Innehållsförteckning för November 2022 från Computer Music

Unless you’re extraordinarily wealthy, you’ve likely started to feel the sting of global inflation over the last few months. For many, splashing out on your music production hobby will feel like an extravagance at a time of extreme belt-tightening. But, if you’re just starting out on your journey into music-making, or if you’re itching to go deeper and better with your music, then sitting on your hands over the next few months will be a challenge. That’s why we’ve elected to do the hard work for you, assembling an array of studio setups that we’ve carefully tailored towards certain genres and tasks. All for comfortably under a £500 maximum budget. These finely honed setups will help you assemble pulse-pounding EDM, behemoth rock or bass-heavy hip-hop or carry out near proleavel…

One of the most stable pathways to monetising your music right now and get your music heard on screen is by signing up your tracks to one of the many sync libraries that welcome incoming pitches. Their role is to act as middlemen between you and those looking for music to suit their film, television, video game or advertising projects. Making so-called ‘production music’ is a real skill in itself, as you often have to strike a balance between your own artistic individuality and making the sort of ‘sync-able’ music that has the broadest possible appeal. While this sector has very much exploded over the course of the last decade, working with film and television in mind is, of course, one of the most well-trodden pathways for professional musicians. Soundtracking…

Once all is said and done, applying the final touches to your track – stereo enhancement, adjusting loudness levels and a deft use of dedicated mastering compressors – can make or break your hard work. While it’s become something of a cliché to describe mastering as a ‘dark art’, there remains some mystery around the processes and approaches that only experience can truly shed light on. In previous decades, mastering engineers could charge a pretty penny for sprucing up your track, but now we can enjoy online mastering via AI and, better yet, the ability to tackle the process ourselves at home. These have made what was once the reserve of razor-eared experts another learnable skill. Mastering, whether it be in stereo or via stems, ensures that your track will…

> Step by step 3. Using Garageband for mixing 1 In Garageband you can use AU plugins to bring your track up to considerable quality. Click on an individual track’s Controls page to dial in your choice of AU plugins. There’s no centralised Mix window but balancing, effect application and equalisation is straightforward. 2 For our lead vocal, we click on the EQ window to tailor our vocal’s frequency as with Logic. Press A to show automation. Here you can apply all-important volume control to a rough take, ironing out the louder parts of the vocal and boosting those quieter parts. 3 Garageband’s onboard Compressor is fairly solid, and allows you to precisely adjust its ratio, attack, gain and threshold. For our track we compress an occasionally over-distorted vocal, and…

> Step by step 6. Budget beat-building 1 If your objective is creative beat-building on a tight budget, then look no further than the CM Plugin Suite, and in particular, XILS-lab StiX CM. A drum machine, synth and sequencer rolled into one. 2 StiX CM haș a powerful sequencer at its heart, with each drum element listed on the left hand-side of the window. You can change kit by clicking Load Kit drop down in the top right or randomise kit parts by clicking RAND. 3 While you can choose from a number of preset rhythms by cycling through the top left drop down, the sequencer is easily editable, by clicking on each step within a lane, to shape your beat. Hit play in the bottom right to hear how…

There have been some fine examples of synths over the last 50 years that have been created by smaller companies. Brands such as the Oxford Synthesiser Company and EMS produced models away from the American and Japanese spotlight. Staying with European underdogs, Cherry Audio now visit the heart of Italy, where Elka became respected producers of keyboards, organs, and the odd synth. The ‘X’ factor The Elka Synthex was Europe’s answer to the large polys of the early 80s; while it was intrinsically analogue, it garnered a number of features, such as state variable filtering and cross modulation, which meant that it gave the early digital machines a good run for their money. It’s a difficult and expensive machine to find as a secondhand prize, which makes the appeal of…

