Innehållsförteckning för September 2018 från Future Music

ALBUM REVIEWS ALBUM OF THE MONTH Ross From Friends Family Portrait Brainfeeder © Fabrice Bourgelle British lo-fi producer Felix Clary Weatherall delivers his highly impressive and experimental debut album as Ross From Friends, Family Portrait. Having garnered attention with a clutch of hazy, immersive tracks across Breaker Breaker, Lobster Theremin, Distant Hawaii and Magicwire, the distinctive producer returns to Flying Lotus’ inimitable Brainfeeder imprint for his standout debut. Consistently pushing boundaries and experimenting, the record combines unusual structures, off-kilter rhythms and manipulated grooves. Yet for all its forward-thinking approach, Family Portrait is still driven by warmth and rich melodies. Hazy synths, stretched-out pads, melodic basslines and drifting harmonies waft over deep bass, grainy beats and jagged drum machines to create an immersive soundscape. The interaction between dreamy synths and melodies…

RECOMMENDED Max Cooper One Hundred Billion Sparks Mesh © Alex Kozobolis One Hundred Billion Sparks is the emotionally charged, raw and beautiful third studio album from UK producer, Max Cooper. Bridging techno, ambient and experimental ideas into his spell-bindingly broad concept of electronic music, Cooper creates an album that ebbs and flows with thoughtful dexterity. Jangling melodies, rich harmonies, warm pads, gleaming synths, tape delays, reverb and deep bass all collide to create a dense but foggy and hazy soundmesh. The album was made during a month long self-imposed isolation in a remote Welsh cottage, a move that no doubt helped to conjure the intimate and reflective atmosphere in which Cooper allows the listener to drift through his thoughts and feelings. Light and airy sonics swirl in the upper reaches…

The Ultimate Remix Masterclass GETTING IT ALL IN KEY Musical key is a consideration for every remix. At the most basic level, it’ll be needed to make sure that all the elements you add are in key with the elements you’ve brought over and the original track itself. But music theory can come in very handy if you’re going above and beyond the usual remit. Playing with the key signature of the original song and stamping a new one on your own version is an audacious thing to do, and if you don’t do it right you can fail miserably. If you’re going to mess with the key of the track, you’ve got two options: the first is to manipulate pitches, transpose samples and force it into a completely new…

The Ultimate Remix Masterclass REMIXING WORKFLOW In remixing, workflow is a necessary evil. Yes, nobody wants to do the housekeeping, but when you’re staring down a project in the middle of the creative flow, trying to hold onto the ideas in your head, you’ll be glad that you know where all your elements are. Stopping for ten minutes to track down that part you found during the listening sessions is like throwing icy water over your creative fervour. After your initial ‘salvaging’ sessions, you should have a folder of elements that you’ve gathered from the original track. You won’t have to load the parts again – just this one folder. So make sure you know exactly where it’s located, both in your OS’s file browser and in your DAW. But…

Paul Oakenfold The legendary Ibiza main man and remixer tells us about his track Dance music icon Oakenfold takes on Simon’s Crazy Love, Vol II. We caught up with him for a little insight into how he approaches reworking a track. What’s your approach to remixing? “I’ve remixed many, many artists. My U2 remix of Even Better Than The Real Thing charted higher than the band’s version. The secret of remixing is keeping the integrity of the artist, giving it a melodic flavour, and making it something people can dance to. I start a remix by pulling everything off the original that I will not use.” Which are you most proud of? “I’m most proud of my remix of Massive Attack’s Unfinished Symphony, U2’s Even Better Than The Real Thing,…

Roland TR-8S Getting started with the TR-8S The original TR-8 had a crude simplicity. What you saw is what you got: hit play, sequence notes and tweak channel levels and controls on the fly. However, the TR-8S’s addition of features has brought a steeper learning curve, so it’s worth revisiting this new drum machine’s operation, both for upgraders and newcomers. In TR-8S lingo, a Pattern has its own collection of performance data: the chosen Kit (ie, collection of 11 sounds), tempo, step notes, playback through the eight A-H variation sections, plus motion data (ie, recorded parameter movements). Punch the TR-8S’s Ptn Select button (top left), then spin the main top-right Value knob to choose one of the TR-8’s 128 Patterns. Or, hold down the PTN SELECT button and hit one…

