Innehållsförteckning för August 2018 från Future Music

Spitfire launch free Labs instrument range Spitfire Audio made their name with high-quality – and sometimes high-cost – sample libraries, but its latest project is different. Labs is a series of free, easy-to-use software instruments, starting with launches of Soft Piano and Strings. These are designed to be instantly playable and sound great, working within a dedicated VST/AU/AAX plugin designed in collaboration with UsTwo (the people behind excellent mobile game Monument Valley). Soft Piano is based on recordings of a ‘felted’ – ie dampened – piano recorded at London’s Air-Edel studios, while Strings is an ensemble recorded at Spitfire’s HQ, with sessions making use of vintage BBC AXB1 mics. New libraries will be released each month, both traditional and experimental in style. Sign-up is via the Spitfire Audio website.…

CLASSIC ALBUM Django Django Django Django Because Music, 2012 Words by Roy Spencer Because of their assured electro-rock swagger, and consistently incendiary live shows, you might be forgiven for thinking that Django Django knew exactly what they were doing when it came to making their eponymous debut album. And because of the sweeping scale of their sound, and shimmering polish to their production, you might also hazard a fair guess that it was made by a veteran of the studio, with a jaw-dropping array of vintage gear at his disposal. “Nah,” says amiable bandleader, Davis Maclean. “I had no idea what I was doing. And it must have cost us about £80 to make that record!” Ah. So it turns out that having bugger all money is the mother of…

ALBUM REVIEWS ALBUM OF THE MONTH Arp Zebra Mexican Summer © Shawn Brackbill New York producer, DJ, composer and multi-instrumentalist Alexis Georgopoulos, aka Arp, has always been impossible to keep in a box. The highly creative artist’s forward-thinking and expansive sound has defied categorisation throughout a clutch of LPs for Smalltown Supersound, a cassette full-length on Geographic North, a collaborative album with Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and his own show on NTS. His cross-pollination of diverse stylings is on display once again on his magnificent fourth album and first for Brooklyn-based imprint, Mexican Summer. Zebra is an amorphous melting pot of sonic abstractions and mutations. Obscuring the borders between contemporary and classic, electronic and acoustic, and experimentalism and mainstream, it drifts through otherworldly soundscapes and atmospheres with a natural and improvisational flow.…

RECOMMENDED X-Altera X-Altera Ghostly International Michigan producer Tadd Mullinix releases a superb self-titled debut album under his new pseudonym, X-Altera. Mullinix is best known for the hip-hop he makes as Dabrye and the acid-tinged house and techno of JTC. The new alias is his most inventive project to date, fusing a diverse soundscape that hones in on rave-inspired mutations of old-school sounds. The album is grounded in ’90s jungle, drum & bass and deep techno from Detroit and London, but pulls through elements of ragga dancehall, breakbeat, electro, melodic house and boogie jazz. The combustion of such disparate styles creates an unpredictable sound but it still has a natural flow and cohesion, which is testament to the Ann Arbor-based producer’s adept skills behind the desk. Reconnecting with the rhythm-heavy and…

THE PROS & CONS This is a powerful setup for a more hands-on hybrid approach and can work for a good many styles, from funk to all forms of electronica. Pros include a lot of sonic flexibility including a big fat analogue and digital sound from the XA, plus the DFAM is at home playing abstract sounds as well as drums. The DeepMind is also very versatile, plus each unit has its own effects for adding further colouration to the sounds too. A couple of cons with this setup are that you can’t add samples without adding in another piece of gear (such as an MPC Live or an older MPC) and also, the JD-XA’s sequencer can’t seamlessly move between sequences without stopping (but you can simply add some noise…

In The Studio With | Claude VonStroke Claude VonStroke Dirtybird boss Barclay Crenshaw is one of the busiest men in dance music. Leo Maymind tracks him down in his LA production hub during a rare free moment to talk about his ever-evolving creative process © Linnea Bullion Claude VonStroke, real name Barclay Crenshaw, has an entourage. And they all are grasping for his attention. Before our interview, shirt designs need to be approved and details still need to be finalised for one of the venues for an upcoming DirtyBird barbeque. “It might not be the best time for this,” Crenshaw mentions to his wife Aundy, who helps run both the DirtyBird label and many of the ventures that have poured forth. DirtyBird started in 2005 and quickly made a name…