Widely known for their vibrant range of meticulously captured cinematic string libraries – particularly the elegant Hollywood Opus collection – EastWest Sounds’ first bona fide synth collection is fittingly epic. With a name like ‘Forbidden Planet’, and a UI which underscores its futuristic niche, this dense assortment of sounds are squarely aimed at those who want to wrangle the types of pulsing, morphing electronic textures that permeate modern science fiction and fantasy. Unlike traditionally genre-aligned packages, EastWest’s innovative new engine allows for a greater array of sonic control, with delicate morphing between multiple layers paramount to the engine. There’s also a trove of finer-detail shaping abilities here, like the deep levels of modulation control, and a colourful arsenal of rhythmic options on hand. All in all, there’s a whole new…

audio interface roundup If you want to buy a great budget interface for less than £200, you might be quite surprised at the quality of the models you can get. We’ve got the best audio interfaces under £200 from big audio hitters including SSL, Audient and Focusrite in this buyer’s guide. And pretty much all the interfaces in our roundup offer exceptional sonic quality considering their relatively low prices. With a budget of £200 you can now also expect to get decent additional features as well as that great sound quality. Indeed most of the interfaces in this buyer’s guide go well beyond the very basic connectivity you get just by spending double digits. Those cheaper interfaces will offer you one or two inputs and outputs to allow you to…

audio interfaces roundup The SSL 2 is the cheaper of two compact audio interfaces from console legends Solid State Logic. Both offer the forward and more aggressive sound from the company’s 4000 E console as a switchable ‘Legacy 4k’ enhancement. The 2 lacks a second headphone output and extra phono outs found on the 2+, so not much less if you are just wanting that legendary sound for your instrument recordings. Other than that you get a 2-in/2-out set-up, MIDI in/out and a +48v option to connect both dynamic and condenser mics. SSL 2 delivers crystal clear recording with that subtle 4k enhancement should you wish. Its monitor output is right up there with interfaces that cost twice as much, better in fact. It also features one of the best…

audio interfaces roundup £99 Komplete Audio 2 has a two-input, two-output design with two identical mic/line/instrument inputs. Connections are on space-saving combi XLRs with individual selector switches to help select between line and instrument. 48V phantom power, in the meantime, is engaged globally, via a single switch. In addition to the inputs, the front panel includes a hardware monitoring balance knob (Input/Host) and headphone output with independent control. Main output level is controlled from a large output level knob on the top panel. Here you’ll also find the input meters, alongside phantom and USB indicators. Round the back you’ve got the USB B connector, a pair of balanced outputs on TRS ¼- inch jacks and a Kensington Security slot. Komplete Audio 2 makes our best audio interface list because in…

audio interfaces roundup MiniFuse is French company Arturia’s compact interface range and we have the mid-sized MiniFuse 2 on test here. It has its own Control Centre software and also has one of the best bundles of software of all the interface here. You get access to Arturia titles (naturally) alongside Ableton Live Lite and Auto-Tune Unlimited. The MiniFuse 2 sounds pretty good, with nice clean main outputs and plenty of volume from the headphones. The instrument inputs also sound great and it’s good to see two identical mic/line/instrument inputs. But it’s the overall functionality that wins through, with plenty of backlit buttons and illuminated controls so it’s obvious what’s going on. MiniFuse 2 is a feature-rich device with extras that you don’t always get at this price. Factor in…

audified ironverb cm / free software Linda IronVerb is an algorithmic reverb developed by Audified alongside musician, programmer and mixing/mastering engineer Martin Linda and thanks to Audified we now have our very own version, IronVerb CM (AU, AAX, VST3). A couple of years ago, Audified started to collaborate with engineers and creatives to help them realise their creative vision via new plugin designs. This program (called Wings) led to two plugins developed with Martin Linda: RockStack amp and cab simulator, and earlier this year Linda IronVerb. The latter is a flavour-filled algorithmic reverb that’s great for beefing up drums, adding colour to guitars and keys, and giving a distinctive space to vocals. The reverb includes a mixture of traditional and intriguing parameters. These include Ironize, which we’ll look at in…

Regular readers will know that this is the slot in Computer Music where we most often cover freeware releases, and SampleScience are the most frequent contributors. After a couple of months off, they return with Sitar Renaissance, a free sitar which was created from a damaged recording of the instrument. “A combination of audio engineering techniques has been used: spectral repair, adaptive noise removal, and manual retuning”. It’s available as a Mac and PC VST/ VST3/AU plugin or Kontakt instrument. samplescience.info…

While garnering the respect of other artists, and your own simple artistic satisfaction are reasons enough to make music, you’d be lying to yourself if you didn’t admit that achieving commercial success was always lurking somewhere in the back of your mind. While ‘pop’ as a genre is less consistent than the other styles we’ve honed in on, there are some general aspects that you’re going to need to think about when aiming at the charts. (Remember the charts? Whatever happened to them…) Firstly you’re going to need to study the musicological structure of the best pop songs. Writing an effective pop song is all about the development and dynamics, centring on emphasising your big hook(s), how you use tension and release to build anticipation, as well as crafting an…

