Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2018 i Future Music

LIKE IT? TRY THESE… Leftfield Leftism 1995 masterpiece that fused cutting-edge club sonics with heavyweight dub pressure. A huge influence on the Dusky sound. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: ‘Release The Pressure’, ‘Melt’, ‘Open Up’ Moderat Moderat A new era of post-dubstep exploration from 2009 that informed Dusky tracks like Plastique . ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: ‘A New Error,’ ‘Slow Match’, ‘Stick With It’ Soloman About To Blow Dusky clocked this reggae riddim killer ’pon MySpace and drafted him in to provide vocals for I’m Running . Check his 2010 LP for more fire. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: ‘Dreadlocks’, ‘You’re Not Sorry’, ‘About To Blow’ Solarity Anjunadeep pres. Solarity A perfect introduction to that pre-Dusky Solarity sound. Released in 2011 on Above…

PBR Streetgang Late Night Party Line Skint Almost ten years since beginning work together, Leeds DJ/ production duo Bonar Bradberry and Tom Thorpe finally release their impressive debut album. This diverse and expressive record straddles bustling house, New York disco, boogie, ’80s Italo-disco, techno and old school acid house with confidence and vibrancy. It’s restless, energetic spirit brings countless twists and turns as Late Night Party Line takes you on a nocturnal journey through the club culture that the duo so obviously treasure. The album’s most expressive moments come with jazz-piano freakouts, poundings of classic chords, soaring synths and rubbery acid basslines. Sleazy grooves, chunky beats and heady, hypnotic workouts abound as the record’s breathless drive swirls in over itself. Full of character, colour, fun and love, the entire record…

BEST OF THE REST Novation Circuit Mono Station £430 This great little compact synth ditches the digital polysynths and sampler of the original Circuit in favour of a gritty analogue engine based on the Bass Station II. The feature-packed sequencer and user-friendly interface remain, however, making for a really exciting hybrid of old-school synth grit and modern flexibility. Multiple sequencer and modulation channels, along with fully automatable controls, allow for deceptively powerful sound shaping. Roland Boutique SE-02 £529 The first and, so far, only analogue instrument in Roland’s Boutique range sees them pair up with Studio Electronics to create a Minimooginspired monosynth descended from SE’s own ’90s classic, the SE-1. The 02 sounds excellent, nailing those beefy Model-D bass sounds with plenty of grit and punch. However, its cramped interface…

BEST OF THE REST Akai MPC Live £899 The MPC Live takes the title of the most self-contained MPC ever, with built-in CPU and rechargeable battery turning this into Akai’s first truly ‘go-anywhere’ production tool. The MPC 2.0 software adds audio recording, bringing the package up to near full DAW functionality. Easily the most exciting MPC we’ve seen in years. NI Komplete Kontrol Mk2 from £469 With this update NI’s controller ’boards gain the same large, full-colour screens as Maschine, which here are put to great use for browsing, DAW mixer control and integration of NI’s own tools and NKS-ready plugins. With super-tight integration, the S-Series makes a convincing case for becoming the focal point of your studio. Akai MPC X £1,669 Akai’s new flagship production station isn’t focussed on…

BEST OF THE REST Korg Gadget for Mac $299 We still have slightly mixed feelings about the Mac version of Korg’s virtual synth studio. On the one hand, it offers a great bundle of easy-to-use instruments covering a broad range of sounds, including excellent versions of the M1 and Wavestation. The ability to send projects between desktop and iOS versions is great too, as well as the ability to load Gadgets in your chosen DAW. It’s still pricey for what it is though – particularly if you’re planning on picking up both iOS and Mac versions, which require separate purchases. Get it while it’s on sale (which thankfully seems to happen pretty regularly!) UAD Moog Multimode Filter XL £189 Universal Audio have continued to produce quality DSP-powered plugins at a…

