Innehållsförteckning för July 2017 från Computer Music

“Get to grips with the best gratis DAWs, synths and processors…” If there’s one thing the Computer Music editorial team get excited about, it’s that pin on our cats-on-synths calendar that marks the annual Ultimate Freeware special issue. With so many free instruments and effects launched in the past 12 months, we love sifting through each and every one to shortlist only the cream of the crop for your reading pleasure. So flick through our 17-page cover feature (starting on p20) and get to grips with the best gratis DAWs, synths and processors of 2017. And our huge celebration of cost-free music software wouldn’t be complete without a suitably huge plugin giveaway… enter StiX CM (p50), a must-have drum synth and sequencer instrument of truly epic proportions! If you’re as…

EASY GUIDE SLASH CHORDS Enliven your chords with this music theory guide from Dave Clews Read the full article on p76 STUDIO STRATEGIES INFLATE YOUR BREAKBEATS Turn a limp beat into a pumping monster with Resound’s tips Read Read the the full full article article on on p78 pxx DR BEAT GROOVING WITH TOMS Add toms to your electronic beats with Ronan’s in-depth guide Read the full article on p80…

“Sly-Fi is an experiment in ‘unfaithful emulations’” cm Kush Audio plugins are known to have bags of analogue character. How much of the software development process is dedicated to replicating the nuances of hardware? GS “All of it. Our first plugin, UBK-1, was modelled after our UBK Fatso, and in the process of making that, I became obsessed with why plugins sound different to analogue, and how to bring the two closer together. “When I started making plugins, I could hear differences, and to me the analogue clearly sounded superior. At this point, I still hear the differences very clearly, but neither one sounds ‘better’ to me. Both are incredible sounds to have in the toolkit.” cm When it comes to getting a realistically ‘analogue’ sound in software, how do…

Here at , we’ve been leading the charge for freeware since the beginning. We bring you the best of what’s around in our monthly Freeware News section, we’re the home of the #freepluginalert across social media, and of course, we bring you our own line of 74 [and counting] Plugins, including this issue’s colossal StiX CM from XILS-lab (see page 50 ). Yep, there’s a lot of free stuff out there, but with great quantity comes great disposability, and there’s not much quality control on the vast open fields of the internet. Who can trawl through it all and tell you what’s decent? We can, of course! All it really takes to keep your hard drive flush with good software is the price of entry…

Slate Digital’s The Monster is only the latest of the developer’s free offerings, though we have to say it’s one of the best. Slate offer three free mixing tools in total, with the other two being Revival and Trimmer. All the freebies must be loaded into the free Virtual Mix Rack, and you’ll need an iLok to use them. Some might feel this is a bit of a pain, but given the quality of the processors on offer, we think it’s worth dealing with the copy protection. The Virtual Mix Rack installs with lots of payware in its browser, but as tempting as these may be, you can easily ignore them and focus on the free stuff. Though the Trimmer is little more than a gain and phase controller, Revival…

If any one developer could be said to exemplify the very spirit of freeware, it has to be Chris Johnson, the enterprising aural explorer (and seeming insomniac) behind Airwindows. He isn’t afraid to experiment, often setting out to solve a particular problem and ending up with something entirely different – but equally useful. With over 50 plugins, trying them all out is an almost overwhelming prospect… and we should know – we’ve done it! Some of our favourites include Slew 2, a nifty tool to control high frequencies; plus TubeDesk and TransDesk, which impart subtle mixing console character; Distance, which does just what you’d think; Point, an “explosive” transient shaper; Pyewacket, an old-school compressor; and the rather aggressive Drive. These are just a few that tickled our fancy – you…

