Innehållsförteckning för April 2018 från Future Music

DEAD ENDS “Noone likes it when they hit a dead point when working on a track/project. A simple way around this: just switch the DAW. Bounce down your single tracks, if needed, including effects and automation. Load it into another DAW with the same parameters (BPM, meter, resolution, etc). The new environment can generate new ideas. Or record straight from Live to Logic using ReWire. Just run Logic as the master – Live will follow sampling accurately.” Two tips for working with the Erica Octasource “Firstly, in Sync Mode, the Rate knob turns into a clock divider/multiplier: turning CW will double or quadruple the rate, turning CCW will divide by 2 or 4. “Tips two: In Single Mode the waveforms are shifted evenly by 45 degrees. Use the Phase CV…

LIKE IT? TRY THESE… Ramirez & Pizarro ¡Hablando! The title track is a classic Euro-house/ accordion banger that crops up in sample form on Caballeros. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Hablando (Accordion Mix), La Musica Tremenda (DJ Ricci Rmx), El Ritmo Barbaro (El Barbaro Mix) Trim 1-800 Dinosaur Presents Trim Why not check in on Dance Me star and ex-Roll Deep member Trim’s 2016 album? ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Stretch, Waco, No Manners Madox Urban Plastic Well worth visiting the breakbeat past of the man behind Riva Starr, while you’re here. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Tuvok, The Funk, Dope On Strings Mr Fingers Ammnesia Don’t forget that the track Tribute is a, erm, tribute to this Chicago dance music legend. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Can You Feel…

Amen Dunes Freedom Sacred Bones Four years on from 2014’s much acclaimed Love, New York’s psychedelic alternative pop songwriter Amen Dunes returns with a superb new album of dark, brooding excursions. His fifth studio album, Freedom takes Amen Dunes, real name Damon McMahon, on a journey through complex themes and immersive soundscapes. Using electronic influences more than before, McMahon leads us through fluid grooves, druggy pop and rough bass. Touching on elements of rock, funk, gospel, punk and electronica, this is a sound that shifts as much as it fascinates. Tougher than his previous output, he delves into darker themes including masculinity and criminality with raw guitar lines, murky synths, haunted melodies and stripped back drums. Despite this heaviness, he still manages to sew energy and joy into the heart…

Three master-limiting tips Limiters are an essential master bus effect. Here’s how to set one up... Essentially a compressor with a ratio of inf:1, a brickwall limiter is usually the final effect in the mastering engineer’s chain of processing. Its overuse started the infamous Loudness War a decade or so ago, but even though loudness trends and tastes have subsided somewhat since then, the digital limiter is still essential for reducing a track’s peaks and ultimately increasing perceived volume up to commercial standards. As a fast-acting compressor, limiters act on short-duration peaks, meaning you’ll usually want to keep attack times to the fastest possible. Thanks to their minimal controls, you can apply gain reduction and forget about it – but often you’ll need to tweak things further. Therefore, here are…

Pro-level Mastering in your DAW Streaming settings Modern music formats have changed attitudes towards loudness. Several years ago, average levels were being pushed further and further, to the detriment of dynamics and music in general. Since then, music consumption trends have swayed more and more towards streaming services, which have brought loudness battles to a halt. Why? Well, all major streaming platforms now advise a standard LUFS level for uploads, and also implement some kind of automatic normalisation process to make all music match these values. For example, Spotify and Tidal’s standard is approximately -14LUFS: upload a -10LUFS song to one of those, and it’ll be reduced by 4LUFS to hit that ceiling. This negates the benefit of making your premaster as loud as possible, as a peak-limited -10LUFS song…

QUICK TIPS 1 After spending time on a mixdown, you’ll have heard the track hundreds of times. If you’re determined to master the same track yourself, reset your objectivity by leaving a decent chunk of time until the mastering stage. Your sanity will thank you! 2 Always give yourself the ability to A/B between various settings, track versions and references with one single button click. That way, you can shut your eyes and instantly do a comparison. 3 With every mastering move you make, religiously use makeup gain to relevel the processed signal to the same perceived volume as the bypassed signal. Trust your ears for this, not meters! 4 Many pro mastering engineers try out several similar processors to find the best one for the source material in question.…

