limitations -Wouldhavelikedpresets ordered by type rather than programmer – a very minor gripe! Baby Audio have only been around for a relatively short period of time but have made a big impact thanks to a set of plugins that focuses on what the user wants, rather than blinding you with specs, data sheets and direct emulations of rusty old hardware. With plugins like Spaced Out, they take the concepts behind that hardware (in that case a Space Echo) and transfer them to the 21st Century, putting the controls you want in front of you, and leaving much of the science to the white coat brigade. And we love them for that; it's putting the…

$37 Monster bottom-end bizz that'll melt cones, break hearts, and curdle milk at ten paces. The downright dirty decibels in this mammoth 3.8GB pack are ripe and ready to take your glitched out future-hop wobblers and nasty neuro-steppers to the next dimension. There are future bass loops everywhere you look, as well as electronic noisescapes, full and stripped-back drum lines, EDM synths, and some very tricked out construction kits to go goo-goo over. If you f**k with 150-160bpm or 170-190bpm, then you'll be left gagging and gooped. And, in the spirit of giving, they bless you right up with a raft of bonkers Ableton racks for generating mad sounds and saturating harmonics with the merest flick of a dial. Phat AF! Roy Spencer Air Splice Originals From $7.99/month Channel the…

Unlike Auto-Tune, Celemony Melodyne gives users detailed levels of control over the pitch modulation of each note in a vocal take. This can be used for a blanket hard tuned effect, or you can use it for surgical per-note fine tuning. Often in a vocal performance there will be problems with pitch modulation on individual notes, and so blanket pitch correction á la Auto-Tune doesn't quite cut it. This is where Melodyne shines. However, just because Antares' offering can't compete with Melodyne in this field, it would be unfair to say that Melodyne is the better piece of software. Whilst the two programs offer similar functionality - that is pitch correction - they operate at different ends of the spectrum. Melodyne is aimed at producers wanting detailed, natural control over…

FROM THE ISSUE: Polyend Play Poland's Polyend have proved themselves to be a brand that excels at creating forward-thinking and inspiring gear. It was a real pleasure to spend some time with their latest sampler, Play, for this issue's lead review. See more: Page 36 FROM THE ARCHIVE: Polyend Tracker On the subject of Polyend, revisit our review of the company's last – slightly more leftfield – instrument, the retro-tinged performance sampler Tracker. Is it too soon to call is a cult classic?. See more: bit.ly/EM-Tracker AROUND THE WEB: Making Potion Want a little insight into how to craft massive club hit? You could do worse than watching Calvin Harris' 30 second break down of his new track, “Potion”. See more: bit.ly/EM-chpo…

Although Moog's modern output is better known for its classy, high-end synths - from the semi-modular Grandmother through to the behemoth Moog One - the Asheville brand have dabbled in budget, DIY gear before. Back in 2014 the company released the Werkstatt 01 - a compact semi-modular synth, originally launched as a project synth created by attendees of a Moogfest workshop and later released as a basic DIY kit for home users. Now Moog have returned to that same territory with a new semi-modular synth named Mavis. Mavis is a simple single-oscillator analogue synth made considerably more flexible by the inclusion of a 24-point patchbay. The core instrument itself features a VCO that can blend between saw and square waves and feature pulse width modulation. The oscillator also allows users…

Nina's motorized knobs were the talk of synth town in the run-up to the NAMM Show, and now we've had the chance to see them in action and find out a little more about the hardware they adorn. Coming from Melbourne Instruments – a company based in the Australian city of the same name – Nina is a 12-voice analog polysynth that features variable shape triangle oscillators. This means that you can continuously morph between triangle and sawtooth waves to create new sounds. Other features include a 4-pole transistor ladder filter with modulatable resonance, voice-level filter overdrive, digital wavetable oscillators and sampling capability. There's also a modulation matrix, digital effects and multitimbrality. Really, though it's those encoders that are the big story, as they enable a recallable and automatable control…

