Innehållsförteckning för January 2023 från Electronic Musician

The demise of Moog’s Moogerfooger range of effect pedals in 2018 was a moment of sadness for many people, who’d come to love this collection of high quality analog stompboxes. Now it’s back, though this time, in the form of a bundle of seven plugins. Bob Moog introduced the Moogerfooger brand in 1998, kicking things off with the MF-01 low-pass filter and MF-102 ring modulator, both of which were inspired by his synth module designs. The MF-103 Phaser was released the following year, and four further products followed. All seven Moegerfoogers have new been emulated for the DAW generation, with each plugin being based on the original analog circuits. The effects now operate in stereo and have expanded feature sets; all parameters can be automated and you can create, save…

Clipping is, technically, a time-honored staple of music production. For most of its life, though, it was unwanted – the distortion caused by a signal whose level was too high for a given piece of gear. These days, clippers and soft clippers serve a lot like brickwall limiters, stopping a signal from going over a certain threshold. The effect is useful in mastering to achieve loudness, but also tends to introduce saturation, especially when pushed hard. Signum Audio’s Skye Clipper takes on clipping with seven modes of operation, which we’ll demonstrate through this article. It also boasts proprietary technology to reduce aliasing artefacts, aiming for a smoother clipping effect that can help push your signal harder and hotter. You can get Skye Clipper or a free trial version at signumaudio.com…

DELAY TACTICS Delays are relatively uncomplicated, or at least that’s the way it should appear, but there is equally plenty of diversity when it comes to delay types, and timbral color. Let’s start by highlighting some of the delay options, with an indication of where you might want to use them. Of course, there are no hard and fast rules with delays in the software domain, and you can use any delay, anywhere you like, freely. The key thing to remember is whether it does what you want it to do, and sounds as you would like it to sound. If it doesn’t, you can be very sure that like delay repeats themselves, another delay will be just around the corner. Going straight Let’s begin our tour by examining a…

We’re kind of always tooling at it. There hasn’t been a major update lately other than, we got it working and compiled on Metal, which means we can have it on iOS and iPad, which is really cool. My favorite thing about OSC Pilot is that we really lit a fire under Hexler’s ass. He wrote Touch OSC 2 to keep up, and he really did a good job with that too, so kudos to him. We’re both developing the same things in parallel. There were a lot of things lacking in the PC department, or the multi-platform department that allowed me to use what is to me a great protocol for music communications, where it’s note data, float data, controller values and stuff like that. I was like, ‘how…

Keyboard MAGAZINE CLASSIC BLAST FROM THE PAST Just as we put finger to key on this month’s Blast From the Past, Roland announced the SE-02, a fully analog entry in their popular Boutique series and a collaboration with US analog mainstays Studio Electronics. Surprisingly, Roland and SE have chosen to overlook the larger company’s legendary past catalog and have instead cobbled together something that is very, well, American, bearing some resemblance to Studio Electronics’ own Minimoog-inspired heritage. Despite the whelps of surprise currently echoing across synthesizer forums, this isn’t the first time Roland have turned to US ingenuity for inspiration. Indeed, in its initial incarnation, one of the company’s most coveted classics was designed to compete with instruments from across the Pacific, and its now-legendary sound had much in common…

The Juno-X is an extremely capable and versatile instrument. If you simply want an updated version of the Juno-106, it can be just that, but there’s much more power under the hood. For instance, as well as the numerous bundled synth engines, the Juno-X has the ability to be expanded with extra classic synth models from the Roland Cloud stable, such as the SH-101, JX-8P, or even Jupiter-8, among others. This makes the Juno-X a kind of ‘several synths in a box’ solution, so much more than just a modern take on the 106 alone. Its wide gamut of preset tones make it capable of producing sounds from any synth-based genre over the past four decades, with more than enough scope for handson editing thanks to the familiar controller layout.…

So how does the new M2 MacBook Air compare to an older M1 Mac? First we did some tests using the same Logic project on both. The M1 booted up and loaded the song in 12.26 seconds while the M2 did it in a significantly quicker 10.75 seconds. When we then bounced the same track to audio, there was much less in it, with the Ml doing the job in 18.95 seconds and M2 creating the stereo file in 18.17 seconds. We then turned to some more trusted tests and downloaded the Logic benchmark project from logicprohelp.com. With this, you load up the project and then add tracks on until ‘System Overload’ is achieved. Our M1 got to 92 tracks whereas the Air M2 got to 100, so it’s an…

$288 www.ikmultimedia.com Strengths + Unprecedented kit and beat editing via modal synthesis + Great playability/ humanization options + Simple UI and easy to use + Deep room shaping, kit-mixing scope Limitations - A real disk-space hogger! 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…

We are very big fans of UVI here; they have a proven track record for creating interesting products, which are production ready, and good-to-go. Part of the strength in this remit is their curation of samples and presets, in a hierarchy which makes light work of the substantial content. If you like the idea of becoming inspired by presets alone, you will find plenty of basses, brass, leads, pads and polysynth sounds, all indigenous to the Andromeda. If you prefer to get busy with editing, there is equally plenty of initial content, providing the perfect launchpad for sonic creation. Collated within the Basics category, you can begin with a mono sound source, right through to an initialized Unison of waves. That was always an Andromeda calling card, as the 32…