Adjusting kick drum pitch and length Synth kicks sound infinitely more integrated into a track if they are in tune and are the right duration Through the following example, we’re starting with a more fleshed out backing track and then building a kick drum which matches it. Normally, your thinking on this might not extend much past finding a good sonic match, but we’re considering two more important points. Firstly, we’re going to use a drum synth which lets us accurately map the pitch of the kick from the moment it starts all the way through to the end of its decay, with multiple envelope breakpoints. Each stage of its pitch evolution will be ‘pinned’ by notes relating to the chords of our track. And secondly, we’ll be adjusting the…

In The Studio With | Sebastian Mullaert Sebastian Mullaert Operating from the peaceful tranquillity of his self-constructed studio in the Swedish village of Röstånga, the revered techno producer hosts Danny Turner for a chat about his creative approach to music production and his new EP Samunnati © Kiia Valavaara Scandinavian producer Sebastian Mullaert made his name alongside Marcus Henriksson as one half of the groups Minilogue and Son Kite. More recently, however, Mullaert has focused on his solo career, releasing the EP Samunnati, based on a fan remix sent to him by bedroom producer Daniel[i]. The genesis of the track came from a melody recorded live on Mullaert’s Roland SH-101, one of many analogue synthesisers adorning his stunning studio, set in the remote woodlands of rural Sweden. Having built his…

In The Studio With | Nabihah Iqbal Nabihah Iqbal In discarding her Throwing Shade moniker to embrace her acoustic influences, the rising producer has penned a captivating and accomplished debut album that has its own sound and even its own smell! Danny Turner chats creative strategies and incense sticks © Joseph Branston Few artists have the confidence to rip up the rule book when they’ve just started to establish themselves, but Nabihah Iqbal’s change of course feels like a seminal moment for the confident British Asian producer. In 2013, German label Ominira signed Iqbal’s savvy electronic pop/R&B moniker Throwing Shade, which darted from label to label until electronic indie giant Ninja Tune pounced. With a debut album in the offing, and inspired by an impressionable army of admirers from her…

Interview | Mike Dunn Mike Dunn The Chicago house legend had the rare honour of working alongside iconic DJs such as Larry Heard, Armando, Ron Hardy and more, as well as producing his own moments of brilliance across a thirty-year career. Danny Turner locates the humble innovator on a recent UK visit © Jos Kottmann “We were wrapped up in the love of doing it and hearing our track on the radio or in a club. We didn’t think you could make a living off of it” Chicago house may be rooted in the past, but its effect on dance music still ripples through a breadth of sub-genres excelling far beyond the shores of Lake Michigan. Founded on the skill, passion and dexterity of a small group of hugely innovative…

Faking tape When no tape emulation plugins are available, you can emulate the characteristic high-end fizz of a rolling tape. Try this simple white noise trick Tape emulators do far more than simply add tape’s characteristic ‘hiss’. They model the behaviour of tape, implanting the tonal and dynamic response of tape alongside adding such artifacts. However, there are times when the thin bright fizz of tape is the primary characteristic you want to bring to a track. And at such times, if you don’t want to buy a tape emulation plugin, or you want to try something more bespoke, the following trick can work nicely. Here, we’re going to create tape hiss using a white noise generator and then, to make it feel more like it belongs with the other…

Roland TR-08 Rhythm Composer Roland Boutique TR-08 £349 Bruce Aisher checks out the latest of Roland’s classic beatboxes to get the DSP treatment There seems to be no stopping Roland’s enthusiasm, in the shape of their Boutique series, for releasing diminutive digital clones of their past glories. All these come with the same footprint, attempting to recreate the sound, look and interactivity of the originals. The chosen front panel size makes all of them fall into the somewhat bijou ‘miniature’ category. The latest in line for Roland’s analogue-to-digital distillation process is the TR-808 Rhythm Composer (or drum machine in more generic parlance). The original TR-808 arrived at an important time in the development of electronic music technology. From the late 1970s, and into the early 1980s, integrated circuits (silicon chips)…

