Innehållsförteckning för May 2016 från Future Music

WELCOME The Beat Goes On The vast majority of modern music is driven, in one way or another, by a beat. Be it the mechanised pulse of Techno, the syncopated rhythms of modern Jazz, the bounce of House and Garage or the bass heavy beats of Hip-Hop and Grime, much of the music we create, mix or master is tied to some form of percussive foundation. More often than not, getting that foundation sounding right is the key to perfecting your whole production. This issue, we’re focusing on the process of mixing perfect beats – from EQing and compression to blending electronic and acoustic sounds, replicating the feel of a real drum kit and more. We’ll walk you through everything you need to know to master your percussion parts. Head…

Track by track with Joshua ‘Hervé’ Harvey © Ophelia “For this album we’d sample from anywhere. A lot of the stuff was off CDs, but we’d also rip from YouTube videos, and pull stuff out of weird old sample packs that I’d bought in the late ’90s. Me and Sinden are exactly the same now – anything goes… as long as it sounds good.” Do You Really Want It “As we were making the album I was in the studio working on beats, as well as my solo Hervé stuff. Sinden was out on the road a lot of the time, DJing all over the world. That probably slowed the album down a bit. Still, on his travels he was always meeting new friends and Trackademicks, who guests here, was…

ALBUM OF THE MONTH Kikagaku Moyo House In The Tall Grass Guruguru Brain House In The Tall Grass is the raw but delicate third album from psychedelic Japanese band, Kikagaku Moyo. Starting out as a busking outfit in Tokyo in 2012, the group have evolved into a forward-thinking and experimental project with a global sound, and have already amassed two albums and several world tours. House In The Tall Grass is even more expansive than their previous output, exploring a wide range of influences from Krautrock to classical Indian music, traditional Folk and ’70s Rock. Soft vocal melodies interplay with warm sitar sounds to create a breezy sense of freedom and natural flow. Chiming guitars and ragged riffs cut and chop into the mix alongside Jazz-like percussion as the album…

RECOMMENDED J Dilla The Diary Mass Appeal Records Legendary Detroit Hip-Hop producer J Dilla’s lost vocal album finally sees release ten years after his untimely death. The record offers a fascinating insight into what informed Dilla’s shift in attitude that ultimately led to seminal works like Donuts and Ruff Draft. The Diary was initially scheduled for release in 2002, as Dilla looked to capitalise on the attention he had received as a behind-the-scenes hit maker. The project ended up being shelved which then became the stimulant for Dilla to break free from the major label system and work on his own terms. The rest, as they say, is history. The Diary itself is a typically expansive affair that showcases Dilla’s innovative attitude. Production comes from Dilla, Madlib, Pete Rock, Supa…

Panning and ambience When mixing an acoustic drum kit, panning can be used to replicate the position of the drum kit from the drummer or the audience’s perspective. So the kick and snare remain in the centre of the mix, the toms are panned slightly to one side, then the hi-hat to the other. The two overheads will likely be generously panned in opposing directions for maximum width and space. Electronic drums can be mixed more experimentally: while the kick should remain in the centre, snares and claps are usually spread out with spatial effects, while hi-hats can be panned around the stereo field, or even moved rhythmically with an auto-panning plug-in. Electronic beats are usually comprised of synthetic sounds that haven’t been recorded in any kind of physical space…

QUICK TIPS 1 Assuming you’re mixing and not creatively designing drums, it’s best to use saturation and distortion (via either outboard or analogue-emulation plug-ins) subtly through gentle insert application and/or through parallel means. 2 If excessive transients are causing a compressor to work too hard, place a limiter first in the chain and gently pull down a few dBs of the highest peaks, lessening the compressor’s workload. 3 When beefing up drums with auxiliary parallel compression, the increase in level will make the effect instantly sound impressive. Evaluate the effectiveness of your compression – minus the extra loudness – by grouping the two channels and turning them down. 4 Rather than reaching for an EQ, try brightening dull hits by layering synthesized white noise underneath. Use longer bursts for snare…

