Innehållsförteckning för June 2017 från Future Music

Classic Album Track by track with Ferry Corsten “I didn’t really dust off the old gear from the ’80s era I was drawing on. I do love that old gear, though. There’s a purism to working with the real old hardware and stuff, but nine times out of ten those things are just a nightmare to connect with the CDJs or whatever. Forget it man. Intro “This starts the album with some Morse code. It was just me really feeling out just how engaged the listeners would be. I was wondering if there would be any nutcases around the world who would take the time out to decode the hidden message. “What was it? Oh, it spells out ‘Ferry Corsten’, and the name of the album, ‘L-E-F’ [laughs]. I hope…

RECOMMENDED Justin Walter Unseen Forces Kranky The Michigan-based trumpeter unveils his beautiful, distinctive and experimental second album with Chicago indie label Kranky. Four years on from his debut album Lullabies & Nightmares, the new record is a full-length exploration of the EVI, (Electronic Valve Instrument) a rare wind-controlled ’70s analogue synth. Walter loops the EVI’s hazy range of textures and adds quiet electronics to build improvised soundscapes and sampled manipulations, providing the backbone of the entire record. Those soundscapes are highly immersive and full of emotion. Opaque tones, pastel watercolours and hazy, dreamy atmospheres drift along with an ethereal glow. Fragile, delicate, yet ingrained with a central force of energy, Unseen Forces is a dense and highly textured masterstroke of improvisation. Walter’s jazz-like explorations create a record that feels free,…

Retro Synth Soundtracks Perfecting arpeggiator parts There’s more to an arpeggiator than its direction. Here we treat a basic sound to a wash of effects and synth tweaks to give it more character Our backing track starts with a dark filtered pad from Omnisphere and a supporting sub bass. Both parts are being fed into Valhalla’s VintageVerb, which is set up with a Dirty Hall algorithm, providing some detuned pitch modulation and a low-sample rate, producing some grit and unpredictability. We’re using Logic Pro’s Arpeggiator, using an ‘Up and Down’ pattern so that the bottom and top notes are repeated. We put UAD’s Moog Filter on the first Insert slot to add further resonant filtering, using a low-pass 4-pole filter with cutoff at 3kHz and some resonance.   We open…

Adding ‘authentic’ drums to your tracks Synth sounds of the golden age are matched in their desirability by classic beatboxes of a certain vintage – here’s how to get authentic electric grooves Just as the ’70s and ’80s were the golden age for synthesizers, so too they were for drum machines. Some of the most celebrated designs we still covet today originate from that period, and many of these units have been extensively sampled to create a range of virtual drum machines, so the expense of sourcing one of the originals units isn’t necessary. We’re using a couple of sound sources for our programmed beats, mixing and matching the classic kick and snare of the LinnDrum with the hats of the E-mu SP-12. However, we’re being as authentic as we…

Retro Synth Soundtracks How to… Quantize; are you sure? Quantisation is a MIDI-era function which we’ve enjoyed (and come to take for granted) only since MIDI sequencing became popular. As synth soundtracks from the ’70s didn’t enjoy the luxury of timing correction, there was a greater emphasis on ‘performance’. Listen to Vangelis’ soundtracks and you’ll hear that a ‘downbeat’ produces a cluster of notes, with some arriving early and others late. There’s an extraordinary humanity in the effect this creates. Don’t be in a rush to squeeze the rhythmic life out of the way you play your sequences into your DAW. Humanity can be at the heart and soul of your score. How to… Set up appropriate reverbs Just like ’70s and ’80s synths, ’70s and ’80s reverbs are sonically…

Building a basic synth in NI Reaktor Blocks NI’s micro-modular environment features Eurorack-style components that’ll have you building synths of your own. Here’s a basic synth in three steps For those coveting Eurorack components or a full modular system, money is often a significant obstacle to overcome. A ‘new’ Blocks patch features a MIDI In module, which will detect the keys you play, but after that, it’s over to you and your creativity. Here, we’re keeping things simple with a monosynth compromised of just the ‘typical’ modules: one Oscillator, one Filter, one Amplifier. But without modulation, all this will yield is a pitch whose volume is constant. So we’re using Envelopes to control the volume, filter cutoff and to provide modulation of the Oscillator’s pitch too. These alone provide musical…

