Future Music 361 (Sampler) by Future PLC

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Issue 361

Making the future since 1992

REC RD HOW TOâ&#x20AC;¦

EVERYTHING

Capture the perfect take with our ultimate guide. Pristine vocals, rich guitars, punchy drums and beyond!

BT SHADOW CHILD

THYS REVIEWED

ERICA FUSION SYSTEM II KORG MW-2408 & MORE

FM | CLASSIC ALBUM

Beardyman Distractions Tummy Touch, 2014

Words by Roy Spencer

eardyman has always been a walking jukebox of sorts, able to recreate any sound he hears with pinpoint accuracy and flair. As he hit his 20s he turned his talents into his career, cutting his teeth as a beatboxer, winning fans and competitions wherever he went. But, unlike his hip-hop peers, he knew he could take the art form higher, and break out of that niche world. His eureka moment came when he started to incorporate sophisticated tech into his live setup. He wanted to be part man, part machine – enter the Beardytron: a music-making rig of his own design that enabled him to play, twist, mould and meld any of the live sounds that came from his lips, and loop and layer them into full song arrangements, on the fly. Like him, it was a one-of-a-kind.

“The Beardytron, as it was back then, was this crazy hardcoded looping DAW, basically,” says Beardyman. “I spent three years working on a system where I could perform live improvised music. I had optimised this thing so that when it was running nothing else would interrupt it. It really was pushing the computer within an inch of its life.” His new music-making system needed a challenge, so work began on his second album, Distractions. “I’d made this dream system I could jam with,” he says. “The songs on the album were a bunch of experiments into how I could use the rig. It was designed for jamming and snipping out the good bits, and waiting until some kind of structure occurred. Hopefully you can hear that when you listen back to the album. It’s got a live feel, but you can see where the edits are.” The album would end up as a jaw-dropping journey into one man’s quest to become the music. A mission Beardyman continues to undertake as we speak. Needless to say the Beardytron system is infinitely more sophisticated in 2020 – almost sentient. Then again, as Distractions proves, you might never really knew where it ended and he really began, anyway…

Classic Album | Filter

Track by track with Beardyman A Cheerful And Sunny Disposition “I thought this was an apt track to start with. The lyrics go, ‘I think I’ve led my life inside a machine/All I wanna do is be real/You know what I mean?’ I thought that could be taken in a bunch of different ways. “A lot of these lyrics are very personal. They are about me coming out of a shell of something. The feeling of starting anew, and breaking free of things. “This is all about leaving the novelty behind and just making some fucking music. I felt like I’d trapped myself into a corner. It also sounded like an A.I. gaining consciousness. Wanting to become real. “The song was edited in Logic, and made in the Beardytron. And it’s hip-hop with a late ’90s alt, chill-out weirdness.”

2^25,000:1 Against And Falling “The title of this track is a direct quote from Douglas Adams [The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy]. It’s something that the computer ends up saying when they’ve used The ‘Infinite Improbability Drive’ and shit’s got weird. I felt like this track was doing that a bit. It was just like me returning to normality. “In the early 2010s I’d gone from being a completely broke student who was pursuing an unlikely dream – doing beatbox in a world that I didn’t really understand. There were points where I was being stopped everywhere I went. And that was weird. “Making this music was me expressing that I just wanted to be a musician, nothing else. That return to normality is what that track’s about. Getting away from that persona.”

Getting There “I wrote this track when I was 15, when I was essentially a child, and it had never gone away. It’d been going round and round my fucking head for years. There’s only one way to get it out and that’s to make it. “But by the time I made it it had evolved into this thing that had

Right now, in 2020, the (in)human beatbox that is Mr. Beardyman is concentrating hard on his Sheer Volume project. As the name suggests, it’s a mammoth amount of content to be coming from one man’s mind. This year he plans on releasing 52 singles, weekly live streams, podcasts, and “so much more”. Head to his website in order to witness the fitness, and his Patreon page to support the illness. And mop his brow if you see him in the flesh. Phew!

absorbed all the influences that I’d been listening to. So it was quite a dense arrangement of a simple song. “I recorded it and edited it all around the world when I was touring. And I was obsessively editing it. It has 150 layers in it! “There were so many versions in my head. From guitar and drum ones, to purely electronic. It got to the point where it had to be all of that.”

Fndege.Gurp “The title? It’s actually a typo. It’s supposed to be ‘Fnedge.Gurp’ [laughs]. It was just a bit of fun. Some sonic experimentation. After I finished it I was like, ‘That’s tight! I think I’ll leave it exactly as it is’. “I did a mix job on it, but I didn’t change it at all. Sometimes it’s nice to do something spontaneous. Radiohead have a pre-gig chant which is ‘Warts ’n’ all!’ I’ve heard them say it before they start. That’s important to remember. “Like the Japanese notion of ‘wabby-sabby’. They say ‘nothing is

“I was hosting lots of instances of Sugar Bytes’ Turnado, which still is my effects engine. And on the front end was Ableton hosting various different VSTs. Then iZotope plugins to do live sidechaining and compressing and EQing. I also had Guitar Rig, a Korg R3, and Alloy. And an audio engine that I had coded that was multi-threading the audio and stitching it back together on real-time.”

ever perfect. Nothing is ever finished. Nothing lasts.’ It’s quite true and well worth remembering. “I also agree that ‘an album is never finished. It’s only abandoned’. It’s hard to accept. Perfectionism is a disease. Look at George Lucas and Star Wars. Make a different film!”