How To Get A Vintage Drum Mix Retro-sounding drums will never go out of fashion – so let’s get that classic mojo in the box Hal Ritson gives us his tips on how to achieve a vintage-sounding drum mix. “If you’re dealing with a kit that is already recorded, I would recommend sending the whole kit to a buss, then using a lot of ‘vintage’ compression, EQ, tube and tape effects on the kit as a whole to get it to gel and saturate together like the old recordings. I would also recommend using a vintage reverb like a convolution of an EMT plate reverb, and putting that somewhere in the middle of the drum buss chain, so the verb starts to breathe in the gaps in the beat, which…

Which hardware synths do you use? “Right now, the Oberheim OB-Xa – I just bought it a week ago and it’s been hard to find. Once you start playing it, it reminds you of every ’80s song that you ever heard [laughs]. The only trouble is you have that problem with using MIDI, stuff not working and wondering why you have this latency. So there is a lot of trouble that follows using analogue stuff, but once you forget about that they sound so good. I have a Moog Mother-32 too, and there is another modular one on my shopping list; forgive me but I can’t remember its name. I’m just now getting into modular and I don’t know enough about it yet, but the idea behind it definitely appeals…

Recording the vocal Drew: “The biggest blessing about making this song was that Rozes has an insane voice, and I suck at producing vocals. I’ve got better at it now, but at the time I was pretty awful. Thank god she would sing perfectly on key – I don’t think I even used Melodyne on the majority of it. I only put very basic reverb on it too, as her voice is very strong. Because of that, it wasn’t over-processed, which I think makes it sound super authentic.” Alex: “We recorded it in the middle of the living room with the air conditioning blowing.” Drew: “All these vocals were done without a vocal booth, with my Telefunken mic and a reflection shield. Luckily my NYC apartment was high up in…

So your new album, Modular Baptism , implies you’ve been getting into modular gear, right? DD: “That’s exactly what it is. The whole basis for the name of the album was because most of it was done on synthesizers twisting knobs. If you look at some of the tracks, they’re not even sequenced, we didn’t sample anything. To come back to your question, how do you become unique – if you’ve got that same exact sound, you can be different depending on what you do with the knobs.” IT: “It gives it more of a human touch; it’s like a live session feeling. The problem is, once you’ve recorded it you can’t do it again in the same way. We have a really simple set-up. We wrote…

Yeasayer With their elastic grooves and psychedelic-sounding arrangements, Art Rock vanguards Yeasayer always keep us guessing. Danny Turner discovers whether new album Amen & Goodbye is quite as fatalistic as it sounds © Daniel Byrne Yeasayer first came to the public’s attention at the Texas-based South by Southwest festival in 2007. Comprising Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton and Anand Wilder, the trio describe their sound as “Middle Eastern-Psych-Snap-Gospel”, which does little to clarify their assimilated influences or accurately describe their wildly eclectic use of syncopated instrumentation. For most bands, having two songwriters would cause untenable friction, but for Yeasayer friction is the wellspring of their creativity. Their fourth album, Amen & Goodbye, is another exercise in deconstruction and experimentation, enabling the group to perfect the art of making technology sound…

Novation Circuit Advanced synth editing and sequencing INCLUDES VIDEO AND AUDIO VAULT.FUTUREMUSIC.CO.UK When we reviewed Novation’s Circuit groovebox in issue 299, we loved its tweakable interface and its fantastic sequencer. At the time, we noted that one of its few weak points was the slightly cryptic nature of its onboard sound design tools. Circuit packs in two polyphonic digital synth engines – based on Novation’s Nova range – which are controlled via eight ‘Macro’ rotaries. In its self-contained mode, these Macros are great for experimentally tweaking sounds but they’re somewhat limited when it comes to deeper editing of synth sounds. Fortunately, with the recent release of a software editor, that’s all changed. Created alongside developer Isotonik, the Max-based Circuit Editor allows users to hook the device up to…

QUICK TIPS 1 Circuit comes with Save disabled. Before you do anything else, activate it by holding down Save and Shift when turning the unit on, or you won’t be able to store any of your work! 2 If you’re using Circuit to sequence external gear and don’t want to hear the built-in synths, turn them down in the mixer but don’t mute them – muting turns off the MIDI output too. 3 Don’t want to use Circuit’s Scale modes? Or sequencing the synths via a DAW or the MIDI input? Set the Scale to Chromatic to allow the full range of notes to be played. 4 Looking for new patches or fresh ideas? A good community should spring up around Circuit Editor users. Join Novation’s Circuit Owners Facebook group…

