Innehållsförteckning för February 2017 från Future Music

Classic Album Track by track with Darude “The album has a nice binding factor in there because of the use of similar synths and stuff throughout. Listening back you can hear things that tie it all together. The JP-8080 is on a lot of it, and you can hear a TR-909 kick on almost everything. And there are a couple of Nord Lead 2 patches that are all over the album as well. It helped to rely on the same equipment.” Darude released his fourth studio album, Moments , in late 2015. It was his second without friend and mentor JS16, and features a greater list of collaborators and experiments with a wider variety of music styles then previous material. A DJ-friendly version followed this year, with…

RECOMMENDED Blue Fields Swimming In The Shadows Haunt Music Four years on from their masterfully haunting debut, Mike Shannon and Takeshi Nishimoto’s Blue Fields project returns with their emotionally charged sophomore album. That 2012 debut won the Canadian DJ/producer and Japanese guitarist widespread acclaim for its beautiful concoction of Downtempo, Jazz and leftfield Electronica. The new record is in much the same vein, but takes on a moodier, darker hue. Whereas the first album sounded calm and laidback, Swimming In The Shadows feels unsettled, paranoid and full of sadness. The production is deeper and more experimental too, exploring more sparse soundscapes where lingering guitars drift over quiet smatterings of drums and grainy textures. The vocals are hazy and sultry, adding to the eerie atmosphere. Moving through various shades, tones and…

Ear Safety If a long and successful audio career is your goal, you must protect your ears against loud decibel levels Prolonged exposure to excessive noise levels – either in loud environments, or by playing headphones or speakers too loud – can easily result in permanent damage to the hair cells in the cochlea, causing hearing loss, tinnitus and other hearing-related ailments that will ruin your enjoyment of music. The solution is simple: keep headphones and speakers at a moderate level, and wear ear protection any time you’re in an environment with loud music playing, no matter how small the venue. We’re big fans of Flare Audio’s Isolate earplugs, but any ear protection is better than nothing, so don’t worry about wearing some free foam ’plugs…

Mid/Side Compression When a one-channel compressor just won’t cut it, this flexible way to split dynamics across the stereo field could be your answer We can use mid/side compression to treat the fully mono (mid) elements and stereo (side) elements of a stereo track differently. Not only can we dial in compression settings for side and mid signals separately, we can also use one to sidechain another, letting the mid duck the side in order to give it more definition and really ram home its powerful focus. If you don’t have a mid/side-capable compressor to hand, you can set up your own using a mid/side encoder such as Voxengo’s free MSED, as explained below. A similar trick to step 3 below can be achieved if your mid/side compressor can be…

Production Workout 2017 GET STARTED WITH EURORACK With the modular revolution well and truly here, we take a look at the history of modular synths from Moog and Buchla to Doepfer and beyond So before we dive in face first, what is a modular synth? Well it’s a synthesizer whose components come as individual modules allowing the user to define the functions and layouts of the system and then define the signal paths for both audio and modulation through patching. The first available modular systems were designed in parallel by the R.A. Moog Co (on the east coast of the US) and by Buchla (on the west coast of the US) in 1963. Who made ‘the first’ modular synth is a debated topic with both Bob Moog and Don Buchla…

Adding Beef To Kicks With Parallel Processing Max shows us how to make raw drum machine kick samples heavier with a little parallel compression and filtering A solid kick is important in practically every genre of Dance music, especially House. But the current vogue for retro-sounding drum machine kits presents a challenge: how can you keep that retro feel without the kicks sounding too thin? Max has a clever answer, which involves parallel ‘New York’ compression and filtering to accentuate his kick’s low-end thump. This effect can be replicated in any DAW using a buss or return track, and any basic compressor or EQ/filter effect. Having this processing occur in parallel means the amount can be dialled in subtly without affecting the original track, so you can get the perfect…

Production Workout 2017 BRUSH UP ON MUSIC THEORY Let’s face it, most music theory is stuffy and off-putting. Here are a bunch of principles you can put to good use – no jargon, just simple techniques Scale up and forget Scales and keys are simple – instead of creating a track using all of the 12 available notes, you create it using seven. The patterns between the notes are what define a scale. If every instrument in a track is playing only from that same set of notes, then you should be in key. The root note is the focal note of the track – D in D major, for example – the one that comes right at the start and end of almost every musical phrase. Start at your…