You Only Like What You Know “This one was the third attempt at doing this. I had drafted it, and it was OK, but I gave it another proper go. “Originally it was going to be just beatbox and clapping and a bit of the [Korg] R3. But then I ended up augmenting it with shitloads of stuff like organ parts and proper drums. “I ended up using EZdrummer, which is not that easy to use, at all, but it’s very good. I only ever used it on this one song. “It has a really nice drum roll engine, and lovely multi-sampled drums, and you can tweak as much as you want – so, all the room levels and mic placement, stuff like that.

“I recorded two music videos to this that never saw the light [laughs].”

Brain “This one is silly. It’s a song about me eating your brain, with HP Sauce. Yeah. It’s really deep, this one [laughs]. I wanted to a video for this, with that bit from Hannibal where Ray Liotta is getting his brain eaten. “It was just a bit of fun. Nice little sonics. I just made it and thought, ‘I don’t not want to have that on an album. I want that on an album’. “Most tracks I made, ended up on the album. There’s about four left over, or that I didn’t finish. They might be on Soundcloud, or something like that. It was a productive little period of time. “The album only ended sounding Balearic and relatively uplifting because those are the ones that hung together. The others were more angsty or nebulous, and just didn’t fit.”

Perfect Waste Of Time “I was thinking of a James Bond vibe

Feature | How to record everything!

HOW TOâ&#x20AC;Ś

REC RD EVERYTHING! Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s explore the art of recording, from pristine, carefully prepared studio sessions, all the way through to more deliberately lo-fi recordings

How to record everything! Feature

When something moves and causes the air around it to vibrate, magic can happen. You VIDEO ON know this from before FILESILO you are born; the vibrations you hear all around you, from your mother’s beating heart to the sounds which reach you from outside that become familiar and trusted. When you’re out in the big wide world, those sounds become more detailed and magical. What it means to ‘record sound’ is to find a way to capture that vibrating air by using finely-calibrated equipment to register, amplify and convert those vibrations into something which can be heard over and over again, or manipulated, treated, or re-recorded, into countless iterations of that original source. To put a microphone in front of a musical instrument, whether it’s a drum kit, or a violin, or the human voice, is to prepare for the sonic cataloguing of a unique moment in time, where a new set of acoustic vibrations will take place, affording you the unique honour of being there to make them part of your productions. A responsibility not to be taken lightly, we’re sure you’d agree.

Engineering and worlds of sonic possibility Close your eyes and think of an acoustic drum kit. We’re going to discuss the best way to mic it up. Hopefully, there it is in your mind’s eye, complete with a hefty kick, a big deep snare, three toms, perhaps, plus hi-hats, crash and ride cymbals. Oh but, hang on. Is the sound you’ve got in mind a kind of stadium rock sound, the likes of which you might hear on a Coldplay or U2 record? Or is it funkier? Maybe you’re a fan of old-school soul or disco? Maybe you’re drawn to jazz, in fact, and want a kit which will work well with brushes rather than sticks, or respond well to a delicate lightness of touch. In which case maybe you don’t want such a big deep snare at all, and you might not need all three toms. Similarly, maybe you’re a fan of ’60s rock ‘n’ roll and, for you, the whole feel of the drums is much less fizzy and high fidelity than some of the other kits we’ve talked about. In which case, let’s be less hasty, not assume that all drum kits sound the same, and make sure that the kit we’re going to work with is an appropriate choice for the music we

PREPARE FOR THE CATALOGUING OF A UNIQUE MOMENT IN TIME want to record. And then, we can start to think about microphone choices. But, of course, just as the choice of kit itself is important, so is the array of microphones you could potentially use to record it. Do you want a close-miked sound, to give you a wide variety of options at the mix stage, or do you want to get a sound which is much more heavily reliant on your chosen recording space and print a room-ier sound with just a pair of overheads and, maybe a kick microphone? The critical thing about recording drums, or indeed recording any instrument, is to experiment with both the instrument and the

microphones you have at your disposal. Engineering is an art which, fortunately, is resurgent after many of us rather lost sight of it for a while. In many musical contexts, we were perhaps guilty of being seduced by hard-disk recording and the plethora of ‘believable’ software instrument libraries which sated our desire for ‘the real thing’. Why mic up a drum kit, when there are software drum libraries designed to make your life easier? For a couple of great reasons. Firstly, your sound will be unique. Secondly, it’s beyond satisfying to spend time selecting microphones, moving them closer and further from sound sources, making test recordings, appraising sounds and comparing the results. It’ll make you focus your ear, teach you loads and make for better music. Just as we

get cross at producers who just flick idly through presets rather than learning the art of sound design, don’t be lazy about engineering. It makes all the difference.

Microphone types and preamps It won’t have escaped your notice that there are a lot of microphones out there. To make the right choices for the recordings you want to make, let’s start by cutting to the chase, by having a look at some of the most common microphone types there are. The two most common are condenser and dynamic microphones. Broadly speaking, condenser microphones are considered the ‘better sounding’ option. They require 48V of phantom power, supplied from an amplifier (or preamp) or directly from your audio interface and, generally speaking, they pick up a more detailed, richer range of frequencies over a wider volume range than their dynamic counterparts. They tend to be much more physically delicate and will

In The Studio With | BT

BT ÂŠ Lacy Transeau

Grammy-nominated film score composer and trance legend Brian Transeau is back with his first dance music album in seven years. Danny Turner explores his stunning studio and obsession with technology

BT | In The Studio With

ew electronic artists have displayed their passion for sound, technology and innovation with as much enthusiasm as Maryland-born producer Brian Transeau (BT). From his first album, Ima (1995), BT has adopted a pioneering approach to music-making, segueing into film soundtrack, TV and video game scoring, with each project informing the next over a diverse catalogue of releases. Not just a technology geek but an inventor, BT is famed for creating iZotope’s Stutter Edit soundprocessing plugin and, more recently, Stutter Edit 2, BreakTweaker and Phobos with Spitfire Audio. Following two full-length multi-movement experimental albums in 2019, The Lost Art of Longing sees Transeau return to the classic trance sound he’s best-known for, binding 25 years’ experience into a project he describes as a journey of deep personal significance.