Arturia DrumBrute Getting an Earful of the DrumBrute’s Sound Engine The DrumBrute comes flush with a standard selection of electronic drum kit sounds, each programmed and tweaked in their own special ways. Kick 1 has a recognisable resemblance to that of the TR-909. Although the real 909’s was somewhat smoother, the Drumbrute does trump it somewhat in terms of editing and tonal range. The Impact parameter increases transient bite by dialling in a second, short tom-like oscillator tone, while Sweep adjusts the range of the resonating filter sweep applied to the lower underlying oscillator. Just because the sound is labelled as a kick, this shouldn’t discount it being used for other things. Turning the Decay right down, and maxing both Impact and Sweep shifts the sound it into different percussive…

In The Studio Hauschka Hauschka Best known for his ingenious experiments with prepared piano, the Oscar-nominated artist has increasingly turned to electronics to texturise his sound. Danny Turner joins the composer in the studio to discuss What If, his latest attempt to shatter mainstream neo-classical barriers. © Joseph Branston Born in the low mountains of northern Siegerland, Volker Bertelmann (aka Hauschka) began playing piano at eight years old and studied classical piano for a decade. Aged 14, he formed his first rock band before adulthood led him to Cologne to study medicine and economics. But music remained his real passion, and in the early ’90s, Bertelmann became a full-time member of the hip-hop duo God’s Favourite Dog. In 1995, he moved to Düsseldorf and began to draw on his classical…

MODULAR MONTHLY Bastl give us wood! The Czech instrument makers’ oak-fronted Eurorack modules are the natural choice for an organic sound Bastl Instruments came together as a community of instrument makers in Brno in 2013, sourcing and producing everything they make locally. You may remember their microGranny granular sampler, and you might have seen the recent Kastle pocket-size synthesiser and Klik analogue timing device. But it’s their distinctive wood-fronted Eurorack modules we’ll be looking at here. Bringing a natural feel to your modular setup, Bastl’s range of devices has been steadily growing over the years, with the collection now numbering over 30 modules including drum generators, triggers and sequencers, effects and loads more, with additions to the line-up expected soon. This month, we’re getting back to our modular ‘roots’ with…

What would you recommend as an entry point to the modular realm? “Doepfer stuff is incredible value for money. You can build a modular system for a few hundred pounds, whereas that would probably only buy you one oscillator from a boutique company like Make Noise. Modular is one of those things you’ve got to just dive in and have a go at. Some people prefer the Buchla sound and some prefer the Moog sound. I do jams, so I’ll build something that I find interesting and use the S6000, which has a huge memory, sample it in real time for about 20 minutes, input that into the computer and chop it up.”…

Korg Gadget for Mac Korg Gadget for Mac $299 The acclaimed iOS sound studio comes to macOS. Si Truss asks if it can cut the mustard in the desktop world It wouldn’t be controversial to say that Korg’s self-contained sequencer and instrument suite Gadget is one of the best music making apps for iOS. The range and quality of sounds it offers is unrivalled on the platform, but its winning formula owes as much to its smartly designed interface, accessibility and flexible export options as it does its actual sonics. Gadget for Mac is – somewhat obviously – a macOS port of the same application. For the most part, it remains identical to its iOS counterpart. Once again, the star of the show is the ever-growing library of sound modules,…