Reviews Icon Platform M+ £265 DAW controllers no longer need to be large cumbersome affairs. Jon Musgrave hooks up Icon’s latest compact unit The build quality is excellent and, although small, the unit is pretty weighty The Platform M+ is an updated version of Icon’s universal DAW controller, and offers a simpler and more affordable controller solution than their flagship QCon Pro X. At 20cm from front to back and just 4.5cm high, the M+ is pretty slimline, which is good news as you can add up to three further 8-fader extenders (Platform X+) and LCD displays (Platform D) for a 32 channel plus 1 master fader rig. The build quality is excellent and, although small, it is pretty weighty. Interfacing with your computer is via USB 2.0, with further…

SOUNDS & SAMPLES In Session Audio Shimmer Shake Strike $140 In Session Audio introduce us to another pattern-based playback engine this month in the shape of Shimmer Shake Strike. This new library for Kontakt utilises multiple single-shot samples of a wide range of hand-held percussion instruments and combines them with an inventive three-part sequencing system. ISA’s ultimate aim was to allow you to create rhythms that are both usable and realistic, which has meant recording as many iterations of the performance process as possible. For example, each shaker can draw from 130 samples across 13 articulation types. The nicely spacious interface falls into three main areas. The Main screen provides an overview of the three percussion parts, and an indication of the key mapping, while the Pattern window is where…

CLASSIC ALBUM Dusky Stick By This Anjunadeep, 2011 Words by Roy Spencer © Dan Wilton In the late noughties, Alfie Granger-Howell and Nick Harriman were going through the change. Under the name Solarity, the duo were cranking out progressive house, delighting dancefloors with releases on a slew of cutting-edge labels. But for every tune that made it into the leading DJs’ record crates, one or two were being filed away for themselves. These tracks were deeper, exploring a wider range of their musical influences. They were experimenting with dubstep flourishes, garage tricks, and acid house energy, amongst other things. It wasn’t Solarity material. It needed a new name. “As Solarity, the tracks we were making were just for the clubs,” says Alfie. “This new material was getting further and further…

RECOMMENDED Omar Souleyman To Syria, With Love Mad Decent / Because Music Former Syrian wedding singer who has been in exile from his civil war ravaged country since 2011, Omar Souleyman returns with his most energetic and hard-hitting album to date. Following on from 2015’s Bahdeni Nami, the new record taps into more of a keyboard-driven techno sound that we haven’t seen from Souleyman before. Still embracing traditional dabke and Egyptian baladi folk styles, To Syria, With Love launches into an unrelenting and thumping hard-edged assault of synth-heavy techno. The result is a frenetic and fast-paced record that bristles with intensity, drive and momentum. The increased energy helps this to become one of his most passionate and raw records yet. The fire in his belly appears to be born out…

BEST OF THE REST Dave Smith Instruments Prophet Rev2 from £1 439 In the decade since it was first released, DSI’s Prophet 08 has remained consistently popular with producers and touring musicians alike thanks to its broad sound engine and flexible feature set. This follow-up tweaks the formula without messing with the original’s appeal, adding a vastly improved modulation system, beefed-up effects and a far more playable keyboard. Even more exciting is the new 16-voice version, which is capable of ridiculously epic multitimbral sequences and complex sound layering. Roland System-8 £1,080 The System-8 takes the analogue-aping ACB technology and plug-out capabilities of the System-1 and packs it into a mammoth, eight-voice poly. As with its sibling, the System-8 combines a solid built-in analogue modelling sound engine with the ability to…

Gear Of The Year 2017 iOS APPS & HARDWARE Focusrite iTrack One Pre £109 Sometimes simplicity is a real winner, and that’s definitely the case with Focusrite’s iOS-ready preamp. This sleek-looking cube is entirely focussed on input duties – there’s no output or MIDI I/O; just a single combination XLR/jack input with gain control. Impressively, it can deliver phantom power even when hooked up just to an iOS device, although an optional micro-USB power port allows for a power boost. Green and red lighting allow for simple, straightforward metering, and a rubberised bottom helps keep the device steady when recording. Most importantly, as you’d hope from a Focusrite product, the recording quality is excellent. BEST FOR: PORTABLE RECORDING The iTrack One Pre allows you to grab quality recordings on the…