The René Sequencer Because the René’s microprocessor is capable of logic functions, you can have the sequencer store patterns and it comes with eight sets of ‘snake’ coordinates pre-programmed. These are more predictable locations for the module to travel to using all 16 locations. But once you truly get your head around the René’s logic functions your adventures with Cartesian are bound to expand. This took a bit of doing, but after we’d spent some time with the module’s manual, we were able to generate some fun and truly unpredictable grooves. You can store four groups of Stored Quantized Voltages (SQVs) alongside a scale, which gives you the option of playing any of them back via the quantised CV output. One of our favourite things to do after programming René,…

ADVICE How do I recreate the sound of old-school samplers in software? > Although not many of us would like to go back to the days of tiny displays, laughably limited memory and seemingly endless menu diving, there’s no denying that much of the charm of many of the classic loops we remember was derived from the hardware that was used to sample them. If you have a loop that you’d like to make sound old school, try using filters to cut below 40-70Hz and above 12-15kHz. You can then add a tape sim for some saturation, followed by a ‘vinylising’ plug-in (check out iZotope’s recently re-released Vinyl for an excellent free option) to recreate the crackles and pops that you would have got when sampling from a record. For…

EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS THIS MONTH… Joe Rossitter musician, producer Joe is the man behind this issue’s percussive cover feature. Head for page 28 now where he’ll show you how to shape and mix your drum parts to create the perfect rhythmic backbone. Don’t miss the videos on the Vault too. Bruce Aisher musician, producer Hardware sequencers are undoubtedly on trend right now, from Korg’s compact SQ-1 to Arturia’s BeatStep Pro. However, we’ve rarely seen sequencers as ambitious as Koma Elektronik’s Komplex. Check out Bruce’s review on page 90 . JoE Silva musician, producer This issue sees our man from across the pond get his hands on the new system from one of the US’ most exciting Eurorack brands –Make Noise’s System Cartesian. Find out what he makes of this rack…

Mello out Looking for an alternative way to add some retro strings and pads sounds to your tracks? Check out Electro-Harmonix’s new Mellotron-emulating Mel9 Tape Replay Machine pedal. Following on from their B9 and C9 Organ emulators and Key9 Electric Piano Machine, the Mel9 takes a guitar or bass input and turns it into a recreation of a host of vintage Mellotron tones, with Orchestra, Cello, Strings, Flute, Clarinet, Saxophone, Brass, Low Choir and High Choir settings available. This latest emulator pedal is polyphonic and features the same low-latency technology that can be found in the rest of the ’9 range. It’s available now at a list price of $295.10.…

Kel Assouf Tikounen Igloo Records Exiled musician from the Sahara, Anana Harouna delivers a spirited new record with his Tikounen outfit. Merging myriad western influences with his region’s traditional sound, the former Tinariwen member encapsulates the sound of the new Tuareg generation. Cross-referencing elements of Stoner Rock, Electronic music and Pop with his own version of Desert Rock, the singer and guitarist aims to promote Tuareg culture around the world. Crashing drums, driving bass and cutting guitar riffs combine with Tamasheq chanting to create a fast-paced record that shimmers with personality and attitude. Inspired by a sense of anger and frustration at a world ravaged by war, injustice and pollution, the album is charged with all the passion of a revolution. The bass is a constant powerful force throughout the…

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO MIXING BEATS Be they acoustic, electronic, recorded or sampled, beats are the foundation of much of the music we make. Here’s how to make yours rock solid… The quality of a production lives or dies on the strength of its drums. Modern tracks feature impressive beats that underpin all other elements and smack through in all the right places, balancing gutsy punch with sizzle and groove. Being the rhythmic focus of a track, and with so many processes involved, it’s no wonder drum mixing can be such a challenge: a beat will be comprised of multiple tracks and, not only do you have to perfect the elements individually, but each must also contribute to the collective kit sound, making it difficult to know where to start…