Nord Piano 3 Nord Piano 3 £2,249 As Nord’s latest offering to pianists hits version three, Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman gets his hands black, white and red all over There’s an ever-growing choice of pianos available, plus a gigabyte of memory The original Nord Piano launched back in 2010, aimed at the discerning piano player wanting access to Nord’s respected Piano Library sounds with premium weighted keyboard action in a portable form-factor. 2012 saw the second edition, adding user sample loading, Nord Sample Library capability and more memory. Now, fresh for 2017, the Nord Piano 3 brings more to the table. One cosmetic difference between the latest and older models is that the endcheeks are now unvarnished. While these definitely look slicker, I reckon they’ll be less roadworthy long-term compared to…

Tiptop Audio get Folding US brand Tiptop Audio have unveiled their latest Eurorack offering, the Fold Processor. Fold is a wavefrom multiplier and sub-octave generator. It uses a classic diode circuit design which introduces extra harmonic content to incoming waveforms by ‘folding’ the signal. According to Tiptop, Fold will create new, complex waves from classic saw, square or triangle input, with a CV input allowing animation of the folding process. An Inject control, meanwhile, will adjust the bias point for further sonic manipulation. Beyond this folding section, a subdivide generator ‘squares’ the output signal, generating four sounds each an octave apart, with gain knobs for each subdivision, plus an independent Subdiv output. Fold is available now, priced at £135.…

LIKE IT? TRY THESE… Ferry Corsten Blueprint Ferry’s brand new sci-fi themed masterpiece. Trance music’s first concept album, surely? ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Blueprint, Blueprint, Blueprint Duran Duran Liberty Check the album that links Ferry to Duran Duran. The track Serious begat his own Fire . ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Serious, Violence of Summer (Love’s Taking Over), Read My Lips Ferry Corsten Right of Way See how Ferry kicked things off on his banging debut album. The echoes of Rock Your Body Rock and Punk are felt on his follow-up. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Rock Your Body Rock, Sublime, Punk Leftfield Leftism Frankly astounding album that influenced everyone, including Ferry Corsten. Check…

Coldcut x On-U Sound Outside The Echo Chamber Ahead Of Our Time The British hip-hop and bass heavyweights join forces with On-U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood for a highly impressive collaboration. This wonderfully eclectic record celebrates the diversity of outward-looking British music scenes. Fusing electronic music with dub, hip-hop, UK bass, pop and global flavours, the album reflects the intertwined history of Britain’s musical melting point. Low-slung grooves, intoxicating rhythms, booming beats and futuristic synths collide with indigenous and traditional rhythms to create a soundscape that is every bit exciting as it is unpredictable. Made in London, Ramsgate, Jamaica and Los Angeles and featuring a host of globally renowned collaborators including Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Roots Manuva, Toddla T, Junior Reid and Ce’Cile, Outside The Echo Chamber has an infectious celebratory and…

Celebrating the pioneers © Martyn Goddard / Alamy Stock Photo There’s no shortage of pioneers when it comes to celebrating the achievements of the early synth heroes, with Kraftwerk and Jean-Michel Jarre so often cited as a source of inspiration for many of today’s electronic producers. However, we’re (briefly) going to shine a light on two others here, encouraging you to explore their work in a soundtrack context. The first is Vangelis. The Greek legend is perhaps best known for his Chariots Of Fire soundtrack (1981) which, set at the 1924 Olympics, simply shouldn’t work due to its synth-heavy timbres. It’s a classic example of an anachronistic soundtrack, where the sound sources used didn’t exist at the time being portrayed in the film… and yet it does work – so…

DOs & DON’Ts of Soundtrack Creation DO: If you want your soft synths to ‘behave’ more like their analogue forebears, switch off internal effects like reverb or delay. Analogue synths might have featured doubling effects like Chorus and Ensemble effects but almost never included spatial effects. DON’T: Use presets. The work explored through this article and the soundtracks mentioned celebrate original sound design. Be unique with your sounds and your productions will be stronger for it. DO: If you’re working with plugin modular systems like NI Reaktor Blocks, Softube Modular or hardware Eurorack components, think creatively. Understanding synth modules and their ‘traditional’ flow is important, but once you’ve got basic theory mastered, be brave and look for unpredictable module connections. DON’T: Worry that sounds generated from some external hardware can’t…