FM| MODULAR MONTHLY Wave sculpting with the WF-1 DPW’s WF-1 pushes wavefolding well beyond the basics – and sounds great The key feature of DPW Design’s Wavefolder WF-1 is the split controls for the positive and negative portions of the wavefolder. Usually a wavefolder will amplify a signal until it hits a peak or threshold then folds the wave back on itself beyond that point. So by varying the level you can generate new harmonics and vary your tones. Having control over both positive and negative portions of the wave means more control, variation and modulation. Both positive and negative elements have their own level/fold control, offset (which changes the threshold of folding) and a CV input with attenuverter for the folding. To easily edit symmetry of the output there…

FM | TOOLKIT Wavetable synths What do you get when you cross the complexity of FM with the ease of substractive? Read on… Even hardened analogue purists can’t deny the amazing feats of digital synthesis technology in 2018. Armed with a single VST or AU instrument, you can now synthesise pretty much any sound you like. Recently we’ve looked at both virtual analogue (subtractive) and FM synthesis types. A subtractive synth’s oscillator outputs one single ‘static’ waveform (usually a sine, square, saw, etc), and to create harmonic movement, you filter that waveform’s frequency content, dial in modulation, and so on. It’s a fairly easy concept to grasp, but can only produce limited sounds. Then, on the other end of the complexity scale, you’ve got FM (frequency modulation) synths, which let…

Animating through wavetables The real fun starts when things get moving… The movement through a wavetable oscillator’s frames over time is what gives this type of synthesis its timbral complexity, hence why modern wavetable synths feature modulator signals that can sweep and jiggle that wavetable index. Regular LFOs and envelopes are the obvious choice, of course, but most wavetable synths offer more complex modulation sources. Looping envelopes let you animate a parameter through each note, then loop a specific section of the curve – like a sampler’s looping modes. Multi-stage envelope generators (MSEGs), meanwhile, bridge the gap between LFO, envelope and sequencer, letting you draw patterns and specify modulation shape and intensity on a rhythmic per-step basis. By using one or more custom modulator shapes to wiggle wavetable position with…

THE ALTERNATIVES Korg Volca Kick £120 The Kick’s synth engine is more simplistic than DFAM’s but it covers a similar pallette of synth-beats-and-bass www.korg.com Arturia DrumBrute £340 If you’re after a synthesiser that deals in more ‘traditional’ drum and percussion sounds, the ’Brute is a good option. Great sequencer too www.arturia.com Make Noise 0-Coast £450 Not a drum synth per-say – although it can do percussive sounds well – but the 0-coast is another unique semi-modular forging its own path www.makenoise.com…

THE ALTERNATIVES Erica Synths Black Hole DSP £260  The Black Hole runs on a Spin-FV1 chip and features a range of Delays, Reverb and Chorus effects. The Crush control is a particular highlight www.ericasynths.lv Black Market Modular Color Palette £299 A triple VCA where you can attach extra PCB cards or colors for additional effects. Cards are also available from a variety of third-party developers or users can create their own on breadboard www.blackmarketmodular.com 1010 Music FXBox £563 A touchscreen module with 16 effects, 50 built-in presets, an XY control pad and external sequencer. Great for complex sequences 1010music.com…

PreSonus Studio One 4 Professional PreSonus Studio One 4 Professional £345 As it moves into the DAW mainstream, this software has shed its skin multiple times. James Russell attempts to keep up If version 1 of Studio One was PreSonus’ proof that they could build a DAW of their own, then version 2 was the proof they could build a good one. 2015’s Version 3, in turn, showed they could build a great one, throwing gauntlets to their rivals in the process with unique features like the signal-routing channel editor and the console-emulating Mix FX applied to the mixer’s buses. Which brings us to version 4. Studio One is now a fully mature DAW; part of the music production furniture. The inevitable question: where does it go from here? Studio…

THE ALTERNATIVES Apple Logic Pro X £199 Frequently updated and cheap to start off with, Logic is a solid choice of DAW www.apple.com Steinberg Cubase Pro 9.5 £480 Thanks to years in the game, it’s got a feature set that’s nothing short of comprehensive, but Cubase also has a larger footprint than Studio One www.steinberg.net Tracktion Waveform 9 $259 If you’re fed up with your current number and are just looking for a ‘rebound DAW’, Waveform is a kookier and more esoteric choice www.tracktion.com…

