Innehållsförteckning för August 2022 från Future Music

At the start of June, we returned to Anaheim, California, for the first NAMM show since just before the pandemic kicked off in 2020. It was a slightly slower and more sedate show than usual, with some notable brands absent – likely a hangover from two years of lockdown combined with supply chain issues that are slowing down this year’s gear release schedule. One particularly significant absence, however, was that of Dave Smith, who died at the age of 72 just days before he was due to appear at this year’s show. It would be hard to overstate the influence Smith has had on modern synth design and electronic music making, rivalled only by the likes of Bob Moog. We’ve done our best to pay tribute to his legacy in…

>Although Moog’s modern output is better known for its classy, high-end synths – from the semi-modular Grandmother through to the behemoth Moog One – the Asheville brand have dabbled in budget DIY gear before. Back in 2014 the company released the Werkstatt 01 – acompact semi-modular synth, originally launched as a project synth created by attendees of a Moogfest workshop and later released as a basic DIY kit for home users. Now Moog have returned to that same territory with a new semi-modular synth named Mavis. Mavis is a simple single-oscillator analogue synth made considerably more flexible by the inclusion of a 24-point patchbay. The core instrument itself features a VCO that can blend between saw and square waves and features pulse width modulation. The oscillator also allows users to…

>iZotope have released Neutron 4, the latest version of the brand’s intelligent mixing software. This combines eight plugins via an AI-powered “assistive audio technology” that’s designed to help you out when it comes to making mixing decisions. The big news is that the Mix Assistant has been ‘modernised’ into the Assistant View. This is powered by machine learning and will ‘listen’ to your audio and make appropriate mix settings. You can then adjust these in what’s described as an ‘intelligent control centre’. There’s also a new Unmask module that discovers and fixes masking issues for you by making space between two competing tracks. It’ll help you to balance your bass and kick and bring out vocals in a mix, we’re told. Then we have the Target Library, which will dynamically…

KEY FEATURES Four-part sound engine based on JD-800; 256 factory preset locations (including 64 original sounds), 128 patterns and 108 original waveforms; 2-part multitimbral; up to 128 voices of polyphony; 2 part, 64 step sequencer, 8 notes polyphonic per part; two-stage multi-effects with 7 main types; arpeggiator CONNECTIONS: headphones, output, mix in (all on stereo mini jack); external clock in (mono mini jack), MIDI in and out, USB-C (audio and MIDI) THE PROS & CONS + There’s a hell of a lot packed in here for the money Huge sound delivers everything you’ll want and need from the original synth We like its interfacing and mobile aspirations - Tiny footprint won’t be good for the bigger fingered It has a very distinctive sound that won’t be for everyone Screen doesn’t…

CONTACT WHO: Arturia WEB: arturia.com KEY FEATURES I/O: Includes 33 software instruments including four new editions and four updates, plus 14 sound packs. Upgrade prices available, login to an Arturia account to see offers THE PROS & CONS + Augmented plugins are fun and offer surprisingly deep synthesis tools MS-20 and SQ80 sound on the money Refreshed plugins and sound packs are welcome additions - Does your setup really need another MS-20? Augmented plugins aren’t the best for deep realism Arturia’s steadilyexpanding bundle is the most recognisable and – arguably – best value game in town when it comes to classic synths as plugins. New iterations come around on a steady annual basis, and we can expect each to add a handful of new emulations along with a refresh of…

>Imagine a compressor without attack or release controls, no threshold or ratio. This is exactly what you get with Playfair Audio’s new plugin, Dynamic Grading, which aims to approach compression as if it had just been invented. How would dynamics processing work if it had just been dreamt up in 2022? The plugin starts by displaying two histograms, one for input and one for output, each taking readings of the average level of the incoming signal against how long that average level is maintained. It’s hard to express in words, but that goes to show how novel this concept can be. Come with us as we tackle a new way to compress. Figuring out the visuals > Let’s try Dynamic Grading on drums. When we load it up, the histograms…

Polyend Play $799 Full Review: FM384 | Play’s capabilities aren’t quite ‘DAW-replacement’ level, but the sequencing workflow and live performance tools are some of the best going. 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 line. NI Maschine+ £1,099 Review: FM363…

ASM Hydrasynth Deluxe £699 Full Review: FM383 | The Deluxe is a great-sounding, flexible polysynth, ideal as a performance-led keyboard that can reach a wide range tones and textures. Korg Modwave £699 Review FM373 Modwave is far from the only wavetable game in town, but it sets itself apart with unique tools and a few added gimmicks. Korg Wavestate £699 Review FM353 Wavestate walks the line perfectly between paying tribute to a ’90s classic and offering cutting-edge tools. A fantastic update to a much-loved synth line. Waldorf Quantum £3,500 Review: FM336 A stunning piece of hybrid synth design – setting a new benchmark for features, interface and sonics. It’s expensive, but a synth that you’ll find inspiring for many years. Korg Opsix £699 Review: FM365 Opsix is packed with unique…