Parallel Routing With Grouped FX Chains Ableton Live’s Racks offer an easy way to run multiple plug-in combinations side-by-side. Let’s give it a try... Most variations on the ‘rack’ theme allow you to set up and route your chosen effects via multiple series or parallel configurations within an unassuming interface, without you having to set up complex routings/auxiliary channels in your DAW. Ableton Live’s Racks, for example, consist of a Chain, which is one single collection of effects loaded in series, with its own volume and pan sliders. Unfold the Chain List editor, and you can create additional Chains in parallel alongside the first, expanding the Rack’s potential for multiple streams of parallel processing within a single, space-saving virtual container. Presonus Studio One 3’s Extended FX Chains offer similar functionality……

Production Workout 2017 SPICE UP THOSE STATIC SOUNDS While the core sounds in any track are of vital importance, we can develop them even further by making use of some clever techniques to spice them up “Pushing the decay time of a vocal reverb up during a chorus adds an epic, soaraway feel” Think of this like cooking your dinner – mashed potato is great, but it tastes much nicer with salt and pepper added into the mix! By using the ingredients in our effects processing cupboard, we can add extra flavour and individuality to our music. A simple example is using an envelope following modulation effect such as Soundtoys’ FilterFreak on a plain synth patch. Tuning the plug-in’s modulation amount, attack and release times carefully lets us amplify any…

In The Studio With Roman Flügel A mainstay on the electronic scene for over 20 years, producer/DJ and label owner Roman Flügel has been acclaimed for his nonconformist approach. Danny Turner meets the German ‘chameleon’ whose addiction to synthesizers shows little sign of abating Few artists are able to inject a sense of soulful sustenance into the quirky world of electronic music. While some genres are burdened by their own dogmatism, Roman Flügel’s multifaceted approach has always been enlightening. Since 1995, the German workaholic has amassed seven solo projects (including Eight Miles High and Soylent Green) and nine collaborative aliases. To illustrate his diversity, you only have to look at Flügel’s output. Despite not arriving until quite late in his career, his solo debut album Fatty Folders (2011) was a…

YOUTUBE MORE UNMISSABLE VIDEO FEATURES FROM FUTURE MUSIC Meet our line-up of exclusive YouTube goodness. Head online for all this and more! Top producers go in-depth on the sounds, ideas and techniques behind their latest releases. Disciples, Daylight The UK trio invite us into their London studio to talk us through the writing, recording and production process behind their catchy, club-ready House track, Daylight. DON’T MISS: Swindle, Connecta feat. Ricardo China We meet up with the UK producer in his studio to watch him break down his Brazilian-inspired track. Jonas Blue, Perfect Strangers We head to London to watch Jonas Blue break down the sounds and ideas behind his massive crossover Tropical House hit. NZCA Lines, Two Hearts Synth Pop outfit NZCA Lines invite us into…

Modular Monthly Diving into the width and girth of the MMM VCF Let’s explore a range of inputs and ideas for creating fat and wide patches… 01 > You can use the MMM VCF in mono but let’s go stereo. Take two oscillators tuned in unison and take the low-pass output per side for some classic bassline sounds. Try detuning your oscillators for a wider stereo image. 02 > Using the same input on both sides we can take different filter outputs per side to create a stereo image. Try using low-pass on one side and high-pass on the other. This creates an interesting stereo image from a mono source. 03 > Juicy filters shouldn’t be restricted to the domains of subtractive synthesis. Let’s take a stereo modal synthesizer like…

THE ALTERNATIVES Waldorf 2-Pole £150 Waldorf’s gritty filter-come-distortion ticks a lot of the same boxes as the Analog Heat, albeit without any of the modern tricks or plug-in/interface capabilities. It’s mono too. www.waldorf-music. info Thermionic Culture Vulture £1,500 Thermionic Culture s two-channel outboard distortion is an excellent high-end outboard unit with a classic sound and feel. www.thermionic culture.com Elektron Analog Drive £349 If you’re after pure distortion without the other trimmings of the Heat, Elektron’s new analogue stomp box might be just the ticket. www.elektron.se…