Making authentic step sequences in your DAW You don’t need an analogue step sequencer to create convincing sequences, but it does help to ‘think like one’ After some improvisation, we find a pattern of notes that we want to use as a sequence hook. We slow the sequencer tempo down to 60bpm to record these. As you can see and hear, velocities are irregular, as are note lengths and the timing of notes too.   Next, we want some filter variation so that the tone isn’t uniform throughout. Again, we have to imagine that we’re controlling the Filter Envelope amount in real-time. So we select automation ‘Latch’ mode and draw in a little variation, leaving the automation data as recorded.   We turn this recording into the kind of pattern…

Interview SURVIVE Formed in 2008, SURVIVE are busier than ever since hitting the spotlight with their soundtrack for Netflix’s Stranger Things. JoE Silva meets the band in Michael Stein’s synthstuffed home studio and talks gear, composing and the latest album, RR7349 © Simon Lees In Austin they say the taps run hot, cold and barbecue. And while plenty of other places outside of the Texas capital may have a good many taco stands and vintage clothing shops, the concentration of all these things seems higher in the ‘City of the Violet Crown’. They even have their own synth shop, which has been a handy thing for the members of SURVIVE since they formed in 2008. In fact, a fair amount of the gear that Michael Stein maintains in his home…

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 Alan Walker, Alone Get in the studio with the masked master as he deconstructs the techniques behind Alone, the atmospheric track that’s garnered a quarter of a billion YouTube views to date DON’T MISS: Roosevelt, Wait Up The Greco-Roman artist invites us into his Cologne studio to break down the opener to his self-titled album. René LaVice, Richter Scale The Canadian D&B producer deconstructs his (literally) earthshaking club banger Richter Scale. Keeno, Enigma Bristol-based D&B producer Keeno invites us into his studio to see him break down his…

QUICK TIPS 1 Make sure you’re running the latest firmware for bug fixes and extra functions. 2 The Copy and Erase buttons work on Bank, Patterns and individual drum tracks. You can also Spot Erase individual steps in real time by holding the Erase button and hitting the relevant pad. 3 Repurposing sounds allows you to up your Tom count. Lower Kick 2’s Decay to 9 o’clock and it fits well with the Hi and Low Toms. You can even create four-note basslines using the Toms and Kicks simultaneously. 4 The metronome sound gets its own output, and it’s also removed from the main output when headphones are used. The sound is then routed to the headphones for tempo monitoring in a live situation. 5 The MIDI Control Center is…

Tutorial King of the Bastl In this video, we use a few choice cuts from Bastl’s range of modular gear to construct some well-polished grooves and sequences 01 A good house is built on strong foundations, so let’s start with the Tea Kick drum synth. Take a trigger sequence and patch into the Tea Kick to excite and stimulate the membrane. Play the resonance and click to fine-tune the skin and stick sound layers. 02 There’s always room for noise in a patch, whether used for sound or modulation. Using Noise Squared, try patching the pink noise to the FM input of your oscillator to add a little fuzz and grit. Then take the Cow output into a VCA for some cowbell action. 03 For sound shaping, we can use…

REVIEWS Akai MPC Live £799 This isn’t just a new standalone MPC – its operating system and rechargeable battery make it potentially the most self-sufficient MPC ever. Si Truss goes off the grid... Sampling and sequencing remain the heart of the MPC experience Akai released the first computer-reliant ‘hybrid’ MPC in 2012, and immediately it divided opinion among users. There are two schools of thought – the purists, who argue that reducing the MPC to the status of a controller strips it of its essence, and the pragmatists, who acknowledge that a standalone MIDI sequencer is a bit of an anachronism in an age of cheap laptops. Both have a point. Now, with the launch of the MPC Live and its forthcoming big sibling, the MPC X, Akai appear to…