A short statement on the Sequential site, on 2 June, reads: “It is with heavy hearts that we share the news that Dave Smith has died. We’re heartbroken, but take some small solace in knowing he was on the road doing what he loved best in the company of family, friends, and artists.” Sequential were due to exhibit at the 2022 NAMM Show, which ran from 3 to 5 June. However, the company declined to participate out of respect for Smith’s memory. Smith founded Sequential Circuits in 1974, releasing the Prophet-5 – the world’s first fully-programmable polyphonic synth – in 1977. Many influential synths and drum machines followed, and he was a key player in the development of the original MIDI spec, announced in 1981. After Sequential Circuits folded in…

>Neve are the latest high-end console manufacturer to get into the desktop audio interface game with the launch of the 88M. Promising the same mic preamp you’ll find in the classic 88RS console – as used in the likes of AIR, Abbey Road and Capitol Studios – this 10-in/10-out device also has transformer-coupled inputs, meaning that your vocals and instruments should all benefit from the classic Neve preamp sound. There’s also a pair of TRS outputs for your studio monitors – controlled from a dedicated monitor pot – and a pro headphone amp, while both preamp channels feature a balanced insert send/return loop. Premium AD/DA conversion and latency-free monitoring are also on the table. It’s much smaller than the 88RS console, but the 88M promises a similarly high quality. It…

>Nina’s motorised knobs were the talk of synth town in the run-up to the NAMM Show, and now we’ve had the chance to find out a little more about the hardware they adorn. Coming from Melbourne Instruments – a company based in the Australian city of the same name –-Nina is a 12-voice analogue polysynth that features variable shape triangle oscillators. This means that you can continuously morph between triangle and sawtooth waves to create new sounds. Other features include a 4-pole transistor ladder filter with modulatable resonance, voice-level filter overdrive, digital wavetable oscillators and sampling capability. There’s also a modulation matrix, digital effects and multitimbrality. Really, though, it’s those encoders that are the big story, as they enable a recallable and automatable control panel. In a bid to reassure…

>Cre8audio have unveiled the West Pest, a companion synth to the East Beast instrument that showcased at Superbooth last month. This is a semi-modular desktop synth that’s been created in partnership with Pittsburgh Modular Synthesizers, taking influence from Pittsburgh’s Voltage Research Lab synth. The waveforms from this synth are run through the West Pest’s wavefolder, which amplifies them and folds them back onto themselves upwards of six times. The results, we’re assured, will add what they call “vast harmonic complexity and depth”. There’s also the Dynamics Controller, which is designed to behave like a traditional filter, VCA and envelope generator all at once. This was inspired by the work of West Coast synth icon Don Buchla, then refined and modernised by the team at Pittsburgh. Further sound-sculpting can be achieved by…

It’s very common for genres to be named after the place in which they were first developed – think Detroit techno, Philly soul or UK funky – but there’s a second category of genre which represents a location’s take on an existing style. Sounds like Berlin techno, UK drill or even Scouse house weren’t completely new, but were a local evolution of an existing sound. The same can be said of this month’s genre, Italo disco. What makes this interesting though, is how the sound evolved into its own distinct style and went on to influence countless other genres. The roots of Italo disco date back to the late ’70s, when the disco era was still in full swing in the USA and artists around the world imitated the sounds…

>In Session Audio have consistently received high scores in the pages of FM, not least because all their Kontakt-based instruments manage to combine excellent design, solid functionality and good quality results – all very useful when you’re hard at work in the studio. One of my firm favourites of theirs was Shimmer Shake Strike which combined a range of percussion samples with three parallel pattern sequencers. This rather undersells it though, as the results were both realistic and adaptable. The ‘shimmer’ in the title refers to tambourines, ‘shake’ is largely self-explanatory, and ‘strike’ includes woodblocks triangles, bottles and more. Now, just over four years from the original, we have Shimmer Shake Strike 2, which builds on its predecessor and with an aim of pushing realism even further. Let’s start with…

Novation FLkey 37 £200 Full Review: FM383 There might be little in the way of competition when it comes to FL Studio controllers, but Novation’s FLkey is a genuinely slick keyboard. Arturia KeyStep Pro £339 Full Review: FM324 For melodic sequencing duties and flexible hardware control, this is one of the best keyboard devices around. Akai MPK mini mk3 £90 Review FM363 A very decent upgrade with genuinely pro features, that cements its position in the top handful of mini keyboard controllers available. NI Komplete Kontrol A-Series | from £119 Review FM338 A quality controller combined with a well-rounded software bundle. Novation SL MkIII £540 Review: FM338 Well-designed and versatile. For those who work with both hardware and software, this may be the best studio centrepiece that’s on the market. NI…

Synth family tree If Bob Moog is described as the Grandfather of modern subtractive synthesis, then surely Dave Smith would be right alongside him, as a Great Uncle. Dave founded his fledgling startup in 1974, out of San Francisco. His day job involved working with micro-processors, an emerging technology of the era emanating from the Silicon Valley area of Northern California, where Dave lived. He had purchased a Minimoog in 1972, but wanted a sequencer to use alongside, so exploiting his talent and expertise for design, built his first analogue sequencer, the Model 600. This was the first in a run of similar sequencer-based products, providing the obvious branding for Smith’s new enterprise, Sequential Circuits Inc. The Model 600 was quickly followed by the Model 800 Digital Sequencer, offering the…