Korg Volca Mix Korg Volca Mix £126 The Volca range has been crying out for a unifying hub. Si Truss asks if this is the ultimate accessory we’ve been waiting for As great as Korg’s compact Volca instruments are, their rough-and-ready ‘budget’ status comes with a few usability caveats. For one, they don’t ship with power adapters, so they’ll quickly chew through your AA batteries and their mini-jack outputs aren’t the most obvious fit for interfacing with a wider studio setup. In short, they’re crying out for some kind of power-hub-come-mixer – a need Korg are looking to fulfil with the Volca Mix. Let’s talk positives first. While it’s not sexy, power is the Mix’s most useful feature. Unlike the rest of the range, the mixer ships with its own…

iZotope Spire Studio iZotope Spire Studio $349 The popular multitrack recorder app has been upgraded with some serious hardware. Simon Arblaster checks it out The speed in which you can lay down ideas is perfect for creative types We first checked out the multitrack recorder Spire back in 2015 when it was just a mere iOS app. Fast-forward a couple of years and the impressive new upgrade with its sleek new hardware additions – already out in the US for a year – has finally reached our shores. Designed to be portable, the unit itself is reassuringly weighty, if a little cumbersome (for a mobile-centric device). Featuring an onboard, front-facing omnidirectional microphone and two XLR/TS combo ports around the rear, with phantom power switching, Spire connects to your iOS device…

Moog DFAM creations I just got a Moog DFAM; how do I create a beat with a kick/snare/hat happening simultaneously? You might think, looking at the DFAM’s front panel, that you can’t create classic kick, snare and hat beats – but you can! While the DFAM doesn’t look like a drum machine (no pads and all dials!) the whole point of the DFAM is to take the mundane out of beat creation and get you creating beats in a new and inspiring way. You’ll have to do some thinking about how you approach it but once you’ve cracked it, there are a multitude of sweet spots on the DFAM. Here’s how to create your beat... On the steps where you want a kick, turn the velocity to full and pitch…

our 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… Creative Kicks Quality kicks are a staple of all electronic genres, and we’re giving you a bumper bundle stuffed with hits to suit all your needs CYCLICK SAMPLES PRESENT… New Age Synths An awkwardly-named genre, but home to some killer ambient synth sounds. Think everything from Enya to Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith PLUS ACCESS THE FM SAMPLE ARCHIVE! Download the ‘Sample Archive’ packs and get over 8GB of loops, hits and instruments from our back catalogue of high-quality and royalty-free samples. From vintage…

Create amazing spaces with Mikron Reverb 112dB have announced that its highly-rated Redline Reverb now has a sibling: Mikron Reverb. This has a stompbox-style design that promises to hide most of the parameters of its big brother behind just a few simple controls, so you get a similar sound with an easier mode of operation. The product is said to incorporate an ‘intelligent algorithm’ that determines the ideal parameters for a wide range of room characteristics, so you’ll always get a great reverb, no matter which knob you turn. We’re promised extremely long reverb times, making this a suitable plugin for ambient sounds. Mikron Reverb is available as a VST/AU plugin for both PC and Mac and currently sells at $29 (regular price is $39). It can also support NI’s…

LIKE IT? TRY THESE… Django Django  ‎ Born Under Saturn For their second album, the band went to Angelic studios in Oxford and had access to the full synth collection of ex-Jamiroquai keyboardist Toby Smith [RIP]. “We were like kids in a candy shop,” says Maclean. ADDTHESETOYOURPLAYLIST: Giant, Found You, Reflections Radio Soulwax Librarian Girl Bonkers library mix that was on heavy rotation as Django Django made their debut. Head to the 2manyDJs website for a kooky video version. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Antoine Clement –Advisory Moog, James Asher –Newsbeat, ClaudeLarson –Surf Scene DJ Andy Smith Jam Up Twist Ex-Portishead tour DJ, and all round turntable kingpin, takes you on a tour of the kind of rockabilly cuts that Maclean dug so much back then. ADD THESE TO YOUR…