In The Studio With | Steve Bug & Langenberg Steve Bug & Langenberg Techno stalwart Steve Bug and deep house guru Langenberg sealed their longstanding association by releasing an EP together last year. Danny Turner asks how that collaboration led to their new, hardware-heavy full release © Marie Staggat Co-founder of Essen-based label Mild Pitch, Langenberg (Max Heesen) began his production career in 2007 with numerous self-penned releases, including the debut album Central Heated House on Steve Bug’s Dessous label. Collaborations with Manuel Tur under the name Ribn also attracted the attention of Bug, resulting in his remix of the track This Feeling in 2009. Bug and Langenberg continued to cross paths over the next decade, although it wasn’t until last year that the duo decided to actively work on…

Techno-style sub bass with Drum Buss Live’s new multi-effect can add a tuned sub-boost to percussive sounds – great for creating booming techno bass! Drum Buss is an interesting addition to Live’s stock of in-built effects, combining several processes – drive, compression, mid-high transient shaping and sub-enhancement. The latter two, in particular, plug holes in the existing range of effects. The high-mid section does a nice job of enhancing or softening the attack of claps, snares, hats and other percussive elements. The Crunch and Dampen controls are good for blending sharp elements into a mix too. The sub-enhancing Boom parameter is arguably the most interesting element of Drum Buss though. This is essentially a tuned resonant boost targeted to specific frequency: a great tool for adding pitched bass to less…

MODULAR MONTHLY Ring modulation for the masses The AJH Synth Ring SM proves it’s the ring modulator for everyone Like everything we’ve tried from AJH Synth, the Ring SM (ring modulator, sub generator and mixer) is something special for those into ring modulators – and even for those who aren’t. A unique design using a warm vintage discrete circuit from the ’60s, there’s no off-the-shelf basic ring modulation here. The Z input, actually a second Y input, lets you mix additional signals and also has a different phase relationship in the circuit, giving a more resonant character against the Y input. We also have a ‘double’ switch which lets you take a single X input and ignore the Y function and modulate the X input against itself to create a…

TOOLKIT Parallel Compression Let’s focus on parallel compression: what it is, what it does and why you simply must make use of it! This month, let’s look at a technique used by industry pros to add power, depth and ‘inflation’ to mixes but which remains misunderstood by many. Compressors – in both hardware and software forms – provide dynamic range control, narrowing the volume gap between quiet and loud signals, before letting you set an overall volume for the sound you’ve compressed. It’s a myth that compressors just make signals louder; in reality, the approach to dynamics range control most compressors use is called ‘downwards’ compression, whereby compressed signals are attenuated (brought down in volume) by a compressor’s threshold and ratio dials. It’s only at the output stage, via the…

New York Drum Compression Programmed drum parts and loops can get lost in a mix as new parts are added. Parallel Compression is an alternative to merely turning faders up Over-compressed audio signals rarely sound great. Perhaps sounds whose volumes have been smashed to within an inch of their lives might serve a useful function but usually, not so much. We like full dynamic range and this is as true on individual sounds as it is across whole mixes. But there’s no denying that super-squashed sounds have a real grittiness which is hard to ignore. So… what if the best of both worlds could exist, whereby a sound, or a combination of related sounds could ‘play twice’ simultaneously; once with their full dynamic range intact, and also with a second,…

Reviews Dexibell Combo J7 Digital Organ £1,999 The J7 has a versatile soundset and some unique features, including motorised drawbars! Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman investigates The dedicated ‘clonewheel’ organ market is already pretty crowded, but the combo market which includes Hammond’s SK1-73, Nord’s new Electro 6 and Stage 3, Roland’s VR-730 and Vox’s new Continental, is getting busier by the minute. Recently, I was impressed by Dexibell’s Vivo S7 piano and so I was very happy to be able to review the Combo J7, which combines organ with other bread and butter sounds. Build-wise, everything (knobs, switchgear etc) seems very sturdy and built to last and, like Nord’s offerings, the case is all tough painted metal. The J7 is also adorned with some great-looking sculpted wooden, walnut-stained ends, which make lifting…

Reviews Native Instruments Effects Series Mod Pack £60 NI unleash a trio of creative modulation effects. Si Truss gets wavey… NI’s latest plugin release, Mod Pack, contains a trio of classic modulation effects with easy-to-use interfaces that belie their depth and originality. These three effects – Phasis, Choral and Flair – each replicate tried and tested hardware-style effects, but with a few unique tricks up their sleeves. Phasis initially appeared towards the end of last year as a free download for existing NI gear owners (and those who grabbed it at the time can claim a £15 discount on the full Mod Pack). As you’d expect with a software phaser, Phasis has controls for adjusting the amount of notches applied to the frequency spectrum, along with the feedback (or resonance)…

