Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2016 i Computer Music

 The computer is now just as much a musical instrument as a guitar or piano, but I’m always surprised at how many producers fail to grasp the language of music. “100% piano roll, no notation, no frills” Yet with a firm grasp of music theory basics, your tune-making skills are guaranteed to skyrocket. Who doesn’t want to craft better chord progressions and jam out pitch-perfect riffs? So, to get you off the blocks and give you a solid grounding in the most fundamental aspects of music theory, we’ve put together the definitive guide to chords and scales from the computer musician’s perspective – 100% piano roll, no notation, no frills. You’ll be riffin’ and jammin’ away in no time! And we’ve even included an exclusive MIDI ‘construction kit’ packed full…

Tutorial videos High-quality videos to guide you through our tutorials. Wherever you see the icon on the left, there’s a video version to watch See this issue’s entire video content on the next pages Tutorial files A folder full of audio examples, synth patches and project files to help you follow our tutorials This digital content has been thoroughly scanned and tested at all stages of production, but as with all new software, we still recommend that you run a virus checker before use. We also recommend that you have an up-to-date backup of your hard drive before using the content. Future cannot accept responsibility for any disruption, damage and/or loss to your data or computer system that may occur while using this magazine’s programs and/or data. Consult your network…

To help you get the most out of our immense plugin collection, we’ve assembled the cm Plugins Tutorial Bank, containing over 100 guides and tutorials for our cm Plugins, specially selected from past issues. You’ll find Getting Started PDFs and videos for most of the individual plugins, along with tutorial PDFs and videos on using cm Plugins for sound design, mixing, and even creating entire tracks. You’ll find all of this as a handy download in our Vault – go grab it now and start getting more out of your plugins! vault.computermusic.co.uk…

“The densification algorithm can also simulate a giant chorus” cm Cascade’s synthesis is based upon “a complex delay network that can densify a sound up to 5832 times.” How exactly does it work? KV “Cascade’s complex delay network consists of four stages of eight delays each. The first stage densifies the sound eight times and the next (8 + 8 x 8) 72 times, and so on until you reach 5832 times. After the last stage, the resulting impulse response is very close to a gaussian distribution, where an arbitrary input frequency has the least amount of cancellation or phasing effects. “I always loved the warm and lively sound of the cascade densification algorithm that was originally implemented in the IRCAM Signal Processing Workstation at the University of Musik in…

Kirnu “I think that a well coded plugin or tool can bridge small gaps in people’s music theory knowledge. The gap shouldn’t be too huge, otherwise the user can’t reach his goal even with a very smart plugin. The user’s focus should be to gain music theory knowledge, and some plugins can help with that.” – Pepe Lopez Xfer Records “I wanted to know everything I could about music, so I got a four-year degree in music composition, which taught me a lot about theory. The tools of today, I think, aren’t very different from, say, CAD programs for architecture – the tools will help you try out ideas, but there’s no substitute for having studied architecture. “Since releasing my Cthulhu plugin, I’ve heard grumblings from people who have ‘invested’…

It’s always discouraging when things don’t work out. You want that insane, speaker-tearing bass that sounds like a gorilla ripping a lion’s head off… but yours is like a flatulent robot wasp letting rip. You shoot for an off-kilter drum groove… but yours sounds like a box of percussion falling down a staircase. You finish the track anyway, praying for a mastering miracle, which – of course – never occurs. The result? Another musical fail, and serious doubts about your gear and talent. A natural response is to invest more time per track, but this could result in diminishing returns. Here’s an example: Tim just made a bad track. So he decides to spend two months on his next opus. Toni also dropped a clanger, but she aims to finish…

ASCENDING Rising in pitch, or going up the piano keyboard from left to right CADENCE A short sequence of notes or chords at the end of a musical phrase CHORD More than one note is played at the same time CIRCLE OF FIFTHS A diagram charting the relationship between the twelve notes/keys in the chromatic scale DESCENDING Falling in pitch, or going down the piano keyboard from right to left DIMINISHED FIFTH An interval of a perfect fifth flattened by one semitone, eg C-Gb or A-Eb DOMINANT The fifth note of a scale, an interval of a perfect fifth above the tonic. Also, a chord built on this fifth note EXTENDED Extended chords contain extra notes added from further up the keyboard. A major ninth chord, for instance, contains root,…

cm: Are you the kind of producer that spends a long time on one idea/track, or do you like to work fast and get an idea done and dusted? SW: “I really enjoy the thrill of working fast, and getting my ideas down as quickly as possible. Some of my biggest tracks have pretty much written themselves, in fact! If the ideas aren’t flowing within an hour or so, I’ll either delete the project and start again, or I’ll just leave the session completely and come back later.” cm: Do you like to create your own personal sample packs, preset banks, DAW templates, plugin chains and/or sampler instruments? SW: “Most projects start as one of several pre-made templates that I’ve built over the years, and then develop and evolve naturally…