Jigga Lillllill Bedouin Records Lillllill is the intense and uncompromising mini-album from mysterious Japanese multi-instrumentalist, Jigga. The artist’s first release on Bedouin Records, the album shares the Dubai label’s Middle Eastern preoccupations, pairing funky broken drums with wailing vocals and far-flung musical traditions that combine the ancient and the modern. With dense layers of grainy textures, white noise, drone, scratching reverb and sketched out bass, the record has a paranoid, claustrophobic feel. Combine that with the ferocious drums, warped echoes, eerie synths, strange FX and jangling melodies and this feels like an artist who wants to explore the depths of human fears and anxieties. Tough, industrial basslines and intoxicating rhythms make it all the more disorientating, but it is testament to Jigga’s skill that these erratic sound parts are brought…

Ditch The Laptop! DITCH THE LAPTOP! Stepping out of the box can give you a whole new perspective on how you perform and produce, and it’s now easier and more reliable than ever! Let’s get connected... Over the past two decades, music making software has gone from being cutting-edge new technology to an absolute staple of modern production setups. Whether in professional studios, home music making environments or on stage, it’s rare to find electronic musicians working in a way that isn’t focussed around a computer. In fact, for many modern producers, a laptop, interface, monitors and controller might be the only hardware they need, with all creative duties handled exclusively within ‘the box’. Recent years have seen more and more producers swing back in the other direction though, avoiding…

THE PROS & CONS This setup gives you a lot of flexibility, both sonically and feature-wise, which is the main pull. It’s easy to set up and quickly get hands on with your beats and stems using the MPC’s XY effects and Q-link dials to tweak any parameter you desire. Another big positive is that this system works well on its own but also works great when adding a band/instrumentalists/ vocalists around it – you can easily send a click to a drummer from either the MPC or RC-505 too. Further to that, on the pros list, you can also send individual sounds and tracks via the individual outs and process them on stage (or send them out front) and also sequence any MIDI gear from the MPC too. The…

THE PROS & CONS It’s fairly remarkable how much flexibility we can get out of these three boxes in terms of sonic manipulation and sequencing. Once you start modulating things using the plentiful supply of LFOs and envelopes, and make use of the P-Lock automation, it doesn’t take too long to start creating truly weird and creative sounds. There are a few downsides to a setup like this though. One thing is price – each of these machines comes in at over £1,000. For a cheaper, but still fairly flexible alternative, consider swapping the more affordable Digitakt for the Octatrack, or replace the Analog Four with Elektron’s recent FM synth Digitone. As mentioned, there’s also a steep learning curve with Elektron gear, so be sure to keep the manual handy.…

On the record So you’ve built yourself a hardware setup that meets all your creative needs, but what about recording? For purists, there are still plenty of methods for recording without a computer. Your best option is a standalone multi-track recorder. For that vintage, much sought-after saturation, pick up a classic tape recorder; this will likely mean seeking out a used machine, which may come with reliability issues, but you can’t beat that authentic crunchy, pitch-wobbling sound. For a more reliable solution, current gen digital multi-tracks offer a good balance of modern flexibility and a classic hands-on workflow. These range from compact and simple – check out Zoom’s R16 or Boss’s BR range – to larger and more flexible records such as Tascam’s impressive DP-24SD and -34SD.…

Super sequencers If you’re a solo musician looking to make music out of the box, a well-equipped sequencer could be your secret weapon. There are a lot of excellent hardware sequencers on the market right now. Choosing the right one will come down to your personal needs. One thing to consider is the output type required. Most hardware sequencers output MIDI, which let you control most modern synths and drum machines, but many offer CV and gate outputs too, allowing them to be hooked up to Eurorack systems and older hardware. Another thing to consider is the amount and type of sequencer channels you’ll need. Do you just need to output note info, or do you want modulation channels too? Will mono sequencers suffice, or do you need polyphony? For…

The Track | Novelist FM| THE TRACK Novelist Stop Killing The Mandem MMMYeh South London native Kojo Kankam, aka Novelist, is almost infuriatingly talented for a man of his age. At 21, he’s made a name for himself not only as one of grime’s most thoughtful, poignant young MCs, but also as one its most exciting producers. His back catalogue is already impressively eclectic, from anthemic crew tracks like Lewisham McDeez – alongside his group The Square – to his killer Mumdance collaboration 1 Sec and forward-thinking instrumentals likeThronesandPowers. He’s recently dropped his debut album, Novelist Guy, which eschews collaborations in favour of a fully independent approach, entirely written and produced by Novelist himself, and released on his own label MMMYeh. The only outside input on the LP came from…