Reviews Korg iMono/Poly iOS Synth £29 Bruce Aisher checks out Korg’s new analogue-emulating iOS synth. Does its small footprint hide a large sound? Korg have a long and well-respected background in the world of synthesis, and have straddled the worlds of analogue, digital and computer-based synthesis with much success over the years. They are now in the enviable position of releasing cutting-edge kit, remakes of their legendary gear, and emulations of these, all at the same time. Korg were quick off the mark in the virtual instrument stakes when they released their Legacy Collection back in 2004. On the analogue side, this included computer-based emulations of the MS-20 monosynth, Polysix, and the rather intriguing Mono/Poly. In recent years they have been updating and porting these to run under iOS, both…

ADVICE Minilogue or Korg ARP Odyssey? > The main deciding factor here will be if you require modern features such as full MIDI capabilities, patch storage, full four-note polyphony and sequencing. If you do, then the Minilogue is the one to get. However, if you want that bonafide classic, dirty Odyssey sound, lots of hands-on control, plus lots of great modulation features then the Oddy is it! What’s the best way to introduce kids to music technology? > Technology is fantastic for kids who want to make music. Unlike when you take up a ‘real’ instrument, you can usually create something that sounds half-decent pretty quickly. Mobile apps are a great place to start. Many of these have been designed so that pretty much anyone can use them with little…

FILESILO Your bonus content…filesilo.co.uk/futuremusic This issue’s bonus samples, videos, audio and bonus archive samples are all available to access via FileSilo. At the link above, log in or register, then unlock over 10GB of goodies! SAMPLE PACKS Exclusive new sounds with every issue GROOVE CRIMINALS PRESENT… Modular Drums We patch up our Eurorack system to create a pack of synth-powered, glitchy percussion hits and loops. CYCLICK SAMPLES PRESENT… Inspirational Mistakes Get inspired by this bumper bundle of errors and oddities. Studio mistakes turned into FX and loops! PLUS ACCESS THE FM SAMPLE ARCHIVE! Download the ‘Sample Archive’ packs and get over 10GB of loops, hits and instruments from our back catalogue of high-quality and royalty-free samples. From vintage synths and beats to esoteric sounds and FX – think of it…

Can EarProg unlock your ‘musical superpowers’? Leverkühn Apps think that being able to identify chord progressions is a “musical superpower” that can help your songwriting, improvisation and live jamming, and the EarProg app is designed to train you to do just that. It includes over 60 chord progressions in three categories. Standard includes basic movements of two and three chords; Four Chords contains, unsurprisingly, 4-chord progressions; and Minor covers minor patterns. The name of each progression is displayed as you listen to it, so you can learn to recognise what it sounds like. This isn’t a gamified app – you’re not scored – but it could have real long-term benefits. It’s available for iPhone and iPad from the Apple App Store priced at £0.99/$0.99.…

Create infinite sounds with AudioTexture If you’re looking for fresh sound design inspiration, how about a plugin that can create infinite sounds, variations or loops from a single audio file? That’s what you get with Le Sound’s AudioTexture, which works by breaking the sound up into units of varying size for resynthesis. It’s said to work best on static sound textures with well-defined transients, but you’re free to feed it anything, experiment with the controls and see what happens. Find out more and download a demo on the Le Sound website; the plugin is available for PC and Mac in VST/AU/AAX formats and costs 149 euros.…

CLASSIC ALBUM Riva Starr If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade Made To Play, 2010 Words by Roy Spencer Every last track on Stefano Miele’s debut as Riva Starr is as zesty fresh as the plump citrus fruit that adorns the album’s cover. From the woozy, boozy, devil-may-care opener, I Was Drunk, to the pumping classic house throwback, Tribute, there’s not a lemon among ‘em. “I knew I wanted to build an album that was different and eclectic – that was my style,” says Miele. “I wanted every song to stand out, and it all be a proper statement, from the title onwards.” For Miele the proverbial phrase in question has everything to do with making the most of your gifts, and his gift as a producer is unwavering eclecticism,…

ALBUM OF THE MONTH Hieroglyphic Being The Red Notes Soul Jazz Records Prolific Chicago producer Jamal Moss, otherwise known as Hieroglyphic Being returns with his third studio album, the experimental and uncompromising The Red Notes. Fusing together two of the most influential musical roots from his home city, Moss delivers an ambitious and adventurous pollination of the cosmic, freeform jazz of Sun Ra and the raw, acid house sound of Chicago’s wild late ’80s scene. The record draws on the Blue Note jazz sounds and sense of experimentation of Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock as much as the deep, driving sounds of house pioneers Frankie Knuckles and Marshall Jefferson. The record explores a unique soundscape that matches the desire to create groundbreaking music that celebrates the freedom that…