Cycling ‘74 have announced the release of RNBD. Pronounced ‘rainbow’, it’s a new patching environment and visual editor that enables users to build audio patches that can be exported to Raspberry Pi, Web Export, VST/AU plugins and more. RNBO is an add-on to Max, Cycling ‘74’s long-established visual programming environment. The developers claim that the idea behind RNBD is to give users the best of Max – “rapid iteration and creative exploration” – along with the freedom to take their work and use it outside of Max, quickly and easily, without having to write any code. This means patches created in RNBD can be turned into VST3/AU plugins, exported to DIY hardware devices, and built into websites with relative ease. (Cycling ‘74 point to Ableton’s Learning Synths tutorial website as…

DELAY TACTICS Read any interview with professional engineers and producers and there will no doubt be mention of their favored equipment, whether it be synthesizers, outboard equipment or more often than not these days, favored plugin effects. Dig a little deeper and you might get an insight into some of the tricks of the trade, and among those who wax lyrical about the wonders of reverb, we would wager that there are just as many who will effervesce about their favorite delay. DAWs are packed with them, or you can get them from classic gear like tape recorders. Step outside and shout in the right location and they are there! Yes, delays are everywhere! So how do you make the most of the delay in a musical context? That’s where…

Keyboard MAGAZINE HOW-TO It seems like we’ve always had Stevie Wonder as part of our musical landscape. He started off as “Little” Stevie Wonder back in 1961, and had his first hit two years later, at the age of 13. Since that time he has grown and developed into one of the most accomplished and musically diverse pop artists of his generation. Popularity and success aside, let’s celebrate some of his musical skills, of which there are many. A Harmonica Virtuoso We can see from his very first hit record (“Fingertips”) that Stevie could play up a storm on the chromatic harmonica. In his earlier years he often featured a harmonica solo in his recordings, like 1968’s For Once In My Life. Here he is playing over changes like a…

$49 www.minimal.audio Strengths + Good choice of filter types + Flexible and simple morphing system + Global curve macro controls + Band-specific channel processing including mid and sides + Filter band auditioning Limitations - No individual bypass per filter Morph EQ (AU, VST, VST3, AAX) is a flexible EQ processor from Minimal Audio, and as the name undeniably 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…

$59 cherryaudio.com Strengths + Beautiful reimagining of a classic + The GUI is a total pleasure to use + Complete MIDI control through real time or DAW + Nice enhancements over the original + It’s a total bargain at this price! Limitations - We can’t find any! 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…

Some of MODO Drum’s most extraordinary abilities, such as the option of having infinite round robins, is thanks to the real-time modal synthesis technology used to create these virtual kits. Unlike traditional sample capture, this innovative tech mathematically models the physical parameters (dimensions, skin, materials, durability etc) and all the in-between variables including play style, stick-type etc and room vibration to swiftly produce what is, in effect, a very real model of the kit within your CPU. You can affect it in real-time, without any processing lag or having to settle for approximations of what certain changes ‘might’ sound like. In effect, it’s like tiny virtual engineers are shifting mics, swapping drum elements and more instantly within your hard drive. It’s a technology that IK have been working on for…

Many of us have been witnesses to a golden age of music tech, one in which digital music tools have come of age, developed their personalities, honed their craft, and become stone-cold masters of audio jiu jitsu. In the last decade or two, digital tools have gone from barely passable, to completely viable, to indispensible and widely adopted. Last issue we explored some of the most innovative software based on ‘old’ sounds: analog circuit components, amp simulators and reverbs. While the technology of these are sopshisticated enough to make a time-traveling 1970s mixing engineer fall to their knees, the tools would still have been familiar and contextual, for the most part. This issue we’re looking in the other direction: at the tools that shine a light on the next steps…

STUDIO TALK Electronic musician, Cong Burn label head and developer John Howes’ music lives on the boundary between chaos and control. On the one hand, his work is largely produced using systems and tools of his own design: rhythms and notes are generated using Strokes, a sequencing environment he’s developed, synth patches are meticulously constructed on his Nord Modular G2 and Elektron Machinedrum, while parameters are modulated using another self-built software tool, the global modulation matrix Dispatch. But though he’s rigorous in his command of the creative process, Howes tells us, it’s when he begins to let go of all this that the magic happens, through generative music-making and semi-autonomous agents that possess what he’s decided to call ‘lo-fi AI’. His latest release, a self-titled project under a new alias,…

Arturia’s October ‘rendez-vous’ event saw the French outfit unveiling four new releases, touching on both hardware and software. Of these, the definite highlight is the MiniFreak, a forthcoming polysynth that takes the digital-meets-analog ideas of the MicroFreak and runs with them. MiniFreak Despite its name, the MiniFreak isn’t exactly what we’d call ‘mini’ – in fact, it expands on the form of the MicroFreak considerably and finds room for a 37-note slim, synth action keyboard. Just like the MicroFreak, the Mini pairs a digital oscillator section with a state-variable analog filter and some neat modulation tools. The upgrades don’t just come down to the size of the hardware though. Whereas the MicroFreak could function as a paraphonic synth to play up-to four notes, the MiniFreak boasts a full six voices…