TOOLKIT Additive synths What are they, what do they look like and what do you need to get started with using them? Over the past few issues, we’ve looked at various softsynths and their methods of sound generation. These are all based on the principle of either starting with a waveform and filtering away harmonics, or generating new harmonic waveforms by modulating one with another. Once comfortable with basic subtractive and FM synthesis, it’s time to go back to basics and build waveforms from the ground up. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) theory states that any audio signal, no matter how complex, can be broken down to a series of sine waves. In theory, you can recreate any waveform with the right combination of sine ‘building blocks’. Pile up sine waves…

Additive basics with Serum Own Xfer’s powersynth? You can try additive synthesis straightaway.… Although primarily known as a wavetable synthesiser, Xfer Serum also allows you to stack up simple sine waves from scratch, making it a fantastic entry point into the world of additive sound generation. At the top of Serum’s Wavetable Editor sits the FFT Area. The top row of vertical bars represent waveform harmonics, or ‘frequency bins’: the far left bar is the fundamental frequency, and the bars to the right represent the related harmonics. Octave intervals (2x, 4x, 8x the fundamental frequency) are greyed out. Simply click and drag a bar up to set that harmonic’s amplitude. Using the bars underneath, you can also alter each harmonic’s phase position. ‘Proper’ additive synths (like the ones above) offer…

Guide To | XXXX MODULAR MONTHLY Abstract tones TouellSkouarn embrace chaos with a triple feedback and cross-modulating oscillator and tube module TouellSkouarn began making handmade boutique guitar pedals in 2010, moving into the Eurorack format some years later with designs often based around fuzz and distortion. Today we have the Strakal Orsel and Skorn da Bask. We’ll start with the Strakal Orsel, billed as a tube distortion and crude VCA. It’s certainly not a VCA we’d normally be patching but it’s glorious as a distortion and feedback module. There are two NOS (new old stock) Russian tubes which can be driven, have the levels between them adjusted, and one of them can be switched between Triode and Pentode for a different upper-mid and high-end response. The module can be pushed…

CHAOTIC OSCILLATIONS Setting the feedback repeats level to maximum and tapping a really short delay will send the Magneto into self-oscillation. The module will settle on whatever frequencies allow it to self-oscillate based on the delay length and the filtering provided by the tape age control. These chaotic oscillations are rich in organic character and make for some great eerie drones. Turning on the quantised mode allows you to play harmonically by sending v/Oct CV to the speed control. The four-tape mechanics controls can then be used to further shape the tone. If you need more stability the infinite hold button will loop the current waveform, creating a wavetable oscillator. If you then send an ADSR envelope to the wet input you can shape the sound before it hits the…

VERSION CHOICES FL Studio 20 is available in four different versions: Fruity, Producer, Signature and All Plugins Bundle. The Fruity edition is the cheapest at 89 euros, and contains the core functionality but lacks audio capabilities and some of the more advanced plugins. The Producer and Signature edition cost 189 and 289 euros respectively – both have full audio capabilities, but the latter comes with an increased selection of plugins, including things like the Pitch & Time editor and Harmless additive synth. Finally, the All Plugins Bundle comes in at 826 euros and comes with Image-Line’s entire arsenal of instruments and effects, including things like the Drumaxx drum machine and Harmor, Morphine and Toxic Biohazard synths – all of which are excellent, even if they’re a little on the old…

The ADS-7 is a retro-styled Russian beat monster Russian synth-makers AVP Synth have taken to Facebook to announce the ADS-7 drum synthesiser. Assembled in Moscow using discrete components and OTA chips, the ADS-7 is an all-analogue beatmaker which takes its design inspiration from the drum machines and synthesisers you'd find in the ’70s and ’80s. The ADS-7 features seven sound generators covering kicks, claps, open and closed hats, and three individual Generators (GEN) with band and low-pass filtering. With a total of 65 rotary controls, four switches and 27 buttons there looks to be plenty of sound-shaping tools onboard. AVP promise the ability to create everything from classic noise drums to metallic tones. The ADS-7 includes individual audio outputs and individual trigger inputs for each of the seven sounds. There’s…