RECOMMENDED Starchild & The New Romantic Language Ghostly International Language is the sparkling debut album from New York based, Maryland born 23-year-old Bryndon Cook who records as Starchild & The New Romantic. The sensuous electro and silky R&B that provide the record’s backbone comes with a heartbroken sensitivity and undeniable twinge of sadness. Cook’s impressive vocal range melts into a delicious synth-soul palette, leaving emotions to simmer away with intensity. Woozing synths, whirring drum machines, lightly squelching basslines, lilting guitar lines, frenetic keys, warm melodies and lush pads collide to create an atmosphere so molten you can feel its warm glow sliding down your spine. Oozing sophistication, Language breezes through an endlessly shifting soundscape with both confidence and clarity. Moving through electro, R&B, funk, soul and synth-pop and embracing elements…

Pro-level Mastering in your DAW Six underdog mastering plugins Although tools from software big-boys such as iZotope, FabFilter and Universal Audio are undoubtedly awesome, there are plenty more lesser-known – and more affordable – master-bus processors you should check out… TDR Limiter 6 GE | £44 1 With six reorderable modules (Compressor, Clipper, HF Limiter, Peak Limiter, Output Protection Limiter and Peak/EBU Loudness Meter), plus equal-loudness bypass and M/S for each module, this advanced mastering limiter is an absolute steal at 50 euros. DMG Audio Limitless | £149 2 DMG’s flagship limiter uses under-the-hood multiband processing to “intelligently separate dynamics and transients”, allowing you to push premasters harder than comparable limiters without artefacts or distortion. As with all of Dave Gamble’s plugins, it’s a must-have. SKnote SDC | $30 3…

THE TRACK Mr Virgo Holy Grime, Wiley ft. Devlin Wiley, 2017 © Joe Branston Nottingham’s Mr Virgo, AKA Matthew Virgo is one of bassline house and grime’s biggest beatmakers with production credits for the likes of JME, Giggs and P Money amongst others. Future Music caught up with Matt in Oxford’s Evolution Studios to find out how he created his epic instrumental, and how it ended up providing the basis for Wiley ft. Devlin’s apocalyptic Holy Grime, from last year’s Godfather LP. How did Holy Grime come about? “I made the beat a while ago and I could hear Wiley on it, so I just sent him the beat. Within the next hour or so he rang me back all excited wanting to vocal it. I’d say after a week…

PRODUCER’S GUIDE Ableton Live 10 In recent years at least, Ableton’s attitude to updating Live seems to have erred on the side of ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. That’s not to say they haven’t brought significant new features and functional changes to the DAW, but you get the impression that, if they can help it, Ableton would rather not disrupt existing users’ workflow with major changes to the layout or interface. Because of this, an existing user coming to Live 10 from Live 9 – or even 8 or 7 – could happily load up the DAW and get on with making music without needing to worry too much about changes or new features. Sure, you’d notice a slightly different look, and you’d have the occasional adjustment to…

QUICK TIPS 1 In Arrangement View, you can now reverse anything by selecting part of the timeline and hitting R on your keyboard. If you select a small section of a larger clip or audio recording, Live will automatically slice the selection out as a new reversed clip, rather than reverse the full section. 2 You can now download and update any owned Packs directly from within Live’s Browser. Simply head for the Packs menu and click on any available download buttons. 3 In Arrangement View, the Show All Tracks function can minimise every track at once, allowing you to see as much of your project as possible simultaneously. The shortcut for this is the keyboard’s S key. 4 In Arrangement or Detail Views, hit Z on the keyboard to…

QUICK TIPS 1 If you want to make your beats really gnarly, try this. Set up the New York Compression technique we look at in the three-step walkthrough and then feed the ‘dry’ source drums to your parallel compressor as a side-chain input signal. 2 As we see in the six-step walkthrough, parallel compressors don’t have to be ‘dry’. Use them in combination with spatial effects like reverb and delay to bed them into the mix. 3 Alternatively, use parallel compressors as a means to bring a more direct, dry signal back into a part which is drowning in effects. So long as the effects you’re using on a source sound aren’t inserts (and are being added via auxiliaries instead), dry parallel compression channels can bring back focus and power.…

