Innehållsförteckning för July 2023 från Computer Music

Suki Sou was born in Macau, to a Burmese father and half-Japanese, half-Chinese mother whose philosophy when bringing Suki up was very much to throw her in at the deep end: “My parents sent me to a Catholic boarding school in Berkshire to study when I was eight years old. I travelled to the UK on my own with just a dictionary; my mother’s theory was that I needed to learn the language by myself, without anyone’s help.” This DIY attitude stuck, and with some influence from her electronics engineer father, Sou developed a fascination with synths and software. She has now married some of the best of both into a jaw-dropping studio in which she composes an eclectic mix. It’s music that she describes as ‘neo-morning electronica, kosmische and…

arrange tracks like a pro Let’s take a look at a few techniques we can use when thinking about our arrangement. If you’re literate in music theory to the point of reading and writing music, then there’s nothing else that will do a better job of helping you visualise the relationships between instrument parts over time. This goes hand in hand with learning to play an instrument. There’s a serious time investment up front, but time is saved when it comes to the creative process; you don’t need to carefully find each chord every time you try and work out a new section. Just as we can write our score with pen and paper, we can also use software, ranging from score editors within DAWs such as Logic Pro X,…

Boom LiftFX £100 Mac/PC Specifically designed to inject your arrangement with maximum excitement, LiftFX can handle risers, build-ups, sweeps, falls and other elements of dynamic interest. With a time-oriented interface that lends itself to thinking in tension-building terms, LiftFX is a highly versatile tool. www.boomlibrary.com Cableguys VolumeShaper $29 Mac/PC The sidechain-ducking VolumeShaper automatically takes control of your kit to modulate the intensity and loudness of each section over time. It’s also easy to shape decay and noise-gates for the kit too. VolumeShaper can also automatically create pulsing rhythms on the fly with its inspired gated-pattern generator. www.cableguys.com AIR Music Tech The Riser $129/£96 Mac/PC As we’ve stressed in the feature, it’s those transitions between sections that need the most consideration when arranging, and The Riser is a perfect tool to…

An acclaimed figure in the world of video game soundtracks, Tom Salta knows all too well the time-swallowing pain of bouncing numerous different versions of his mix for different purposes. Frustrated by the creative time this was taking away from him, Tom developed the new Logic-bespoke plugin, Auto-Bounce, to take the process off his hands. We were keen to find out more about what motivated his leap from composer to plugin developer, as well as learning about a prestigious career as a video game soundtracking luminary. Also, we wondered whether Auto-Bounce might soon span across other DAWs… 1 Auto-Bounce sounds like it takes the stress out of stem bouncing. Firstly can you give us an overview of just what Auto-Bounce provides? Tom Salta: “Absolutely, Auto-Bounce is the only thing available…

digit music cmpsr hardware controller Cmpsr (pronounced ‘composer’) is an intriguing controller from UK-based Digit Music, made in Derby, no less, influenced by music and game controllers, and the accessibility needs of users who might need something other than ‘traditional’ MIDI controllers. Cmpsr breaks ground by being the first MIDI instrument to receive the Tech4Good Accessibility Award. Seeing as the worlds of education and accessibility have such a lot to offer music control designers, we were interested to see how well the joystick-centric Cmpsr fits the bill. The package contains Cmpsr, USB cable, four rubber adhesive feet, and a printed card with QR code for quick access to online material: tutorials, a bundle including Bitwig Studio 8-Track, and a collection of loops and samples. Maybe we expected something more like…

Nowadays, software developers really have to think outside the box to come up with something new. More importantly, it also needs to be something sufficiently different to what’s bundled with our DAWs to tempt us to part with our cash. Sonora Cinematic has been out of that box for a while, most famously coming up with the Dronar range of weird and wonderful atmosphere instruments. That, and other titles like Magnetism, are ideal for cinematic and atmospheric tension, and Harmonic Bloom (for Kontakt Player) is too, although it’s probably the most emotive of their titles thus far. The initial description makes mention of the likes of harmonic theory, noise sources and sonic extraction and you’d be forgiven for initially scratching your head. You might even ask whether the developers have…