Classic Drum Compressors When it comes to drum shaping and squashing, several iconic compressor designs have earned legendary status. Let’s look at three of the best In comparison to sustained signals such as vocals and pads, a drum’s envelope occurs over a short time period and so a drum compressor must exhibit certain characteristics. Fast attack times will catch loud transients or fine-tune the amount of transient allowed through, and a quick recovery time means gain reduction will return to minimum before the next drum strike. So fast-acting VCA and FET designs are usually more suited on drums than the slower opto models. Here we look at three famous compressors that are great for beats. Other iconic designs we haven’t mentioned include the famous SSL Bus Compressor, which excels at…

Six tips for EQing electronic beats To get pro-sounding drums, you need to be familiar with both corrective and creative equalisation. Here are our tips for better drum EQing 1 Kicks can often sound ‘woody’ due to excessive bloat in the 300-500Hz area, so clean this muddiness away with an EQ dip. A high-mid and/or treble boost can help the kick cut through the mix – to start try adding a large boost at 2kHz and a smaller one at about 10kHz. 2 A great way to thicken out weedy electronic claps is via a hefty dose of saturation – but watch out as distortion can heavily amplify bass and low-mid frequencies. Always follow any extreme distortion processes with EQ to carve out these affected areas. 3 Treble can build…

Somebody call a Medic! We delve into the sonic beast that is the Defibrillator from Medic Modules, exploring its characterful take on the MS-20 filter circuits Let’s cut to the chase – the Defibrillator is like an MS-20’s dual filter left to hit the gym alongside a serious steroids habit. It simply sounds HUGE! Three different ‘sub modules’ make up the Defibrillator with the two input mixer, dual filters and a VCA at the end of the chain. Routing signals is easy with a series of switches selecting different signal paths which, along with the various inputs, allow for easy use of the module as a single signal path or for breaking down into its smaller parts. The Defibrillator is based on the classic Korg MS-20 filter circuit which is…

How do you ensure having two songwriters in the band doesn’t create conflict or an album of disparate ideas? CK: “It probably does sound a bit disparate, but with all the bands that I really like – I’m thinking The Clash, The Beatles or Fleetwood Mac – they have different vocalists and obviously different ideas and sometimes conflicting ideas. With The Clash I can really hear that conflict, more so than on our records – like, did Joe Strummer really wanna do this?” IWT: “I also think if we’re all bringing something creative then that in itself is going to bring some kind of cohesion. Whether that’s energy through struggle, compositional ideas or collating ideas, as long as the cream rises to the top.” CK: “If one person’s telling everybody…

Under the hood So what do the Circuit’s two synths look like? We asked Novation Product Owner Olly Burke to explain more about the device’s sound engine: “The synthesizers are based on our MiniNova synth engines. We’ve taken bits out so that we can fit essentially what is two MiniNovas and four drums and all the effects into the same box. Rather than having three LFOs and six envelopes, we stripped it down to two and three respectively. We’ve added Macros which give you a much more controllable and exciting way to play with the synth using only eight knobs.” That leaves two independent six-voice synth engines, each with two oscillators offering an array of wave shapes along with shaping controls including Wave Interpolate, Pulse Width/Wavetable Index, Virtual Sync, Detune…

Meet The Composers Samuel Sim is a London-based composer who shares studio premises with Spitfire Audio founders Paul Thomson and Christian Henson. The genesis of the Chrysalis library stemmed from wanting to have a ‘piano-like’ sampled instrument from which Samuel could compose and, as a prodigious harpist, creating a deep, multi-sampled harp library provided the perfect foundation. His credits include scores for TV shows including Home Fires , The Mill and feature film Awake . Icelandic musician Olafur Arnalds’ score for TV series Broadchurch is how UK audiences might know him best but, as one half of Kiasmos, he’s well established in the electronic community too. The Composer’s Toolkit follows his evocative Evolutions: Frozen Strings library…