Akai have upsized their MPK Mini MIDI keyboard and released a Plus version. This comes with an extended three-octave keyboard, a built-in sequencer, MIDI and CV/Gate connectivity, proper pitch and mod wheels, MPC pads, knobs, transport controls and more. That’s a pretty comprehensive spec list, and one that would seem to put the MPK Mini Plus in direct competition with Arturia’s popular KeyStep 37 controller. The 37 slim keys use Akai’s second-generation dynamic bed, while the polyphonic two-track sequencer – designed for creating melodic and drum patterns – comes with Step and Live modes. There are eight notes of polyphony per key step, 16 notes per drum step and an onboard arpeggiator. As well as being useful for drum playing and programming, the pads can also be used for making…

DELAY TACTICS Prior to the use of technology, if you wanted to create some form of delay in sound, you would literally go back to the basic principles of using reflective surfaces. With the advent of recording technology, specifically magnetic tape, it became possible to capture this effect using microphones, allowing the first produced music to be achieved, using effects. Obviously these were more organic than artificial, but the practice was sound enough. As magnetic tape became more widely adopted, much musical exploration took place in the ’50s classical music world. The style of music known as musique concrète, was heavily associated with the use of tape recorders. Also described as ‘found sound’, musique concrète relied heavily on what could be regarded as one of the earliest forms of sampling.…

$1,985 roland.com Strengths + Oodles of original Juno mojo in a solid chassis + Stunning looks and familiar layout + Immense, authentic sound Limitations - Tiny screen can be confusing - Speakers are underwhelming - Steep learning curve for in-depth sound design Roland’s Juno-106 analog polysynth, launched in 1984, holds a cherished place. One of the first truly affordable MIDI-equipped polysynths, and an acknowledged cornerstone of ’80s music, the 106 remains sought after. With the current market price for a decent original Juno-106 around $2,000, what does the Juno-X offer for similar money? Well, nestling under that beguiling exterior lies not just a faithful digital recreation of an original 106, but also the next-generation Juno-X engine, a Juno-60 model, hundreds of sounds from the classic XV-5080 module and RD piano…

from $1,436 apple.com Strengths + The lightest and thinnest Apple laptop + Powerful and silent + Lovely screen and speakers Limitations - Not a huge step up from the M1 Air for audio creation 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 obviously 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…

The concept sounds simple enough, but how exactly do you set this up in Morph EQ? First of all, note that there is no onboard modulation. Instead a master Morph knob controls all active morph pathways. So if you want dynamic effects you need to automate this in your DAW. Each EQ node (filter point) can be morphed and this is achieved using its halo. Click on a filter point and the halo will appear. Then drag from the halo to another point within the display to create a target. Starting from your new target point you can then create a chain of further nodes that mark out the morphing pathway. Connections between target points are initially straight lines, but you can use your cursor to drag curved lines. Pathways…

The included DM14v is reminiscent of a streamlined Shure SM7B, arguably the best podcasting mic, bar none. Just like the Shure, it’s a low sensitivity dynamic mic that’s excellent at rejecting unwanted noise but does demand a lot of clean gain. As mentioned, the Vocaster has more than enough on tap. it’s a basic XLR mic with no on-board EQ controls, but that’s no bad thing here: there’s no setup required. Just like the SM7B, it does feature a built-in pop-filter, windshield, internal shock mount and sturdy mount bracket that’ll work with any stand or boom. It’s a weighty beast too, with a tough all-metal construction. I was really impressed with the sound, especially the mid-range where the voice sits. Unsurprisingly for a dynamic, it’s not detailed but has a…

One of the elements which we particularly enjoyed with this plugin is its standalone operation, allowing you to get creative away from the DAW. With the Elka-X grabbing the majority of your computer’s screen space, it’s the closest thing you will get to a hardware experience in plugin form, at least until we have the complexity of touchscreen that we all yearn for. Until that day, we can make do with the facility provided by Cherry Audio, that allows the easy assignment of any of the GUI controls to MIDI hardware faders. This also extends to MIDI CC control from within the DAW, but it’s nice to have the easy option to assign the filter cutoff to a hardware fader or pot. Of course, we don’t all have large computer…

$80 www.UVI.net Strengths + Captures the Andromeda spirit + Plentiful supply of presets and samples + GUI styling is classy and reminiscent + Improved arpeggiator, over the original Limitations - Not entirely identical sonically - Lacks several characterful elements, available with the original As analog classics go, the Alesis Andromeda A6 is not the model that most cite as a favorite. 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 analog from the year 2000, when analog wasn’t really the flavor of the millennium! T-minus and counting Thankfully, while the pricetag of an original second-hand Andromeda remains high, UVI can help you with another one of their…