Spectrasonics holds one of the loftiest reputations within the realm of samples, sound design and virtual instruments. It’s behind some of the most radical sampling projects ever captured, from trips to the Amazon, to burning pianos. Its relatively new creative line, Sonic Extensions, provides amazing sounds with vast amounts of realtime control, all categorised by expansion pack. Following the initial release of four Sonic Extensions, the latest extension arrives completely out of the blue, as a sole release. All of the Sonic Extensions operate from within the Omnisphere realm, so you’ll need that meaty synth to access your new sounds. That could make an initial purchase more involved, but then again Omnisphere is one of the most sonically impressive packages on the market, so this might just be the prompt…

In 2023, computers, phones, and tablets are readily accessible conduits to the music-production process, and all of them can host some kind of DAW (digital audio workstation) within which all manner of tracks can be crafted. However, having access to the right software is only the beginning; if you want to end up with a piece of music that might change someone’s life, we need to really focus on building our track’s arrangement. Learning how to bring out the key areas of the song is often what’s needed to imbue our compositions with the maximum, lasting impact that most of us aspire toward. In this feature, when we refer to arrangement we mean the process of creating a song structure that effectively supports a melody and chord sequence, and assembling…

So, what is arranging exactly? It’s not just about what elements are in play, but also the relationships between the constituent parts. You could also think of it as being the bridge between composition and mixing. While different genres have different sonic tropes and arrangement norms, there are numerous universal constants that are beneficial to get your head around. The most common problem that we tend to face comes when we’re so far into the writing or production of a track is that we can’t hear how jarring many of the elements might be upon another listener’s first listen. We’ve heard our mix constantly already, and we’re too comfortable with it. Often we just can’t resist the impulse to add more. It’s a solid idea to hold off on the…

Ableton Live From $79 Mac/PC As well as its bespoke Arrangement View, tools like Arpeggiator, Chord, and Scale, are hugely beneficial. Of course it has locators for song sections, and the Session View, where you can build a structure through jamming and recording. www.ableton.com Presonus Notion $150 Mac/PC Notion is a piece of notation software in which you can record directly in from a MIDI keyboard, or enter the notes manually (with optional Apple Pencil support). It helpfully includes a full set of drum, bass, guitar, and orchestra samples, so no other add-ons are required. www.presonus.com Apple Logic Pro X From £199 Mac/PC Similar to Live, Logic Pro X has its own MIDI effects, with a convenient shortcut built into every MIDI track, including Arpeggiator, scale, and others. It also…

We have always loved the connection between the development of technology and the way it is harnessed by artists. The early electronic music pioneers had to develop all sorts of clever techniques to create the music they wanted to produce, often improvising with cheaper technology. In a similar vein, products were sometimes produced to be more cost-effective. One such example emanates from the synthesiser replication of string sounds. In the early days, good polysynths were very expensive. Consequently, companies invented a type of synthesiser generically known as the string machine, offering more than a passing resemblance to the sounds of the same name. String machines were cheaper by quite some margin, while remaining polyphonic, albeit in a slightly different guise, known as paraphonic (a cheaper and less flexible version of…

Barely a month passes without the resurrection of another classic synthesiser in plugin form, but as we know very well, some provide more accurate sonic interpretations than others. Although, surprisingly enough, there are still some vintage classics which remain relatively untouched. The 6-voice classic The Roland Jupiter-6 is one such synth, reconstructed here in the guise of the Mercury-6. As with all of Cherry Audio’s classic recreations, the attention to detail and styling is exemplary, with an inviting interface which is incredibly exacting, but with a few added extras, bringing the ol’ Jupe into the computer age. One benefit of modern technology is that this Mercury is capable of 16-note polyphony. You can set your voice count from 2 to 16, with the ability to compile and detune voices in…