Reviews OTO BAM Space Generator €460 Take the best features of classic digital reverbs and put them in a small, affordable box. Stuart Bruce explores Space Generator The sound of it really is like those classic earlier digital reverbs such as the Lexicon PCM60 Paris-based OTO Machines are dedicated to making a small range of effects boxes with more than a tip of the hat to the early days of digital. With a great digital delay under their belt (the BIM), it was time to head into the world of reverb and the BAM is the result of many months of painstaking researching and testing. First impressions are very good. It’s housed in a substantial metal box and well finished with a retro-ish design and has six knobs and eight…

Reviews Expert Sleepers ES-8 £375 It’s not often you come across an audio interface in Eurorack format. Bruce Aisher goes modular and gets patching Being class-compliant, it just requires plugging in to work with a Mac or iOS device The ES-8 is a USB 2.0 multi-channel audio interface compatible with iOS and OSX hardware. However, before diving into the detail it’s worth considering why, with so many audio interfaces on the market, Expert Sleepers have decided to enter the competitive fray. The answer lies squarely in the fact that the ES-8 comes in Eurorack format, and that Expert Sleepers produce a whole panoply of hardware gear aimed at interfacing the analogue synth world with that of the DAW. Most of this would be of little use without appropriate software and,…

Reviews Roland Super UA Interface £449 Compact and high-end needn’t be contradictory terms, as Jon Musgrave discovers with this rather fancy interface Roland’s Super UA is a high-quality desktop USB 2.0 interface which features full 24-bit/ 192kHz support and also allows playback of 1-bit DSD (direct stream digital) and 32-bit PCM format audio. It includes four physical inputs (two line level TRS 1/4-inch jack and two mic XLR) and six physical outputs (two 1/4-inch TRS jack, two XLR, one 1/4-inch headphone and one miniature headphone). The interface comprises two units joined by a 1.5 metre multicore cable. The main unit is a compact desktop design and includes all the jack connectivity, micro USB connector and PSU input, along with a large volume dial, three input selectors (Mic 1, Mic 2…

THE ALTERNATIVES Roland TR-909 (secondhand/ used) £2,000+ The real deal. But don’t forget to check the serial number to see what modifications Roland made. Some prefer the kick drum in earlier versions. www.ebay.co.uk D16 Drumazon €99 A plug-in recreation (or reinvention) of the TR-909. Drumazon, while similar in look and feel to the original – in software terms – offers a wider range of sound parameter tweaks and the convenience of routing straight into your DAW. www.d16.pl Roland TR-8 £409 Roland’s first foray into modelling some of their past rhythm boxes. It can now host the full range of classic 909, 808, 707, 727 and 606 sound sets. www.roland.com/uk…

Making simple transition sounds/FX Could you show me a quick way to make simple transition sounds using Logic’s native plug-ins? Transition sounds and spot FX can add sonic interest while also helping to smooth over or punctuate between different sections. Transition FX sounds can easily be created with a bit of noise, resonance, filtering and some delay, so that’s a good place to start. Also, you could try pitchbending swoops (up or down) automated panning, mod delays and tape delays too. Or you could place a high-pass or band-pass filter on your master buss and automate it to cut in and out at key transition points. Here are a few starting points… Using noise: Here we’re using the noise slider in Logic’s polyphonic synth plug-in, with a little resonance to…

LIKE IT? TRY THESE… JS16 Stomping System 1998’s Stomping System is the only full-length artist album from Jaakko Salovaara under his JS16 moniker. See what first attracted Darude to his Finnish mentor. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Stomping System, Love Supreme, Stomp To My Beat Darude Hits & Remixes Perfect comp for getting acquainted with today’s featured artist. Contains all his hits, and more, with some deft remixes in to keep the styles varied. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Sandstorm (Jan Driver Remix), Music (Megara vs. DJ Lee Remix), Feel The Beat (Robbie Rivera’s Tribal Sessions Mix) Robert Miles Dreamland Featuring dreamy smash Children , which sits nicely with tracks like Sandstorm . Check in to see if there are…

SoundGym Ear Training Workout Are you a heavy lifter when judging tonal change, compression and delay? Find out with a workout! These challenges ask you to evaluate the exact frequency value of a bell boost or cut. Two buttons – Original and After Gain – sit in the centre, and you click between them to instantly A/B between the unprocessed and EQ’d signal. Once you’ve made your mind up, you click on the main frequency graph at the point you judge. As with all the tasks, they seem fairly easy at first, but the values become more subtle as you progress. Here’s another challenge that appears to be incredibly simple on the surface, but requires skill and focus to master. A sound source is played at a position from left…