RUNLIGHT Lights up the currently playing step OCTAVE SHIFTS Shows the note for each row, with dials to transpose up/down by octaves LAYERS Additional pages of controls – enable them all with the five stars’ button BAR MANIPULATIONS Set the octave, chord, and number of repeats for each of the 16 patterns STEP CONTROLS Set properties such as sustain length and MIDI velocity on a per-step basis STEP PROGRAMMER Punch these buttons on and off to program notes and chords GLOBAL TUNING Transpose the entire output TOOLS & OPTIONS Save/oad presets, reset B-Step CM, options, MIDI learn, built-in manual and more CHORD SET Select from five defined Chord Sets, and edit them by clicking the Pencil tool SHUFFLE Delay the timing and adjust velocity and duration of off-beat notes We…

Audio Damage Rough Rider This scrumptious plugin has been around for a few years, but it’s still one of the best freeware compressors for aggressive drum bus pumping and “atom-bomb squish”. There’s no dry/wet mix parameter per se, but you can automate the Active (bypass) switch to blend it in. www.audiodamage.com Vladg/Sound Molot This vibe-laden dynamics device combines M/S compression, saturation, mid-scooping EQ, sidechaining and peak limiting, providing coloured compression and warmth. It’s not the most intuitive or easy-to-use compressor out there, so be prepared to read the manual. vladgsound.wordpress.com Klanghelm DC1A This free, cut-down version of the developer’s commercial DC8C compressor is a must-have tool for assertive levelling and creative squashing. There are only two knobs (Input and Output), but you can dial in program-dependent compression and saturation in…

MOOG FILTATRON $7.99 Filtatron was the initial volley that heralded the Moog’s arrival on the iOS scene. This excellent recreation of their famous filter offers both low and high pass modes, a built-in oscillator and an LFO and an envelope generator for modulation. A built-in delay and overdrive can be used to sweeten incoming signals or samples. www.moogmusic.com AUDIOTHING VALVEFILTER CM FREE If you need an awesome-sounding filter cut from the Moog cloth but haven’t got the bread to spread around, you could do worse than looking at the Computer Music edition of AudioThing’s ValveFilter, which imparts a creamy vintage character to anything that passes through it. Moog-style knobs, wooden end cheeks and glowing valve included! www.audiothing.net UAD MOOG MULTIMODE FILTER $99 Though Moog offer their own iOS filter, they’ve…

As an in-demand dance music engineer, Owen’s worked with a slew of outstanding underground artists behind the scenes from his London studio. After years of meticulously studying what makes a great production tick, he’s promised to share his most coveted techniques each month exclusively in . You can sign up for Owen’s free email course on making mixdowns easy at… www.owenthegeek.com/cm PRO TIPS BASS-DECIPHERING TRICKS Whichever steps you take to ensure a well-formed low end, it helps to be able to hear what you’re doing as clearly as possible. If you happen to have several jillion bazillions spare to throw at your listening setup, then you may feel you can probably skip this tip, but even if you’re listening on expensive speakers in a well-treated environment, the sound reproduction is…

“Tube EQ’s preamp valves deliver a balanced blend of odd and even harmonics” L/R OR M/S Select between left/right mode and mid/side mode VALVE Choose from one of two output valve emulations LINK Link left and right channel operation FILTERS Set the high-and low-pass filter frequencies CURVE DISPLAY View the resultant EQ curve created by the Hi, Lo and Mid bands and filters MID OR HI/LO Choose which of the two sets of band controls are visible FILTERS Select from three peak and two shelving shapes AMPLIFIER Use the input and output levels to further adjust valve distortions BANDWIDTH Adjust the bandwidth for each of the three mid bands Positive Grid’s efforts to lift hardware emulation to new levels continue with the arrival of their second Pro Series plugin bundle.…

Adding an effect is a simple case of clicking on an empty slot and picking one of the remaining effects from a list (you can’t have two instances of the same effect loaded into one engine). Click on the filled slot and parameters for that effect conveniently open in a window at the bottom. Each parameter knob has a greyed out centre into which you drag the number of one of the two ‘Rhythms’. Below the knob is a subtle concentric slider that governs the amount of modulation from the parameter’s set point. To assign a parameter to the X/Y matrix, simply right-click the knob and a frame appears, where you define the ranges of both the rhythm amount and the parameter range – Engine A parameters can only be…

