Innehållsförteckning för July 2021 från Future Music

FILTER Loopcloud 6 can use AI to recommend sounds for your latest track Loopmasters’ sample store also adds new search tools, extra effects and much more There was a time when buying a sample pack was a relatively simple transaction – cough up cash and receive a themed bundle in return. Recent years though, have seen the race between online sample suppliers hotting up significantly, with Loopmasters – now owned by Beatport – facing off with the likes of Splice and NI’s Sounds to find increasingly creative, convenient ways to serve up fresh sounds for your latest project. In the case of Loopmasters, this is facilitated by Loopcloud, the company’s plugin-come-storefront, which has recently been updated to version 6. The headline feature of Loopcloud 6 is a new AI-assisted search…

Universal Audio’s LUNA update turns the DAW into an API analogue console UA’s LUNA recording platform has always had a strong ‘analogue’ vibe, so it's apt that the latest update (v1.1.8) sees UA giving users the opportunity to endow it with a full API analogue console emulation. The API Vision Console Emulation ($699) features software versions of API’s L Series preamp, EQs, compressor, gate, filters and summing circuits. It’s designed to give the sound and feel of a large-format console within the LUNA environment, putting multiple plugin windows in a row in the mixer. The new add-on uses your Apollo interface’s built-in DSP for low-latency live tracking, then employs native processing when you’re mixing. If you want to add some API flavour in another DAW, you can check out the…

CLASSIC ALBUM Words by Roy Spencer© Donald Milne Squarepusher Feed Me Weird Things Rephlex, 1996 He may be one of the most celebrated producers of his, or any generation, right now. But, when he started, the man they call Squarepusher couldn’t get no love. As Tom Jenkinson, he’d poured his soul into 1994’s Stereotype EP – a blistering stew of filthy force and fusion, years ahead of its time. Yet, of the 1000 made, 200 were couriered back and dumped in his doorway. “They couldn’t sell them,” says Tom. “Based on that, I came out of it thinking, ‘OK. I had a go’. I took it as a creative success. But, in all other respects, a failure. I accept that the world wasn’t interested in it…” Thoughts turned to jacking…

40 Years of Techno Production Jungle-inspired breakbeat loop Breakbeat loops have been used in many areas of electronic music, most prominently jungle and drum & bass. But this versatile drum loop can also be found in various forms of techno Here’s how to create your own… 01 > The most commonly used sample is from the 1969 track Amen, Brother by The Winstons. We have added a four bar break to an Audio Track in Live with the Warp Mode set to Re-Pitch. As our project tempo is 140bpm, the loop now plays slightly faster compared to the original. 02 > We now need to chop up this four-bar loop. To do this, right click on the audio clip, select Slice to New MIDI Track and click OK to use…

40 Years of Techno Production Melodic techno synth Lead synths in melodic forms of techno use snappy filter envelopes for pluck sounds that lend themselves to atmospheric processing. Here we show you how using Xfer Serum… 01 > Bright waveforms provide a good starting point for lead synths. Basic Shapes position 2 is selected for Osc A, and a saw wave for the Sub Osc but with the octave set at +1 so that it’s in the same register. Osc A is detuned slightly to provide a unison sound between Osc A and the Sub Osc. 02 > Osc B also uses a sawtooth wave but set to one octave below Osc A to thicken the overall sound. Additionally, multiple voices for Osc B are created by setting the Unison…

40 Years of Techno Production Robert Hood-style lead synth Many classic techno tracks have been created with simple mono synths which suit hypnotic grooves. We’re using the TAL Bassline 101 plugin, sequenced within Ableton Live for a Minimal Nation-style riff 01 > The first step is to create a sequence of MIDI notes that will form our synth loop. One useful technique is to use Ableton Live’s arpeggiator, located in the MIDI Effects section, in order to generate tempo-locked notes at various octaves when pressing just a single key. 02 > For oscillator tones in the Source Mixer section, we’re using a Pulse Wave with the Pulse Width slider set to zero to produce a square wave. The Saw Wave is blended in to add some edge and, to add…