APOGEE REMOTE CONTROL The Element software is beautifully configured, but if you want hardware control over your Element interface, Apogee Control is available (separately). This compact desktop remote is powered via USB, and its controls can be set up via the Element software. Eight buttons (1-4 and A-D) can control functions such as Input Levels, phantom power, talkback and many, many others, while the three buttons around the rotary at the bottom let you toggle between inputs, headphone setups and speaker controls. The wheel itself lets you dial in/out levels, and doubles as a button which is similarly configurable.…

Akai Pro LP Wireless Controllers Akai LP Wireless Controllers £70 Akai have updated their LPK25 and LPD8 controllers with wireless functionality and more. Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman has a fiddle Battery power and Bluetooth MIDI are liberating and indispensable Akai’s new LPK25 Wireless controller features a 25-note minikey keyboard with velocity sensitivity. It’s a very compact unit, bus-powerable over USB from your laptop or studio computer. For travelling, its diminutive size and low weight mean you can sling it into a bag and not even realise it’s there, and battery power is now included, making a big improvement over the wired models. The real killer feature, though, is Bluetooth MIDI, which allows pairing with iOS, Mac or Windows devices. This is, thankfully, easy to set up using the Pair button, and…

SOUNDS & SAMPLES Output Analog Strings $199 Unlike Spitfire’s LCO library [below], Analog Strings from Kontakt supremos Output is all about processing and manipulation. Those who’ve used their Signal and Exhale instruments will know that Output pay great attention to the ways in which core sample content can be dynamically morphed using scripted rhythmic processing. Their Analog Strings library is no exception, and once again features a beautifully designed graphical interface at its core, which makes full use of the wider edit window possibilities added in Kontakt 5.6. The core (39GB) sample content comes from orchestral recording, analogue synths and unusual sound source captures. It’s noticeable that – even without processing – these are of a very high quality. The software engine is brand new, and allows two sample layers…

Combining interfaces on a Mac How can I use both my Allen & Heath Firewire desk and Prism Titan USB interface in Logic? From the Audio MIDI Setup in OS X and macOS, you can set up ‘Aggregate Devices’ and ‘Multi-Output Devices’, which allow multiple connected interfaces to be seen as one unit by you DAW. It does take some initial thought and head scratching, but both are relatively easy to set up. If you’re combining two input interfaces into one Aggregate device, you might need to increase the buffer size in your DAW. You can also set the unit with the tightest internal clock to be the master clock for your whole system. Let’s take a look… To set up two devices as a single unit, firstly go to…

This Issue BONUS SAMPLES See this month’s selection of free demos at vault.futuremusic.co.uk www.loopmasters.com 01 Niche Audio Ambient Cinematics 02 Loopmasters Pres. Infinity Down Tempo & Ambient 03 Dubmatix Pres. Dope Dubs 04 Cinetools Presents Climax – Whooshes, Pass Bys and Fly Bys 05 Loopmasters Artist Series 161 Styline Power House 06 Soul Rush Records Grime & Bassline Massive Presets 07 TD Audio Hard Trap 08 Tropics Presents Retro Electronic https://splice.com 01 Splice Sounds Dark Melodic Techno 02 Splice Sounds Sounds of KSHMR Vol.2…

Nord unveil the Stage 3 Nord have announced the arrival of the Stage 3 piano, the latest step in their continuing mission to create “the ultimate instrument for the performing musician”. There are improvements across the feature set, with one of the most eye-catching being the addition of OLED displays in the Program and Synth sections. The memory for the Nord Piano Library has been doubled, with polyphony being expanded to 120 voices, and the Synth section now features the synth engine from the Nord Lead A1, complete with sample playback. The Organ section now features the Nord C2D organ engine and Model 122 Vintage Rotary Speaker, while the Nord Stage 3 Compact gets physical drawbars (the range also includes 76-and 88-note hammer action versions). Improvements are evident in the…