There are so many amazing and modestly priced reverb plugins on the market today that for a new one to leave a lasting impression, it needs to offer something special or innovative that the others don’t. Audiority reckon their latest ’verb, Polaris (VST/AU/AAX), qualifies. Inspired by early digital hardware reverbs, Polaris generates its reverberations using a single multi-tap delay line. Ironically, this is more of a throwback to the late 70s than a true innovation, but as a starting point, it enables the plugin to produce a unique array of spatial effects – and we can absolutely assure you it isn’t restricted to emulating the sound of early digital reverbs. Back in the day, a common trick employed at the low end of the digital reverb market was to use…

The choice of Style has a profound influence on the sound of Replika XT. Common to all five are high and low filters, but the other three knobs and one button are specific to each. Tape imparts subtle noise, which can be adjusted using the Tape Age, Saturation and Wow & Flutter controls, and the Noise button, which adds constant hiss. Analogue emulates a bucket brigade device with four modes and delay time modulation (Depth, Rate and Mono/Stereo). Modern is a clean digital delay, with adjustable Saturation and modulation (Depth, Rate and Stereo/Mono), and Vintage Digital swaps out Modern’s Saturation parameter for the artefact-imparting Quality setting. Diffusion is Replika XT’s most creative Style, sending the delay and its feedback (via the Amount control) to a reverb effect, where Size and…

Way back in cm217, PSP impressed us with their L’otary Leslie rotary speaker cabinet plugin (9/10), and now they’ve set their sights on the scanner effect built into most models of Hammond organ, including the B3, C-3 and A-100. This vibrato/chorus effect was, arguably, just as important to the characteristic sound of the Hammond as the Leslie. Specific scanners varied from model to model in terms of components, but they were all based on the same principle: a revolving wheel made contact with 16 plates, each constituting one tap in a phase-shifted delay line, generating a variety of vibrato and chorusing effects. B-Scanner’s central controls adjust the main scanner settings, with a ring of ‘LEDs’ showing rotation speed and (via colouration) the phase correlation between the left and right channels.…

So how does your DAW know where to look for your plugins? Actually, it might not. Mac users have it easy, as there are OS-specified folders into which plugins are installed. These folders can be found by going to your Library folder (if you can’t find it, go to the Finder’s Go menu, hold Alt, and a Library option should appear). find the Audio directory, and then the Plug-Ins folder within. There you will find more folders still. One will be labelled Components – this is where your AU plugins reside. Other folders will be found alongside it for VST and VST3 plugins. If you’re a Pro Tools user, you’ll find your plugins in an Avid or Digidesign folder. If your installers don’t automatically install the plugins into the proper…

Get our software, samples and videos via Vault download Step 1 On your PC or Mac, go to vault.computermusic.co.uk, then either register for a new Vault account, or log in if you already have one. Step 2 Click ‘add a magazine’ in the top bar, select the issue you want to add to your Vault (eg, this issue is 234), and answer a few simple security questions. Step 3 Go to ‘my vault’ to see all your mags – click a cover and use the links to download! You can download as much or as little as you like.…

THE PRODUCER’S GUIDE TO CHORDS & SCALES Get your head around music theory once and for all with our no-BS guide to notes, chords, keys and more Read the full article on p24 MONOPLUGS B-STEP CM Sequence chords and melodies right out of the box with this step-tastic MIDI plugin freebie Read the full article on p54 TONE2 WARMVERB Get all kinds of creative processing on tap with this massive multieffect – worth a cool £50 to buy! Read the full article on p50 LOOPMASTERS SAMPLES This bumper pack of pro sounds is also free with this issue – check out their calibre as we build a track with them Read the full article on p58 CREATIVE COMPRESSION Dial in extreme settings to pump up your…

IN THE POCKET He was once king of the green baize, but now snooker legend Steve Davis appears to be forging a new career as a DJ, playing festival dates throughout the summer. We’re guessing that he’ll do fine at cueing up the records, particularly if there are breaks involved… MAN ENOUGH TO BE MAU5? Ever wanted to be deadmau5? Well, now you can experience what his life is (possibly) like in a VR game known as Absolut deadmau5, which challenges you to navigate the streets of Toronto and make it to a gig. You can don the virtual ears on iOS and Android. DRIVE TIME To us, computer music hardware might mean MIDI controllers and monitors, but to Pawel Zadrozniak it means floppy drives, hard disks and scanners. He’s…