We’re stripping back to the very basics here – the fundamental skill of writing a song on either a guitar or piano, recording vocals with your microphone and either choosing to work up your arrangement over time, or keeping things very simple, intimate and direct. With that in mind, having an armada of software synths, complex effects plugins or oddball rhythm generators isn’t really on our agenda. Instead we need to think about the best ways to both bottle and enhance your instrument and your voice, while, as always, keeping a very close eye on our budget constraints. We also need to consider the writing process itself. If you’re wanting to eventually settle into being a song-generating machine, you’re going to need continual inspiration. The necessary environment in which to…

> Step by step 1. Create a big guitar tone for free 1 Open an instance of the plugin as a mono effect in your guitar track. At the top of the interface you’ll see input/output knobs as well as high-pass (HP) and low-pass (LP) dials, these are useful for eradicating overly bright or bassy frequencies. 2 At the bottom of the interface you’ll see a drop down where you can select from a range of simulated amps, from the compact D’Mal to the raucous Kamikaze. 3 Each virtual amp head contains classic EQ knobs as well as depth/presence dials to add more low end rumble or zippy treble to your tone. While the amp head is one thing, the other crucial tonal element is adding the right cabinet. 4…

> Step by step 4. Audio analysis for free 1 When mixing, a hugely useful tool that we regularly refer to is Vengeance Sound Scope, the free analysis and metering toolkit, and part of the CM Plugin Suite. 2 Scope’s first view allows you to see the stereo waveform of the track, mix or master output with the detailed left/right level meters permanently on the left-hand side. 3 While this view allows you recognise clipping and troublesome spikes on both stereo channels, you’re also able to view each individual stereo track by adjusting the Channel Mode rotary. 4 Spectrum view provides a frequency-balanced graph, with the vertical position displaying the amplitude. Here we can see a visualisation of our track, giving a vital overview of our frequency range’s peaks and…

Apple’s MacBook Air M2 2022 is a machine that delivers the battery life, speakers, power and, importantly, the silence you need for both music production and listening. You’ll be paying for it, of course, but the Air M2 is also one of the most elegant and refined pieces of Apple technology ever created. Quiet, powerful and so sleek, it’ll handle your music production needs with no fuss or bother. And it looks amazing. To Logic in no time We admit it, hands down, unboxing an Apple product is one of the most joyous experiences in life. It is such an ‘event’, though, that the initial unveiling almost always outshines the end result where you end up using your brand new and much costlier Apple (iPhone/iPad/laptop/desktop) in the same way you…

Beats. Everyone needs them, everyone tackles them in their own way and it’s widely agreed that when it comes to mixing, they’re more often than not the most awkward thing to get right. IK Multimedia’s MODO Drum aims at serving all needs via its holistic, genre-neutral approach to kit control. Though the emphasis here is clearly on giving you the sound of a live, in-the-room drum kit, the sheer level of tonal shaping, FX, groove-shaping and real-world nuance that you can control here, results in perhaps the only piece of beat-building software you’ll ever need. From the outset, IK offer a smooth, straightforward experience, a quality for which the company are well known. MODO Drum brings the same multi-page, visually entrancing approach as MODO Bass. V1.5 brings three more kits…

audio interfaces roundup The compact Evo range was launched at the NAMM Show back in 2020 to much acclaim. You’ll find two combi mic/line inputs around the back of EVO 4, and one instrument level input at the front for connecting guitar or bass (which then overrides the first input around the back). The more expensive EVO 8 doubles the inputs to four. Two speaker outs complete the connections and a central main dial controls the level of that output plus a number of other levels determined largely by which buttons on the top of the panel you press, these being 1 and 2 (for the input levels), and output (bottom right) plus a final button that means the dial adjusts the mix between the input and DAW. Using the…

audio interfaces roundup Universal Audio used to focus on the high-end market with interfaces that boasted both a quality signal flow and also acted as hosts and accelerators for the company’s very well regarded plugin range. That changed with the Volt range, a set of four units that eschew the plugin hosting in favour of value and more standard features. The more expensive 176 and 276 fall just outside of our price cap but the Volt 1 & 2 offer most of what they deliver, with the exception of their extra 1176-style compression. Both Volts 1 and 2 are plug-and-play USB-C interfaces that offer UA’s excellent preamps on their combi inputs, with one input available on the Volt 1 and two on the Volt 2. These offer a great vintage…