Serial Compression If using more than one compressor sounds hedonistic to you, think again. It’s a real technique, with real benefits, and it’s called serial compression We all know about parallel compression, blending a heavily compressed signal with an unprocessed one… but serial compression is a different animal. It uses multiple compressors placed in a chain. The principles were first used in mastering, with the Shadow Hills compressor being a good example, but we’re using it in a mixing context here. So how is serial compression different to just whacking a single compressor onto a channel in your mix? Here’s a raw vocal track ready for some compression. The obvious first step is to throw a compressor on there and dial in some appropriate settings. That’s fine, but we can…

DOs & DON’TS In the World of Modular DO… Look at putting together a Frankenstein system that pulls in ideas from all forms of synthesis… west coast FM and wavefolding, subtractive fat filtering, drums, FX, sequencers and controllers – you can make a truly unique system. Check your buss boards and modules before plugging them in. The general rule is the red stripe on the ribbon cable carries the -12 volts and is usually facing downwards on the module and buss board. DON’T… Patch the output of a module into the output of another module. This is the only ‘rule’ to stick to. You’ll be sad if you break your new modules! Be afraid to mix up audio and modulation. Your CV inputs often yield new sonic territory when modulated…

Production Workout 2017 UNORTHODOX ARRANGEMENTS Sometimes to get in touch with the creative side of our brain it helps to approach things from a slightly different angle. Here are some ideas to try… Do the opposite An often-cited arrangement technique is to take a commercial track you like and drop the file on your arrange page, so you can copy the structure of this track as a guide for your own arrangement. One absolutely unintuitive but nonetheless effective way to turn this method on its head is to start with a track you like, but then use its arrangement as a template for what not to do! Has the artist’s track got a long, drawn-out, progressive style? Then make your arrangement short and snappy! You get the idea… Don’t listen…

Fleshing Out The Beat With Claps, Hats And Percussion Once Max has got his kicks sounding substantial, he laces his beat with a selection of other drum machine samples and a funky shaker loop Next Max adds a clap, and like the kick he does this by sequencing a short note and using the Simpler’s Release time to control how long the sample plays for. To apply manual swing, Max zooms the MIDI grid editor in and repositions one of the hits manually. He also turns down the velocity on the swung hit to make it less prominent. An open 909 hat is added next, which Max tunes to fit with the kick and the clap, and he then applies reverb to it via a return track. He complements the…

Deconstructing Six Essential Ableton Live Racks Custom devices can supercharge your sessions – let’s break down six Audio Effect Rack recipes. Grab them from http://vault.futuremusic.co.uk 1 For this reverb rack, we’ve first created two parallel chains – the dry chain is empty to allow the unprocessed signal to pass through; the wet chain contains a reverb device. As well as assigning four reverb-tweaking parameters to the rack’s macros, we’ve assigned both of the chains’ volume sliders to two of the rack’s macros for dry/wet level balancing. An EQ Eight, after the reverb, gives us accessible high-/low-pass filters for sculpting the reverb signal’s tone. 2 Ableton Live’s channel pan offers only a simple levelling of the left and right channels in tandem, so this custom gadget provides precise control over the…

Attack Of The Reverb Add brightness and the illusion of sharper transients to your mix by using this clever reverb processing trick Modern commercial music often has a crisp, bright sound but it can be hard to extract that sound from our own productions without the high frequencies sounding over-processed or fatiguing. A great technique to help with adding brightness and sharper transients to your mix is to add a transient shaper to your reverb sends before boosting the attack subtly. When used with care, this’ll give a more defined feel to the track’s high frequencies while avoiding the excessive transient spikes that applying similar processing to the dry signal typically brings and putting less strain on any master limiting. This can work well on any reverb send, but we’re…

THE TRACK Keeno Enigma Med School, 2017 © Joe Branston Will Keen, aka Keeno, may just be a young lad in his early 20s, but he’s already carved a niche for himself as the master of heart-tugging musical D ’n’ B. After just a few releases on underground liquid D ’n’ B labels (including the infamous Liquid Tones) he signed to Hospital spin-off imprint Med School in 2014, and has already released two albums, 2014’s Life Cycle and last year’s Futurist. We caught up with him in his Bristol studio for an exclusive peek at the title track from his latest EP, Enigma. So, how did the idea for this track come about? “Every morning before I sit down for breakfast I’ll just play keys for 15-20 minutes and see…