“If the bass sounds right, they’ll dance all night” In a moment of prescience, reader Ashley Elsdon wrote to tell us about the importance of mobile music making in October 2006 (cm105), citing his fondness for apps on PalmOS devices and Pocket PCs. He’d even started a blog on the subject, which lives on today as the excellent Palmsounds (palmsounds.net). This celebrated a decade in action earlier this year, though unsurprisingly, there’s more iOS stuff than PalmOS content on there these days... We also told you that it was possible to use a mobile device to control Ableton Live – Sony’s PSP, to be precise – and speculated that a version of said DAW might be released for the handheld one day. We’re guessing that’s not happening. Very much still…

An unforgettable vocal melody. A moving chord sequence. An infectious bassline. Nailing just one of these could leave your listeners humming your tunes and whistling your melodies, eager for their next hit of your audio crack. Back it up with a killer production, and you could have another kind of hit on your hands! But the truth is that many computer musicians put the technical side of production first. With sonic standards always evolving, and endless plugins and techniques to master, why wouldn’t you? Well, see it from the listener’s point of view: they can’t sing along to sidechain compression or dance to multiband distortion! To keep your listeners coming back for ‘just one more listen’, you’ll need to hook ’em with a catchy combination of notes. So how’s it…

PRESETS Navigate, save and load presets and banks, plus randomise, reset and initialise the current preset EFFECTS SLOTS Four slots for loading effects, with selector, Mix, bypass and up to four parameters FEEDBACK Feed the signal back into another module, and keep the Clip light on for safety EQUALISER A three-band EQ – low and high shelves plus a mid boost MIX SECTION Set the global Volume and dry/ wet Mix, and toggle the plugin on and off with the Bypass switch ROUTING Switch between two routing topologies, as shown in this sections signal flow diagram When designing sounds, composing or mixing, there’s nothing that kills your creative flow as quickly as having to trawl through a disorganised list of plugins in search for a particular effect – so it’s…

“You do have to do a bit of everything, but if you try and do it all in the same ten minutes, you’ll go insane!” Making it Work… A true British dance music institution, Freemasons (aka James Wiltshire and Russell Small) took house music production to glossy new heights in the noughties with chart hits such as Love On My Mind , Watchin’ , Rain Down Love and many, many more. As remixers, they tackled big names like Fatboy Slim, Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland, with their Work remix being featured in Grand Theft Auto IV . More recently, James has founded F9 Audio, a premium soundware label that also provides free video production…

LFO Adjust rate, waveform and phase offset between stereo channels LED READ-OUT Dsplays the delay time, unless you’re tweaking LFO Rate DELAY TIME Alt-click to jump immediately to a setting INPUT Compensate the incoming level for the fixed-threshold limiter FEED Incoming audio is fed to the delay only when this is active DELAY PANEL Delay feedback strength along with stereo settings, including ping-pong mode LOWER BARS A hint strip, preset management, and ‘?’ icon to call up the manual DELAY TIME The main delay timing control, flanked by tap, glide and sync controls FILTERS Focus successive repeats, or disable the filters by clicking the headers OUTPUT Balance the dry and wet signals here BYPASS Deactivate the plugins processing True legends in the world of audio plugins, PSP Audioware are the…

In a studio career spanning almost 25 years, Dave has engineered, programmed and played keyboards on records for a string of artists including George Michael, Kylie Minogue, Tina Turner and Estelle. These days, in between writing articles for and other magazines, he collaborates on occasional songs and videos with singer/songwriter Lucy Hirst, aka Polkadothaze. www.daveclews.com RECOMMENDED LISTENING CLEAN BANDIT, TEARS There are alterations aplenty in this triumph of a track from the Bandits, who never fail to unite sound theory with cutting-edge tunes. KENT JONES, DON’T MIND It may be part of a sample from an old Barry White ng, but the prominent Eb 7b 9 chord in this tune still counts! bit.ly/KJdontmind PRO TIPS VOICING CONCERNS As with all chords, you can get some…

Our promise We bring you honest, unbiased appraisals of the latest computer music products. Our experts apply the same stringent testing methods to all gear, no matter how much hype or expectation surrounds it. What the ratings mean 1-4 A seriously flawed product that should be avoided 5 This product’s problems outweigh its merits 6 A decent product that’s only held back by a few flaws 7 Solid. Well worth considering 8 Very good. A well-conceived and executed product 9 Excellent. First-rate and among the best you can buy 10 Exceptional. It just doesn’t get any better than this! See and hear the latest software in action in our ‘2 Minutes With…’ videos! Wherever you see the icon, head straight to your cm DVD, the Vault download area, or our…