“I don’t think there’s a set way of doing it – you just see where life takes you” The making of a pop partnership The name Si Hulbert might not be immediately familiar to you, but if you’ve listened to a pop music radio station at any point over the past decade, you’ve almost certainly heard his work. Ed Sheeran, One Direction, Jess Glynne, Dido, the Wu-Tang Clan, Flo Rida and Rosie Gaines are just some of the acts he’s worked with. Now, Si’s collaborating with exciting new vocal talent Sheila G, alongside singer Belle Humble and producer Danny Harrison of 187 Lockdown fame. Rather impressively, Sheila had a Billboard dance Number One last year with house legend Roger Sanchez’ remix of her track Smile . We…

Thanks to modern DAWs, timing issues are now a thing of the past. Everything can be quantised perfectly and snapped to a rigid grid, and we can all live happily ever after in our 4/4 kingdom, right? Wrong. It turns out that the grid isn’t always the ideal – in fact, some musical styles sound much better with their rhythmic patterns pulled slightly off the grid, giving a funkier result. Swing – also known as shuffle – sends every other note of a rhythm slightly off-kilter, giving us more groove as a result. Synonymous with many electronically produced genres, from tech house to hip-hop, the rhythm continues to shape music to this day. The late, legendary hip-hop producer J Dilla is often considered as one of the masters of swing…

Dance music is repetitive by nature, but that doesn’t mean everything should remain static throughout. Using automation, we can make parameters vary, evolve and elaborate over time to keep our track interesting and engaging. What’s more, with multiple parts and parameters receiving the automation treatment, we can coordinate everything to create surges of excitement and breaks for breathing space. The classic high-pass filter sweep has proven itself time and again to be effective at creating excitement during pivotal moments of a track. A low-pass filter applied to the master channel can progressively remove low frequencies, building tension until they slam back in with a bang. DJs often simulate this effect on the fly by sweeping a mixer’s high-pass filter. Sometimes, though, it’s the subtle changes that can make all the…

“We put a ton of effort into making the low end work; making the kick and bass fit” Pioneering his own brand of crowd-moving ‘Power House’ since moving to Bali from his hometown of Munich, Styline – aka Oskar Eichler – is destroying dancefloors across the international club scene with releases on respected labels such as Spinnin’, Armada, and Sony’s Epic imprint. He’s also the latest in a long line of pro producers to create a sample pack for Loopmasters’ Artist Series range, so to tie in with our Sample Pack Inspiration feature, we sat down with Oskar and his production partner Aleksandr Mironov to chat about the work and creative process behind their latest Loopmasters sample pack, as well as their own productions. Computer Music…

Ronan Macdonald Having previously served as Editor of drummer’s bible Rhythm as well as Computer Music, Ronan is clearly the right man for this particular gig. He’s been playing drums for over 30 years and making music with computers since the 90s. While tom toms are often just the ticket when you want to mark the end of a phrase or song section with a drum fill, that’s by no means the extent of their rhythmic remit. They can also work wonders in adding colour to grooves when thrown in occasionally, or bringing a rolling, tribal feel to four-to-the-floor dance tracks when fully integrated into a conventional kick/snare/ hi-hat-based pattern. In this tutorial, I’ll show you a few ways in which toms can be incorporated into your beats, from subtle…

Our promise We bring you honest, unbiased appraisals of the latest computer music products. Our experts apply the same stringent testing methods to all gear, no matter how much hype or expectation surrounds it. What the ratings mean 1-4 A seriously flawed product that should be avoided 5 This product’s problems outweigh its merits 6 A decent product that’s only held back by a few flaws 7 Solid. Well worth considering 8 Very good. A well-conceived and executed product 9 Excellent. First-rate and among the best you can buy 10 Exceptional. It just doesn’t get any better than this! See and hear the latest software in action in our ‘2 Minutes With…’ videos! Wherever you see the icon, head straight to your DVD, the Vault download area, or our YouTube…