In The Studio With Tycho Tycho’s 2011 Dive took the electronic world by storm, and Epoch completes a trilogy of stunning releases. Danny Turner talks to Scott Hansen about his studio and his journey from graphic designer to Grammy nominated artist Initially influenced by early Drum ’n’ Bass, Scott Hansen stumbled into the world of electronic music via a secondhand Roland MC-303 and the Downtempo obscurity of early Boards of Canada and Ulrich Schnauss. Following his largely unnoticed debut Past Is Prologue in 2010, Hansen’s second Tycho album, Dive became a Chillwave classic. Awash with heavy effects processing, its sublimely atmospheric electronics and equally resonant cover art, designed by Hansen himself, attracted almost unanimous critical acclaim. His latest album, Epoch, is seen by Hansen as the end of a trilogy…

Interview Vermont German electronic luminaries reconvene to produce the sumptuous Downtempo analogue delights of Vermont II. Hamish Mackintosh takes a chill pill and finds out more They are perhaps better known for their respective DJ/production skills and projects – Marcus Worgull for a slew of floor-fillers on the Innervisions imprint, and Danilo Plessow for the Funk-fuelled House of his Motor City Drum Ensemble alter-ego… But when the two come together as Vermont, the tempos drop, the vintage synths are dusted down and mesmeric sound reveries are duly fashioned. Debut album, Vermont, landed to much acclaim in 2014 and Plessow and Worgull enjoyed the experience of collaborating so much they hunkered down in Plessow’s then Amsterdam studio to create, Vermont II. From the languid opening refrain of Norderney, to the analogue…

Reviews Pioneer DJ PLX-500 £299 Looking for a low-cost DJ deck from a name you can trust? Roy Spencer investigates whether Pioneer’s latest budget turntable is the one for you The 500’s platter isn’t as rock solid as a 1210, but once you’ve got accustomed to it, it’s plain sailing The launch of Pioneer’s high-end PLX-1000 DJ turntable last year caused a few ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhhs’, and fitted nicely into that gap left by the demise of the mighty Technics 1210. Seemingly enjoying their saviour status, they’ve now decided it’s up to them to rescue the budget end of the DJ turntable market too. Enter the PLX-500 – Pioneer’s sub 300 quid deck. It looks like a PLX-1000 (and therefore a Technics), but it doesn’t inherit all the muscle of…

THE ALTERNATIVES Lexicon MX200 $299 The entry-level Lexicon has plenty of useful features and knobs to manipulate the sound with. It has USB options in crude editing software and the ability to run it as an insert in your DAW. It doesn’t have vintage sound but lots of control possibilities. www.lexiconpro.com Eventide Space $579 A high-quality stomp box-style unit that offers much more than just simple reverb and has high levels of real-time manipulation. Again, it won’t give you the sound of a vintage digital reverb but gives you access to the performance capabilities. www.eventideaudio.com Yamaha SPX90 From £75 (used) The SPX90 really started the revolution of affordable reverb units. It is a great unit with a unique and coloured sound. Editing is via menus and a set of up/down…

Reviews Spectrasonics Keyscape £285 From Stylus to Omnisphere, Spectrasonics’ plug-in instruments are widely respected. Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman tries their latest Considering the current love of all things vintage and analogue, it’s genuinely surprising that as yet there’s no definitive ‘industry standard’ go-to sample library for super high-quality acoustic, electro-mechanical, vintage digital and hybrid keyboards. For the more discerning players and listeners out there, perhaps it’s fair to say that nobody has truly nailed the likes of Rhodes, Clavinet, Wurli and acoustic pianos to the extent where you could put them next to the real things in a blind test and the listeners/players be hard-pushed to know which is real or not. There will always tend to be giveaways which could include obvious velocity switching, sloppy release tails, a plastic-ness to…

This Issue BONUS SAMPLES This month’s demo selections free with FM at vault.futuremusic.co.uk . Download and enjoy! https://splice.com 01 Splice Sounds Sounds of KSHMR 02 Splice Sounds Laidback Tropical House www.loopmasters.com 01 Hog Productions Loopmasters Presents 25 Years Of House 02 rv_samplepacks Electro Swing 03 Bass Boutique Nu Era 04 Loopmasters Lack of Afro Presents… Analogue Soul Vol.2 05 Loopmasters Maison Records Presents Tribal House Tech 06 Soundbox Dalston Deep Tech 07 Dabro Music Retro Dance Music 08 Loopmasters Kate Wild Presents Vocal Hooks & Acapellas Vol. 3…