RETROSPECTIVE Oramics From founding the Radiophonic Workshop at the BBC to her unique Oramics machine, Daphne Oram was a pioneer © Daily Herald Archive/National Science and Media Museum/SSPL/Getty Images There are few movements in music named after a single person; even fewer are named after women. Daphne Oram’s work is one of the great contributions to music tech. Born in 1925, Oram was a talented pianist and organ player as a child. Her professional career in music and recorded sound began during World War 2; in 1942, on leaving school, she turned down an offer of a place at the Royal College of Music in London to instead take up a role as a junior studio engineer at the BBC, where her responsibilities would include mixing live broadcasts and creating…

Spring reverbs SPRING REVERBS We’ve tested five plugin emulations of this characterful reverb tech. Which of them would you be proud to coil your own? Softube Spring Reverb $89 Offering realistic sound quality, with a refined interface enabling speedy reverb design, Softube’s classic spring reverb plugin creates authentic, dark, splashy tones. Spring models are chosen by a continuous blend knob from 1-3 combined spring pairs. Tension simulates spring tightness, with higher values resulting in more condensed, upfront, higher frequency decays. The Shake control is similar to traditional diffusion controls, and the slider can be ‘twanged’. A simple dry/wet mix knob balances the relative volume of the reverb, and there are bass and treble controls for tone shaping, and cutting or boosting frequencies with analogue-style filtering. It’s very solid, but a…

TESTBENCH Pulsar 1178 The Urei 1176 is one of the most vaunted compressors in history thanks to its super-fast attack times, but also for its famous all-buttons-in trick. The stereo version of this classic FET hardware was the 1178, and married those super-useful features with the ability to work on two sides of a stereo signal at once. Pulsar’s 1178 takes what producers loved about the 1178 (and 76) to digital territory. All the classic features are present, including a simulation of that all-buttons-in effect which smashes the signal. But Pulsar have also added mid/side capabilities, a selectable saturation stage, full gain reduction metering, and an entire EQ to work your magic on the compressor’s detection circuit. Starting to compress The 1178 has no Threshold control unlike many compressors. Instead,…

GEAR GUIDE STANDALONE MUSIC MAKERS Roland Verselab MV-1 £599 Full Review: FM371 | The vocal-centric Verselab is a workable solution for computer-averse producers, while integrating with the computer when you need it to. Polyend Tracker £449 Full Review: FM357 Less esoteric than it first appears, this is a well-designed sampler that’s both fun and inspiring. Worth a look whether you’re experienced with trackers or not. Akai MPC Live II £1,040 Full Review: FM358 A truly go-anywhere production experience – and now better equipped than ever. The Live II remains the high point of the current MPC range. Roland MC-707 $999 Review: FM349 It lags behind some rivals on the sampling front, but on the whole the 707 is a powerful and well-designed groovebox. A welcome return for the company’s MC…

Filter Focusrite buys Sequential (and Dave Smith’s analogue synths) In a significant music tech industry development, British audio company Focusrite have announced that they're acquiring Dave Smith’s highly respected Sequential synth brand. Smith founded Sequential Circuits in 1974, designing the legendary Prophet-5 and many other influential synths and drum machines. He was also a key player in the development of the original MIDI spec, announced in 1981. Smith returned to the hardware synth market in 2002, starting Dave Smith Instruments. Over the past two decades, his products have been a crucial part of the analogue revival. Dave Smith Instruments was rebranded as Sequential in 2018, with Yamaha having returned the name to Smith in 2015. A rebooted Prophet-5 was released in 2020. Sequential now joins the Focusrite Group’s family of…