“With care it can conjure up some pretty cool results, and the simple interface makes it easy to use” PITCH CORRECTION Make onboard tweaks before the vocal hits the creative processors WAVE-METER A handy waterfall-style frequency plot of the output signal EXTERNAL ROUTING Activate your sidechain carrier source or external MIDI input POLYVOX This is the simplest effect, providing high-quality formant shifting VOCODER This classic effect includes a choice of three very different vocoder styles VOICES Enhance your auto mode sounds with three further voices GLOBAL Set your overall output level and wet/dry mix blend COMPUVOX Speech-chip sounds delivering a text-to speech effect TALKBOX Dark, Classic and Bright modes to stick down your pipe MIXER Blend the four main processing engines and your pitch corrected dry signal EFFECTS Five processes…

Acustica Audio pride themselves on releasing the most accurate software models of sought-after hardware processors possible, using a proprietary hardware ‘sampling’ technique and giving audio quality clear priority over flexibility and CPU-friendliness. They made their name with Nebula, the effects chameleon that loads ‘sampled’ models of hardware, but of late they’ve been putting their resources into the Acqua series of dedicated plugins, each one emulating a specific unit. Pink (VST/AU/AAX) is the latest Acqua addition. It’s a mixing/mastering channel strip comprising four EQ bands, a versatile compressor and four switchable preamp circuits: Pre, New, EQ and Comp, simulating a vintage preamp, modern preamp, analogue EQ preamp and analogue compressor preamp. The big question is, which pieces of hardware were sampled in the process of creating Pink? Acustica tell us it’s…

While we were reviewing Polaris, Audiority released several updates, adding new features, including the Width and Swell knobs. Width pans the delay taps in traditional ping pong fashion, effectively widening the tail of the effect, while Swell increasingly reduces the bite of the transients in the input signal as it’s raised. Presumably, the reasoning behind this is to prevent very pronounced transients from dominating the reverb tail, which certainly seems to be an issue with Polaris in general – it sounds overly grainy on transient material and doesn’t really generate that smooth, airy wash that more expensive reverb plugins can. Swell goes some way towards addressing this issue, enabling you to turn spiky pianos into serene pads. However, we’re still a long way from convinced that Polaris would ever make…

Kush Audio’s Omega Transformer Model N and Omega Transformer Model A (AU/VST/ AAX) are a pair of heavily coloured saturation plugins. Model N imparts a tone reminiscent of a classic Neve preamp, while Model A emulates an API pre. As well as being usable entirely on their own, both Omega Transformers are also designed to be deployed in conjunction with Kush’s fully analogue hardware Omega preamp (released for API’s 500 series earlier this year), which they describe as “transformable”. The idea is that the hardware preamp captures a very full, clear, neutral sound, which you can then treat with the plugins to achieve – or so Kush claim – the sound of the classic hardware preamps they’re modelling, hence “transformable”. Brilliantly, however, the plugins are responsible for all the saturation…

Transitioning between B-Scanner’s Slow and Fast settings is done using the Speed Lever to the right of the interface and its two accompanying buttons. The Lever glides smoothly from the defined Slow settings to the Fast settings and vice versa, while the Speed button jumps from one to the other, either toggling between them or switching for as long as the button is depressed, then back when released. The Stop button deactivates the virtual spinning completely, and – as with speed changes – the wheel is subject to simulated inertia when stopping and starting, a quantity which can be set by the Accel and Decel parameters. The Speed Lever controls are designed for live performance, so for best use they should be assigned to MIDI controllers, although they can, of…

Samples From Mars SH5 From Mars $39 A multisampled rendition of Roland’s classic SH-5 analogue synth, SH5 From Mars serves up 40 bass, lead, keys, pad and FX patches for Kontakt, Ableton Live (Simpler and Sampler) and EXS24, built on a 3.8GB soundbank. The Live version puts that DAW’s effects and Macros to good use, although obviously, the fact that each sample set captures the instrument in a specific configuration is an inescapable limitation. The SH-5 is an awesome synth, and SFM have managed to virtualise it with no loss in attitude or analogue mojo – it sounds magnificent. www.samplesfrommars.com 9/10 Zero-G Arc £56 4GB of evocative and satisfyingly lengthy drones, ambiences and textures by composer and sound designer John Valasis. Most of Arc’s categorised folders house Complex sample sets,…