Gear Of The Year 2017 MODULAR/ EURORACK Soulsby Oscitron £260 Soulsby have been making a name for themselves in recent years for their gritty 8-bit synths, with their 2014 desktop mono Atmegatron leading the charge. The Oscitron is their first venture into the modular realm and brings the essential flavour of that instrument to the Eurorack format. The Oscitron is a digital wavetable synth packing 32 waveforms, pulse width modulation, 15 filter types plus bitcrusher and phaser effects. As with other Soulsby gear, however, this base set of features is far from the full story, as the Oscitron can be completely changed by uploading alternate firmware, with the ARP-inspired Odytron and beat-focussed Oscidrum available to download from the Soulsby website. If gritty digital synth tones are your thing, this is…

Gear Of The Year 2017 STUDIO GEAR Arturia AudioFuse £450 Arturia’s first venture into the interface market has been a long time coming – it was first announced back at NAMM 2015, but only made it into our hands this summer. Fortunately, after all that time, the French brand have managed to release something that stands out in the increasingly cluttered compact interface market. It does this by presenting the user with a high level of I/O flexibility and configureablity. With audio, MIDI, a USB hub and S/P-DIF and ADAT, this is a really handy studio tool. Crucially, the sound quality is excellent too – good work Arturia. BEST FOR: COMPACT FLEXIBILITY Few interfaces in this category can match the AudioFuse for range of inputs. It can be easily configured…

Three simple steps to synth snares Sound designing a synthesized snare doesn’t have to be labour-intensive. Here’s a perfectly serviceable example created in three quick steps. Getting lost in sound design is a huge part of the fun of music and is often its own reward. Often the longer we spend working on unique and interesting sounds for our tracks, the better those tracks become. That said, sometimes when inspiration strikes, we want to postpone deeper sound design for later in the process, and what we need right now is a sound which can be thrown together quickly to keep the creative juices flowing. There’s no reason why synth drum and percussion sounds can’t be put together rapidly, as we’ll discover through the following three steps. In just a couple…

Shaping noise into percussion White noise can be pushed and pulled in many directions, making it perfect for shaping percussion sounds like synth rim shots and claps Through the following steps, we’ll see how synth rim shots and claps have plenty in common. Both can start with white noise at their foundation and, so long as you’re selective about the behaviour of tone and volume, you can easily make extremely useful percussive elements to work alongside the main drums in your track. It could well be that you’ll benefit from using two filters in tandem, which is possible if the white noise generator in your synth features its own filter before being routed to the main synth filter. It also works if your synth features two filters which can work…

THE TRACK Pablo Bolivar Encore Une Fois Culprit, 2017 © Joe Branston The Catalonian king of chilled-out techno Pablo Bolivar has appeared on the cream of Spanish labels including Regular, Software and Dpress Industries, and in his thirteen year-long career he’s dropped a whopping six albums, the last of which was released by his own label Seven Villas. Future Music headed over to his Barcelona studio to find out how he achieved the haunting sounds of Encore Une Fois, which – thankfully or regrettably, depending on your personal preference – is not a cover of Sash!’s Euro house banger of the same name. Your sound would broadly be described as techno. Do you have a more specific definition of it? “I like to call it deep techno or dub techno…

MODULAR MONTHLY Modular tubes Metasonix have made tube-based designs since 1998, so it’s about time we finally checked them out We first came across Metasonix years ago scouring the web for modular content, when a set of striking big yellow modules with tubes sticking out of them caught our attention. Metasonix had a wider range including pedals, desktop synths and a drum machine. The products offer totally unique, original circuits not used anywhere else, and that’s rare these days. Each of these circuits gives a huge range of distortion effects too. Metasonix products have attitude, sweet spots, tones you’ve not heard before and a world of exploration for those that don’t run away sobbing. In our modular case for this tutorial is the RK-2 tube VCA and RK-3 Ringer/Shaper. The…