UVI’s Super-7 combines Juno-106 and 707 sounds to recreate an ’80s groove Released in 1986, Roland’s MKS-7 was a multitimbral sound and rhythm module that contained the combined guts of the Juno-106 synth and TR-707 drum machine. Now it’s been revived and refined by UVI, in the form of Super-7. Described as a “6-part analogue toolbox and groove designer”, this looks like something of an ’80s dream machine, giving you everything you need to create your next synthwave opus. Super-7 comes with 260 ensemble presets – these are based on multisamples of an MKS-7 and drum machine sounds from across the Roland X0X range and far beyond. The ensemble presets have discrete rhythm, bass, melody and three multi-purpose synth layers, all with their own voice and arpeggiator controls. Your patterns,…

Free firmware update means Arturia’s KeyStep Pro now does even more We’re as keen as anyone to talk about new products, but for many musicians, it’s the updates to ones they’ve already bought that are the most important. Take, for example, the new version free 2.0 firmware for Arturia’s KeyStep Pro MIDI/CV keyboard and sequencer, which adds both new performance features and stability/workflow improvements. New features include a global transpose function and global offset for the five main parameter controls. Users can now also record both arpeggios and chords into sequences. The MIDI Thru port can now be used as a second MIDI output too, making it easier to sequence multiple instruments at once. Other notable refinements include a smoother Mono mode, the ability to listen to sequencer steps without…

Talking Shop Jas Shaw “Electrocution while poking a compressor isn’t the death I hope awaits” Jas Shaw| Simian Mobile Disco’s Jas Shaw has spent much of the past year in isolation – due to both Covid and in recuperation from an operation. He’s made the most of that time though, channeling energies into his wonderfully melodic, atmospheric new album, Sollbruchstelle. We caught up with Shaw to find out more about his workflow, inspiration and expensive-sounding desk habit... When did you start making music? “I started out with guitar and slowly bought pedals. I’ve not touched a guitar for ages but I think that the experience of how you can totally change the sound of an instrument just by re-ordering the effects chain has stayed with me. “It’s really worth doing if…

Orbital on creating UK techno classic Chime [FM 10, 1993] © artyn Goodacre/Getty Images “CHEAP AVAILABILITY OF THE ANALOGUE SEQUENCER SHAPED TECHNO”JEFF MILLS “We were using a four-track to record, when all of a sudden I just thought, ‘hang on why do I keep recording when it’s all happening live now? Why don’t I just use the four-track as a mixer and record into another tape deck?’ Chime was one of those funny things where you don’t really think about it. It turned out to be our bestselling record! I think there’s a lot to be said for doing music without any thought behind it, just slapping something together and seeing what happens. You get a good feeling, because you’ve started and finished before you’re fed up with listening to…

40 Years of Techno Production Techno kick and rumble The low-end of dark driving techno is often created by processing the kick drum. Here we’re using a selection of aggressive effects in Ableton Live to produce what’s generally known as the “rumble” 01 > We’re using Sonic Academy’s Kick 2 plugin. Another option is to use a kick sample, typically from a Roland TR-909. However, Kick 2 allows greater flexibility in duration, pitch and top element clicks, essential to hone and personalise the style of your track. 02 > The next stage is to add harmonic bite to the kick using the Drive control on the Saturator plugin. It’s worth experimenting with the Curve Types as well as the DC and Color controls, and Dry/Wet balance, as these greatly affect…

40 Years of Techno Production Mutated Absynth techno drones Background textures are hugely important to techno. Let’s create a techno-tinged, unpredictable and movement-filled drone with the help of NI’s additive synth 01 > Load an instance of Native Instruments Absynth and create a two-bar MIDI note, in this case a very low note at E0. The starting point is to find a preset that has some movement and character. For this example, we selected the Alcove Fields preset. 02 > With a preset selected, the key part of this process is to use Absynth’s Mutate function. This randomly alters various parameters producing an entirely new, mutated version of it. This stage can be repeated until a useable sound is produced. This process is unpredictable and usually takes several iterations with…