Dance music is increasingly moving towards the release of singles and EPs over albums. Is that something you’ve had to fight when it comes to selling music? “Yes, every day. From managers to lawyers and agents, I’ve respectfully let representatives go for telling me something has to be done in a certain way. They tell me that people’s attention span is so small that you have to put out one song every month for x years and have a certain social media output and I’m like, you know what? No you don’t. I was blessed to go on tour with a demigod superhero of mine, Howard Jones. Watch how he interacts with the world and how his fans have stayed with him for so many years selling out 5,000-seater rooms in ways that other big artists can’t. He’s not worried about his Spotify monthly listen or having a song out every month – he’s making music that makes people feel more connected.” Are you worried that the pandemic has exacerbated how artists might be manipulated by the industry? “Here’s the dark problem. A lot of people in management take advantage of the fact that artists work from project to project and need to pay for food, family or their mortgage. It depends on how successful you are by the way, Tiësto and Calvin Harris will be fine – and good on them, but here’s the conversation; they put an artist in a room at a big scary board table and say, if you don’t do what we tell you, you’ll be irrelevant and should go work in Guitar Center. So you’ll play at this festival for free, do online streaming for free and grind out music you don’t like one time a month and repeat that over and over again or you’ll never be hired for another show when things go back to normal.” How can artists combat that? “I’m not displacing responsibility on the artist.

Ultimately, it’s up to them to put their foot down and say they don’t believe in what’s being said, but maybe they need to look at the generation before them who have followers who love what they do. Their Spotify numbers aren’t through the roof and some even make a living selling CDs and vinyl.” There’s a quote about the music business being a cruel and shallow money trench… “Yeah, the music business is a den of sin and inequity, but there’s also a negative side [laughs]. It’s so true, man. That’s not to say there aren’t tremendous people operating in it. I have a 20-year relationship with Arny Bink of Black Hole Records. He’s launched the careers of so many remarkable artists in the electronic music space. I would give the keys to my house to this guy.” You’ve also done your bit to help up-andcoming artists… “I’ve been working on a bucket list project for the last year that will probably take another 12 months to wrap up. It’s this whole big educational thing, because so many people over the years have asked me about my techniques and how I manage to finish so much music. I realised that I teach all of these things privately to my friends and peers but never share them with the community at large, so I’m really hoping this astro course will add value to people who feel creatively stuck, whether it’s starting an eight-bar loop or being unable to finish songs or projects. I know how to do that and, over the years, have come up with a crazy system.” Give us a snippet… “A lifesaving object for me is a timer that has increments on it and I use a technique called time-blocking. I’m really diligent about time management and tend to tick away at these small slices of achievable projects, whether it’s music software, albums or production. I run a lot of things in parallel because I have this regimented system, but if you’re just about to dip your sea legs in the creative space I would recommend working on one thing at a time because creating a space where you can finish something is the best way to reward your childlike creative self.” In your case, are you constantly working on projects simultaneously and partitioning tracks into folders for future use? “I’m writing ambient and the more experimental This Binary Universe-type music literally every day, so there’s always an album in progress. I always ask myself the question, if this is my last record what am I leaving for people? Although I love working on things in parallel, I still get overwhelmed sometimes – my software development schedule is bananas because I currently have 11 applications in development across seven companies. But you’re right, during my writing time I’ll write something and think, dang, that would be really great as some kind of crazy IDM thing for a project that’s emerging. Then I’ll go to the modular that weekend, print a big patch and maybe two weeks later

The Track | Shadow Child

FM | THE TRACK

Shadow Child Mars

Armada Electronic Elements, 2020 Longtime Future Music readers will be no stranger to one Simon Neale aka Shadow Child, Dave Spoon, Polymod and various other dance music monikers. Simon’s latest project, Apollo, is a series of EPs that VIDEO ON take inspiration from early trance and progressive FILESILO house tracks, using a combination of classic hardware gear and contemporary instrument and effect plugins. We hooked up with Simon to discover how he created his hypnotic breakbeat prog roller Mars. Looking back at the early dance music, it feels like sound selection is what makes a lot of the classic tracks. Is being a good dance music producer about being able to pick the right sounds?

“For me, the sound inspires where I’ll go with melodies and ideas. I used to start on my tracks with drums and stuff, but all my best stuff has been led by having the synth sound first, or the melody or a pad or something. Normally the percussion comes second. The stuff that I start that is percussion-led tends to stay that way, it tends to stay very ‘tracky’. So yeah it is important and I think presets are OK, and I think I and a lot of people tend to use a preset as a start point and then expand on that. “Having said that, the Apollo project has got two or three familiar lead sounds in there that are just presets. I really feel now – with any wisdom that I’ve got – that your sound palette is one of the most important things, and actually it will help your writing. I think if you’re just kicking around a few sounds you’re not sure of, it isn’t very inspiring. I like to jump in, find a sound and straightaway, write something and commit pretty quickly. I really find that that’s the key to it.” You use a Roland TR-909 kick drum on the track. 909 kicks don’t tend to go particularly low frequency wise, so is that a case of the Solid Bass patch on the JV-2080 filling up that low end? “So these Apollo tracks are 90% hardware and I’ve committed to everything including the drums really quickly. I’ll just jam out a