CLASSIC ALBUM Ferry Corsten L.E.F. Flashover Recordings, 2006 Words by Roy Spencer Ferry Corsten doesn’t like to keep still. Like some kind of Dutch trance shark, he has to keep moving else he’ll cark it. Constantly releasing, constantly reinventing himself, he’s one producer that can’t be pinned down. Case in point: His second album, L.E.F. He says the title stands for “Loud. Electronic. Ferocious.” Apt, as the energy levels throughout are through the roof. It’s also close to the word ‘lef’ in his native tongue, which roughly translated, means ‘daring’ or ‘gutsy’, and boy is it that. Corsten could have made a straight-up trance album. He could have followed the successful blueprint of his previous bangers like Rock Your Body Rock from his debut album Right of Way. Instead, he…

ALBUM OF THE MONTH Dark Sky Othona Monkeytown Records Versatile London-based electronic duo Dark Sky return with their highly accomplished sophomore album on Modeselektor’s Monkeytown imprint. The follow-up to 2014’s debut LP Imagin, Othona sees producers Matt Benyayer and Tom Edwards explore the deeper, darker realms of electronic music across nine expansive tracks. Merging contemporary techno, old-school electronica, underground trance and UK bass culture, the dynamic duo create an immersive soundscape that’s rich in texture and full of atmosphere. The record is entirely stripped of vocals, instead harnessing the power of the deftly constructed productions to maximise their impact. Othona explores a kind of leftfield energy, utilising a heavy bottom end full of deep, flowing bass and fluid grooves, in addition to a heady concoction of subtle melodies, emotive synths,…

Mac Demarco This Old Dog Captured Tracks © Coley Brown The forever-loveable Mac Demarco is back with his fifth studio album. Although the new record, the first since 2015’s underrated Another One, represents a slight shift in sound, the 26-year-old New Yorker’s music remains as sweet and charming as ever. This Old Dog has a distinctly acoustic atmosphere. The youthful energy and pace of Salad Days has been replaced with a quieter, gentler outlook that softly laps away with a soulful sincerity throughout. More personal and intimate than his previous albums, this record finds Demarco in a reflective mood, as accentuated by the prevailing unplugged atmosphere. The LP’s more subtle verve comes from the addition of more synth-focused tones and drum machines, both of which feature much more heavily than…

Building ’80s pads in Massive Synth pads are central to ’70s and ’80s inspired soundtracks but if you’re making one, limit yourself to the parameters actually used in those decades If you’re drawn to the synth-heavy soundtracks of the late ’70s and throughout the ’80s, the rich, dense synth pads which feature so prominently in most of them are bound to have caught your ear. With so many soft synths now offering complex, forever-evolving programs, it’s easy to forget that the synths which originally produced these sounds were considerably less ‘sophisticated’. If you want to make a comparable sound from scratch, you need to keep things simple. Let’s build a synth pad from scratch in Massive and we’ll soon see that nearly all of the sonic richness comes from basic…

THE TRACK Heist Pillager Sumo Beatz, 2015 © Joe Branston Although primarily known for his crowd-hyping dancefloor bangers, Heist (aka Jim Muir) has managed to straddle an increasingly fractured D&B scene with his varied productions, releasing on labels as disparate as Metalheadz, Integral, Horizons and Ganja Recordings. The prolific producer has not only released dozens upon dozens of his own tracks, but has remixed the likes of Borgore and Top Cat and engineered Rufige Kru’s Malice In Wonderland and Memoirs Of An Afterlife albums for Goldie. FM caught up with Jim in his Essex studio to discover the secrets behind the speaker-smashing sounds of his tearing and sinister Pillager, released on his own label Sumo Beatz. How did Pillager come about? “It was just a weekend…

PRODUCER’S GUIDE Arturia DrumBrute Starting from humble origins as a software synth developer, Arturia have carved out a reputation as a well respected analogue hardware manufacturer. The MiniBrute and MicroBrute monosynths impressed, being neither clones nor soundalikes of the many classic analogue designs that now fetch top dollar. Released at the back end of 2016, the DrumBrute builds on the Brute range’s heritage and takes advantage of the design experience gained in the creation of Arturia’s BeatStep sequencer range, making for an inspiring and comprehensive modern drum machine at a very reasonable price point. For most electronic producers, immediately obvious drum machine reference points might be Roland’s early TR models - the 808, 909 and 606. The DrumBrute certainly isn’t intended as a retro tribute act to these classic beatboxes,…