PLOGUE CHIPSOUNDS Truly a labour of love, Chipsounds is the product of four years of research into classic computer and game chips. Cross-platform and available for VST, AU, RTAS and AAX formats, Chipsounds brings you not only a bang-on clone of the Commodore 64’s SID chip, but thirteen other classic computer and game console emulations as well. www.plogue.com ODO SYNTHS UNKNOWN 64 Windows users are spoiled for choice when it comes to free SID emulators. Some of the best freeware developers on the scene have whipped up their takes on the C64, and veteran SynthEdit developer Odo Synths have contributed several of them over the years. With an interface that’ll instantly take you back, Unknown 64 is the best of the lot. theodosynthsarchive.wordpress.com DE LA MANCHA BASIC65 Another Windows-only freebie,…

PETER VOGEL INSTRUMENTS CMI Everything old is new again and you can, as it happens, buy an actual new Fairlight CMI from Peter Vogel’s new company for the princely sum of just under £cm14,500. If you don’t have that lying around, you can grab this virtual version for iOS. It features a recreation of the Page R sequencer and the entire Fairlight CMI IIX sound library (over 500 “voices”). petervogelinstruments.com UVI DARKLIGHT IIX UVI have recreated the Fairlight as a software sampler for the modern desktop DAW, providing a whopping 2.34 GB library of samples that can be played through one of three virtual instruments bearing the familiar Fairlight colour scheme. Synthesis and drum/phrase sequencing are included, as are modelled filters, LFOs, envelopes and effects. www.uvi.net SONIC BLOOM CMI LIVE…

PSP cmDelay Add space, make freaked-out delays and conjure up lush modulation effects with this versatile free VST/AU plugin, p56 Sample packs RHYTHMIC INSPIRATION Get in the mood for groovy beats with this pack of trackstarting loops and percussive beds, p106 FREEMASONS SAMPLES Get the classic analogue synth samples used in this month’s Producer Masterclass video, p106 LOOPMASTERS SAMPLES 270 more pro-quality samples from the Loopmasters vaults. See what’s inside on p107 CM Plugins Our exclusive collection of free plugins for Mac and PC. See what’s available on pcm108…

Our fantastic software, samples, videos and tutorial files are now available to download! To get access to this content, go to vault.computermusic.co.uk on your PC or Mac’s web browser. You’ll be asked to register and answer a few simple questions to prove that you’ve got the mag. You’ll then be given access to our content! You can sign in any time to register new issues and download t more content. For more info, see our Vault FAQ: bit.ly/cmvaultfaq * Please note that the Producer Masterclass video is not available as a download via our Vault, but is made available via internet streaming. See page 47 for details.…

“The visual programmer can use Rose to create animated 2D graphics” With the conclusion of the UK’s last ever* Sundown demoparty, we turn our attention to the various music competitions held there. With Lug00ber winning against some strong entries in the streaming music category, the tracked category arguably holds the gold, with raw tracker files you can load up and learn about by taking them apart. However, we were most impressed with SunSpire’s beautiful 3KB executable track made using Renoise and Blueberry’s Clinkster synth. Links to all music and demo productions, including MP3s and raw tracker files are at bit.ly/SundownRundown. Elsewhere, Nectarine’s themed music competition has drawn to a close, with artists having been encouraged to write a piece of music centred around an animal. Taking first prize was Yzi…

“Stop being so silly and go buy a new audio interface” We were on a mission to inspire you in September 2006, when 104 landed with 100 creativity tips. It was a very ‘tippy’ issue, in fact, as we suggested 26 ways to improve your trance productions, too. If all of the advice in the above features might easily still apply today, we’re not sure any of you would still want to know how to sound like Orson. Maybe you didn’t even want to know back then, in fact. DnB titans Noisia, on the other hand – who we interviewed – are very much still doing their thing, though technological developments mean that they probably no longer need to use their “entire CPU on one bass sound”. Speaking of CPU,…

SubPac “In a room, it’s the bass that’s hardest to control, being the part of the sound spectrum that travels furthest. SubPac allows you to feel music and sound independently of the room. The signal is not affected by room modes and standing waves. It’s also more or less silent, meaning you can work ’til 4am any time you want, because you can accurately monitor the subs down to 5Hz whilst using headphones for the mids and highs. “Wearable Tactile Audio is just better – more accurate, higher fidelity, less intrusive for others, better for your hearing, better quality, and more portable than traditional studio speakers.” – Darin McFadyen Guitammer “ButtKicker products were invented by a former studio engineer and a bass player to allow for clear, clean, accurate bass…