In The Studio With | Luke Slater Luke Slater Through his army of aliases, Luke Slater has spent 30 years imbuing techno with visceral intensity. Danny Turner catches up with one of the genre’s most iconic alchemists, to discuss his latest L.B. Dub Corp release © Will Ireland Techno legend Luke Slater became fascinated with sound from a very early age, spending hours toying with his father’s armoury of dictaphones and an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, before later becoming immersed in the nascent acid house scene and creating the Jelly Jam label for his own releases in the late ’80s. A restless innovator, known for his uncompromising tendency to meld styles and influences, Slater has released a prolific body of work over the past three decades. Whether skirting the mainstream…

QUICK TIPS 1 Wavetable synthesis is ideal for designing complex, evolving pads. Use a slow LFO or sequencer to gradually step through a wavetable’s position, and run the signal through cavernous reverb and delay for drifting ambience. 2 If you’re modulating wavetable position in one direction with an LFO, apply the inverse modulation amount to other parameters to create a back-and-forth movement. 3 Build custom wavetables to stock your softsynth with one-off oscillators. Try sampling patches from other softsynths, hefty waveforms from analogue gear, or single-cycle waves from acoustic instruments. 4 Many wavetable synths will allow you to pencil in your own waveshapes from scratch, or even draw up specific harmonics via a dedicated ‘bin’ editor.…

CLOCKING THE PROCESSOR The Z-DSP’s clock input confuses a lot of people, myself included. Often mistaken as a sync input for delay times, if you connect a standard modular clock pulse here, the module will crash and you’ll have to power cycle your system – but don’t worry, you won’t have caused any damage. This input actually overrides the onboard clock that controls the DSP chip and the sample rate of the ADC/ DAC. It’s used to a 32kHz signal so the best thing to use is a Square or Pulse wave from an Oscillator set to its highest frequency. Once you have direct control of the chip, you can mess with it, reducing the fidelity in a similar way to a bit-crusher. Subtle drops in frequency roughen up the…

SEND & AUX The inclusion of an effect send is a nice touch. The front panel send controls route audio to a mono minijack output, and audio can then be routed back in through the stereo Aux in. Unfortunately, there’s no level control for this input, which can be problematic if using external effects that lack their own output level controls. When not using an external effect, this Aux input can function as an additional input. Again, lack of a level control could cause a problem though. It’s worth bearing in mind too that the Aux input bypasses the Mix’s master compressors and widener.…

SOUNDS & SAMPLES Native Instruments Electric Sunburst £89 Electric Sunburst is the latest instalment in NI’s ‘Session Guitarist’ collaboration with Drumasonic (who also created the well-regarded Strummed Acoustic 1 and 2 libraries). These are all based around a series of predefined patterns in a range of styles, designed as a way of adding realistic guitar parts in your tracks. Although the 154 patterns can be mixed as you see fit, they are broken down into 31 ‘songs’ that each have a specific sound and intent. These cover arpeggiated picking, strumming and full-on riffing, with sounds ranging from the pure and clean to high-gain ‘shred’. The original instrument was captured via signals from both pickups as well as a close mic, meaning that the dirtier tones are reliant on amp modelling…

COMPARE AND CONTRAST “Comparing your work to that of others can be frustrating but a great helper. I used to work on a production or a mix without listening to anything else, trying so hard to fix problems that I ruined what was good in the first place. Having a playlist of five great tracks similar to what I’m working on, that I can A/B check with, has made my mixes so much better. I wish I’d known this much sooner.” Sources and saturation “Whether it’s samples or plugins or recorded material, I try to be really picky. The better the ingredients, the better the outcome. I know this sounds obvious but the most important thing is to work on an idea that sounds right from the start. Avoid the…