Shadow Child | The Track

“I really feel now – with any wisdom that I’ve got – that your sound palette actually will help your writing. Just kicking around a few sounds you’re not sure of isn’t very inspiring”

pattern on the 909 sequencer; I don’t use Ableton Live to put in the MIDI, literally I’m on the 909 and I just record everything in as individual drum tracks. Then I process each track. I’ve pitched down 909s a tiny bit on a couple of those tracks. I used some transient processors too, the SPL one is great, and the UAD one is decent. I just use them to get that attack. I try not to get too technical. I’ve probably done a lot of really uncouth things with EQing and all sorts of stuff to kind of get that sound! “That Solid Bass patch and the 909 are all over these tracks, and they do complement each other quite well, but you do need to allow things to push through. There are a lot of great plugins around now that do dynamics, sidechaining as well, especially Wavesfactory Trackspacer.” You made Mars in Logic. How come you switched to Ableton Live? “I got bored with Logic! I mean Logic is fantastic, but I’ve been using it for years and years and I’ve been waiting for ages to get stuck into Live. Apollo parts 1,2 and 3 were done in Logic and then part 4 was in Ableton. So those were the last tracks that I wrote in Logic. “I do a bit of beta testing for Propellerhead, or Reason Studios as they’re now known, as I’ve always used Reason in all my

FM | PRODUCER’S GUIDE

Ableton Wavetable

Take a deep dive into Live’s newest onboard synth which promises to have your sound design making waves Although Ableton Live 10 was packed with workflow enhancements and AUDIO ON impressive new FILESILO effects (like Echo and Pedal), the biggest news for sound designers has been Wavetable, an impressive new approach to wavetable-based synthesis, with an interface that lets you see nearly every design/modulation element on one screen. Here we present Wavetable’s features in depth, along with a few expert tips along the way.

Architecture Some users have compared it to Serum and Massive, but

Wavetable’s engine is different, with its own unique collection of wavetable data and filter options; it doesn’t replace either of those synths, but instead, expands the range of this popular synthesis method. Wavetable’s architecture is key to its capabilities. Its two oscillators include nearly 200 preset tables organised into 11 categories. This makes it easy to find a starting point if you know what type of sound you’re after. In addition, Wavetable includes a flexible sub-oscillator that provides a wide range of functions that belie its name. Those three generators feed a pair of multimode filters that can be arranged in parallel, serial, or

split configurations. This is followed by an amp (volume) section and topped off with a unison effect that includes several modes that break new ground. Unlike other plugins, there’s no dedicated effects section, as Wavetable is baked into Live Suite. Consequently, if you want to add final processing, you can take advantage of Ableton’s massive library of audio effects. Of course, if you’re a Max for Live user, you can design your own.

Oscillators Getting the hang of Wavetable’s dual-oscillators is best done by simply dropping the instrument in a track and starting with the

default preset, which consists of osc 1 only (osc 2 and the sub-osc switched off) feeding a 2-pole low-pass filter, with cutoff at max. From here, you can audition the contents of the 11 wavetable categories and inspect the tonal character of each, while sweeping them with the wave position slider (see Fig. 1).

PRO TIP Setting the wave position to 50%, then applying a slow triangle LFO to the Osc 1 Pos routing in the mod matrix with a value of 50, is a great way to sweep each table automatically as

Ableton Wavetable | Producer’s Guide To

you familiarise yourself with the content. Each wavetable category has a distinct flavour. BASICS – Aptly named, this category covers bread-and-butter tables, leaning toward analogue oscillators, but with a few FM-derived options mixed in. COLLECTION – Named after colours such as Olive or Sapphire, this is a set of go-to Abletonflavoured tables that are both unusual and flexible. COMPLEX – These consist of more radical wave-tables with a lot of harmonic complexity. DISTORTION – While these tables are derived from various distortion and waveshaping processes, this is also where you’ll find a few options oriented toward a more ‘West Coast synthesis’ approach. FILTER – These tables are based on filter sweeps and work nicely when you want to stack filter types in series (or if you’re new to synthesis and want immediate results without learning the subtleties of multimode filtering). FORMANT – This category handles vocal-like timbres, with apt names like AEIOU and Tuvan. HARMONICS – For experienced wavetable fans, this category is loaded up with wavetables that are excellent starting points for layering, additive, and timeless sweeps that somewhat evoke the PPG and Synclavier. INSTRUMENTS – These tables are based on actual instruments such as piano, marimba, and oboe, among others. The options here really shine when swept with an envelope, as opposed to an LFO. NOISE – While converting noise into wavetables may seem like a strange choice, since they contain no easily translated harmonics, these tables are useful for adding a chaotic element to sounds: several of the options come to life when modulated with an LFO, often yielding a sound that is much like a tuned flanger that tracks the keyboard. (Some of these tables, such as Vinyl Noise, have unusual frequency response characteristics, so keep that in mind as you gain-stage sounds.) RETRO – Like the name implies, these tables evoke the early years of wavetable synthesis.

VINTAGE – This collection is packed with really useful tables that are derived from classic and modern analogue gear. With a bit of LFO modulation, they deliver impressively realistic results if you’re going for a circuit-based oscillator sound. At the bottom of each oscillator window is an FX section, which is similar to Massive’s Spectrum and Serum’s Warp options, allowing you to manipulate the wavetable’s shape and spectrum further (see Fig. 2). In fact, the FX functions are so crucial to extending the value of the oscillators’ wavetables that I urge readers to devote extra time to modulating these parameters with LFOs and envelopes to understand their sonic range. Here are the three FX modes. FM – This mode applies an FM modulator to the wavetable, with visual feedback so you can see the results. In this mode, the two adjustable parameters are tuning and amount.