“It’s very easy when you’re making music to spend time going down the wrong path” Selected kit list HARDWARE Apple Mac Pro Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 Dynaudio BM15A Audio-Technica ATH-M50 Native Instruments Maschine Dave Smith Instruments Prophet ’08 SOFTWARE Ableton Live 9 Novation V-Station Native Instruments Komplete 9 Rob Papen SubBoomBass u-he plugins The proud purveyor of underground tech and deep house grooves, Mr Yallop burst onto the scene in 2010 with a flurry of releases under various pseudonyms on labels such as Crosstown Rebels, Hot Creations, and Nervous Records spin-off Nurvous. He’s shown no signs of slowing down since, so we hit up Russ in his Shoreditch studio to learn about the production techniques he’s developed over the years, and to discuss the various DAWs he’s honed them in.…

Detuning synths with Superstrings Warmverb’s multitude of modulation effects are ideal for adding motion and width. One of our favourites is the Superstrings module, a unison-style ‘supersaw’ effect for thickening and detuning. In this example, our custom FX chain is enhancing a synth sound – we’ve racked up two Superstrings effects, followed by a PingPong delay and Rotary. By pulling the Mix amounts back, we’re tempering the lush modulation, sitting it further back in the mix. Rhythmic Trancegate sounds Insert Warmverb over sustained chords, press the Init button, then set Effect 1’s Type to Trancegate – this effect rhythmically chops the chords up in time with your project’s BPM. The Beat parameter allows you to choose one of 22 preset ‘rhythms’, Speed sets the gating rate, from 1/8 (labelled 1/2)…

To many, the name Moog is synonymous with the synthesiser. To musicians and makers of musical instruments, it’s something of a sonic holy grail – an impossibly high standard that, to some pundits, will never be matched. Why are Moog’s instruments so highly regarded? It could simply be that they were there first – at least in the public’s eye. Bob Moog’s modular synthesiser was indeed the first to reach international attention, thanks in no small part to the phenomenal success of Wendy Carlos’ seminal 1968 LP Switched On Bach, an album that imprinted the Moog name into our collective cultural consciousness. A legion of exploitative knockoff novelty albums followed, increasing the public’s awareness of the brand. Moog’s instruments were, for a time, positively trendy. Moog was the name to…

ISSUE 233 September 2016 VocalstheCreativeGuide plus 900 vocal samples FREE Compressor Plugin Classic EQs / Hybrid Drums / Velocity Secrets Timo Maas interview Albert Neve in-studio vid ISSUE 232 August 2016 u-heBazilleCMgiveawayand huge how-to guide Roland Synth Workshop Neuro DnB Bass Design with Calyx & Teebee tips Samplephonics CM pack Gorgon City interview ISSUE 231 July 2016 KickBassPowerPerfect low-end energy in the mix TWO plugin giveaways Three packs of samples Drum Fill programming Upward compression Roni Size interviewed ISSUE 230 June 2016 Discover2016s best free music-making software FREE D16 Group limiter 3000 FREE samples Voxengo SPAN how-to 10 trap video techniques Pig&Dan masterclass vid ISSUE 229 May 2016 Hugearrangementandtrackfinishing feature FREE transient shaper 900 Cinematic samples Vintage Beats / Treble Tweaks / Push 2 How-to…

“My eventual journey to production and music was definitely as part of a wider social media community” Creamfields always seems to attract the best and biggest names that dance music has to offer, and this year is no exception. The 2016 line-up reads like a funky, knob-twiddling Who’s Who with likes of Fatboy Slim, Tiesto and Calvin Harris jostling for position with Avicii (his last ever UK performance), Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Knife Party. Back for the third year running, and laying waste to the South Stage on Sunday, is the ridiculously talented 21-year-old Rotterdam-based DJ and producer Oliver Heldens. And it sounds like he’s looking forward to it. “I do maybe 200 shows a year, and you start to understand how the different…

“Reason cements its position as a stunning adjunct to any professional producer’s existing studio setup” PLAYERS MIDI processors for generating complex and creative note patterns CLIP TYPE EDITS BUTTONS Manually assign the Edit mode for different clips, choosing from Comp, Pitch and Slice AMP AND BASS AMP Version 8's Softube devices now automatically replace the discontinued Line 6 devices NEW PATCHES Categorised in the Browser so you know you’re reaching for something fresh BLUE THEME One of the optional darker themes for night owls and goths PITCH EDITOR Note-by-note pitch correction and alteration for vocal material PULSAR Popular and powerful dual LFO, now available to all Reason users In 2014, after 15 years of consistently exciting updates, the eighth incarnation of Reason had big shoes to fill… and it came…