TOOLKIT Tape Emulators This month we remind ourselves why tape remains so popular and explore its mix-enhancing capabilities If ever you needed evidence of the saying ‘be careful what you wish for’, the relentless drive to the purity and clarity of transparent digital recording offers plenty. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, engineers were resigned to the inevitable hiss of spinning tape as recordings were made, as they dreamt of a day when ample digital storage and high sample rates would align to produce a noise-free digital alternative. And when computer-based recording arrived, we rejoiced. But, many years later, tape emulation plugins are all the rage, and plenty of recording studios have had to dust off their tape machines to ready them for a new generation of artists. This month, we’re…

THE ALTERNATIVES Roland TR-8 £429 The first in Roland’s beatbox resurrection machines, but certainly not to be dismissed – especially when fully loaded with all the 909, 808, 707, 727 and 606 sounds. www.roland.com D16 Nepheton €99 It’s been around for a while, but D16’s Nepheton provides ample tweakage for those looking for some modded 808 style in plugin form. d16.pl Roland TR-808 (used) from £3,000 It’ll cost over eight times more than it’s new Boutique descendant, but if you want the real thing, this is it (but remember that they all sound different). ebay.co.uk…

THE ALTERNATIVES VERMONA PERfourMER MKII £1299 With no sequencing, it’s certainly not a direct replacement for the Elektron, but this four-voice analogue synth can function as four independent monosynths, and you get one control per parameter for quick editing. www.vermona.com Volca Keys £128 A tenth the price, and nowhere near as deep or detailed as the Analogue Keys MKII, but a fun and cheap way to get into limited polyphony analogue sequencing. www.korg.com Analog Rytm MKII £1299 If you’re mainly looking to create rhythm tracks and require greater polyphony, Elektron also produce the Analog Rytm. Each of its eight drum voices combines analogue and sample-based sound engines. www.elektron.se…

THE ALTERNATIVES Nord Piano 3 £2,349 Nord’s flagship stage piano has a triple sensor, ivory touch keybed, onboard synth with split and layer and user-sample-import with Nord’s tried and tested effects. nordkeyboards.com Roland RD2000 £2,189 Roland’s new flagship is a real powerhouse with extensive real-time control, 16 parts, well respected Supernatural and V-piano engines, over 1100 tones and comprehensive FX. www.roland.com Korg Grandstage £2,249 Korg’s latest flagship stage piano features seven engines from their flagship Kronos workstation, with an intuitive performance-driven interface, 500 sounds and powerful effects onboard. www.korg.com…

Demystifying drawbars I love messing with drawbars on organs, but could you show me some staple settings to work with? Drawbars can initially be confusing, but if you take a methodical approach, you’ll get to grips with them in no time at all and soon have some go-to settings for all types of Hammond sounds. Essentially, each drawbar represents a different harmonic (corresponding to the length of a pipe on a pipe organ) – pulling one out simply increases the volume of that pipe. You can also look at drawbars much as you would a graphic EQ: for more/less bass, for example, pull out/push in the bottom drawbars… Pull out the first 3 drawbars fully for a rich bread-and-butter sound which is great for soloing and comping. This is my…

Classic Album Track by track with Alfie Granger-Howell and Nick Harriman “Tracks like Resin were a precursor to how the Dusky sound would develop – more of that club sound, with the garagey drums and stuff. At the time it was quite new. Not many people were doing that with the post-dubstep stuff, and house/garage sound influence. It was a little bit of a new thing at the time, or something that was coming back into fashion. We were just exploring that” – Alfie Granger-Howell © Gary Gershoff/Getty Images Silence Never Heard Alfie: “I started this one with the orchestral stuff; all the pads and strings and stuff. It was a totally instrumental thing – beatless. Then I remember passing it to Nick, who chopped up some of the samples…