Pariah Here From Where We Are Houndstooth Six years on from his last solo release, Arthur Cayzer releases his debut album as Pariah. Throughout this period, the talented producer has been focusing his output on Karenn, his collaborative project with Blawan. Now returning to his own work, he shifts his focus to the outskirts of electronic music and explores a grainier, more ambient sound on Here From Where We Are. The album’s experimental feel finds a fitting home on Houndstooth, who are always keen to explore alternative styles. Cayzer finds an almost transcendental atmosphere across the record, tapping into what feels like a subconscious memory of an even more distant memory. Hazy synths, grainy, peculiar textures, obscure field recordings and delicate melodies and rich harmonies seep into one another to…

THE PROS & CONS This is a flexible/compact live setup that can fit into a medium-sized flight-case/suitcase for travelling and does a lot sonically (analogue/digital/vocoder/effects/drums), while sounding great too! It’s particularly good for those who like to work with sequences, as you have three compact sequencers at your disposal that can work together in sync, that can be tweaked easily using their respective front panel controls. Muting parts in and out on the JD-Xi is easy for builds/ drops (hold shift and press any part button) and the JD-Xi drum part is surprisingly powerful too. What’s also nice here is that you can play pads, leads and basslines interchangeably between the JD-Xi and Minilogue and also, both of these synths allow real-time motion recording, so that you can record filter,…

THE PROS & CONS The main upside to a compact setup like this is obviously affordability. We’ve essentially got a fully-featured, decent quality performance rig without having to approach the thousand pound barrier. There’s a decent amount of flexibility available too, by loading different styles and textures of sample into the Circuit and exploring different synth presets (tip: the Volca FM can load DX7 patches, and there are lots of these available online if you search for them). For something more beat-focussed, try swapping out the Volca Bass for the excellent Volca Kick, or swap the FM for the Volca Sample for more sample playback tracks to play with. On the downside, this setup is still pretty lo-fi. It’s good for rough-edged dance music – particularly once we push the…

Pad it out Ditching your computer in favour of using an iPad might seem pointless, but in many ways Apple’s tablet offers a decent compromise between in and out-of-the-box approaches to production. While its insides are still effectively a computer, the touchscreen is a far more tactile way to interact with software (albeit quite fiddly for more precise interactions). With a wealth of simple DAWs and recording apps available for iOS, plus plenty of compatible multi-channel interfaces, an iPad (or even iPhone) makes a convenient ‘end point’ for your all-hardware production setup. Apps like GarageBand, Auria, Cubasis and others offer a modern take on the portable multi-track recording concept, letting you bounce down your hardware jam sessions quickly and easily.…

Outboard processing We’ve mostly covered sequencing and creative applications here, but it is entirely possible to take the mixdown process fully out of the box too. In the modern world, there are obvious downsides to working this way; plugin effects are far cheaper, require less studio space and – when it comes to ‘transparent’ mixing duties – more sonically reliable. There are major benefits to outboard processing too though. For one, many modern mixing plugins attempt to emulate the sound of analogue effects, and there’s still no beating the real thing for genuine character. Working with limited processing tools can help give your productions a unified feel too. Focusing on bus/send mixing using, say, a single hardware reverb, single delay, one or two compressors/limiters, can be a sure-fire way to…

LUKE’S ESSENTIAL GEAR Elektron Analog Rytm “I use it on Planetary Assault Systems, both in the studio and live, and on the current L.B. Dub Corp album. A sound of its own.” NI Traktor “Looping four tracks in Traktor, by combining parts of unfinished ideas, has been quite cool for me. Whistle Viper was totally remixed in Traktor, as was Calling The Spirit.” Buchla Music Easel “I’m underwhelmed with modern hardware synths and modular, but the Easel is the most exciting, productive synth of modern times.” Roland JD-800 “The strings to the track Love were made on it, and a lot of Planetary material loops. Underpowered for what it tries to do, but very hands on for loops and new ideas.” Thermionic Culture Rooster 2 “I wanted outboard processing that…

In The Studio With | Gui Boratto Gui Boratto DJ, producer and polymath, Gui Boratto drops Pentagram, his stunning new studio album. Hamish Mackintosh caught up with the Brazilian techno maestro surrounded by his myriad music-making machines © Fabrizio Minghini ‘Ginga’ is a word once used to describe the mindset, panache and freedom that Brazilian football teams played with. A wider definition would be: ‘Ginga is creativity. Ginga is the opposite of boring; it’s having fun with the ball. It is grace. It is being fluid and coordinated. It is soul; it is dance.’ The reason FM mention this is that Ginga could equally be applied to the multi-talents of São Paulo’s finest producer, remixer and DJ, Gui Boratto, whose intoxicating new album, Pentagram, his fifth studio album, is a…