Billed as a “character reverb” alternative to the super-transparent Nimbus (9/10, cm238), R4 (VST/AU/AAX) is a big brother to R2 (8/10,cm 190), itself a beefed-up sibling of PhoenixVerb (9/10, cm190). Essentially, it’s the new flagship reverb in ex-Lexicon developer Michael Carnes’ Exponential Audio range, and if you’ll forgive us the spoiler, it’s glorious. R4 looks and is laid out very much like Nimbus, but with the addition of Modulation controls to the Early and Tail filter sections, and additional Chorus and Gate section tabs on the right. It’s from these new parameters that the wobblier, more expressive side of R4 emerges, immediately setting it apart from Nimbus, which has no controllable modulation at all. The three filters enable low-pass, high-pass, band-pass and notch filtering of the Input signal as well…

Arousor’s Soft Clipping section houses a single control, used to crank up a saturation stage that generates both even and odd harmonics, the latter coming forward as the amount of saturation applied increases. Empirical Labs claim to have gone to great lengths in making this circuit behave in as analogue a way as possible, and that’s certainly borne out by the results – everything from smooth transient rounding and transparent clipping to brutal-but-beautiful crushing is on the cards. Interestingly, a four-lamp metering system for visualising this saturation has been built in, too, monitoring the amount of total harmonic distortion (THD) working its way into the signal, from 0.5% (“Warm”) to 14% (“Pinned”). Arousor’s soft clipper is a brilliant inclusion, although we hope a bypass button is included on that future…

Following last issue’s part 1 pack, we bring you a second collection of weird and wonderful sounds, this time entirely from the warped mind of cm resident sample-creator Cyclick. Inside, you’ll find just under 800 examples of WAV wackiness: avant-garde atmospherics, tape echo loops, roaring feedback beds, reverbed eccentricities and retro sci-fi sounds all await! 799 WAV SOUNDS including 81 50s Sci-Fi 50 Far-out drones 149 Atmospherics 154 Feedback 64 K loops 67 MassVerb loops 81 Tape echo loops…

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…

Step 1 On your PC or Mac, go to vault.computermusic.co.uk, then either register for a new Vault account, or log in if you already have one. Step 2 Click ‘add a magazine’ in the top bar, select the issue you want to add to your Vault (eg, this issue is 244), and answer a few simple security questions. Step 3 Go to ‘my vault’ to see all your mags – click a cover and use the links to download! You can download as much or as little as you like. PLUGIN XILS-LAB STIX CM This colossal drum synth and sequencer is all yours with this issue – get six expert tutorials and videos over on p50 SAMPLE PACKS SAMPLED FUNK & SOUL Get a faux-sampled vibe with this dusty, crusty…

SUPERBOOTH The recent Superbooth show in Berlin was a resounding success. Here’s hoping this wonderland of boutique gear becomes a fixture. It looks like mainstream manufacturers are paying attention, so the event could be set to get even bigger in future. UNDERGROUND RAVE Journeys on London’s tube network can be pretty torturous, but DJ Discoboy and MC Shotta ensured club-loving commuters left their train happy recently when they staged a pop-up drum ’n’ bass event on the Bakerloo line. Unsurprisingly, it was quickly shut down. RISE OF THE ROBOTS Ever wanted to create your own robotic band? The dadamachines automat toolkit enables you to do precisely that, giving you a central controller and a range motors, solenoids, etc, that can be set up to play music via MIDI. It was…

URSA DSP LAGRANGE Taking the penultimate prize in KVR’s Developer Challenge 2016, Lagrange is a delay with a difference, deriving its effect using granular synthesis techniques. Granular synthesis has been used in a wide variety of applications, from timestretching algorithms in samplers to dense, complex reverbs. Pushed to extremes, it can be used to transform the most mundane sounds into very bizarre and atmospheric soundscapes. As you’d imagine, applying such jiggery-pokery is an inspiring application. In Lagrange, each ‘grain’ is taken from a different point in the delay buffer, and the user is provided with lots of control over how those grains are replayed. There are five algorithms from which to choose, all with looney names like Phasoid and Marching Rand. If you’ve used granular tools before, you’ll be familiar…