Reviews Audiority Tube Modulator €35 A warbling movement plugin with all the right vibes. James Russell peers through vintage glass at Audiority’s latest effect Audiority have been hard at work recreating iconic effects recently. November’s Echoes T7E took on the Binson Echorec delay, and now Tube Modulator brings even more Pink Floydian tones to your DAW, stuffing in analogue emulations of classic tremolo and vibrato effects. To start with, Tube Modulator lays down seven vintage-style tremolo and vibe effects, based on those found in amps and pedals from the ’50s and ’60s. Uni-Vibe tones are the order of the day, then, and they’ve all been modelled from the original gear. Not content with these magnificent seven, there’s also a selection of three more classic spatial effects: choose from Panner, Leslie…

Reviews Focusrite Clarett 4Pre USB £550 Focusrite’s latest Clarett interfaces mark a return to USB: a backwards step? Jon Musgrave investigates Sonically, the Clarett 4Pre is an impressive design A couple of years ago, Focusrite’s original Clarett interfaces introduced premium quality mic pres, ISA transformer mic pre mode (Air) and super-low latency operation at a great price. They also required a Thunderbolt equipped computer – fine for Mac users, but not for Windows. Thankfully, the Clarett Thunderbolt interfaces are now joined by USB versions. Much like the Thunderbolt version, this is an 18-input, 8-output interface with MIDI I/O. On the input side, that’s achieved via two combo mic/line/instrument inputs, two combo mic/line inputs, four line-level inputs, stereo S/PDIF and eight channels of ADAT optical. Meanwhile the eight outputs comprise four…

Advice Connecting Bluetooth-MIDI apps to Logic I’m struggling to find out how to connect Logic to the ARP Odyssei iPhone app. Is this possible? Bluetooth MIDI is becoming much more prevalent in our audio world of late, with a whole host of new Bluetooth (BT) capable audio/MIDI apps and keyboards/devices with BT over MIDI capability appearing. However, not everyone has one of the latest BT over MIDI controllers (such as Korg’s MicroKey Air) but many folks have BT apps on their iPads or iPhones and want a way to control them without the added expense of a BT controller. Thankfully, it’s relatively easy to get Logic and a MIDI keyboard talking to your iPhone or iPad and access sounds from all your favourite BT audio/MIDI apps. In this walkthrough we’ll…

Filter Track by track with Stefano Miele aka Riva Starr “I didn’t think about an album at the beginning, which is why all the tracks are so different. I was doing breakbeat as Madox, and started getting bored, so started Riva Starr in 2006. I was getting into all this new stuff from labels like Dirtybird, and all that fidget stuff with Switch and Justice. I combined that with drum & bass and breaks, which I loved. From 2006-2009 I was making EPs, then decided that it would be exciting to make an album.” I Was Drunk “The album took me around one year to finish. This was the first track. At university I was interested in traditional folk music. Back then there was a lot of interest in all…

Albums Recondite Daemmerlicht Plangent Records Bavarian techno producer Lorenz Brunner’s fifth studio album is his most expansive, diverse work to date. Out on his own Plangent Records, Daemmerlicht, which translates as Fading Light, finds the contemplative German moving into new territory. On his first record since 2015’s Placid, Brunner adds his love of instrumental hip-hop, ambient, downbeat and classical music to his usual palette of sparse, melodic techno. His use of space is key to Daemmerlicht, creating a highly atmospheric sound, full of suspense. Each sound is given room. The result is an immersive composition that explores haunting, meditative and reflective soundscapes that take you on a drifting, meandering journey. Spacey pads stretch beneath spine-tingling synths, jangling melodies and warm, deep bass as Brunner creates a sophisticated record that simmers…

Pro-level Mastering in your DAW PRO-LEVEL MASTERING IN YOUR DAW It’s an often repeated myth that mastering is an impenetrable science that requires thousands of pounds of studio gear and a lifetime of training. Nonsense. Here’s how you get pro results at home... It’s amusing that, despite having been explored in hundreds of magazine features, tutorials and interviews, mastering is still referred to as a mysterious ‘dark art’. Unless you’re an absolute newcomer to music production, you’re probably already aware that mastering is the final stage of the music-making process before a track, EP or album reaches the outside world. Once a mix’s individual elements and buses are balanced, honed and printed down to a two-channel stereo file (the ‘premaster’) at the mixdown stage, the mastering engineer (ME) will take…