PRO TIP You can achieve familiar FM effects by starting with the Sines 1 table in the Harmonics category (with a wave position of zero; pure sine), then adjusting the modulation amount parameter with an envelope. The tuning hot spots, where the FM effect

retains harmonic coherence (without dissonant artefacts), are -100%, -50%, 0, 50%, and 100%. These correlate with ratios of 0.25:1, 0.5:1, 1:1, 2:1 and 4:1, respectively. Between those values, the Sines 1 sine wave is a fantastic resource for organic bell and mallet textures. Because FM is more controllable with simple carrier waveforms, complex wavetables will yield results that are a bit more unpredictable. CLASSIC – This mode offers the two most familiar analogue waveform modifiers: Sync and pulse width (PW). The sync parameter value is equivalent to adjusting the tuning of a synced oscillator, though the term ‘pulse width’ is a simplification; the process actually compresses the wavetable while adding a zero-amplitude segment on either side of the table, depending on whether the value is positive or negative. For classic PWM effects, start with the square wave in the Basic Shapes wavetable.

PRO TIP Noted sound designer Huston Singletary is a big fan of the pulse-width parameter: “One of my

favourite techniques for adding vintage animation to our wavetables is to modulate the PW parameter gradually for only one oscillator with a very slow triangle or sine LFO playing against a second oscillator, with Osc 2’s PW base value set to none or its FM amount slightly raised.” MODERN – These two modes are more akin to the shaping tools in Serum and Massive: Warp compresses and stretches the entire waveform in either direction (positive or negative) similarly to Serum’s asymmetrical mode; Fold behaves like a cross between Serum’s Mirror and hard sync. As a result, each one of these modes can serve a role as a more contemporary variation on pulse width and sync, respectively.

Sub oscillator Even on its own, Wavetable’s sub-oscillator is flexible as a timbral resource. In addition to Volume, there are parameters for Octave, Transpose, and Tone. Transpose has an 8-octave range (±48 semitones), in addition to a switch that can lower the range two octaves. As a result, it can be used for virtually any non-detuned interval, making it great for adding fifths to leads if the two main oscillators are tied up with timbral

Fig.1

Fig.2

Interview | Thys

Thys

ÂŠ Lex Vesseur

Following the breakup of Dutch bass trio Noisia, former member Thijs de Vlieger is about to release his debut Thys EP and make plans for a career in soundtrack production. Danny Turner finds out more

Thys | Interview

fter 20 years working alongside Nik Roos and Martijn van Sonderen as one third of bass behemoth Noisia, Thijs de Vlieger is wasting little time moving on, writing a score for the live contemporary dance and art production Sleeping Beauty Dreams and rebranding himself as Thys for solo electronic productions. His first Thys release is the futuristic three-track EP Unmoved Mover/Unwound – a cinematic odyssey of driving breakbeats, dystopian synths and orchestral passages. The EP was recorded at De Vlieger’s studio in Groningen, Netherlands, where Noisia still operate from separate rooms. Meanwhile, the producer has been further collaborating with sound innovator Amon Tobin following Ghostcards earlier this year.

How would you define the end of Noisia and your decision to go your separate ways? “While the clashing of ideas can be very beneficial, we’ve been together for 20 years. Between the ages of 18 and 38 you change a lot as a person and develop your own tastes, so it would be very rare for our three tastes to develop perfectly in sync. Staying together was becoming more of an effort and less natural than at the start when our interests were very much aligned.” You must have felt a sense of security being in the band. Was leaving that behind daunting? “Exactly that – the opportunity is great but it’s also pretty scary. Speaking of safety and anxiety, we were going to do a very nice farewell tour to close the chapter – not just for the fans but ourselves – and build a bridge for us to transition into the future. Now that whole tour has been cancelled or postponed due to Covid-19, but we still want to do it next year.” Is it refreshing to be working on solo material? “Well I was already doing my own thing, which was a relief. When collaborations go well you energise each other, but when it feels worn down you start to get tired of each others’ perspective. When you know there’s going to be conflict in advance, it’s very exhausting for everybody involved. Right now, I’m enjoying the freedom of being autonomous in my musical decision-making and really want to get into film scoring, so I’m basically going back to school by working with a private teacher, reading books and setting a goal to watch three movies every week and expose myself to that kind of music.” With Covid-19 extrovert DJ/producers will be suffering, whereas introverts might find solace in being alone. Which are you? “It’s been an amazingly creative time, but I’m absolutely introverted so I’m very much used to this.

My studio is corona-proof, so my whole life can just keep going. Making music is very complementary to my ideal lifestyle, but I do miss going out and DJing. The funny thing is that some people that are normally introverts can transform on stage into extroverts. Not every show, but with many shows I feel very comfortable being on the microphone directly relating to hundreds or thousands of people without any awkwardness, whereas when I’m sitting at a table with strangers I can feel very uncomfortable. So there’s a magical transformation that can happen on stage to introverted people when they feel they’re a persona and not a person.” You’ve already created one side-project Music From Sleeping Beauty Dreams. This was music set to a live contemporary dance performance? “Dance is absolutely brilliant for a musician because you don’t have to leave space for the performer to speak and they love it when you take all that space because it gives them more of the story to choreograph. I do miss the literal storytelling that can happen with film scores or gaming, but in film you’re always amplifying the director’s creative artistic vision. With choreography, there’s much more room for me to be a proper musician because the narrative isn’t set.” The Noisia studio looks such a creative and stimulating space, but does it help to source ideas from different environments? “It does help, yes, because something changes in the brain when you’re not in your usual space. It doesn’t matter how nice that space is, going somewhere else still gives you a different perspective or influence. For making music, I just prefer quiet. When the lockdown first started I created a little home setup in case I couldn’t go to the studio and found that even having speakers and a laptop on my dinner table was a nice change of scenery. With laptops these days it’s so easy to have really high-quality sound everywhere. In the early ’90s, having a hi-fi studio was very expensive, but now, even with free software like Reaper, you only need pay a few hundred dollars for a good soundcard interface where the digital converters are better than what you’d find in some studios 30 years ago.” Your new Thys EP has a more cinematic/ dystopian feel. Do you still regard it as club music or are you keen to move away from that? “My influences for this were definitely club music, but placing that where I see myself going in the future, which is more in the realms of cinematic/ storytelling music. I’m not done with club music, but after 20 years I’ve severely depleted the glass. When we started Noisia, we didn’t realise that our music worked in club culture; we saw it as nerds making music for nerds on the internet or for people listening on vinyl at home. Even after 20 years, it didn’t drop that the value of our music does not lie in its compositional or technical skill, but the shared experience of an audience. The music ‘experience’ is so much more amplified when people listen to it together.”