Violet The Atomic | €249 Everything is atomic; difference comes from arrangement and composition. So what’s different about this latest mic from Violet? Robbie Stamp gets particular WHAT IS IT? Cardioid condenser microphone CONTACT Who: Violet Design Ltd Tel: +372 5584628 Web: violet-design.com HIGHLIGHTS 1 The rich low frequency response 2 Great for intimate vocals 3 Its solid but lightweight design SPECS Transducer: 21mm diameter true electrostatic condenser Polar pattern: cardioid Head amp circuit: class A discrete, transformer-less Freq response: 20Hz-20kHz Signal to noise ratio: 88dB A-weighted Sensitivity (1kHz into 1kO): 22mV/Pa Max SPL (for THD 0.5% into 1kO load): 134dB Head amp dynamic range: 128dB Dimensions: 160mm (L) x 42mm (Dia) Weight: 320g The Atomic is a neat, simple and robust large diaphragm condenser microphone that proves lighter…

Bring The Noise As well as the Equator software, the Rise 49 ships with an 8-track cut-down version of Bitwig; but the real breakthrough is the Noise app which can work standalone on an iPhone/iPad, or over Bluetooth with any Rise model. Pair Noise with the Rise on your iOS device and you have a self-contained portable set-up. Latency between hardware and iOS devices is minimal and 25 quality sounds are included, with additional sound packs available via in-app purchases. The Noise interface on your iOS device looks just like the Rise hardware and you have all the same controls that are found on the Rise hardware’s performance panel, though there’s no way to deeply edit sounds at root level (as you can with Equator). For those with the iPhone…

Taming inconsistent bass parts How do I get my bass parts more consistent? I often get mud, while certain notes jump out too! First decide whether you want your kick drum or the bass sound itself to carry most of the low-end weight. If it’s the kick carrying the lows, you can high-pass/EQ your bass sound to avoid ‘sonic mud’ building up. If it’s the bass sound carrying the low-end, high-pass/EQ lows out of the kick so they slot together nicely. Watch for too much build-up around 200Hz – often cutting this range a little really opens up mixes. If certain frequencies/notes are jumping out more than others there are a number of approaches to consider… > If certain frequencies are jumping out (or not present enough) don’t jump for…

Steinberg unveil WaveLab 9 Steinberg have unveiled the version 9 update of their powerful audio editor WaveLab for both Pro and Elements versions. This latest incarnation has a new look and feel, based around a single-window interface, along with a new bundle of mastering plug-ins, an SoX-based resampler and a variety of workflow enhancements. The Master Section now gives you 12 (Pro)/five (Elements) insert slots, along with flexible channel processing and new metering/monitoring, plus M/S support. The new MasterRig bundle of tools offers six multiband modules in Pro 9 – an Imager, Limiter, Dynamic EQ, Compressor, EQ and Saturator (the latter four support mid/side processing per band) – while in Elements 9 the MasterRig offers all except the Dynamic EQ. Other new features are designed to help with project management…

The Count & Sinden Mega Mega Mega Domino, 2010 Words by Roy Spencer © Chris Davidson The year of 2010 needed squarely kicking in its balls. It was the Dance music scene, you see – it stank. Practically nothing of worth was out there shaking up the mainstream. All the radio was churning out was a never-ending stream of Gaga, Guetta, Pitbull, Peas, and other pap. All agreed – it was bollocks. Thankfully Graeme Sinden (aka Sinden) and Joshua ‘Hervé’ Harvey (aka The Count) were taking note. They’d already showed us the way with the smash hit club single, Beeper – its mix of bubbling underground styles feeling like a much-needed rush of fresh blood in Dance music’s arm. Sensing their potential, a new A&R at Domino Records signed the…

LIKE IT? TRY THESE… Hervé Dance To My Beat EP Opening salvo from a whole new batch of beats coming from Hervé on Skint Records in 2016. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Fuck The Speakers, Dance To My Beat, Doughnuts Revenge The Count & Sinden FACT Mix 01 Super upfront mix (for 2008) with our boys ’pon the decks. Worth the ticket price alone for their everfresh track, Beeper , featuring Kid Sister. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Bust A Move (Don Rimini Remix), Beeper, B-More Forward The Count & Sinden Mega Mega Remix Our featured Classic Album completely remixed by the likes of Lone, Canblaster, Krystal Klear and Dave Nada. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Desert Rhythm (XXXy Remix), Panther (Bambounou Remix),…