In the studio with Daniel Hunt “Besides the pre-production in our own places we did some preparation and a little recording in a small, unremarkable, but very efficient, studio up in the Ménilmontant area of Paris, which was the happening area for labels and things like that then. After a week or so getting things together there we moved to the Palais des Congrès, the opposite edge of town, in Porte Maillot. It’s a huge modernist theatre and mall, built in 1974. Jagger recorded some of his ’80s solo stuff there. Duran Duran did Rio there, which thrilled me. We also found a 12” of Murray Head’s One Night In Bangkok while scavenging around in the storeroom. As far as the main kit we used to make the album, I…

Exploded View Obey Sacred Bones International post-punk trio Exploded View deliver their sophomore album with Obey. Following on from their 2016 debut album, Berlin-based Anika Henderson and Mexico City-based Hugo Quezada and Martin Thulin reconvene with a more ambitious and focused approach. Gone are the raw, murky, psychedelic grooves that were born of a more improvisational approach, replaced with layered production techniques and a deeper, conceptual vision. The result is an album filled with more heady, intense atmospheres, sharper emotions and tension. Anika’s beat poet delivery perfectly suits the hypnotic song structures, driven by low-slung bass, loose drums and trippy sonics that reverberate throughout. Seemingly simple and stripped-back, each track builds on the next to create a gradual accumulation of weight that itself becomes a driving force of the whole…

The Ultimate Remix Masterclass THE ULTIMATE REMIX MASTERCLASS Rework classic tunes and put a new spin on your creative powers at the same time with advice from the masters What is art? Without trying to come across all philosophical, art is the practice of recombining old ideas and making something new – putting new spins on familiar images; borrowing from the masters to make something bigger and better. And as in art, so in music. The history of music is the reimagining of old ideas in new ways, whether it’s using old chord progressions, old instruments, or in the case of genres like hip-hop, entire old tracks, to make something new. In this guide, we’re taking on remixing from a number of angles: we cover the technical skills you need…

The Ultimate Remix Masterclass Photek The electronic pioneer dishes the dirt on his Myth of Fingerprints remix There aren’t many areas of electronic music that Rupert Parkes hasn’t had some form of influence in, and remixing is, of course, no exception. With dozens of projects under his belt for a diverse array of artists, he’s naturally a great source of advice on remixing, too. “You’ve got to choose what’s going to lead it,” he says. “Are you going to put it into a new style, or are you going to re-imagine the whole thing on the same scale – just your version?” Did you get to choose which track you were going to do, or was that decided by other people? “As soon as the offer came up, I wanted…

Harmonic mixing (and matching) It’s easy to identify the elements of your tracks that fit together in the same key by using specialist software – we’ll show you how… Music theory isn’t for everyone, and that shouldn’t be a mark of shame – especially when there’s so much software out there that can simply take a lot of the work out of it for you. Mixed In Key is one such piece of software. Technically a sample organiser, Mixed In Key throws in analysis of tempo and key signature, tagging your sample or track library and letting you filter the collection down to only the elements that are far more likely to fit together. The software uses the ‘Camelot’ system of harmonic mixing, colour-coding and tagging different keys with different…

The Ultimate Remix Masterclass Gui Boratto We interface with the São Paolo producer about his exemplary remixing © Nicole Fialdini Gui’s version of That Was Your Mother is like a textbook example of what a good remix should be: it retains the soul and mood of the original, while adding just enough new elements to make a completely new piece of music. We find out how the Brazilian techno connoisseur pulled it off… What’s your approach to remixing? “The first thing I want is to have a completely different approach and give it a totally different result. Also, the harmony and melody’s relation… I must like the original song but I want to do something that will never compete with the original; and of course, preserve the ‘soul’ of the…