Interview | David Strickland

David Strickland

ÂŠ Ernie Paniccioli

One of North Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most successful audio engineers, this Canadian has made a huge contribution to hip-hop and indigenous music cultures. Danny Turner hears his take on the industry today and becoming an artist

David Strickland | Interview

entored by production legend Noel ‘Gadget’ Campbell, Grammy and JUNO awardwinning audio engineer and producer David Strickland has been a crucial denominator behind the success of numerous groundbreaking acts in Toronto. Over the past two decades he’s elevated the work of seminal hip-hop and R&B artists like Pete Rock, EPMD, Method Man and Sade, and was mixing assistant to Drake’s chart-topping debut Thank Me Later. Born and raised in Ontario, Strickland started as a b-boy, before evolving into the roles of DJ, MC, engineer and producer. Embracing his ancestral origins, Strickland has long sought to strengthen ties between hip-hop and native music traditions by bringing artists together. Now, 25 years into his career, he’s ready to sit in the artist’s chair with his latest album project Spirit of Hip Hop, showcasing indigenous MCs alongside his unique blend of mainstream rap rhythms.

You began as a b-boy, which I guess is a terminology that’s lost on young people today. What did that expression mean to you? “I was an athlete, so maybe it was just another form of expression. Hip-hop is indigenous culture in a modern form and it was the first time I’d tapped into that sort of thing. The ties between hip-hop and native music traditions show that the DJs are like the drummers, the MCs in hip-hop are the storytellers, the b-boys are the dancers and the graffiti writers the sand painters.” Has modern hip-hop moved too far from the genre’s origins? “Sure, but that’s always happened. It’s always evolved and always will. I love to make music and work with artists and there’s always going to be good music, bad music and lazy artists. There’s an argument about authenticity and all that stuff, but if you’re looking for that type of sound it’s still being made. With the accessibility we have nowadays it’s way easier to find that music than when I was younger, so if you can’t find what you’re looking for you’re not looking hard enough. People forget all the sub-genres of hip-hop like hip-house, which was great. I don’t know what happened, maybe they call it something else now, but there’s going to be sub-genres and that’s OK, that’s what happens. Good music spreads, evolves and changes – you can go where you want with it.” Was the plan to become an engineer/mixer and work your way up to a producer role? “I got into DJing and MCing, which led me into engineering and producing. I wanted to record but I

didn’t realistically think I’d be successful at it. I had a good voice so I studied radio broadcasting thinking I could get into radio and make a decent living at that. That was my plan until I really got into engineering and thought, OK, I kind of like this. I learned about gear from spending time in studios but was pretty apt at technology anyway. I did go to engineering school, which led me to my mentor Noel Campbell who taught me a lot of stuff that a school couldn’t teach. It was a labour of love – you can go to school, but to get really good you gotta put in the time and work, so for a lot of the time I coached myself.” And gear wasn’t as accessible in those days as it is now, presumably? “Correct. You could sequence on a computer but you had to buy a lot more expensive gear if you wanted to record. Studios were still using tape up until almost 2000 and that was expensive. Technology has changed a lot, so you really had to go out of your way to get into it. Not everybody was into making music like they are now where the whole process is done in home studios and there are even apps on your phone so you can make a beat.” Do you feel there’s an element of quality control missing with home studio recording? “There’ll be artists that sneak by despite not having the quality, but there could be all kinds of reasons for that – maybe nobody taught them, so I’m not trying to be a player here. Some quality control’s missing but there’s still a lot of professionals. Somebody made an app so you could build your own car at home, so technology has changed the game for us all. Car companies are feeling it but they still make better cars.” Have you noticed a lot of variability in the records you listen to these days? “I have noticed that. It depends where it’s coming from. See it’s not just the technology that’s changed, the way we play our music has changed. I could go press some records and put them in a store but couldn’t put them on a platform that gives them access to everybody in a week. People are becoming stars because of that accessibility. Back in the day it was good to have that regulation, but what were we missing out on? Think of all the people we wouldn’t have heard from.” You touched on how people play music. As a producer yourself, have you had to adapt? “It is what it is. Sometimes I joke at artists when I send them a mix and say, wait, are you listening to this on a laptop? Sometimes I’ll listen to mixes on computer speakers, but a good engineer will also listen to a mix on shitty speakers because we know that people aren’t going to listen to them on a studio system and you have to consider that in your mix. If it sounds good on computer speakers, a lot of times it will sound really great on a nice system. One thing I do know is when I was at high school I had ear buds for my Sony Walkman and only a few other people did, now everywhere I look everybody’s got