Simon Doty | The Track Making The Beacon’s deep piano lines in Live Simon uses the classic Korg M1 plugin with judicious application of effects to create a majestic piano 01 > “I played this one out pretty quickly,” begins Simon. “I did a couple of takes, and I ended up just quantising everything to the grid. It was pretty simple but the groove of it fit with the track, and it really fit with the vocal too.” 02 > The patch Simon uses is the M1’s M1HousePiano program. Valhalla DSP ValhallaPlate is applied with a relatively lengthy 2.6s Decay time. “One thing I’ll use quite a bit on these is the low gain, which is a nice way to EQ out some of the bottom…

SOUNDS & SAMPLES Roland Patch Collections – various synths $19.99 each (or included with active Roland Cloud subscription) > RolandCloud, the online shop and subscription service for Roland software is featured occasionally in these pages, but usually with regards to their synths and drum machines (of a software kind). As well as emulations of their classics (in the so-called Legendary range), the Roland line-up includes a host of other drum, synth and playback engines. However, Roland are also constantly releasing new sounds and patches for them. Let’s focus on those for a couple of Juno synth and the TR-909 drum machine… First up, we have ‘French House’ for the Juno-106. There are only 32 patches in this pack, but they cover some key tones in the genre. Most successful here…

Ableton Loop Create event will connect musicians from around the world Following its enforced postponement last year, Ableton’s Loop event is returning for 2021 – albeit in an online-only format. Loop Create will take place on 26-27 June, and is designed to bring together music-makers from all around the world. This will be hosted on the Ableton Loop microsite, with sessions kicking off at 11am CET and continuing throughout the two days. Sessions will then be repeated to suit different time zones. The sessions, which are designed to offer insights and techniques, will be presented in different formats, and hosted by artists, musicians, ‘technologists’ and educators. Attendees will also have the opportunity to meet each other in “facilitated conversations”. Loop Create is free to attend for anyone who registers, with…

M-Audio update the Oxygen MIDI keyboard range M-Audio continue to revise and reboot their classic Oxygen range of MIDI keyboards, with the latest versions – known as the MKV models – getting smart controls, auto-mapping, and a built-in arpeggiator. There are 25-, 49- and 61-note models in the range, all of which feature full-size, velocity-sensitive keys, faders, trigger pads and more. The Smart Controls relate to chords and scales. With the Smart Chord feature, you can play full chords by pressing a single key, while Smart Scale ensures that you’ll only be able to play notes from your chosen scale. Both of these features are customisable, and you get more than 15 different scale variations. The Auto-mapping feature is designed to make setup a breeze, with multiple controls – Transport,…

The Future Of Music Modal Electronics say the Skulpt SE is the most affordable MPE hardware synth out there Modal Electronics have taken their original Skulpt portable synth back to the drawing board and returned with the new Skulpt SE. Offering the same compact form factor as its predecessor, this replaces the grey and black touch keypads with more traditional black and white ones. The front panel descriptors have been made more legible, and the build quality has been improved. You get 127 brand-new patches and MPE support – something that was added to the original Skulpt via a firmware update. In fact, Modal claim it's the most affordable MPEcompatible hardware synth around. Sound architecture consists of two Wave groups per voice, each with four oscillators. You can smoothly sweep…

In the studio with Squarepusher “It was all made late 1994 to early ’96 in various bedroom rigs. I had the [Akai] S950 by this point. I’d borrowed one, before that. I didn’t have an Atari, or any other computer-based sequencing, then. I didn’t get anything of that order until well into the 2000s. “The Boss DR-660 was used for triggering the S950. Then, there was some of the Roland kit, which I still have. Like the SH-101, the TB-303, TR-707, and 606. I borrowed a 909 right at the end from Grant [Wilson-Claridge] at Rephlex. “The mixer was a [Soundcraft] Spirit Folio 12-channel thing. I also had a Viscount EFX-1 – sort of a nice little cheap and cheerful effects unit with plenty of fun stuff on there. I…