Tim Hecker Love Streams 4AD Canadian experimental producer Tim Hecker delivers a highly atmospheric album with Love Streams. His first record for Indie label 4AD, it is Hecker’s first album since his much-lauded Virgins from 2013. Love Streams continues Hecker’s exploration of avant-Classical orchestration and electronic processing but adds greater intensity and more raw emotion. The entire record has a melancholic hue, conjured through rounded-off synths, warm pads and grainy textures. Influenced by 15th century choral scores, but then assembled by gradual layering of Hecker’s electronic sounds which are then distorted and evolved through Hecker’s painstaking but innovative programming, Love Streams is wonderfully unique and inventive. The Icelandic choir who feature throughout the LP combine with tingling melodies, speckling drums and breathy woodwinds to create a haunting, almost mythical aesthetic.…

Parallel Compression Techniques Blending compressed and uncompressed signals in parallel is a common technique – but do you know how to use it effectively? Let’s explore the process in depth > Let’s first use basic parallel compression to add body and sustain to a drum loop. You can follow along with any kind of beat – we’re using a tweaked acoustic kit from Addictive Drums 2. Send the drum signal to an aux return, then place a compressor on this return. > Dial in a medium ratio, fast attack and fast release, then pull the threshold right down to squash the parallel signal’s transients. Now fade this second signal up alongside the first to blend in extra weight and sustain while maintaining the original signal’s transient detail. > You may…

Drum Distortion From subtle warmth through to assertive crunch, distortion and drums go hand in hand. Let’s explore three ways to gently add warmth to your beats We can’t escape the fact that drums sound subjectively better when run through multiple stages of analogue circuitry – from the grunt of hardware preamps and mixing desks through to the warm, gluing tone of tape saturation. These processes add harmonics, warmth and cohesion that we’re used to hearing on almost all hit records from the past several decades. Even the low sample/bit rates and aliasing imparted by primitive digital samplers can give electronic beats a particular vibe that can be exactly what a mix needs. As a side effect, tape saturation also tames harsh treble frequencies and reduces spiky transients in a…

MK After having two No 1 hits on the US Billboard Dance Charts in the early ’90s, Marc ‘MK’ Kinchen became a prolific remixer/producer. Now, as Danny Turner reveals, after 20 years MK is finally working on a second album American DJ and House producer Marc ‘MK’ Kinchen’s extraordinary story is inspirational. From the age of 14, MK set his heart on writing and producing for some of the biggest artists in music, and within little over a decade was doing just that. By the age of 21, MK had already scored No 1 hits in the US with the classic House anthems Always and Love Changes under the pseudonym Nightcrawlers. Within two years, he was remixing tracks by Pet Shop Boys, Celine Dion and Bobby Brown, and by age…

The Chainsmokers Roses Disruptor Records/Columbia, 2016 © Joe Branston  Drew: “There are no rules in making music. I’d encourage everybody to watch as many tutorials as possible, try out all the techniques, but don’t limit yourself to what you’ve learned. Experiment and have fun. I feel like every great producer has made their own rules and has their own unique sound.”  INCLUDES VIDEO VAULT.FUTUREMUSIC.CO.UK Having formed in New York back in 2012, DJ/production duo Drew Taggart and Alex Pall, aka The Chainsmokers, made a major impact on the global EDM circuit with the internet success of their debut single #Selfie. However, it’s Roses – a collaboration with Elizabeth Roze Mencel, aka Rozes, released last June – that gave the duo their biggest global success to date, hitting number 6 on…

Pig & Dan Having met on a flight to Mallorca in 1999, Pig&Dan joined forces to become a prolific DJ/ production team with a compelling signature sound. Danny Turner drops in on the duo to discuss their fourth album, Modular Baptism © Joe Branston For over a decade, Pig&Dan (Igor Tchkotoua and Dan Duncan) have been jamming in the studio and bringing it to the masses with their own special synergy. Best known for their Techno productions, the duo are also recognised for blurring the boundaries with their unique take on Tech House and Downtempo/Lounge. Flouting convention, they’re as comfortable working in planes, trains and automobiles as they are a nice comfy studio, even if that studio happens to be a makeshift hotel room. With their hectic global DJ schedule…