Serial processing when mastering As a rule, master-bus processing should be transparent and subtle. After all, you want to gently refine and sweeten, not completely alter the overall balance you spent hours crafting. So, if master EQ moves or gain-reduction values are breaching 1-2dB (3dB at a push), it’s probably a good indicator that something should be fixed within the mix itself, where you have far more control over individual elements. In terms of transparency, it’s common knowledge that one big processing move will appear more obvious than the same move distributed across two or more devices. So, two compressors each applying -2dB of gain reduction will sound more transparent than -4dB of gain reduction with one compressor. Further, spreading the workload across multiple processors gives much more control, as…

Pro-level Mastering in your DAW Comparison techniques with Reference Mastering The Mix’s referencing plugin is a must for comparing your track against pro material… 01 > Reference is one of the many plugins designed to let you load in and compare multiple reference songs against your DAW’s audio. Upon loading the plugin on our master channel, we drag and drop two WAV tracks onto the main interface to load them in. 02 > We select one of our reference tracks by clicking a named tab on the main interface. Punch between the big Original and Reference buttons in the centre to flick between your DAW’s audio and the currently-selected reference track – or set up a key command in the Settings menu. 03 > The unprocessed premaster in our DAW…

Producer’s Guide To Customising Ableton Live 10 Live 10 introduces several substantial new tools – see the main walkthroughs – but beyond these, it also brings a mass of small tweaks, many of which aren’t instantly obvious. Among these are several adjustments to the DAW’s browser, workflow and general setup that allow for new ways to customise the experience, and it’s worth getting to grips with these before diving into the rest of the Live 10 experience. The most substantial is the new Browser Collections system, which uses colour-coded tags to allow users to create lists of their favourite sounds, tools and presets. This is fairly straightforward. Simply right/ ctrl-click anything in the browser and assign one of the seven colour tags to it. Coloured lists appear in the top…

In The Studio With | Tom Demac Tom Demac Renowned for his genre-bending releases founded on toughened techno with slaying bass and shattering kicks, DJ and producer Tom Demac is hot property. Danny Turner visits his Hackney-based bunker © Will Ireland Born and raised in North Wales, Tom Demac had to travel far and wide for his love of dance music. Navigating an assault course of muddy raves he settled on his first love – gabber, the punishing sub-genre of hardcore techno. However, by 2004 Demac had become transfixed by the more sustainable and meticulous craft of electronic pioneers Roni Size and Jeff Mills. Initiating tracks on his own Electronique Audio imprint, the Welshman later honed his artistry on labels such as Murmur, liebe*detail and Hypercolour, capturing the imagination of…

In The Studio With | Thomas Schumacher Thomas Schumacher Techno trailblazer Thomas Schumacher has become a pillar of the German electronic scene, pushing the envelope with endless curiosity. Danny Turner chats to the DJproducer about his Natural Rhythm EP series Thomas Schumacher has long been known for his eclectic DJ sets and raw and intense techno releases stretching back almost 20 years. Adopting an individualistic approach, the ‘Schumacher style’ has become the driving heartbeat for not just his own releases but numerous high-profile remixes including Marc Almond, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Depeche Mode and Afrika Bambaataa. In the studio, Schumacher stays true to the principle that techno demands reinvention. With its creator’s finger always on the pulse, last year’s Natural Rhythm series of EPs took one step back to move…

FMCHOICE Any compressor can be employed as a parallel processor but not all compressors are created equal. You’ll get great results with all six of these FabFilter Pro C2 | £134 Part compressor, part swiss army knife. Through several algorithms, it covers numerous compression bases and features both comprehensive side-chain options too. Softube TubeTech CL 1B | $299 An Opto compressor famous for a smooth, warm, unhurried approach to dynamics control. Not for VCA-style, super-quick response times, but for something silkier, this is the one. UAD 1176 Classic Limiter Collection | $299 Bill Putnam’s original FET-based 1176: a hardware studio staple. The bundle features three revisions and three flavours of its classic sound. Waves H-Comp Hybrid Compressor | $49 Modelling lots of different styles, this regularly discounted plugin covers many…

REVIEWS Ableton Live 10 Suite €599 Five years on from version 9, Live gets an update. But is version 10 lacking in ‘headline’ features? Si Truss finds out… Despite once being the young outlier of the DAW market, Live’s popularity – at least within the electronic music realm – is now such that Ableton barely need concern themselves with what their competitors are up to. Maybe it’s due to a lack of perceived threats, but Live 10 doesn’t feel like an update concerned with winning over new users. Coming nearly five years after the launch of version nine, this iteration is notable for its lack of headline-grabbing ‘game changer’ features, along the lines of Audio-To-MIDI conversion or Groove Extraction. We do get new Devices but, while these bring new tools…