In The Studio With Blawan Blawan Jamie Roberts has been one of the most exciting names in techno this decade. His debut LP sees him solidifying that status, with a raw modular take on the genre. Si Truss meets him in his Berlin studio © Joseph Branston Yorkshire-born producer Jamie Roberts rapidly caught the attention of the UK underground back in 2010, when he made his debut with a clutch of distinctive, impeccably produced tunes for taste-maker labels like Hessle Audio, R&S and Clone. His rise in the two years that followed was bordering on meteoric, propelled by a pair of tracks, released in quick succession, which both came as close as underground techno can to the status of a genuine crossover ‘hit’. The first of these, Getting Me Down,…

In The Studio With David Wrench David Wrench Maverick multi-tasker, musician and mixer, David Wrench, joins forces with Evangeline Ling as Audiobooks, with their sumptuous electronic debut EP Gothenburg.Hamish Mackintosh finds out chapter and verse © Will Ireland David Wrench has a musical CV that reads like a veritable who’s who of essential contemporary music. The Welsh producer, mixer and musician has added his not inconsiderable mixing talents to an impressive and eclectic range of projects from Frank Ocean, FKA Twigs and the Manic Street Preachers through to electronic luminaries Hot Chip, Goldfrapp and Caribou. Wrench’s deft touch with a mix recently drew the attention of one-time Talking Head David Byrne who enlisted David to mix his brilliant new album, American Utopia. As a musician, David Wrench has followed an…

A-H Variations Creating patterns within Patterns Up to this point, we’ve still been working within a one-bar, 16-step sequence. However, within a Pattern, you can set up eight different variations, labelled A-H (the bottom left group of buttons). The logical use for this is to create a multi-part arrangement that you can either leave running automatically in sequence, or jump between on the fly. Playback always starts in sync at the next bar, quantised to the master tempo – kinda like bar-synced triggering through MIDI clips in Ableton Live. But surely you’d have to program all your eight variations before hitting the stage? Not quite – a useful feature for live performers is the ability to keep one of the A-H variations running, but then edit another ‘behind the scenes’…

QUICK TIPS 1 One of the best ways to create unique additive timbres is by modulating the amplitude of different partials over time. Combine with gentle phase modulation for a typical additive-style pad. 2 Additive synths are ideal for designing simple sub bass tones, as you can slightly raise the third and fifth harmonic level and give a pure sine a tickle of midrange presence for smaller speakers. 3 Live’s Operator synth is most known for its FM capabilities, but open an Oscillator tab and you can design waveforms on a 64-partial display. 4 If using a non-additive softsynth with four plus oscillators, try combining pure sines at different intervals, then modulate each sine’s amplitude and pitch for familiar timbres.…

THE ALTERNATIVES Moog Mother-32 £550 The first tabletop semi-modular synthesiser from the legendary Moog stable has a simpler architecture than the Neutron, but includes a step sequencer moogmusic.com Arturia MiniBrute 2 £529 This latest update to the MiniBrute adds (among other things) a second VCO and 48 point patchbay to the mix turning it into a semi-modular powerhouse arturia.com Plankton Electronics Ants! €588 This alluringly-named synth has more than 50 patch points spread across its front panel, which acts to make it a little more intuitive than having a single patchable matrix planktonelectronics.com…

THE ALTERNATIVES Make Noise Morphagene £479 Simulated tape machine module with an emphasis on experimentation, music concrete, sound-on-sound overdubs, loops and tape splicing. www.makenoisemusic.com 4MS Dual Looping Delay £358 Modern crystal clear dual digital delay with advanced clock inputs/outputs for optimum syncing. Long delay times mean it can also be used as a sound-on-sound looper. www.4mspedals.com T-Rex Replicator £699 Mono two-head tape-delay module from Denmark with an actual tape-machine mounted on the panel and under voltage control. www.t-rex-effects.com…

Reviews Mackie Big Knob Studio+ Mackie Big Knob Studio+ £300 A long overdue update to a classic design. Jon Musgrave sizes up the new features on Mackie’s flagship monitor controller Mackie’s original Big Knob monitor controller is pretty much an industry standard. Even so, with more than ten years on the clock, it’s time things moved on, and you now have three brand new designs to choose from – Passive, Studio and Studio+. Overall, the Big Knob Studio+ is much more powerful than its predecessor Although visually similar to its predecessor, the top of the range Big Knob Studio+ is in fact part monitor controller and part two-in/four-out USB audio interface. This is a logical progression but inevitably makes the signal flow a bit more complex (more on that shortly).…