Bitwig adds Maschine Jam compatibility Native Instruments’ Maschine Jam controller already plays nicely with Ableton Live, thanks to a custom mapping created by NI, but now NI have teamed up with Bitwig to create what they are calling “the most powerful and versatile Maschine JAM integration to date”. The advanced control script allows you to not only control the Maschine VST plug-in, but also control Bitwig Studio and to seamlessly switch back and forth between the two. You can record from the step sequencer into Bitwig Studio in real time while making full use of the advanced performance effects in Maschine. The script is available in the latest version of Bitwig Studio which can be downloaded from the Bitwig website at https://www.bitwig.com/en/ download.…

CLASSIC ALBUM Darude Before The Storm 16 Inch Records, 2000 Words by Roy Spencer You can make it! Look at Darude. He’s the man behind Sandstorm – Trance anthem, Internet meme, and the biggest selling vinyl single of 2000. He’s got three Finnish Grammys in his trophy cabinet, and a debut album that clocked up 800,000 sales. But, before all that, he was just little old Ville Virtanen – a wannabe producer with a glint in his eye and a CD-R tucked under his arm. Luckily that CD-R (featuring an early version of Sandstorm) found its way into the hands of national Dance music icon, Jaakko Salovaara, aka JS16, in August of 1999. On hearing the youngster’s ludicrously infectious blend of euphoric Trance riffs and pulsating beats, he called the…

ALBUM REVIEWS © Neil Krugs Bonobo Migration Ninja Tune   ALBUM OF THE MONTH Bonobo’s sixth studio album is his most ambitious and far-reaching album to date. Three years on from 2013’s widely acclaimed The North Borders, the UK producer, real name Simon Green, taps into a rich and lush soundscape for his new album, Migration. The record is densely layered, bursting with colour, texture and emotive melodies, creating a rich tapestry of Green’s deftly constructed electronic explorations. Deep, fluid basslines flow with a natural ease alongside intelligent drums, warm pads, emotive strings, beautifully subtle melodies, shimmering synths, jangling keys and soulful vocals in an album that feels personal, intimate and heartfelt. At times melancholic or wistful and at others joyous and upbeat, Migration has a diverse and constantly shifting…

Production Workout 2017 SHAPE UP YOUR MUSICAL EARS You can kit your studio out in the best gear money can buy, but the most important equipment of all are your ears – so get yours into training! After eating to excess over the Christmas period, the new year is the perfect time to get your backside off the sofa and start a strict regime of diet and exercise. Yet, shouldn’t you also consider pumping up your aural skills for 2017? After all, your mixing skills rely upon two key components: your ears! So, to sharpen your decision-making skills when choosing sounds, composing, mixing and more, check out ear training – the process of improving your listening chops through specific audio training exercises, just as you’d build muscle and burn fat…

Production Workout 2017 BREAK YOUR COMPRESSION HABITS Compression is one of the first things you learn about in music production but one of the hardest to master. Our tips will help you step up your game “When it comes to the art of compression, ‘a compressor’ is only the beginning” Getting basic dynamics right can be the difference between a hard-hitting masterpiece and a squelchy, underpowered mess, and so we’ve all become well-versed in the art of grabbing a compressor, throwing it onto a track, and dialling it in. When you’re first starting out in production, this can be a hard concept to grasp, but when you’ve mastered it, things become easy, straightforward, and… well, a bit run-of-the-mill. When it comes to the art of compression, ‘a compressor’ is only…

Production Workout 2017 UNUSUAL SOUND DESIGN IDEAS Trying something a little unorthodox in your sound design creation process can really open the door for unexpected and new creativity to emerge… Extreme distortion Take a ‘distortion synthesis’ approach to extremes by sculpting entirely new tones and timbres using only simple sounds and distortion – for example, push a pure sine wave into a distortion stage to square off the waveform, and vary the input gain with volume modulation (ie, tremolo) to create wavering waveform change. Generate ‘mistakes’ Sometimes it’s the sounds made by mistakes that really inspire – so create hardware malfunctions on purpose… Plug a cable into the wrong ports to generate buzzes/hums, crank up an empty mixer channel’s preamp gain to capture the amplified system noise, and pull a…