Set Filters To Scream Let’s explore the filtering, saturation and VCA in combination to create a synth voice’s backend INCLUDES VIDEO To start making the most of the Defibrillator we’ll need sound sources, with the obvious choice being an oscillator. Analogue or digital, all is welcome for processing and it sounds great on a variety of sources such as drums and acoustic instruments too. Using the filter processing the input signal(s) in series, we can create a variety of FX including bass boosts with the resonance up on the high-pass before hitting the low-pass or we can create a band-pass filter with modulatable bandwidth. Try using different CV sources such as LFOs and filters to control the two filters for a varied and modulating tone that can create pushes and…

Using Circuit with external gear Even if you ignore its built-in sounds completely, Circuit is a handy tool to have on stage or in the studio. Let’s take a look… With two flexible 128-step sequencers onboard, along with MIDI In/Out and USB, Circuit is a great tool to use with external gear – be it hardware, soft synths or a DAW. Its pads are velocity sensitive, and surprisingly expressive when it comes to playing instruments too. If using the pads to ‘play’ an instrument – whether one of Circuit’s synths or an external instrument – remember you can enter Expanded Note View by hitting Shift and Note. This will hide the two sequencer rows at the bottom giving you four octaves (or slightly less in Chromatic mode) of notes to…

The Noise Maker Make Noise founder Tony Rolando is so clearly passionate about synthesis that when he’s not directly demoing a particular feature of his kit, you can almost see the cartoon bubble over his head that reads: “I wonder what would happen if I did this?”. It’s that particular strain of wonder that brought the System Cartesian into existence. “The core idea here was to present a small system that could do a lot of different types of synthesis, some all at once, and that had a full sequencer so that you could actually create melodic lines or percussive sounds. So we thought maybe we could do a system that people would want and we started completely from scratch instead of just making this a ‘lite’ version of something…

Stripped To The Bone The Zed 6 is essentially a bare bones version with four channels: two stereo with line/instrument inputs as balanced XLR or 1/4-inch jack (and those DI inputs). Then there are two stereo channels offering TRS jacks. All four channels feature input trim (infinity to +15dB), high and low frequency EQ, pan, level and headphone monitoring. The output section is almost as simple, offering a 60mm master fader, 1/4-inch headphone jack and dial (loud but not too loud), eight-step stereo LED meters, a phantom power switch and 1/4-inch outputs. It also retains the internal power supply of the bigger models. By design, the small feature set and channel count greatly limit ZED 6’s range of applications. For solo live performers, for example, featuring, say, a mic, guitar…

Antelope Orion Studio | £2,345 With its multiple inputs and outputs and onboard DSP this could be the ultimate studio in a box. Stuart Bruce investigates WHAT IS IT? A very comprehensive multi-channel convertor with 12 mic pres and much more CONTACT Who: Antelope Audio Web: www.antelopeaudio.com HIGHLIGHTS 1 Incredible connectivity 2 Great sounding convertors 3 Onboard DSP SPECS I/Os: 12 mic pres, 16 analogue line outs, 2 headphone outs, 2 analogue inserts, 2 pairs of monitor outs (switchable for 2 sets of monitors), 2 re-amp outputs, 16 ADAT inputs and outputs, 2 channels of S/PDIF, USB 2 and Thunderbolt ports Sample rates: 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192kHz The idea of the complete digital studio in a box is something of a holy grail for the manufacturers…

Aston Halo | £199 The Halo wouldn’t look out of place in Prince’s Paisley Park studio, but can it help isolate the funk? Robbie Stamp finds out WHAT IS IT? Reflection filter CONTACT Who: Sonic Distribution) Tel: +44 (0)845 500 2 500 Web: www.astonmics.com HIGHLIGHTS 1 Reduced proximity effect 2 Depth of isolation 3 Light enough for most mic stands SPECS Key features: PET felt construction. 360 degree filtering design. ‘Easymount’ hardware. The Halo took me straight back to a ’70s armchair I loved as a kid: a purple egg-shaped swivel chair which semi- blocked out the sights and sounds around you. Luckily Aston Microphones’ Halo reflection filter is smaller and lighter, so it provides little extra challenge to a mic stand. The ridged moulded acoustic absorber material, covered…