Programming the ’Brute For different situations, there are multiple ways to create and access Patterns and Songs in the Arturia’s beatbox The primary mode for programming the DrumBrute is based around the concept of a Pattern. These can be anything from 1 to 64 steps long, and you can store 16 patterns in each of four Banks (A-D), making for a total of 64 storable Patterns. Steps are shown using buttons 1-16, with the LEDs above (labelled 16, 32, 48 and 64) indicating position for longer patterns. By default, each step represents a sixteenth-note, but this can be changed using Shift, and Step buttons 1-5. Patterns can be recorded in real time by tapping the instrument pads. In Step Mode, the Step and Accent mode buttons alter the display to…

Do you tend to score the arrangements or just sit at the piano and experiment? “Some of the pieces were performed with player pianos live, which means I’m sitting on a grand piano performing and have an iPad and a ‘band’ behind me, which is two pianos playing by themselves. That means a lot of the pieces are sequenced using MIDI tracks that I’d previously recorded. It’s nice because, during the live concert, I can come up with new versions while the tonality and melodies remain the same.”…

In The Studio With Bola Bola Few people know this, but it was Bola’s self-titled EP that propelled Manchester’s Skam label to underground notoriety. Now after a ten-year absence, Darrell Fitton is back with a new album. Danny Turner tracks him down to find out what’s taken him so long. The work of electronic musician Darrell Fitton is likely to be categorised as one of your record collection’s best-kept secrets. Initial Fitton tracks, described as “chrome-dipped melodic techno”, began appearing in 1995 on Warp Records’ Artificial Intelligence compilations, while subsequent material, recorded as Bola, had a more ambient, post-techno feel. Fitton’s debut album release, Soup, found its home on Andy Maddock’s underground label, Skam. In fact, it was one of the Manchester label’s first releases, alongside Boards of Canada’s Music…

Audio-Technica ATM230 Audio-Technica ATM230 £140 Some mics are Jacks of all trades, but this one’s pigeonholed as a master of toms. Will it make Jon Musgrave happy as Larry? The toms sound punchy with a nice fat attack, and the added proximity delivers plenty of round bottom end This new addition to Audio-Technica’s well established Artist microphone series is a dynamic mic with hypercardioid pickup pattern, built for high-SPL situations. Although the ATM230 could potentially be used for miking any loud instrument, it’s primarily designed for close-miking drum kit toms and possibly snares. The mic’s compact and stubby design (just over 8cm long) makes it suitably discreet for live use. It’s pretty weighty given the size, and the all-metal construction includes an integrated clip arm and reinforced metal grille, which…

THE LATEST GADGETS New Gadgets are now available across all versions. Most notable are two designed for recording and importing audio. While audio handling is fairly limited – you can only adjust start and end points or gain level – these do offer studio- and stompbox-inspired effects. Also added to the line-up are Gadget versions of Korg’s own M1 and ARP Odyssey emulations (both of which are very impressive), with a version of the iWavestation to follow. The audio Gadgets are free to all users, but on iOS the latter three require purchase of their corresponding standalone apps to unlock the Gadget versions.…

ADVICE What are the best ‘sketchpad’ apps for iOS? > Mobile devices are perfect for sketching out new song ideas. For one thing, they’re extremely portable – if you’ve got an iPhone, you’re likely to have it with you at all times, so you can whip it out whenever you have a spare few minutes or when inspiration strikes – and many of the apps are conducive to helping you generate ideas or getting the ones you already have recorded quickly. If the plan is that you’re going to take this initial idea and develop it on your main DAW at home, you need it to have the appropriate export options, too. So, if you’re a Logic user, GarageBand for iOS is a good option as it offers full project…