audio interfaces roundup Steinberg really pimped up its UR range of audio interfaces, introducing USB 3.0 models for PC, Mac and iOS. The UR22C, on test here is the most affordable of the bunch. It offers USB Type-C connectivity (or USB 3.1 Gen 1 SuperSpeed, to give it its official title) and operates at 32-bit/192kHz audio resolution. There’s MIDI I/O, too, as well as DSP that provides zero-latency effects that can be used when monitoring. These can be accessed via the dspMixFx mixer. Unsurprisingly, the UR22C is a 2-in/2-out audio interface. You get a couple of balanced Neutrik combo inputs, each of which sports a Yamaha D-PRE mic preamp, and two balanced line outputs. With its rugged metal casing, the UR22C is the best audio interface for you if you…

Tough Bassics The first of our all-new gritty bass collections was honed by Cyclick Samples. Here’s Robbie to tell us more about it… “Roughness can also be expressed as a lack of smoothness, and the bass sounds created for this sample pack are proudly just this! Analogue amplification stages have been grossly overloaded and a variety of fuzzes and distortions employed to bring the grit, dirt and nastiness. To many ears this may be no bad thing; I loved every second of generating this sandpaper bass collection. Each of the five main bass setups has been used to create a set of loops across eight tempos and have been captured as a set of seven multisamples. The seventh multisample is a variant of the Teisco short scale bass and Mutron…

It’s a preconception held by many that to make decent rock music you need quite a lot of physical space – and the ability to make a lot of noise. In actual fact, you can be churning out the next Smoke on the Water every day for very little outlay. As computer musicians, we’re more prone to looking for sample libraries, playable software instruments and ways of making our sounds go further than most traditionally rock-oriented folks, and while some might squirm at the thought of keyboard-based riff-writing, it’s the end results that speak the loudest. We’re trying to keep costs down in this feature, but that doesn’t mean we’re embarking on a particularly freeware-heavy approach. But, we’ve elected to recommend a free DAW for the purposes of making rock,…

It’s a process that many artists take for granted, but the mixing process can be as creatively imperative as writing that killer hook, chord structure or beat. Mixing requires both patience and attention to detail. It’s where you shape your track from a collection of overlaid stems into a coalescence of sonic splendour. Synths need to pump, guitars need to scream, beats need to be fat, and vocals need to be crystal-clear, and all of this frequency-honing is done during the mix stage. Though some artists tend to be self-sufficient, mixing as they go, training yourself to be a focused expert in this process, while keeping to a reined-in budget isn’t an impossible task. Firstly, getting a grip on how EQ-works, and how detailed plugins can give you an exploded…

> Step by step 2. Making your own sounds 1 A great first step with sound design is using the mod wheel to change oscillator and envelope parameters, morphing the sound. Press Bank B the middle panel to create a new patch. At the top of the UI you’ll see the twin oscillator controls, make sure that the Osc Mix control is raised so we’re able to hear a balance of both. 2 Press Sel and cycle the waveform options for each oscillator from the drop down. Concocting interesting combinations is one of the joys of sound design, and we’ve elected to work with number 59 and 33, the Oscillator 2 fine-tuned slightly off to give the sound a more resonating vibe. 3 While the sound has a calming, meditative…

> Step by step 5. Bigger vocals and harmonies for free 1 A top-notch creative tool that you can access right now, this smart harmony generator can augment your instruments and vocals with additional harmony and melodic layers. 2 Open the plugin as an instrument, then drag and drop your vocal take or sample into the main window. You’ll quickly see a piano roll-type depiction of your sound’s melody and pitch. 3 Selecting all of the notes of your vocal, and pressing the large Harmonize button at the top of the UI instantly creates smartly layered higher and lower harmonies… 4 We can quickly change the key by cycling through the lower left’s key selection area, and incrementally drag slightly weird-sounding notes through semitones manually via the main window. 5…