>You don’t need to be a synth historian to work out that Model 82, the latest instrument plugin from the Softube stable, is designed to emulate Roland’s classic SH-101. The name (the 101 was released in 1982) and the interface both give the game away, as does the majority of the feature set. Softube’s plugin is said to precisely model the sound of the hardware while making the sequencer and arpeggiator more DAW-friendly. There are a few additional features, such as stereo doubling and drive, but for the most part this looks like a loving nostalgia trip. Even the original red, silver and blue colour schemes are emulated. As well as the standard version of Model 82, those who buy it will also get five modules to run in Softube…

>Focal have announced their ST6 line of studio monitors, comprising the Solo6 and Twin6, and the new Sub12 subwoofer. The Solo6 and Twin6 powered speakers debuted some 15 years ago, with new models designed to offer more detail and transparency. These improvements have been enabled by improved transducer designs, new amplifiers, and a structurally enhanced cabinet. The monitors also incorporate features from Focal’s Trio11 Be monitors. These include a new version of Focus Mode, which lets you change the configuration with a footswitch. Focal say that this is like having a second pair of monitors with reduced dynamics that you can use for checking mixes and balance. The Solo6 has a 1-way singledriver Focus Mode with no tweeter, while the Twin6 Focus Mode uses a two-way arrangement with both drivers,…

>Hardware newcomers Groove Synthesis have now given us the full skinny on their several-times-teased 3rd Wave synth. The members of the team behind it, we now know, previously worked for Avid/Digidesign and Sequential, so the instrument certainly has pedigree. 3rd Wave is a 24-voice, 4-part multitimbral wavetable synth with three oscillators per voice, analogue low-pass filters, a state-variable filter, 6-stage wave envelopes per oscillator, and a Wavemaker tool that enables you to create custom wavetables in a single step thanks to its ‘sample-to-wave’ technology. You can either capture audio via the audio input or you can import a WAV file via USB. For each of the three oscillators you can choose between a classic PPG-era wavetable, a modern high-resolution wavetable, or an analogue-modelled waveform. 3rd Wave includes both a Dave…

01 > Start with a New Project and load a stock kit to Play’s memory. We’re going with the IDM Kit. First let’s use Fill to program a kick pattern. Select the top sequencer row by pressing the button on the very right. Now hit Fill. We change the type to Kick, select pattern Beatbeat 7, then hit Fill again. 02 > This gives us a simple pattern and automatically inserts a kick sample from the loaded pack. It’s worth noting, however, the element of randomisation introduced in the sample pitch and settings. If the first fill isn’t to your taste, hit Fill again to roll the dice a second time. 03 > Now let’s repeat the process on the next sequencer row to add a snare. We’re using the…

> Therelease comes in Standard, Preset, and Deluxe editions, allowing you to plump for just the loops, analogue presets, or both, with added MIDI files. The A.T. team picks up where they left off with their Subzero pack, throwing more monster Moog Sub 37 sounds your way. As before, they take the results into the outer regions of sound manipulation, designing a stellar batch of sonic modulations that’ll have your jaws dropping and speakers twitching. Presets for the Sub 37 and Subsequent 37 are a doddle to load up, if you have the Moog synthesisers to hand. And the super warm analogue sample files are a welcome second option, if not. Bass, leads, pads, and keys are covered. With all the tones you’ll ever need at your fingertips. Roy Spencer…

NEW ENTRY Aturia V Collection 9 €599 Full Review: FM385 | It’s arguably a tougher sell than some earlier instalments, but V Collection 9 becomes more appealing the closer you look. Korg Collection 3 $399 While Arturia’s emulation bundle doesn’t have the ‘official’ clout of Roland or Korg’s there’s arguably no better rounded softsynth package. Roland Cloud From $99 per year If you can accept the subscription model, Roland’s Cloud service offers access to official recreations of history’s most iconic instruments. Native Instruments Komplete 11 £539 Not purely synth-focused, but Massive X, FM8, Monark and Reaktor are undoubted highlights. U-he All Synths Bundle €780 With just six instruments included, this isn’t the best value but U-he are lauded as one of the best softsynth developers out there for a reason.…

Arturia Efx Fragments €99 Full Review: FM382 | Apowerful sound design tool presented in a user-friendly way. Not the only granular game in town, but still a potential secret weapon. ValhallaDSP Valhalla Delay $50 Full Review: FM344 Combining a range of excellent-sounding delay modes with some great ambient tools, this is a must-have plugin at a great price. Output Thermal £84 Full Review: FM360 A well-equipped and creative distortion effect that’s capable of a wide range of musical, often inspiring results. Soundtoys Effect Rack $299 A longtime favourite of many pro producers, Soundtoys’ hardware-inspired multi-effect can do everything from faux analogue crunch to out-there FX inspiration. Eventide H9 plugins $499 Available individually or as one big bundle Eventide’s H9 processors – from the pedal of the same name – are…