Innehållsförteckning för January 2024 från Computer Music

> cover feature We don’t get quite as excited about DAW updates as we used to – most DAWs are so mature now that they already have pretty much everything you could ask for. But when Ableton does an update it always adds a decent number of extras. That’s because an Ableton Live update is not as common as it once was (it’s been around three years since the last one) so the Berlin-based developers have time to add a lot with each revision. This is very much true of the new v12 of the DAW. There’s a great deal more that has been added here, spanning both exciting instruments, effects and sleek workflow additions. With just the addition of the new Meld synth and the Roar effect, Live 12…

There was a time when we had to place great reliance on acoustic and simplistic synthetic instruments, to create the sounds we wanted to hear in the production realm. One instrument which was always difficult to replicate synthetically is the piano. It’s easy to forget this, given the vastness of many of the excellent sample libraries that we have today, hence history is littered with a number of instruments that tried to emulate a piano’s credentials, but with electronics. Many artists, looking to replicate the jazz and funk sound of yesteryear, continue to explore some of this vintage equipment, however our ZebraCM is a versatile beast, and more than capable of managing a passing facsimile to some of these instruments. Early electric pianos, from companies like Roland, relied on synthetically-recreated…

We’re all familiar with the basic synthesis building blocks, enshrined into synth-law by Dr Robert Moog back in the ’60s. His subtractive blueprint continues to influence the vast majority of synth designs today, but every now and then, a product breaks the mould, moving in a slightly different synthetic direction. Going harmonic Cherry Audio’s latest synth does employ degrees of subtractive synthesis: you’ll find filters, envelopes and LFOs onboard, but the exciting stuff begins at the oscillator level. Time for a quick (and very basic) physics lesson; the fundamental synthesis building block of the musical sound that we hear is called a sine wave. This is a pure sound, with no harmonic overtones, and is relatively quiet as a consequence. If we add further sine waves, at specific multiplied frequencies…

Ujam’s UFX Reverb couldn’t be any more ‘2023’ if it had a picture of Taylor Swift on it. It looks as cool as a plugin effect can in the 2020s, has features like ‘Freeze’ and ‘Duck’ and even unusual ‘Finisher’ effects with cool names like ‘Time Is Fleeting’, ‘Terminator Bend’ and ‘Sea Of Resonances’ that are more about a feeling than a fact. We like that. It brings out our inner Zen. There might even be a bit of artificial intelligence in there in the form of a randomiser that comes up with new sounds for you (or it could just be… a randomiser). Whatever, UFX Reverb screams ‘use me’. It’s one of the tidiest-looking plugins out there, and, as it turns out, one of the tidiest-sounding ones too. Hidden…

Many producers and composers collect weird and wonderful instruments, because you just never know when they might come in handy. One such composer is Richard Harvey; a veteran media composer in his own right, who has also scored and collaborated with the likes of Hans Zimmer and Paul McCartney, to name just two! He has amassed a sizeable collection of instruments, many of which might be categorised as toys, adopting a persona which lend themselves to childlike fantasy and beyond. This package has been curated and recorded exclusively by Richard, at his studio in Surrey, England. The result is a sizeable volume of 63GB worth of samples, across a number of different toy-like categories, all enlisted within OT’s own free Sine Player plugin. In line with other OT products, you…

TONE2 ICARUS 1.6 Follow along with the video as we introduce this incredible full-version synth, free with this issue! Read the full article from p12 / experts Our resident music production gurus walk you through their specialist field every month Read the full article on pxx SYNTH MASTERCLASS CLAVINET SOUNDALIKE Read the full article on p50 DANCE MUSIC MASTERCLASS TECH HOUSE GROOVE Read the full article on p54 MIX MASTERCLASS INSERTS VS AUXILIARIES Read the full article on p58…