As analogue classics go, the Alesis Andromeda A6 is not the model that most cite as a favourite. Part of the reason for this could be that many original Andromedas have suffered component failure, placing them out of operative reach. But find one that works and you’ll hear a huge-sounding analogue from the year 2000, when analogue wasn’t really the flavour of the millennium! T-minus and counting Thankfully, while the price-tag of an original secondhand Andromeda remains high, UVI can help you with another one of their superb re-enactments, providing the very spirit of the original analogue machine, through a vast number of samples. Mission 6 resides within the usual UVI ecosphere, being operational through their freely available Workstation plugin, or for extended use via their Falcon synthesiser suite. For…

Morph EQ (AU, VST, VST3, AAX) is a flexible EQ processor from Minimal Audio and as the name suggests it can be used for morphing effects, as well as more typical EQ duties. You get unlimited filter bands and seven filter types (high, low and band pass, high and low shelf peak and notch) with +/- 36dB gain where relevant. Main features also include series or parallel signal flow, optional gain dependent filter width, and an output limiter with both gentle saturation and punchy soft clip settings. You have unlimited filter bands with independent channel assignment (stereo, left, right, mid or sides), but there’s also a whole bunch of very handy global controls (Shift, Pinch, Spread and Scale). Shift and Scale both change all frequencies or all gains collectively, and…

audio interfaces roundup The iD4 MkII is, on the face of it, a simple two-input/two-output offering a mic preamp, complete with phantom power for using condenser mics. There’s also an instrument level DI for plugging in your guitar or bass, plus a smart scroll wheel enabling you to tweak settings in your software. On top of this, there’s a main output for your speakers and dual headphone outputs. The whole thing is powered via USB-C and, with Apple’s camera connection kit, it can also work with an iPhone/iPad. However, for us, the studio devilry is in the detail: Audient has really thought about everything with value and usability in mind, making what is a budget solution feel anything but inexpensive in use. The Audient iD4 MkII is one of the…

audio interface roundup Focusrite’s Scarlett USB interfaces have traditionally combined excellent sonics and audio flexibility at affordable price points, and the third generation units keep up the good work. All of the units in the range have been upgraded with improved preamps (up to 56dB gain), balanced connectivity throughout, and the inclusion of Focusrite’s ISA transformer preamp emulation option (delivering Air – see below for more on this). On the bus-powered Scarlett 4i4 you get two mic/line/instrument inputs with gain, two line-level TRS inputs and four TRS outputs. The 4i4 supports Focusrite’s Control application, which means that a number of settings can only be made in the software. The app also handles low-latency monitoring. In practice the sonics are neutral and the drivers reliable. The Air option tilts the frequency…

audio interfaces roundup There are audio interfaces that aim to support specific musical disciplines like, for example, guitarists (check out our best guitar audio interfaces guide for more of that). And then there are jack-of-all-trades, which try to do a bit of everything, from speech to music. The Presonus Studio 24c is firmly in the latter camp, offering consistently exceptional quality regardless of what you’re trying to record or produce. We particularly like the included Universal Control software, which enables the interface to ‘loop back’ on itself virtually. This provides great flexibility for routing audio between different applications without requiring extra cables, making it ideal for streamers and musicians alike. Build quality is solid, and the MIDI connectivity to the back of the unit is a great touch. presonus.com For…

audio interfaces roundup With high-quality Onyx mic pres, balanced analogue connectivity and operation up to 24-bit/192kHz, the bus-powered Onyx Producer 2.2 audio interface is more than capable of getting clean signals in and out of your DAW. There are two identical mic/line inputs with combination XLR/jack connectors. Each has a manual green backlit switch to select a Hi Z instrument, and there’s a global backlit switch for 48V phantom power. Input signals can be monitored with zero latency using the Input/DAW Mix knob, and rounding off the front panel are a large Monitor level knob and headphone output with level knob. Round the back you’ll find a pair of ¼-inch jacks for the monitor output, and also a pair of MIDI connectors (In and Out), which is very handy. Throw…

All the advice and software you need! There’s a huge dynamic range for you to explore and next month we’re going to take you to every corner of it! Yes, we’ll show you how to get the deepest basses, the most tearing leads, the hugest beats and most shimmering vocals. And all for free with the mighty Computer Music Plugin Suite! PLUS! Free IK plugin! An EQP-1A, worth €79.99, for free! Yes, really this time! Reviews Waves Harmony, Liquidsonics Tai Chi and much more! The Guide! Back to basics guides to metering and/or analysers!…