Extrawelt Fear of an Extra Planet Cocoon Recordings German techno duo Extrawelt have amassed a hugely popular back catalogue and legions of fans worldwide since they first got together on James Holden’s Border Community imprint over twelve years ago. Following two seminal albums for Sven Vath’s Cocoon, the last of which came six years ago, Arne Schaffhausen and Wayan Raabe are back once again to complete the impressive trilogy with a brand new album. On Fear of an Extra Planet, the pair’s trademark dark yet melodic, minimally infused strain of techno is at play once again. They delve into wide open and cavernous spaces, as futuristic synths, grumbling bass and tightly woven beats and ’80s drum programming lay the foundations. Touching on acid, industrial, DIY techno, breakbeat, cinematic electronica and…

Feature GEAR OF THE YEAR 2017 The Future Music guide to all the hardware and software you need in your studio... As 2017 draws to a close and we prepare ourselves for the usual new gear onslaught in January, here at FM we’ve been taking the opportunity to revisit all the gear that’s crossed our test bench over the course of the past twelve months. We reassessed, reappraised and reevaluated all the top synths, effects, studio gear and software to bring you this: Future Music’s Gear Of The Year 2017. Over the following pages, you’ll find the definitive list of all the gear that’s got us excited this year. Whether it’s great sounding instruments, innovative applications or just good value, workhorse tools, everything included is worth your attention and investigation…

BEST OF THE REST BEST MONITORS Focal Shape From £479 Focal’s recent range of two-way, nearfield active monitors supposedly saw the company rethinking their approach, and the results are undeniably impressive. The resulting Shape range manages to deliver accuracy and details without feeling clinical or lacking presence. These stand out as a set of speakers worth investigating. BEST HARDWARE EFFECT: Stam Audio SA-4000 Compressor £675 Even in this age of digital production and mixing there’s still a special place in our hearts for quality outboard compressors. Enter the SA-4000 from Chilean brand Stam – a stereo buss compressor based on the iconic SSL G Series Console. This authentic feeling analogue box is well built, and delivers sound worthy of (if not precisely the same as) its influential inspiration. Importantly though,…

Beefing up sampled drums In this track, our drum rhythm is constructed from various acoustic drum samples, but more power and weight are added when we blend these with synth drums We start with a backing track consisting of a dark piano part, a supporting sub bass and a gritty synth sequence part. To that, we’ve programmed a drum part which has been split into separate Kick, Snare and Hi-Hat tracks. The acoustic drums lack power. We turn to NI’s DrumLab Kontakt 5 library, copying the kick part to this instrument. Then we select a primarily electronic source sound, using the Mix Slider. We select ‘Gritty Layer’ as our chosen electronic source and tune it. In the audio example, this is introduced in the second half. We develop the percussive…

6 Noteworthy Emulations UAD Studer A800 | £260 Authenticated by Studer, UA’s emulation of this classic A800 provides the low end character, warmth, depth and ‘mix glue’ you’d expect of tape by the bucket-load. Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines | $149 Offers different tape types and speeds plus a flexible ‘extended parameters’ pane where you can adjust the volume of tape hiss to taste. iZotope Ozone 8 Advanced | £389 Perhaps the best-known mastering bundle in the world now contains a dedicated Vintage Tape module for use on single tracks or busses. Waves Kramer Master Tape | $249 Developed in partnership with Eddie Kramer, Waves’ plugin can produce anything from subtle to more-extreme tape effects. FabFilter Saturn | £114 A multiband approach to saturation, where each band can feature its…

Reviews Electro-Harmonix Superego+ £230 The Superego gets the ‘plus’ treatment with multieffects and external control options. Robbie Stamp takes it around the block The Superego+ pedal combines the Superego ‘synth engine’ with a simple two-knob multieffects unit and opens up the control with expression pedal and external control inputs. As with many recent EHX pedals, there's a lot to get to grips with here. The core of the Superego+ is the synth engine, a polyphonic pitch tracking delay-based sustainer/freezer effect. The Attack, Decay and Threshold control the effect’s response to the input. Though it’s geared toward guitar, any instrument-level source works: I tried bass and monosynth to great effect. The Layer and Gliss knobs set how the smoothed-out sustain effect overlays itself as the input changes and how the tracked…