Robin S, Show Me Love “I’ve done an acoustic version of this track. What I love about it is that it was made so long ago, but it still sounds current. It gets people up, and it’s got a really good message behind it: she’s saying, ‘I’m fed up of words, I need action!’” bit.ly/RobinSsml Ne-Yo, Sexy Love “I love the fact that its just sounds relaxed and effortless. It’s just about two people getting lost in their love for each other – it’s kind of like being in a new relationship and losing track of time.” bit.ly/NeYoSexyLove Ed Sheeran, Shape of You “This was a toss-up with Thinking Out Loud, but what I like about Shape of You is you can change it…

 We’re not at the arrangement stage yet, but it’s still useful to have a loose idea about how your track will unravel over time. If you want your music to be played in clubs, you’ll need to create an arrangement that a DJ can work with, and the usual strategy is to use distinct sections; combining breakdowns, build-ups and drops in order to keep contrast, energy and impact as high as possible throughout the track. “Keep the impact as high as possible throughout” First comes the intro, which normally works best at one to two minutes in length: that’s long enough to set the tone and build tension, while providing the DJ enough time to blend the track over the outro of the previous record. The intro is an exposition…

When you first hear the term ‘slash chord’, you could be forgiven for conjuring up images of heavy metal guitarists with massive afros and stovepipe hats, but it actually has nothing to do with your favourite former member of Guns N’ Roses. Instead, in what turns out to be something of a punctuation-based anti-climax, the ‘slash’ merely refers to the way a chord is written when played over a bass note other than the root. So what does this actually mean? Well, a chord can be thought of as a vertical stack of notes, which is actually the central concept around which modern music notation is based. Pop music generally uses a system known as ‘tertian harmony’, in which chords are built by stacking up notes that are separated by…

“Everybody has a passion,” reckons David Dewaele, founder member of acclaimed Belgian tech-rockers Soulwax, and one-half of similarly acclaimed DJ duo, 2manydjs. “Some people like to spend their money on a fancy house. Some people buy Ferraris. We decided to build a studio.” Calling the Soulwax HQ – known as Deewee – a studio is something of an understatement. After knocking down the shabby garage that housed their old setup, David and his older brother Stephen commissioned a four-story complex – designed in a minimalist, Japanese style – that houses two Pro Tools studios, penthouse offices, a one-bedroom flat and an entire floor dedicated to their 60,000-plus record collection. There’s even a little room set aside for digitising said mammoth collection of vinyl. Ghent-based Soulwax – the Dewaele brothers plus…

Initially conceived as a 1:1 modelled emulation of the dbx 120XP subharmonic synthesiser, bx_subsynth (VST/AU/AAX) developed beyond its original brief to add an extra frequency band, per-band gain control, mid/side processing, compression, distortion and more to the feature list. A plugin effect, its purpose is to add subharmonic content to the input signal by synthesising a waveform that tracks the pitch of the source. The main action takes place in the Sub section, where subharmonics are synthesised in three contiguous frequency bands: 24-36Hz, 36-56Hz and 56-80Hz. The level of each band is set with its amount knob, while the larger knob above sets the output of the “synthesis sidechain” as a whole. Helpfully, each band has its own Trim control with which to optimise the input for subsynthesis (when the…

Intended to bring optional analogue and vintage digital vibe to R4’s table, the Warp section is home to a compressor/expander and two flavours of distortion. The compander’s Compression knob sweeps from -24dB to 24dB, applying the selected amount of gain reduction or boost when the Threshold is exceeded. 11 Knee shapes affect the onset of that gain change, and 2-50ms of Attack and 30-15,000ms of Release time define its envelope. The analogue-style Overdrive comes in three flavours – Warm 1 and 2, and Crush – and a crossover frequency can be set between 45Hz and 4kHz, above which the volume level of the wet signal is adjustable, should you wish to bias your distortion towards the low-end. On the digital mangling side, the Word Size control ranges from 12-bit to…