Reviews | Korg SoundLink MW-2408 Hybrid mixer

FM | REVIEWS

Korg SoundLink MW-2408 Hybrid mixer £1,199 These new hybrid mixers boast some serious design pedigree. Si Truss asks if they live up to their heritage… CONTACT

WHO: Korg WEB: korg.com digital effects, dynamics processing and EQ

KEY FEATURES 24-channel mixer with 8 sub groups, 4 aux outputs, 1x USB in/out, stereo aux input,

Korg SoundLink MW-2408 Hybrid mixer | Reviews

THE PROS & CONS

Analogue channel strips are excellent in terms of both sound and functionality Digital effects are flexible and sound great Sub groups, mute groups and aux channels are flexible and well-designed

PROCESSING POWER On the digital side of things, the SoundLink mixers pack 16 customisable send effects, along with dynamics and EQ processors. The 16 effects are fairly conservative in their design, sticking to a variety of classic reverb, delay and modulation effects, some with analogue-like ‘warm’ variations. Sticking to the classics is no bad thing though – nobody needs wacky DJ effects added to an analogue mixer, and everything included here is excellent quality. There are 30 user slots too, for saving tweaked versions of the standard presets. The EQ, meanwhile, has two modes, a 9-band ‘wide’ setup and 31-band ‘narrow’ version for homing in on specific frequencies. On the dynamics front there are hard or soft compressors and a limiter, each of which can be freely applied to the master or aux outputs. Finally, the mixer also includes a spectral analyser for the master output, which is a really nice addition.

Digital I/O is basic, at best No onboard recording

org’s SoundLink mixers were unveiled at NAMM 2020 alongside the Wavestate, SV-2 and ARP 2600 and it says something about the clout of the names involved that they weren’t entirely overshadowed by such a hypehogging lineup. Any musician with an interest in mixing tech will know Greg Mackie’s name though, and the fact that he and equally-notable, former Trident designer Peter Watts have had

input into Korg’s latest consoles was always guaranteed to turn heads. In an intro to the manual, Mackie describes the SoundLink designs as combining “analogue’s instant control… with the power of high-quality digital where it counts”. What that amounts to is a mixer design that combines fully analogue channel strips with digital DSP based on Korg’s existing effects technology. There are two models in the range, the 24-input MW-2408, on review here, and the MW-1608, which has an identical feature set but reduces

the total input count to 16. Here, the 24 channels are divided evenly into eight mono and eight stereo all of which have XLR mic and ¼-inch TRS line inputs on the rear. The ‘08’ in each model’s name is derived from the four stereo sub groups, complete with eight ¼-inch outputs. Each mixer channel is equipped with one of Peter Watts’ newlydesigned HiVolt preamps, which Korg tout as “low noise, high headroom”, and they certainly deliver excellent quality, bearing in mind the mixer’s price point – which is equally true across both the mono and stereo channels. Beyond this, each of the mono channels is equipped with a switchable high-pass filter, fixed at 100Hz, plus a one-knob compressor. This latter feature is a nice touch, great for controlling dynamically inconsistent vocals and, in our tests, good at beefing-up unpredictable, modulated synth sounds. There’s a handy indicator light showing when the compressor is engaged too. Each channel has an EQ section, but these differ slightly between the mono and stereo types. The mono channels each have fixed position high and low shelf EQs, along with a mid EQ sweepable between 250Hz and 5kHz. The stereo channels,

meanwhile, keep the same high and low EQs but instead have two fixed position mid EQs. Beyond these differences, and the lack of compressor and HPF, the remaining elements of the stereo channels are identical to their mono counterparts. All channels have four aux sends – by default two are pre-fader and two post-fader, but can be switched to be all pre-fader. Then there’s an FX send dial, pan control and mute and pre-fader listen switches. Each channel is also equipped with a channel fader, bus assign switches for routing output and -20dB and overload indicator LEDs. While Korg are pitching these at a variety of users – the manual has setup suggestions for churches, conference centres, live bands and recording – they were clearly designed with musicians and musical engineers in mind. On the recording front, the mixers offer a Musician’s Phones feature that makes it exceptionally easy to set up musician-specific monitor/headphone mixes using the aux channels. The inclusion of sub groups is a really nice touch at this price point too – handy for studio jams and live mixing. Live engineers and electronic performers will appreciate the four

Reviews | Erica Synths Fusion System II

Erica Synths Fusion System II â&#x201A;¬1,950 The Latvians are back with three new vacuum-tastic modules. Rob Redman gives them a go CONTACT

WHO: Erica Synths WEB: ericasynths.lv Ringmodulator and FusionDelay/flanger/vintage ensemble

KEY FEATURES MODULES: 2x Fusion VCO 2, Fusion VCF3, Fusion VCA-Waveshaper-

Erica Synths Fusion System II | Reviews

THE PROS & CONS

Solidly built Lots of patch points Lots of analogue warmth and growl

You can’t get the sterile clarity of other units Delay effect is not what you might have been expecting

ollowing in the tradition of many Erica Synths modules and full systems, the first thing you notice with the Fusion 2 is the solidity of the physical object. It ships in a 104hp skiff, with textured end cheeks and, although the case is thin bent metal, it feels tough enough to give you confidence for live work. The fascias similarly show typical Erica Synths stylings, reminiscent of something you might see in the prop

cupboard of a B-movie about a mad scientist. Knobs and switches all feel robust, with good resistance and the patch points are well seated. Erica Synths have a history with aggressive modules that pack a punch but nothing as yet has quite the degree of warmth and grit as these new offerings. Fusion isn’t a new thing to Erica, however they have adapted, upgraded and evolved the concept so that sound designers can access a new palette of possibilities. Let’s look at this in terms of individual modules in the context of a