It's entirely possible to make music on a computer without having the faintest idea of how digital audio works, but a little knowledge can go a long way when it comes to pushing the medium to its limits. For those unfamiliar with the basics of how sound works, let's start at square one. Some of the following explanations might seem a little abstract out of the context of actual mixing, but introducing these ideas now is important, as they'll be referenced when we get more hands-on later on. Sound is the oscillation (that is, waves) of pressure through a medium – air, for example. When these waves hit our tympanic membranes (eardrums), the air vibration is converted to a vibration in the fluid that fills the channels of the inner…

When writing music, you'll often come up with a chord progression first, and then find a melody to fit it. Other times, however, you may need to take the opposite approach - beginning with a melody and then needing to add chords to underpin it. A good example of this is when creating a vocal remix - you strip out all existing musical elements except for the vocal, then you have to come up with an entirely new piece of music to fit beneath it. In this scenario, then, how do you come up with a progression that works? The process of adding chords to an existing melody is known as harmonization, and while there are a number of ways to approach this, it helps to begin by finding out…

Phase Mutant includes a number of synth-style parameter modulation options. These take the form of a pair of LFOs, an envelope generator and a step sequencer, each of which can be mapped to any two modulation destinations. The LFOs offer up a choice of six different waveforms, and they can run freely, or be synced to your DAW. The envelope is a simple AR affair, and is triggered by transients in the input audio. Most interesting is the step sequencer. This can have up to 16 steps, with step length adjustable from four bars all the way down to 1/64th note (a hemi-demi-semi quaver, to be precise). Each step can create and output a fixed value, or a slope between values, which makes this a perfect tool for creating grooving,…

The central area has a Start slider which sets a time for the reverb to take effect – a great effect on vocals, leaving the sound dry for a determined time before the lush reverb comes in. The End slider is useful as you can set it so the reverb ends at a point so that your mix doesn't become too carried away and washed out. Finish it at a bar, for example, or before the next beat comes in. Beneath these, a Ducker also introduces time-like effects where the reverb is released after the attack of the dry signal – great on kicks and vocals. Finally a Reverse button does just that on the reverb and a Freeze option instantly freezes the effect. The best option with all of…

Slate Digital MetaTune $9.99/mo + Slate's recent take on the Auto-Tune effect lets you tweak retune speeds to zero and then even into negative speeds, bringing the effect on before the recorded pitch transition actually happens. The X/Y doubler effect is a cool bonus that'll be tempting for anyone working with vocal tracks. slatedigital.com Waves Tune Real-Time $199 An Auto-Tune-alike that, let's face it, only costs $29 if you wait around long enough. Waves Tune Real-Time is a little long in the tooth by now, while Antares have upgraded to Auto-Tune Pro, giving a bit more flexibility in the tuning effect itself. This is a cheaper option for anyone who wants the effect though. waves.com Soundtoys Little AlterBoy $99 A simple but highly effective way to get the Auto-Tune effect,…

Synth designer Dave Smith, founder of Sequential Circuits and designer of the groundbreaking Prophet-5 synth, has died at the age of 72. A short statement on the Sequential website, published on June 2, reads: “It is with heavy hearts that we share the news that Dave Smith has died. We're heartbroken, but take some small solace in knowing he was on the road doing what he loved best in the company of family, friends, and artists.” Sequential was due to exhibit at the 2022 NAMM Show, which ran from 3 to 5 June. However, the company declined to participate out of respect for Smith's memory. Smith founded Sequential Circuits in 1974, releasing the Prophet-5 - the world's first fully-programmable polyphonic synth - in 1977. Many other influential synths and drum…

NEW GEAR After making headlines with the high-priced OP-1 Field and TX-6 mini mixer, Teenage Engineering's next move is to release a free musicmaking app for Google phones – Pocket Operator for Pixel. Designed to bring the Pocket Operator experience to your Pixel device – Pixel 5 and later, that is – this uses Google's TensorFlow machine learning technology to extrapolate samples from your videos, placing them on a 4x4 grid of buttons. You can then sequence and mix these samples – recording either live or step by step – and add effects. There are drum and melodic modes, and you get four tracks and 16 patterns. Your videos are displayed at the top of the screen, and you can add filters to these, too. It's all great fun and…