Five years after the release of the SSL 4000 E Channel Strip plugin for UAD systems, Universal Audio have updated it to capitalise on the greatly increased power of the latest UAD-2 and Apollo platforms, and rebranded it with their standard “Collection” suffix. Adding a few sizeable features and a completely overhauled engine, the new SSL 4000 E Channel Strip comes bundled with the original “Legacy” version (it wouldn’t be a collection without it!) for compatibility with old projects and a low-DSP alternative. In fact, you may find yourself needing the Legacy plugin more often than you might like, as the DSP draw of its successor is immense. On our Apollo Twin Duo Mk1, one stereo instance sucked up a whopping 43% DSP and 20% Program Memory, while the Legacy…

Mainroom Warehouse Underground Techno DNA $25 1.3GB of on-point loops and shots for techno productions of all kinds. 100 tuned kick drums are intended to be laid out under any of 100 kick-free drum loops, which are supplied full and as multitracks for mixing and matching. The 50 Melody loops cover everything from basslines and leads to riffs and arps, all exploding with dancefloor energy. A wealth of one-shot drums, synths and vocals puts a ribbon on it, and overall, Underground Techno DNA is a joyously priced triumph. www.reveal-sound.com 9/100 Touch Loops LA Beat Scene £25 Vibey acoustic drums, funky basses, haunting pianos, quirky percussion, dusty synths, old-skool beatboxes and more unite in this library of 302 loops, 154 one-shot drums and FX, and 135 MIDI files for your chilled…

ULTIMATE FREEWARE 2017 See and hear the past year’s best free virtual instruments and effects with our massive, video-packed guide Read the full article on p20 1 Working with the free Tracktion 5 DAW 2 Using the free Ardour DAW on Linux 3 Three advanced Ardour features 4 Exploring HISE’s do-it-yourself environment 5 Noise-based sounds with NUSofting Noisetar 6 Roll your own modular patches with Trilobite Free 7 1176 ‘nuke mode’ with Slate Digital The Monster 8 Aggressive waveshaping with HoRNet Harmonics 9 The ‘Pultec trick’ with Ignite Amps PTEQ-X 10 Signal monitoring and processing in TrackControl 11 Insane looping FX with Audioblast InstaLooper 12 Ringmod-style filtering with AudioThing FilterJam 13 Signal degradation with Tritik Krush 14 Modulated mangling with Regressif 15 Creative echoing with Spaceship Delay 16 Articulate…

With Inter-App Audio and AU Extensions on iOS, you’d be forgiven for thinking the days of Audiobus, the original app-connecting solution, are numbered. It continues to thrive, though, and v3 offers a MIDI routing system that enables you to connect apps and external hardware together. Audiobus now also supports Apple’s AU protocol. You’ll also find a mixer, an improved preset management system and more. Audiobus 3 is listed as a new app, which you can buy for £9.99/$9.99. audiob.us Retronyms have joined forces with Max/ MSP mavens Cycling ’74 to create Looperverse, which enables you to layer up to 16 tracks on the fly, but it goes beyond this simple level of operation by offering plenty of editing features, too. As well as being able to record external…

“‘What will become of our fave video sharing site in the long-term?’ we asked” 114 led with a guide to being a “laptop musician”, which seems rather quaint in this day and age. In 2017, it might actually be non-mobile tunesmiths who are in the minority, so maybe a feature on being a ‘desktop musician’ might be in order. Our Burning Question, meanwhile, asked what people meant when they referred to the “vintage analogue sound”, something that many of us are still chasing today. We also reviewed Tascam’s FireOne, an audio interface crossed with a DAW controller that actually seems like a pretty good concept, looking at it again. Any chance of bringing that back? Elsewhere, our Ins and Outs column revealed that high-street electronics retailer Curry’s had decided to…