Eurorack Must-Haves Unlike other gear, Eurorack modules are far from ‘plug and play’ without some architecture around them. Here’s what you need… There are three things you need to get started: a way to mount your modules, power and a way to control your modules. Modules mount on rails that can be screwed into end cheeks on a desktop, connected to brackets or rack ears and mounted inside a case. You screw your modules onto the rails and then plug in their power cables (16 or 10-pin ribbons on the module side) into the buss boards that distribute power (these are headers with 16 connection pins) through the system. Power either comes into the case as mains voltages and is controlled with an internal supply or can be an external…

Production Workout 2017 MAKING BEATS WITH MAX CHAPMAN We chat to rising Tech-House star Max Chapman and he gives us the lowdown on how he goes about getting his funky, rolling beats Max Chapman has delighted Tech-House aficionados with his bass-heavy, groove-laden take on the genre, and his releases on Elrow and VIVa have caused dancefloor devastation the world over. We catch up with Max in his Clacton-on-Sea studio… FM: Why approach FM about a drum programming/processing tutorial? Max: “People message me so many times asking me for kicks, and what they don’t realise is that they can take almost anything and make it a lot punchier. So I wanted to teach people how to use parallel compression on a buss or with a return channel,…

Production Workout 2017 10 UNDERRATED SYNTHS TO GET ON YOUR RADAR! These days, it’s genuinely hard to find synth bargains but if you keep an eye out on the likes of eBay and Gumtree, some great and reasonably priced synths do still pop up. Below you’ll find the lowdown on some underrated, yet still relatively cheap synths that are worth grabbing… Yamaha EX5/EX5R Those in the know understand that the EX5 is a special synth. It was ahead of its time when launched in 1998 (ie a multi-engined flagship synth-workstation that pre-dated Korg’s Kronos by 13 years) and it’s still massively underrated. Incorporating not just AWM2 but also an FDSP mode (that could emulate electric piano pickups and water amongst other things) plus VL acoustic/physical modelling, AN (virtual analogue), effects…

Production Workout 2017 CUSTOMISE YOUR PLUG-IN AND FX CHAINS Streamline and speed up your new year studio sessions by sorting out some custom instrument and effects configurations “As well as saving you precious time, these custom racks can really boost your creativity” Although it’s no secret that we’re big hardware lovers here at FM, software sound generators and processors certainly have their advantages – one of the main ones being the ability to instantly recall not only one specific plug-in’s settings, but a whole collection of them as one single preset chain or channel strip. All DAWs offer at least one method for storing chains of plug-ins (and their current settings) for later use: Cubase lets you save channel strip settings and entire track presets, Logic houses Smart Controls, Studio…

Production Workout 2017 LIVEN UP YOUR DRUMS Drums are the backbone of most tracks, so getting a distinctive sound from them is vital. Check our tips to add another dimension to your beat making Liven up your snare Liven up electronic drums by layering hand claps or finger clicks in with your snare, clap or percussion. Record a few takes in using any dynamic or condenser microphone before picking the best ones to layer with your drums. If you’re adding a clap layer to your snare, try using two takes panned left and right to easily create a stereo clap that will also sound good in mono. If you’re making classic boom-bap Hip-Hop beats try layering a humble tambourine over your snare. Experimenting with the timing can give a more…

Flavoursome Tips And Tricks We’ve already let some great tips and tricks out of the bag, but if that still isn’t enough here are some more prime cuts… We can add another dimension to moribund synth sounds by splitting them across two or three FX sends by frequency before processing the groups independently using layers of modulation/distortion effects. To minimise ugly phase combing or distortion, use pre fader sends and pull down the original channel’s volume to silence before dialling in some linear phase EQ filters on each send last in the chain to split your sound into low/mid/high frequency channels. Giving any boring mono vocal chop an exciting makeover is easy. Simply set up two sends panned wide left and right from the vocal sample before placing a pitchshifting…