40 Years of Techno Production Basic channel-style percussion Perhaps more than any other genre, techno allows endless creativity when it comes to the percussive elements. Here we’ll use some plugin presets in Logic Pro X to create a shifting, dub techno-style percussion line 01 > We’ve set Logic’s tempo to 141bpm and loaded a synth tom sound into Sampler. The choice of sound will depend on your track, but any short percussive sound will work well. Of course, it’s always useful to dedicate some separate production time towards creating your own library of unique drum and percussion sounds. 02 > With the metronome engaged, we recorded a series of MIDI notes from a keyboard and, using 1/16 Quantize, snapped the notes to the grid. A different feel can be achieved…

Richie Hawtin on making great techno [FM 301, 2016] © Joseph Branston/Future “THE 909’S SOUNDS ARE PARTY-READY. YOU DON’T NEED TO PUT EFFECTS ON THEM” “I would say don’t overcomplicate things. Create something that feels right to you that has a pure, honest energy and is infectious. An example of that is when I spent three or four days with the engineer explaining the patchbay to me. He showed me all these great effects, but I was like, no, fuck it, put all the effects in mono please – I want eight mono sends with everything coming back to the board so I can do feedback loops and EQ the hell out of them with minimal panning. It’s about making a track that feels good.”…

Octave One’s Lawrence Burden on working with hardware [FM 312, 2016] © Joseph Branston/Future “YOU CAN HAVE AMAZING SYNTHS BUT YOU HAVE ONLY SO MANY HANDS”RICHIE HAWTIN “A lot of it is about the relationship with the machine. The different characteristics you get with them. If you come from this era, you can probably get the same kind of feeling from software, but for us it’s like, this 909, not only does it sound different but there’s a way it reacts differently. Like, a particular synth has an individual way it reacts; it’s the quirks, the little nuances.”…

YOUTUBE MORE UNMISSABLE VIDEO TRAINING FROM FUTURE MUSIC Discover our line-up of exclusive YouTube goodness. Head online for all this and more! THE TRACK Leading producers go in-depth on the sounds, ideas and techniques behind their latest releases Joal, Eighty Four The Berlin-based artist shows us how he created some of the effects on Eighty Four in Ableton Live DON’T MISS: Document One, Hands Up Joe Froud and Matt King show us how they made this ‘filthy’ DnB number Nookie, Kaeya (Rage Mix) The Berlin producer breaks down his latest slice of vocal-driven techno Victor Ruiz, Love Story The Berlin-based producer breaks down his latest slice of techno DJOKO Johannes Kolter builds a track in Live before our very eyes… steinberg Studio Sessions Top producers show you…

CONTROL THE VOLTAGE The UNO Synth Pro, in both its guises, has two channels of gate and CV in and out, adding an extra layer of functionality that is rare at this price (although it’s becoming more common with the surge in modular equipment). The easiest way to take advantage of these is through the mod matrix, where the ports can be assigned however you like. If you like euclidean sequences then you could have one sending gates to the UNO. Maybe send the value of the mod wheel to an external effect, or you can send an LFO to your rack to sync up modulating a piece of Eurorack equipment. There is a lot on offer here, just another element to making the UNO a truly useful synth.…

Get creative with | Ableton Live Generate new musical ideas in Ableton Live PROBLEM: How can I make things more creative when I’m playing layered instruments? Finding new ways to interact with sound whether it be directly in a note editor or via a MIDI keyboard/control surface can sometimes be the solution to a creative block. Ableton Live offers some extremely useful MIDI effects and instrument routing options that allow us to customise and expand the way we play our favourite instruments. In this tutorial we will create an Instrument Rack that contains two instruments stacked on top of each other and use Live’s Note Length MIDI effect to alternate between each instrument as we play notes on our controller, resembling a very simple call and response method. The two…