THE ALTERNATIVES Pioneer DJ SP-16 £1,389 The 1000’s predecessor is slightly more expensive, and trades the Performance FX for an analogue filter. It has outputs for each track too www.pioneerdj.com Elektron Octatrack £1,034 Elektron’s powerful sampler has some great performance features and tons of flexibility. Its deep workflow can be baffling though www.elektron.se Akai MPC Live £969 With its built-in CPU and battery, Akai’s latest MPC can work anywhere: the studio, onstage, even out in the middle of a field www.akaipro.com…

Adding sustain to the clavinet, pianet or guitars – possible? As we know, the clavinet, pianet and guitars are all instruments without sustain mechanisms.Thankfully, there are some great solutions! Firstly, there’s Electro Harmonix’s Freeze pedal, (currently £115) which essentially takes a snapshot of the sound and sustains it until you turn the effect off. Secondly, there’s the more advanced (and expensive) Gamechanger Audio Plus Pedal (£299) which gives you the same seamless control as a real sustain pedal. You can also tailor the ‘spillover’ on release. Prologue vs Minilogue > Firstly, the Minilogue is around £400 and the Prologue (eight-voice) is around £1200. Certainly, if you need more than four voices then the Prologue wins; if you want reverb, mod effects, splits/layers, full-size keys and a digital oscillator, you also…

Moog raise concerns about Trump’s trade tariffs Iconic synth company Moog Music have issued a stark warning about the potential impact of a new 25% import tax that came into effect on 6 July 2018. Moog say that the controversial tariff, proposed by Donald Trump, will “drastically increase the cost of building our instruments, and have the very real potential of forcing us to lay off workers and could (in a worst case scenario) require us to move some, if not all, of our manufacturing overseas.” Moog’s instruments are manufactured at their base in Asheville, North Carolina, which is staffed by 100 people. Around half of their circuit boards and other components are sourced from China. Customers have received an email from Moog encouraging them to write to their elected…

OVERDRIVE OVER DISTORTION “I tend to avoid using heavy distortion on my mids, like with Reese basses etc. I try more to use overdrive and soft clipping (purposely running things red) to get that edge on sounds than straight-up distortion plugins. Although it is a form of distortion, not all distortion is soft clipping. And in my experience that gets a more gnarly and tearing sound with nicer harmonics and it gives better control over what is happening. But it is quite subjective!” Slap modulators on everything! “If possible when programming a synth patch, and the synth allows it, try to slap modulators (LFOs, envelopes, macros) on some things that you normally wouldn’t and just see what happens. It has created some really happy accidents for me when I accidentally…

LIKE IT? TRY THESE… Sharon Tandy You Gotta Believe It’s... Sharon Tandy Daniel Hunt reckons Ghosts’ has a bit of a Sharon Tandy vibe to it. See if you agree when checking this comp of her freakbeat gems out. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: ‘Daughter Of The Sun’, ‘Our Day Will Come’, ‘Hold On’ Kiril Marichkov Zodiya Shturets Best known album by the Bulgarian rocker who inspired the Ladytron track, Kletva. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: ‘Zodiya Shturets’, ‘Kletva’, ‘Zombi’ Ladytron Witching Hour Celebrated third album that shook off the band’s electroclash tag. Essential listening. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: ‘High Rise’, ‘Destroy Everything You Touch’, ‘The Last One Standing’ Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You In Time NIN live album, featuring the work of Alessandro Cortini, who would help…

Lotic Power Tri Angle Two years on from a brace of impressive EPs for Tri Angle Records, the Houston-born and Berlin-based prodders Lotic unleash their brooding debut album. Unfamiliar drum patterns and experimental grooves combine to create an utterly compelling and unpredictable sound palette. Including vocals for the first time on a Lotic project, Power bristles with a political focus as it discusses the experience of power, specifically from a black viewpoint. The album is in some ways simple and stripped-back, but built on complex rhythm structures, otherworldly synth sketches, grumbling bass and eerie melodies. Playing around with the boundaries of electronic music, Lotic explore the space between club-ready techno, drone, classical, industrial and punk with murky pop sensibilities thrown in for good measure. At times cold and mechanical but…