Image-Line’s FL Studio DAW had a naming upgrade with last version 20 that might have confused some users. v20 was actually v13, but changed to 20 to celebrate the DAW’s 20th birthday back in 2018. Five years on and the latest version 21 should therefore be called FL Studio 25? But, whatever, the main headline is that the DAW remains a free update, no matter what version you bought into (yes, even for those lucky v1 risk takers back in 1998 when it was called FruityLoops v1.0!). v21 has significant updates to workflow, plus some lovely extra plugins, but let’s have an overview first. The original FruityLoops was all about loop creation and then putting together songs from those, and that more modular way of composing has stayed with the…

Filters have come a long way. We recall interviewing some of the early drum & bass producers (so early it was then called jungle) and they used hushed tones when talking about their use of these filters, sometimes not even admitting that they were behind those liquid beats and basslines. Now filters are used for just about everything: from precision EQing to tension-building risers, bassline mangling to crazy vocal effects. There are straight filters that do one job well, and multi-effect filters that do everything in as crazy a way as possible. Or there’s Polyverse’s Supermodal which mostly stands alone and could be the most inspiring filter you’ve ever used. Super models Things start off in a fairly straightforward manner with the left-hand dial of the two main controls on…

Loopmasters Havana Meets Kingston £39.95 This sample pack is a meeting of musical minds, as two distinct camps open their studios to each other. Australian producer, Mista Savona, brought 50+ vocalists and musicians together for the task and, over the 2.5GB of sounds, you get a sizzling fusion of genres and instruments, from some of the islands’ big names. Picks include the storm of funky rhythms provided by Cuba’s top drummer, Rodney Barreto and the crisp recordings were captured in Bob Marley’s own Tuff Gong Studios. Plenty of grooves to plunder. www.loopmasters.com 9/100 Audiotent Pure Claps £21 As part of their ongoing Pure series, the Audiotent team runs through its kit collection to deliver the best set of hits this side of Chris Rock’s cheek. These top quality claps have…

NAMMaste The world famous music tech show went low key but still saw some highs This year’s NAMM may have been in April, and lacked some of the big kahunas on which the industry pivots, but in all other aspects, the magic of the show remained. What we’re always hungry for is, of course, new stuff, and NAMM 2023 was full of surprise announcements, hastily covered by a flock of journalists pretending to work for three days, while really just seizing the chance to grab a bit of sun. In terms of what we were most excited by, one of our favourite plugin developers, Soundtoys, dropped SuperPlate, a new reverb plugin that features emulations of an EMT 140, 240, an Audicon, EcoPlate III and Stocktronics RX 4000, alongside some classic…

arrange tracks like a pro One of the great thrills of music-making is seizing on those flashes of inspiration, and jotting down a quick sketch demo of something that one day could become a chart-busting masterpiece. Getting round to finishing it however, requires investment of time, careful editing and consideration, as well as detailed listening – pretty much the opposite of the instantaneous buzz of coming up with a killer hook out of thin air. One of the main culprits to blame for us not being able to finish (or even make further sections) of a track is knowing how to build an effective arrangement. Ableton Live Session View users might have eight tracks of one-bar loops turning on and off, while users of more linear DAWs such as Logic…

arrange tracks like a pro Considering how the different instruments and elements of your track interact with each other is all well and good, but now we need to focus on the cental philosophy that you should take when arranging. It’s not all about finding a position for your instruments within a frequency range (that comes with the mix stage); instead, it’s about how we choose to sit our track elements in service of the drama and impact of the track. There’s no point in a killer hook without a context This is where the arrangement process bridges both the writer’s intent and the mix process. How we section and structure our song ultimately determines how successful it is. There’s absolutely no point in writing a killer hook, a kinetic…