FM CHOICE 6 wavetable synth plugins to help you create one-of-a kind sounds Xfer Records Serum $189 The legendary softsynth packs dual wavetable oscillators, creation features, a sample-based noise osc, custom breakpoint LFOs, filter, FX rack and more. Parawave Rapid €180 With eight independent engines, each featuring a complete synth architecture, this underdog synth is killer for multilayered patches. Native Instruments Massive £129 Almost solely responsible for the rhythmic wobs of early 2010s dubstep, this modern classic is capable of so much more. KV331 Audio SynthMaster One $79 This ‘beginner’ synth has two wavetable oscillators, twin zero-delay feedback filters, two envelopes, four LFOs and more. Ableton Wavetable New with Live 10, Wavetable boasts twin wavetable oscillators with waveshaping FX, three envelopes, two LFOs, unison, plus a ‘one-touch’ modulation matrix. Steinberg…

Tiptop Audio Z-DSP Tiptop Audio Z-DSP £450 The modern classic effects processor gets a revamp – but was there anything to improve? asks Philip Wise With the old and new versions side by side, you notice how little has changed Originally released in 2009, the Z-DSP effects module has become a Eurorack standard for top notch reverb, delays, and other effect processing. In 2018, to bring it in line with their new range, Tiptop have now relaunched the module in an updated version. For those who don’t know the original, the Z-DSP is a stereo-in, stereo-out effects processor with a range of different cards, each featuring eight programs. There are three main DSP controls with a large screen above to indicate which parameter the knobs affect. All the knobs have…

Sonicsmith Modulor A1 Sonicsmith Modulor A1 £185 Bruce Aisher attempts to forge some sounds with Sonicsmith’s new ‘bijou’ modulation-focused synth module Sonicsmith’s current range is based around hardware using their innovative Audio Controlled Oscillator (ACO) chip. However, their newest offering is much simpler in concept. The Modulor A1 is a small, standalone semi-modular analogue synthesiser. More specifically, it is two patchable oscillator/VCA combos in a colourful metal box. One VCO works in the audio range while the other is configured for LFO/modulation duties. The oscillators can be individually switched between Triangle and Square wave outputs, and each is followed by a dedicated VCA stage. The A1 is powered by a standard guitar-style 9V DC supply and draws very little current (approximately 30mA). Alongside the power socket, the back panel features…

Audified Synergy R1 Audified Synergy R1 £1,189 Combining digital reverb with analogue distortion, the Synergy R1 has an intriguing set of skills. Robbie Stamp investigates Instead of churning out a Neve-lite preamp or a FET compressor, Audified’s first foray into hardware sees them pour their digital knowhow into a DSP based stereo reverb and blend it with an all-analogue saturation/distortion effect. The Synergy R1 comes as a two-slot 500 series unit with two rows of three knobs flanking an LED display and USB socket (for plugin control). The digital front half of the R1 offers seven acoustic/mechanical reverb types: small room, room, hall, long hall, spring, plate and tunnel. The controls are simple: a push switch knob for toggling the four parameters (Decay, Pre-delay, Color and Type), and another for…

Sound Devices MixPre-10M Sound Devices MixPre-10M £1,554 DAW-based recording may be the norm, but there’s still space for dedicated hardware solutions, says Jon Musgrave Much of Sound Devices’ gear targets the production sound market; however, change is afoot, with their MixPre range now offering a music-orientated model that ditches the timecode options of their more expensive MixPre-10T. The MixPre-10M uses a single SD card for recording and overdubbing of up to 12 tracks with simultaneous USB 2.0 interfacing to your DAW (12-in, 4-out). Files are recorded as monophonic WAVs at 44.1, 48 or 96kHz, and like other MixPre units, battery powering is an option. You get eight mic/line inputs with Sound Devices’ own low-noise Class-A Kashmir preamps, with two further physical inputs on a stereo 3.5mm jack. Outputs include main…