ARTIST INSIGHT For the recent Graceland – The Remixes project, Michael Gaiman assembled an all-star international cast of producers and gave them the challenge of reworking tracks from Paul Simon’s iconic 1986 LP. With such a broad spectrum of remixing talent assembled in one place, FM saw the perfect opportunity to get some invaluable insight. Over the next few pages, we pick the brains of various artists involved in the project to discover how they tackled their contribution to the album, and to quiz them on their approach to the art of remixing.…

Salvaging Parts From Stems Let’s deconstruct a raw song and pick the best moments for a new track There’s no one set way to work on a remix, of course, but the ‘salvage and rebuild’ tactic we’re about to demonstrate is one of the best. Once you’ve got the stems for the track, it’s time to listen carefully to them, looking out for elements to take out of context to build your own piece. Once that’s done, you’ll have your own ‘construction kit’ with which to piece together a completely original track. By the way, doing this can be a great way to revitalise old tracks and projects of your own that have fallen out of favour. Listen to the stems carefully. As you listen, note down what hits you…

DOs & DON’Ts DO give a lesser element from the original song the chance to shine in the remix. Promoting a background element to centre-stage is a great way to put your own mark on a track. DO work on multiple variations of the original track, giving yourself more than one option for the final result. As you work, one of the projects will likely start to stand out. DON’T disrespect the vocal – it’s one of the most individualistic parts of the original track, and usually what gives it its soul. If you start throwing vocoders and distortion on there, the chances are very slim that you’re making things better! DON’T transform the original track beyond all recognition. People’s musical sensibilities are finely-tuned, and if a remix abandons most…

The Ultimate Remix Masterclass Michael Gaiman The Duke of New York tells us about his Graceland remixes A classic album like Paul Simon’s Graceland needs to be treated with care by a seasoned expert. Enter Michael Gaiman, aka the Duke of New York… “Depending on who you speak to, it’s all my fault,” laughs Gaiman. “About three years ago, Native Instruments announced their Stems creator tool and the release of stem sets for DJ use. I got really excited, and I set up meetings with all the major labels. Every label guy I went to looked at me like I was from Venus. ‘No idea what you’re talking about.’ “One of my oldest friends, Jeff Kramer, said that Paul [Simon] would get a rise out of this. He calls Paul…

PRODUCER’S GUIDE Roland TR-8S First released in 2014, Roland’s TR-8 Rhythm Performer made waves. The Japanese brand’s hybrid drum machine used digital ‘ACB’ tech to synthesise sounds from their iconic hardware beatboxes (the TR-808, 909, then the 606 and 707), packaged in an affordable desktop format. With 11 individual drum channels, DJ mixer-style upfaders, an ergonomic layout and that classic x0x-box 16-step sequencer, the black and green groovebox was as at home in the booth as in the studio. Its success inspired Roland to pump out loads more hardware recreations of their famous ’80s hardware, including the dinkier Boutique range. Fast forward to 2018, and Roland have launched a ‘MkII’ version of the TR-8: the TR-8S. Far more than a simple upgrade, the ’8S takes everything good about the first…

QUICK TIPS 1 The TR-8S lets you change each fader’s backlit lights, then save this info with a Kit. This is ideal for performing in dark clubs. Use one colour for kicks, one for percussion or samples, etc. 2 Use Accent to program louder accented steps for more dynamic grooves. Punch the Accent Step button on, light up accented steps, then crank up Accent Level to louden all instruments on those accented steps. 3 It sounds obvious, but we advise you stock up an SD card with your own samples, then load them into the TR-8S. This massively expands the instrument’s potential – why not render out samples from your latest club banger, then retrigger them onstage?…