Keeno Composing Enigma’s epic strings Keeno’s signature string sounds are carefully composed for maximum emotional impact… 01 > Will is arranging Enigma for a virtual string quartet. He records the part via MIDI from his keyboard, then splits the MIDI into separate voices so he can use a different instrument for each one: violin, viola, cello and double bass. 02 > Originally opting for a pizzicato playing style, this was too similar to another of Will’s tracks so he switches this up to a staccato style which sounds more mysterious and in keeping with the vibe of the track. The violin part switches octaves to give it a more animated feel, rather than sounding like the same chord playing repeatedly. 03 > Will uses EastWest Symphonic…

MODULAR MONTHLY Set filters to stereo! Happy Nerding bring us the first stereo filter in the Eurorack format. Stereo isn’t totally new to the modular world – we’ve had options for a long time. The most primitive method would be to just buy two of any given module to have a left processor and a right. Stereo filtering has also been possible through the use of dual filters which can often process signals in series or parallel, allowing you to go classic high-pass into low-pass like the Korg MS-20 (or other combinations of course) or to use both sides independently. However, the MMM VCF from Happy Nerding is the first specific stereo filter. It’s got two inputs and two outputs but with shared control. It’s not two independent filters à…

REVIEWS Elektron Analog Heat Sound Processor £679 Elektron’s stereo effects box puts its distortion front and centre but, as Si Truss discovers, it’s got plenty more up its sleeves too After more than 15 years in the hi-tech hardware game, Elektron have released their first effects unit. Sliding into the brand’s ‘Analog’ range, alongside the Analog Four and Analog Keys synths and Analog RYTM drum machine, Analog Heat is a stereo effects processor pitched as an “audio enhancer and audio destroyer”. At its core, the Heat is a combination distortion, EQ and filter, of which the former section is the star of the show, offering a range of eight different stereo analogue distortion circuits. Selected via a large rotary to the left of the unit, these circuits are labelled Clean…

Reviews JZ V16-BB €998 The JZ Vintage range gets a new addition aimed at vocal and acoustic instrument work with the V16-BB. Robbie Stamp checks its studio credentials In the high-frequency range a ‘tinsel’ quality really brings out the life of a source The V16-BB is a handmade large diaphragm condenser mic. There’s no pad or low cut, and the pickup pattern is a fixed cardioid. The grille and capsule proximity give the impression it places little between the source and the diaphragm, and aurally it appears to do just that. This is a sensitive mic, providing a healthy output alongside a low noise floor making it ideal for quiet, delicate sources. This sensitivity is most noticeable in the high-frequency range where there is a ‘tinsel’ quality that really brings…

THE ALTERNATIVES Neo-Soul Keys 5X EP $199.99 This has some nicely authentic models of the Rhodes Stage and Suitcase, plus the Wurli EP. Great tone and realistic FX. www.gospel musicians.com Modartt Pianoteq 5 £188 A very tweakable modelling acoustic piano engine, to which you can add instrument packs including acoustic and electric pianos, Clavinets, vibes, marimbas, steel pans and celeste. Closest to Keyscape. www.pianoteq.com NI Scarbee Vintage Keys (For Kontakt) £129 This collection of four sampled vintage keyboard instruments includes a Rhodes, Wurli, Clavinet and Pianet with mechanical/ electrical noise and authentic FX. www.native-instruments.com…

Reviews Roland TR-09 Rhythm Composer £369 The original TR-909 can still be heard on tracks today. Bruce Aisher tests the new TR-09 to see if it has some competition A few months on from Roland announcing their digital reincarnation of the TR-909 and the noise about the apparent folly of Roland rejecting the analogue world is still raging. The fact that it started long before the TR-09 landed says as much about the debate as any direct audio comparison might. Let’s not even delve into the possible problems associated with making comparisons of musical hardware via compressed internet-based audio, or the less than scientific approach of switching the audio source while saying which unit is active – after all, who is going to admit that they can’t hear the difference…

Advice PART 5: WHAT’S THE BEST ROUTE? Rockschool course tutors Hannah V and Sam Vasanth take us through their graded Production Syllabus In this instalment we want to delve deeper into the world of routing techniques – essential tools of high-level production and mixing. Signal flow or routing is the path an audio signal takes from the original source to the master output. This includes all the processing, such as equalisation and compression, including effects. It gives producers more options and control, and the benefits include organisation, automation, master effects and sophisticated effects chains. Let’s look at some different routing techniques… VCA/Groups Two ways of grouping your stems are using the VCA or the Group function. VCA: The VCA function creates a VCA channel. This channel is solely used for…