Richard Hasiba “TubeOhm Alpha Ray. If you’re looking for high-quality sounds and an easy way to change them, it’s this plugin I love most. I’ve used it for years on most of my tracks.” Morten Hansen “I use Togu Audio Line plugins all the time, but if I had to choose one it would be TAL-Bitcrusher. Used subtly, it adds some very nice grit to synths, but I also use it to balance hats when they’re a bit harsh in the high end.” Ben Adcock “Voxengo SPAN. Can’t even believe this is free. Super-accurate, flexible display options and awesome routing for easy waveform comparisons.” Alex Plant “Hard choice, but the Baxter EQ by VOS got heaps of use when mixing my last EP. It’s a very smooth and transparent tilt…

Freeware instruments have never been thin on the ground – particularly during the first rush of DIY synths and soundfont players that flooded the scene after Jeff McClintock added ‘Save as VST’ to his SynthEdit modular construction kit for Windows back in 2002. The idea of building plugins in a modular environment is still a powerful one, and this is one reason why we selected the open-source HISE to top our list in this year’s roundup. HISE is a cross-platform application designed to allow users to build their own virtual instruments. It puts the emphasis on sampling, but also offers basic synthesis and effects processing tools. With HISE, users get the ability to build custom patches from sample collections or synthesis, embed them, create a graphic user interface, and then…

PRESET BAR Load global presets via two sortable menus SEQUENCER Program beats, and tweak timing, velocity, gating and modulation MIXER Balance, pan, mute and solo StiX CM’s ten Drum Pad channels SYNTHESIS CONTROLS Edit sound-shaping parameters for the selected Drum Pad STEP MODULATION Preassigned parameters for modulation via the sequencer DRUM PADS Switch between ten sound (Drum Pads) of the ‘kit’ DRUM PAD FX Tweak FX Send levels and dial in analogue & digital distortion POLYSTEP Drag the balls around to create modulation sequences… then get them bouncing! LIVE PLAY Trigger and mute Drum Pads, and launch Patterns via MIDI PATTERN SELECTOR Store and launch up to 12 Pattern sequences SEQUENCER MODES Flick between pages of sequenced action AUX EFFECTS CONTROLS Delay, Reverb and Phaser FX, plus glide & sync…

When producing original music using just a computer, it’s easy to blame lack of progress on the DAW and plugins you already own. Go buy that expensive new synth, sample library or processor, and all your creative problems will be solved; you’ll never get stuck for musical ideas again! Yet, just as a bad workman blames his tools, we all know that a struggling producer uses that one piece of missing software to justify a lack of musical output. So to continue this month’s freeware theme, and to give you a creative kick up the backside, we’re going to take you through the creation of an entire track, using absolutely nothing except free plugins (both plugins and third-party freeware), plus samples that are available in this issue’s Tutorial Files folder.…

We could write entire special editions of about mixing (and indeed we have), but here we’ll sum up the key considerations for mixing a typical house tune, based on what we’ve created thus far. The driving energy of a house track always comes from the low frequencies, so the kick and bass are usually a great place to start. These parts usually occupy similar frequency areas, but must always work together. Above all else, avoid clashing low frequencies that muddy the track – pick one part to dominate the sub region (40-60Hz), and make sure the other slots above (80-120Hz-ish). Luckily, this track’s bass is pretty sub-light, and works with our weight kick from the get-go, so there’s little EQ work to be done. Similarly, you should always make space…

Making electronic music is a lot like making food – we have to choose the best ingredients, or else the end product will be a bland, unimpressive mess. Some producers streamline their sample collection, leaving only the most suitable pieces and ditching the rest; others shy away from using samples altogether, choosing instead to create bespoke sample packs from scratch in the hunt for the ultimate signature sound. But there’s a middle ground that can prove far more inspiring… This month, we’re going to show you an alternative way of working with samples. If something’s not floating your boat, why not change it beyond recognition? You might not produce future garage, for example, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get anything out of a genre-specific pack. We’ll show you some…