01 REMIX YOURSELF Get some self-induced inspiration by taking one of your own songs, stripping away the music, then coming back after a day or two and remixing it. Listening to the vocal acapella after a while may help distance you from the original version enough to come up with something new. As it’s your own song, you can then choose to either keep the original vocal or replace it, then write a completely new song over the top of the new backing track. 02 JAM SESSION Your computer is a powerful recording device with acres of hard-disk space, so why not make the most of it and record long synth ‘jams’ to audio? If you’re lucky, this can capture some great moments, creating a wealth of inspiring material that…

If you want to be certain that your DAW and plugins are processing the way they should be, then you need some control and understanding of signal levels. We often refer to this overall concept as gain staging. The term originated in the analogue realm and refers to setting your gain in order to maximise the signal to noise ratio. The idea is you keep your signals loud enough throughout the signal path so that the system noise is less significant, but also not so loud that they lead to distortion. This is still an important concept when setting the preamp gain on your interface to record signals into your DAW. However, once your signals are inside your DAW and you’re mixing, there’s no analogue noise floor to worry about.…

A wise man once said “the past is another country, they do things differently there”. In the world of music production, this sentiment rings exceptionally true. The way that people used technology to not just record, but to shape their music was wildly different to what we have at our disposal on our hard drives today. As with the majority of vintage hardware, effects units suffered from the limitations of their format – crackle, hiss and signal degradation was rife. While old-school gear might have technically been superseded, the mark it left on some of music’s most beloved moments has meant that people still seek to resurrect those long-lost ‘qualities’ and add them to their 21st century tracks. We’ve seen no short supply of such plugins in the lo-fi domain,…

Many things in life are assured; night following day, and paying your taxes to name but two, but we could also mention Toontrack, who reliably create useful products and expansions, for their ever-popular band-in-a-plugin software. Riding the new Synthwave This time, it’s Synthwave that gets the Toontrack treatment, with the release of two expansion packs designed to fulfil your every whim, at least in terms of ’80s synth and drum sounds. The branding ‘EZKeys Synthwave’ pretty much tells you everything that you need to know, but what’s less clear is how far you can go with this expansion. You’ll need a copy of EZKeys, to act as host for this pack. If you don’t own EZKeys, there is an option to buy the application alongside the expansion, and of course…

Internationally renowned music producer KSHMR has released his first reverb plugin with W.A. Production and with it, comes a gamut of unique features. KSHMR has built many of his reverb tricks into the plugin including reverse swells, transient softening and removal, as well as side-chaining. The layout of KSHMR Reverb is straightforward, and the features are clearly laid out. Across the top panel are the Reverb Types, including Hall, Plate, or Spring. There’s a drop-down menu that grants access to a wide variety of the main man’s presets. KSHMR Reverb includes standard reverb parameters like diffusion, pre-delay, width, length and size. The Mix Knob is a special feature and the modes can be switched by clicking Mix. Mix mode controls the balance between dry and wet volumes, and Reverb Volume…

> Free software The deals are coming thick and fast right now and this month we’re very excited to bring you two slightly different offerings from Modalics. EON-Arp is its creative arpeggiator. The plugin was initially free but now costs $29, and this month, for a limited time only, you can grab yourself an exclusive fully-fledged free copy from our Computer Music downloads link. The company’s previous plugin, Beat Scholar, is a highly regarded rhythm composer, and alongside EON-Arp this month, Modalics have been kind enough to also offer Computer Music readers an exclusive discount code. Once again, this is time limited, so get in there quick. In this tutorial, we’ll focus primarily on EON-Arp, showing you how to get up and running. We’ll then explain how it’s arranged and…

Get the best from your wavetable synths Next issue we’ll explain how to understand the science and application of wavetable synthesis. From the maths behind the concept, to making your own wavetables. With our guide, you’ll have all you need to become a true master of the ’wave! PLUS! Perfect pop Pop-rock giants Joan on their streaming success Free samples Our team of sample-makers go down some unusual beat roads... On test Bitwig Studio 5, Zen Delay Virtual and many more……