Hardware newcomers Groove Synthesis has now given us the fully skinny on its several-times-teased 3rd Wave synth. The members of the team behind it, we now know, previously worked for Avid/Digidesign and Sequential, so the instrument certainly has pedigree. 3rd Wave is a 24-voice, 4-part multitimbral wavetable synth with three oscillators per voice, analog low-pass filters, a state-variable filter, 6-stage wave envelopes per oscillator, and a Wavemaker tool that enables you to create custom wavetables in a single step thanks to its ‘sample-to-wave’ technology. You can either capture audio via the audio input or import a WAV file via USB. For each of the three oscillators you can choose a classic PPG-era wavetable (32 are supplied), a modern highresolution wavetable (you get 48 of these), or an analogmodeled waveform. 3rd…

INTERVIEW As a crucial part of N.E.R.D Hugo has helped craft five innovative albums featuring bona fide bangers “Lapdance”, and “She Wants To Move”, but it's perhaps his work as part of the production team The Neptunes that's even more stellar. Bringing brave rhythm and spell-binding new melody to artists such as Jay-Z, Britney Spears, No Doubt, Beyonce, Diddy, Mary J. Blige and more, Hugo has transformed musical tastes, reset perceptions and delivered smash hit after smash hit. Although famous for keeping a low profile, Hugo is about to step into the limelight to be inducted into The Songwriting Hall of Fame in New York. We caught up with him in his home studio to discuss his award, talk gear and - of course - get some production tips. Whereabouts…

Keyboard MAGAZINE CLASSIC BLAST FROM THE PAST If you're old enough to have been listening to the radio in the early 1980s, you can't have missed Trio's “Da Da Da”, a charming chunk of proto-chiptune cheerlessness, a jaunty 'jerker of indifference delivered in dour monotone over a chirping electro beat. US listeners relived the rollicking lo-fi lament nearly two decades later when its reemergence in a Volkswagon ad propelled the tune onto the dance charts. The song's infectious rhythm and chiming ‘piano’ sound came courtesy of Casio's VL-Tone – a slim, sleek brick of white with a speaker at one end, and a keyboard consisting of buttons seemingly culled from the company's calculator division. It could run on batteries and came with a rather spiffy snaptight vinyl slip case. A…

Alongside the per-pad filter and distortion, and the punch-in Perform effects, Play features a series of master effects that can add an extra layer of polish to the overall sound. Two of these are auxiliary effects, the delay and reverb, which have dedicated front-panel rotaries to control send levels for each sequencer step. The slight downside to these effects is that they're entirely preset-based, which Polyend claim is to avoid slowing users down. While I can see their point, I often found myself wishing for more refined control of the reverb length and the ability to fine-tune delay times. Faring better are the limiter, saturation and ‘Sound’ effect. This latter element can apply overt stylistic treatments, ranging from bass boost to a muffled underwater effect and fauxtelephone sound. It can…

$29 sinevibes.com Strengths Uniquewayof engineering reversed audio in real-time SimpleGUIand easy to comprehend - and automate - the controls Diversearrayof presets, ready to go Limitations -Notasdetailedas other time-reversing plugins Playing instruments backwards is a lot less of a big deal in 2022 than it used to be. Once, reversing recorded music (and re-engineering it to make it useful) would have called for the delicate hands of a tape operator, and precision sequencing. Today, we're drowning in new ways to creatively reverse, treat and build up tracks around backwards-flowing audio. Despite this, Sinevibes Skew's methods of not just reversing audio, but granting deeper wiggle room to manipulate the type of rhythmic effects we can extract from it, surprised us with its non-linear dexterity. Sinevibes was founded by Ukrainian sound designer and…

A technology that's not as well known as it should be, ARA is most likely part of your DAW already. Operating sort of like plugin technology, in that it hosts third-party processing, ARA has two key differences from VST. The first is that it can receive data for the entire track, rather than reading only what the playhead has just passed. It can also easily get information from other tracks, to make judgments based on other things happening within the music. The second difference is in its DAW integration - it can fit right into your host's UI. This is a perfect way to use Melodyne - in an integrated way and without exporting audio or bridging the two programs, In fact, one reason it works so well is that…