FMCHOICE Six of the best partial-packing softsynths Native Instruments Razor | £89 NIs’ powerful Reaktor-based instrument boils down complex additive synthesis into a subtractive-style interface, helping the creation of cutting-edge, aggressive timbres. Apple Alchemy | Now bundled with Logic Pro, Camel Audio’s uber-instrument offers additive modes alongside VA, formant shaping, spectral/granular sampling and more. Image-Line Harmor | €139 This CPU-efficient, two-layer additive synth, again, has familiar subtractive-like controls and expert visualisation. It also lets you turn images into audio, and resynthesise audio files. AIR Music Technology Loom II | $100 This semimodular weapon lets you choose one of 34 partial-processing modules to load in slots, then blend variations using the Morph Pad. u-he Zebra 2 | €199 Very much a ‘workhorse synth’, u-he’s four-oscillator instrument can do it all: wavetable,…

Interview Dirty Projectors Dirty Projectors With an incendiary kaleidoscope of sounds and styles, Dirty Projectors remain a rock band unlike any other. Danny Turner discovers how David Longstreth brings his artistic creations to life on the latest album, Lamp Lit Prose © Jason Frank Rothenberg Totally absorbed in making music, Connecticut-born David Longstreth rarely ventured out of his dorm room at Yale University. His first album, The Graceful Fallen Mango, written on a four-track in his brother’s basement, typified the experimental approach that would later come to feature on Dirty Projectors’ catalogue of critically-acclaimed albums. A restless and avid collaborator, Longstreth has worked alongside the likes of Bjork, Kanye West, David Byrne and Solange Knowles, while a rotating door policy has seen him enlist dozens of musicians to embellish his…

Strymon Magneto Reviews Strymon Magneto £580 The latest Eurorack module from the well-loved brand shows the benefits of listening to your critics, says Phil Wise Strymon are well known purveyors of high-end effect boxes, with their Big Sky Reverb and Timeline Delay at the top of many musicians wish-list. At NAMM in 2016 they unveiled their first prototype Eurorack module, a four-head tape echo simulation called Generalissimo. This caused a lot of excitement, but the prototype also caught some criticism for its lack of CV inputs. Two years later, the module has finally been released under the name Magneto and Strymon have not only listened on the CV front but have also expanded the module beyond a standard delay with new Looper and Phrase Sampler modes. At 28hp and nearly…

Image Line FL Studio 20 Reviews Image-Line FL Studio 20 from €89 The DAW formerly known as Fruity Loops finally arrives on Mac. Si Truss sees if it’s worth making the switch… Few software applications can claim the sort of cultural cachet that FL Studio has. Originally launched as FruityLoops – a title it’s often still colloquially known by – and inspired by Propellerhead’s much-loved Rebirth app, the loop-sequencer-turned-DAW holds a near-iconic status for a certain generation of producers, particularly in hip-hop and EDM realms. However, while it undoubtedly has legions of fans, historically FL Studio has been a PC-only affair. All that changes with FL Studio 20 (which, confusingly is actually version 13, but titled for the software’s 20th anniversary). The headline feature here is a native 64-bit Mac…

THE ALTERNATIVES Propellerhead Reason 10 £299 Reason is probably FL Studio’s closest rival, with its separate Rack and Mixer sections and broad range of hardware-style tools propellerheads.se Ableton Live 10 from €79 With its individual Session and Arrangement views, Live is similarly geared towards experimenting with loops and patterns ableton.com Native Instruments Maschine Mk3 £469 With a similar emphasis on loops, patterns and grooves, NI’s Maschine ecosystem is a good alternative for beatmakers native-instruments.com…

Recording audio into MPC Live How do I record synths into my new MPC Live? The new MPCs don’t just let you either sequence MIDI or sample short pieces of audio. They’re full blown sequencers, samplers and audio recorders with a continually evolving software DAW for those who still want to edit more deeply in the computer. The integration is pretty seamless and Akai have been nailing bugs and adding features faster than previously. One huge bonus with the MPC Live (and X) is that they both feature eight tracks of stereo audio recording direct to the internal or user-added SSD/USB thumb drive/ SD card. Here’s an example of how to record violins straight into the MPC Live… Start a new project and save it into its own folder. Then…