Expanding the frontiers Bioelectrical signal from plants, hearing aid soundscapes and free thinking. Daphne Oram’s legacy honoured in 2023 The awards ceremony that celebrates the legacy of one of the most important women in music of the 20th century is quietly becoming a hotbed for creativity in its own right. You might know the name Daphne Oram from her pioneering work with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop back in the early days of electronic experimentation. Or as the (only latterly) credited author of some of the James Bond series’ most memorable retro ambient sounds. Her style was so distinctly her own she coined her own technique, ‘Oramics’. But since 2017, the fondly remembered audio engineering titan’s legacy has been passed down to new generations in the form of the Oram Awards…

Interface cm: Can you give us a bit of background on how Musik Hack first got off the ground, what motivated you to start this company? Sam: “What motivated me to start was a really long journey. I was a composer studying academically when I fell really heavily into computer music. So much so that it really got me into trouble with the program I was in, because they were like ‘you have to notate something to pass’. “I graduated and couldn’t figure out how to make a career out of music, but programming was something I learned how to do in order to make money. I wasn’t really happy making tools that didn’t align with my interests, so when Covid hit I hunkered down and started learning more about…

Tech house is a subgenre of house music that melds techno with house. It originated in the ’90s, and is still one of the most popular genres today. Tech house has been influenced by Detroit techno, house music from Chicago, minimal techno, and electro house. Tech house began as an approach to DJing, when DJs like Bushwacka!, Mr. C, and the Wiggle DJs began to mix together house and techno cuts. The genre has grown and diversified over time, and today artists like Dom Dolla, MK, James Hype, John Summit, Solardo, Chris Lake, ESSEL, Peggy Gou and Westend dominate the tech house charts. But you’re here to make your own tech house track, right. Firstly, there are a few USPs of the genre that should be noted. Tech house has…

Some software updates are a surprisingly long time coming – we’re thinking NI’s Massive, for example. But D16’s latest Drumazon update is probably a record breaker in terms of the time it’s taken to leap to version 2 – a full 16 years! And it’s only another bloody 909 drum machine, right? So how can it possibly be worth that length of waiting time? Well, Drumazon 2 goes back to basics, updates the concept and comes up with a software instrument that doesn’t just leave the original hardware in its wake, but is totally the 909 for the 2020s and could well be the drum machine of this decade. Simple is best, right? Yes it’s packed with huge amounts of sounds, patterns and drum kits, but it’s what you can…

It can be daunting to sift through orchestral sample libraries with hundreds of different instruments or articulations, in search of the cinematic. And that’s assuming you haven’t been overwhelmed by the incredibly oversaturated market for soundtrack-making tools to begin with. If you want a break from the sample library-based approach and aren’t looking to emulate the sounds of a classical orchestra, SkyWaves has you covered. It is intended for creating “analogue cinematic soundscapes”, and is available in VST and VST3 format, plus as a standalone application. Sounds astronomical Consisting of three analogue-modelled synths and a wavetable synth, as well as an effects section and macro panel allowing for finer control, SkyWaves makes it easy to dive in and create impressive sounds in minutes. Looking more closely at the first three…

Brainworx’ homespun line of bx_masterdesk plugins pack a combination of compressor, limiter and basic tone controls into a single unified processor. The second edition of the plugin saw the inclusion of Brainworx’ True Peak limiting tech, but this new third edition represents a much larger and more significant advancement for the series. Input processing The new features start at the beginning of bx_ masterdesk PRO’s signal chain with a new pair of dynamic processors. Glue introduces a gentle dynamic smoothing via a simple analogue-style VCA compressor, adding body and cohesion to a mix. Clipper functions more like a limiter, preventing any peaks that exceed 0dBFS from passing through. A dial allows the input signal to be pushed into the Clipper by up to 6dB, making it a very useful tool…

> Free software Icarus from Tone2 is a super flexible and highly editable wavetable synth with a straightforward layout. It’s easy to program, sounds great and comes packed with over 1,000 presets. The current full release version (v2.5) is normally €199, but rather than bringing you a lite version of this, we’ve actually secured the final build of version 1 (v1.6), and it’s yours absolutely free with this issue. What’s more our giveaway also entitles you to a heavily discounted upgrade path to v2.5. Icarus 1.6 (VST, AU with M1 support via Rosetta) features three oscillators, two filters, four envelopes, three regular LFOs and one step LFO, with further sound shaping from three effect modules and output EQ. There’s also a decent 18-slot modulation matrix, 32-step arpeggiator and if you…