Soundware purveyors Output have made a name for themselves with solid Kontaktbased generators. After their “pulse engine” Signal (9/10, cm219), “reverse instrument suite” Rev (9/10, cm200), and “vocal engine” Exhale (9/10, cm225), Movement marks Output’s first foray into the world of VST/AU/AAX effects. After hitting the usual bases of a multieffects plugin (delay, distortion, filters, EQ, compression and reverb), Movement then puts a new spin on the processes – quite literally – modulating their parameters rhythmically in the same vein as Xfer’s LFOtool or Dmitry Sches’ Tantra. You get two wholly independent parallel effects ‘engines’, each with four slots into which you can drop one of the six effects. So far so normal, but here’s where it gets interesting: each engine has two modulators. Known as ‘Rhythms’, these can take…

Pink’s major innovation is its Core8 technology, Acustica’s proprietary multithreading architecture. This should result in improved performance and more responsive models, but while Pink noticeably outperforms other Acustica Audio products, its operation isn’t as smooth as the average plugin. For example, there’s noticeable lag when adjusting the Input Trim as the plugin switches between distortion models. The Insane quality option (which ups the CPU usage for improved output fidelity) on the compressor makes its movement more accurate, but the tax on the host CPU is a show-stopper. There is a zero-latency version of the plugin included, but it’s better suited to mastering than mixing due to its even greater resource usage. To be fair, Acustica Audio recommend the “latest multicore CPU”, plus “16GB to 128GB of…

Originally released for free under a Christmas promotion in 2014, before getting a regular pricetag shortly after, Native Instruments’ Replika is a straightforward delay plugin, incorporating a single feedback delay (regular or ping-pong), phaser and filter modulation effects, and three Styles (Modern, Vintage Digital and Diffusion) that influence the overall sound. Replika XT (VST/AU/AAX) doesn’t replace Replika (which now sells for £44), but builds on its design, adding some new features and enhancing existing ones to deliver a very broad range of delay, modulation and even reverb-like effects. The headline additions include Dual mode (placing two delay lines in Serial or Parallel, with the original Replika behaviour now called Single mode), two additional delay Styles (Analogue and Tape, bringing the total to five), and five new Modulation effects: Flanger, Chorus,…

To help with gain-staging, both models have a -20dB pad switch. Since automatic gain compensation is used, the level of the source material won’t jump suddenly when this is engaged – instead, you’ll just hear the saturation ease up or intensify accordingly. Operation is made extra easy by the inclusion of two very clear green lights that get brighter as the signal is driven stronger. Notably, very little drive is required to get the best out of these plugins. There’s also an output gain slider with a range of +/-9dB, which is very welcome, since the saturated signal will often demand a level tweak in the mix. Another handy feature is the inclusion of a Phase button, which flips the polarity of the input signal – particularly convenient for use…

For more dramatic effects treatments, as opposed to naturalistic stereoising, StereoSavage’s LFO provides cyclical modulation of all four Stereo Adjust parameters (Rotation, Pan, Width and Level), plus the Effect section’s Delay (Delay mode) and Size (Expand mode) controls. It houses a selection of six waveforms – sine, square, triangle, ramp and rhythmic variants on square and ramp – and can be run free (from 0.1Hz up to 30Hz) or synced to host tempo (1/128 to 16 bars). The Phase knob shifts the LFO start point within the waveform, and the Amount control is bipolar, for modulation in either direction. The LFO is a great inclusion, taking StereoSavage deeper into sound design territory than it goes by just pushing the other controls to their limits. It seems odd that Vox mode’s…

The cm Plugins collection is a suite of complete, limitation-free instrument and effects plugins. It’s an incredible resource, boasting more than 50 pro-quality plugins that you won’t find anywhere else, all for PC and Mac, in VST and AU formats. All of the included software is created exclusively for us by respected commercial developers such as Ohm Force, KV331 Audio, u-he, Cableguys, AudioThing, XILS-lab, Vengeance-Sound, Rob Papen and zplane. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS What is Plugins? Is it just freeware from the internet? No, and neither are the plugins limited or ‘crippled’. It’s a set of virtual instruments and effects created by some of the best developers in the business just for us – you won’t find this set of plugins anywhere else! Where do I get Plugins? As a download…

So how does your DAW know where to look for your plugins? Actually, it might not. Mac users have it easy, as there are OS-specified folders into which plugins are installed. These folders can be found by going to your Library folder (if you can’t find it, go to the Finder’s Go menu, hold Alt, and a Library option should appear). find the Audio directory, and then the Plug-Ins folder within. There you will find more folders still. One will be labelled Components – this is where your AU plugins reside. Other folders will be found alongside it for VST and VST3 plugins. If you’re a Pro Tools user, you’ll find your plugins in an Avid or Digidesign folder. If your installers don’t automatically install the plugins into the proper…