complete system – as that’s how many people will buy them, with the skiff and power supply as a package. For many, the journey starts with oscillators, in this case two single voice, three waveshape, Fusion VCO 2s. These have the tools you might expect, such as volts per octave and audio inputs, as well as CV jacks that include separate outputs for the -1oct sub and triangle waves and an input for modulating the pulse width. If that was all that was in place it would be a fine VCO, however Fusion 2 VCOs have a bucket brigade-based short

delay driving the detune effect, which sounds wide and glorious (or subtle if that’s your thing). They’ve also embedded a Valve into the circuit, visible through a cutout on the fascia, nicely lit by an orange LED for that vintage glow. It looks cool and sounds better. The more you engage the Tube Crunch control, the more grit is invoked. Further personality can be added by cranking the FM knob, which also sets an upper level when using CV. Sitting between the two VCOs is the Filter module, a 24dB valve/ vactrol-based circuit, that also includes a buffered mult and a three-channel mixer. Sweeping the filter presents a less wild result than you might expect, although the resonances scream into self oscillation. The trick here is the big button. Pressing this starts the module recording your control voltage changes, so you can preserve mod setups. As a creative tool, this is inspiring as well as downright fun, which sound design tools should be. It should be noted that audio range mods aren’t applicable here due to the limitations of vactrol circuits. Jump the second VCO to land on the modulator module, a larger device that is home to multiple mod sources. Two looping envelope generators (with a manual trigger button) kick things off, their attack, on, delay, off rotary controls. These are both unipolar and bipolar together, with CV control over the decay time. These twin EGs are core to the module; however, the fun begins with the clockable sample & hold section, that means creating melodic drones and pitched textures is a breeze, although there is no quantisation on offer, so you might want to think about an external solution to that. It’s based on the module’s noise source which has its own output and sounds great; more red noise than white. Patch points are in abundance, across the lower part of the fascia (nice to see them grouped for control access when cable clutter can block the way). This brings us to the combo VCA/ Waveshaper/Ringmodulator, this time with two miniature pentode valves on show. This module operates in two simultaneous circuits, allowing you to patch dual CVs for the amp. In practical terms you can use the frequencies of VCA and ring mod as waveshaping systems, in turn giving you complex and versatile, yet

FM | SOUND DESIGN

Craft the ultimate analogue kick Master punch and attack with these tips

f you have a large collection of kick drum samples, examine their waveforms on a sample viewer. In nearly every case, you’ll see a basic sine wave with a lot of complexity at the beginning of the waveform, followed by a fairly stable sine wave that reduces in amplitude. Seriously. Go look at your kick drum samples’ wave data. Unless you’re making hardstyle or industrial, the

primary kick waveform is a sine. So, if you want absolute control over your kick drums, you’ll need to learn to create two specific components: the attack and the body. Since the body of the kick is generally a sine, nearly any softsynth can cover this task. It’s the attack and ‘punch’ components that really define each sound. Case in point, the TR-808’s attack is essentially a click,

while one of the TR-909’s defining attributes is a slight pitch envelope that gives the body of that kick more impact – which is why it’s still a mainstay in house and techno. Crafting that initial attack and punchiness requires careful attention to several synthesis techniques. In FM, creating the 808’s click is a matter of adding a fast envelope to a direct modulator, but the 909’s

ABOUT OUR WRITER Francis Preve is one of the industry’s most prolific sound designers. Find out more by visiting: francispreve.com

impact is added via a pitch envelope. In subtractive synthesisers, it’s easy to create the punch via a pitch envelope, but creating unique attack transients is a bit trickier, sometimes requiring a short sampled fragment for complexity. This month, we’ll look at two different approaches, using Ableton Operator and Xfer Serum. Each is equally capable at realising impressive kick drums, but the techniques for the two synths are more specialised.

9000

Craft the ultimate analogue kick | FM Sound Design

QUICK TIPS

Treat the initial attack transient and the body ‘punch’ as two separate elements, so that you can customise the kick based on your track’s needs.

Since the kick drum is synthesised, you have full control over decay and release in order to be able to adapt the sound for house/ techno or trap/hip-hop.

Method 1: Ableton Operator Operator lets us layer up elements and add pitch sweep for a classic synth kick

The optimum starting point for any synthesised kick drum is a sine wave. Starting with Ableton’s default envelope for Osc A, shorten the decay to around 500 milliseconds, then set the initial value to its maximum 0dB. This allows the attack time to function as a variable ‘hold’ time, a neat trick for simulating compression.

Try to avoid the temptation to use more than one oscillator. At low frequencies, phase cancellation can make the volume sound extremely erratic.

The modulator (Osc B) provides the initial attack transient, so with an instant attack, set the decay time to between 2-20 ms. From there, you can adjust the overall volume of this transient by changing its level. You can also change the character by tweaking the tuning. Higher values will create brighter attacks.

With a few tweaks, you can layer this kick with favourite transients from your existing kick drum collection. Keep any layered transients under 150 milliseconds so they don’t interfere.

Switching from a sine wave to a triangle wave will simulate distortion effects, but beware that square and sawtooth generally result in arp/ pluck tones.

To add ‘punch’ to the kick – like a 909 – activate the pitch envelope and set its depth to 100%. You can then tailor the impact via the envelope’s Peak parameter (+24 semitones is a good starting point) and the decay. A setting of around 400 ms will yield a good basis for further tinkering.

To make the kick beefier, use Ableton’s Pedal effect, which offers overdrive and distortion tools. If you just want to make it bigger, leave the effect in OD (overdrive) mode, increase the Gain to 5%, then turn on the Sub button. For aggressive hardstyle tones, increase the Gain and/or change the distortion mode.