Before we start, take a quick glance at the tutorial below. There’s a lot of processing going on there, but is it all necessary when working with drums? I don’t think it is. This month’s tutorial is an extreme case, and I don’t want you to start thinking it’s the norm. With all the clever processing options we have these days, it’s easy to not see the forest from the trees (or should I say, drums). In fact I’d go further: I think that overprocessing drums is one of the biggest traps that aspiring producers tend to fall into. It’s great to have lots of signal-shaping options available, but that doesn’t mean you need to apply them all at the same time. Granted, sometimes the situation calls for heavy lifting,…

The Edge section enables compression and overdrive to be applied to the signal, in order to tame the output of the Sub section and make it “act more reliably”. It features two overarching modes that govern its general sound: Smooth and Harsh. Harsh uses a much more aggressive clipping algorithm than Smooth, imposing palpable crunch and decimation, so most of the time, Smooth will probably be the preferred option. The Squeeze and Drive knobs set the level of compression and overdrive, while the Low Cut and High Cut knobs filter the Edge section’s input, so that frequencies below Low Cut and above High Cut are left untouched. We’re fine with the range of the Low Cut crossover (20-200Hz), but the High Cut filter only goes down to 2kHz, which isn’t…

Quite possibly one of the most eagerly awaited plugins ever developed, Arousor is Empirical Labs’ component-modelled virtual reimagining of the Distressor, their legendary mid-90s compressor, which is still very much available for around £1300. It’s also the company’s first native software release, what with 2010’s Fatso (8/10, cm153) requiring a UAD-2 system to run. Designed to be very close to the Distressor, rather than a perfect clone of it, Arousor (VST/AU/AAX) adds in a variety of features not available in the original hardware. The first of these is stereo functionality. While the Distressor is a strictly mono affair, requiring two linked units for stereo operation, Arousor loads up in your (and your DAW’s) choice of mono, stereo or dual mono configurations. While the Distressor is a 1U rackmount box, Arousor…

The all-new Input section goes way beyond the simple gain knob of the Legacy version, modelling the full E Series preamp. Excitingly, it also comes complete with Unison integration for UAD Apollo devices, literally reconfiguring the hardware gain staging and impedance for monitoring and recording in real time through the excellent and powerful UAD Console application. The Flip button switches the circuit between Line and Mic level inputs, each with its own gain knob, and the Polarity and -20dB Pad buttons mirror those in Console when used in Unison mode, and are thus operable via the Apollo’s own buttons. The headline, though, is the Jensen transformer (we’re not sure which model) on the mic input, activated with the XFMR button. This works wonders in warming up the signal and introducing…

Want the authentic sound of sampled 70s vinyl without the copyright hassles? Then it’s time to roll up your sleeves and start diggin’ through this month’s royalty-free samples! In this 500-strong pack, you get crusty breakbeats, sexy bass riffs, funky guitar licks, ‘sampled’ cuts, S900-style drum hits and more – all expertly designed to exude the authenticity and weight of classic funk and soul records. 500 EXCLUSIVE SAMPLES 72 Bass loops 86 Sampled beat loops 72 Bass loops 36 Mixed Guitar/Bass loops 20 Crusty breakbeats 44 Groovy bits 38 Misc loops 2 Multis 115 S900 drum hits…

The Plugins collection is a suite of complete, limitation-free instrument and effects plugins. It’s an incredible resource, boasting more than 70 pro-quality plugins that you won’t find anywhere else, all for PC and Mac, in VST and AU formats. All of the included software is created exclusively for us by respected commercial developers such as D16 Group, u-he, AudioRealism, Ohm Force, KV331 Audio, Cableguys, XILS-lab, AudioThing, Vengeance-Sound, Rob Papen, zplane and more. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS What is Plugins? Is it just freeware from the internet? No, and neither are the plugins limited or ‘crippled’. It’s a set of virtual instruments and effects created by some of the best developers just for us! Where do I get Plugins? On the cover DVD with the print edition of cm, or as a…

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…