> make music now In the rush to fill our hard drives with cutting-edge plugins and music-making tech, it’s easy to dismiss the humble roots of sound design. Tape-splicing, rudimentary synthesiser chips and early hardware samplers were all tools of the trade that, while considered primitive by today’s standards, all spawned unique sounds that birthed the electronic music we all love. In this feature, we’ll look at four genres of sound generation, and show you ways to incorporate these classic sounds into your tracks by harnessing the spirit of innovation that these synthesis pioneers championed. First, we’ll travel back to the 1960s and take a look at how the BBC Radiophonic Workshop innovators used tape editing, filters and early analogue synthesis to create the sound effects and ambience of Doctor…

When we use plugins in our mix, we’re either replacing the input signal with our processed signal (regular compression is a good example), or adding to the input signal, which is usually the case with delay or reverb. DAWs, much like hardware mixing desks, provide us with two systems – inserts and auxiliaries – to achieve these tasks. However, individual DAW plugins often include some kind of wet/dry mix blend. If you couple this with a virtually limitless supply of plugins it becomes perfectly feasible to mix a track and not use auxiliaries at all. Nevertheless, this may not be the best or quickest method, and racking up multiple track-specific reverbs can quickly ramp up your CPU usage. What’s more, if you throw blended techniques such as parallel compression into…

Like many companies producing large instrument libraries, Spitfire Audio seems to be producing a lot of titles – so much so that as a software reviews magazine it’s hard to keep up, so a few of the company’s best efforts get overlooked. Some of Spitfire Audio’s finest libraries are within its Albion series, and luckily, it’s realised the significance of the series and has relaunched the first of its three titles, Legacy, Loegria and Iceni – recorded at AIR Studios – at £199 each (half the original price). We didn’t originally review all three, so it’s time to see if they’re worthy of their reputation. The Albion idea In case you missed it, the Albion range came into existence with each aiming to provide a complete scoring solution in one…

Although there are plenty of celeb-endorsed plugins about, these are typically created in collaboration with existing developers. Mixing Night Audio, headed up by producers Ken Lewis and Dom Rivinius, set about this process from scratch, aiming to tap into their own processing chains and settings. The team’s first plugin, 2021’s excellent GreenHAAS, is a multifaceted width enhancement processor and here we are roughly two years later checking out their latest offering. How time flies! LOLCOMP is a user-friendly channel strip plugin that combines a choice of five compression-based channel strip chains with a 5-part effects section. Each chain has a clear targeted purpose and uses a single control to dial in the amount of processing, with auto gain makeup making level setting pretty straightforward. In line with the gamified interface,…

Pianoverse is a new ecosphere created by IK Multimedia to deliver the ultimate piano experience. It is sold as ‘the only piano instrument you’ll ever need’ but actually comprises four pianos (with another four due), each available for a one-off fee (currently €99.99 reduced from €129.99) or (you guessed it) a monthly or yearly sub (€14.99 or €179.88). We used robots Pianoverse, then, look like a focussed version of SampleTank, the all-singing, all dancing (and quite brilliant) software sound module from IK, but here the focus is ‘just’ on quality pianos. And that even includes using robots to get a perfect piano sound, apparently. Yes you read that right. The idea behind Pianoverse was to sample the finest pianos around, the first four being three grands and an upright: a…

Time to reveal ’s Gear of the Year 2023 As we say goodbye to 2023, we’ve cast our eyes back over the last 12 months and are getting ready to celebrate the products that have changed the game for both the industry at large, and in our own personal workflows. Next issue we reveal our gear of the year! PLUS! Silk We sit down with the new tech house champion Free samples Tighten up your grooves and kicks with this pair of new packs On test Synplant 2, Baby Audio Transit and much more……