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TONE2 FILTERBANK3 SYNTH & MULTI FX 64-BIT PC, 32-BIT MAC
WORTH $79
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HARDWARE
DAWS THE END OF SOFTWARE?
We test the new hardware attempting to invade your desktop…
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The only bass sample collection you need
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INTERVIEWS
LAU.RA
SHE’S GOT CLAWS MORCHEEBA YA TSEEN
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welcome We were pretty much forced to do this month’s cover feature, when four new hardware units claiming to be able to ‘make entire tunes’ turned up at the same time. So, can it really be that after all these years of software taking over from hardware, that computer-based DAWs will be replaced? I mean, really? Well, we’ve seen the comeback of hardware synths, and some might add topend outboard; heck some even say tape (but those people tend to live in loft apartments listening to cassettes in an ironic way, so let’s discount them). So a hard return could be ‘a thing’ in this upsidedown world where everyone is looking back with facemasksteamed spectacles. This yearning for the past was getting to me, then, so this weekend I experienced the sheer joy of programming an original analogue synth. Well, I say ‘joy’, because after creating an amazing sound, I had to take a photo of the front panel to ‘save’ the preset. (I used an analogue print camera, before you ask – the prints are getting developed in Boots as we speak.) So I’ve concluded that ditching the tech in favour of the past could take us down a dangerous path; we’ll be in loin clothes knocking out beats on skulls before you know it*. That said, and swerving nicely back to our cover feature, it turns out some of them are ‘not bad at all’. Not that I’m going anywhere near them. I’m upgrading my Mac to the latest OS, so I simply won’t have the time.
“We’ll be knocking out beats on skulls”
* Actually that gives me an idea…
Andy Jones Editor andy.jones@futurenet.com
ISSUE 296 JULY 2021
contents Cover feature
54
56
/experts
IS HARDWARE
54 SYNTH MASTERCLASS How to get punchier bass
KILLING
SOFTWARE? Time to ditch your DAW? – starts p16
18 ROLAND VERSELAB MV-1 All you need in one box to record and produce
24 AKAI FORCE Hardware that tackles DAWs head-on…
30 POLYEND TRACKER An old-school tracker… in hardware
36 NI MASCHINE+ The software you love, away from your computer
/ Interviews
56 ORGANIC MACHINATIONS An all-new monthly class!
58 PRODUCTION It’s a bass special with a guide from Audiotent
15 Questions 12
YA TSEEN
Nicholas Galanin is a renowned artist who owns a studio to die for…
94 MORCHEEBA 25 years of silky downtempo grooves, but it hasn’t all been laid back
Essentials 6
68 ARTURIA PIGMENTS 3
97 BACK ISSUES
Future legends, old legends and the odd Brit Award… 46 SHE’S GOT CLAWS
728 SSL UF8
NEWS
444SUBSCRIBE 98 NEXT MONTH
748 WAVES VOCAL BENDER 768 CABLEGUYS DRIVESHAPER
60 LAU.RA Ultraìsta and FEMME star Laura Bettinson is not only up for a Brit next month but has more projects underway than you can shake a stick at!
94
Reviews 708 LEAPWING AUDIO AL SCHMITT
Micci Lou’s band might be named after a Numan song and produced by an OMD legend, but it’s full of C21 attitude and technology
12
778 MINI REVIEWS EXTRA!
60
4 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
808THE 6 BEST BUNDLES
68
downloads / contents <
downloads
Get this month’s content from filesilo.co.uk – see p83
free plugin TONE2 FILTERBANK3 How to claim and use this month’s amazing synth/filter plugin See p84 Instructions at File Silo (p83)
84 DUB & BASS
MUTATED BASS INGLORIOUS BASS
90
free samples IT’S A BASS SPECIAL! Two all-new bass packs plus some dub and bass classics from the vault On the DVD or download from File Silo (see p83)
free videos SYNTH MASTERCLASS
DOWNLOAD
Dave Gale tells you how to get punchier bass using the mighty CM Plugin Suite Download via File Silo (see p83)
plugin suite THE CM PLUGIN SUITE
DOWNLOAD
An all-new PDF detailing our complete Plugin Suite of instruments and effects Download from File Silo (see p83) July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 5
> news
NEW RELEASES • COMMENT • INDUSTRY HAPPENINGS
Ro-ro-ro your synth… Roland get their software act together but there’s plenty more in 106 land There was a time, of course – and not actually that long ago – where Roland didn’t do software. However the company’s Cloud subscription service has opened up that particular soft door (or DAW if you work for this mag) and now you can download classic Rolands by the dozen from there (and individually). We thought this might lead to the former hardware giants leaning on smaller companies to stop them doing Roland emulations – as they eventually sort of did with ReBirth – but not so it seems, and this month we have not one but two more Roland softsynths… not made by Roland! First up is the Softube Model 84, not actually stated as a Juno-106 (the 84 is from the year the synth came out, rather like they did with the model 72, based on a Minimoog from that year). But the company goes on to admit that “we applied our award-winning modeling expertise to a fully-serviced and calibrated 1984 unit and the result is a perfect facsimile of the original hardware.” Softube have even gone as far as to recreate the original presets, but it’s not a complete retro fest. The synth comes in three different flavours: modules to fit in with Softube’s rather great Modular (Eurorack in software) system; a chorus effect for Softube’s amp room and, of course, the standard instrument.
Rolands in everything but name? We didn’t say that because we’re not trouble makers
We are expecting good things from this one, knowing how well Softube’s component level modelling has worked with their other emulations and the offer price of €99 is a ‘grab it while you can’ one (normally €159) UVI’s offering is more like a 106 on steroids as they have just announced Super7. This combines the Juno-106 synth with an X0X drum machine to recreate the original 80s groovebox, the now-shifting-bignumbers-on-eBay MKS-7. This multitimbral sound module used to be a bit of a hidden gem as it has the guts of a 106 and classic
Roland beats. As is so often the case with UVI, the title is sample-based, featuring 262 presets and 26,743 samples, and they are hitting even lower with their intro price of $49 (normally $79). It runs in the free UVI Workstation v3.0.17+, and Falcon v 2.1.4+ Sounds like a really clever magazine should line up these classics with the originals and see which does the best job. What’s that you say? A feature we have already planned for two issues time you say? Oh go on then… softube.com, uvi.net
Fancy a bit of electronic music?
Five decades of electronic e music, d p summed in 132 pagess
6 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
Another month, another new magazine from the team who bring you Computer Music. OK, this might be a one-off but it’s fab nonetheless. The Music Producer’s Guide To Electronic features classic features and interviews (including one with Kraftwerk from 1981, although we weren’t around then) and plenty of hands-on production guides – plus some new stuff, we hasten to add – and is available now from all good magazine shops and online. in all good stores, Zinio.com, pocketmags.com
news <
App watch Now you’re Tallinn We love ‘the sound of Nordic minimalism’ and you all do too – our Scandi Noir sample packs from last year were our most popular downloads ever. As good as those were though, Orchestral Tools are aiming higher with theirs: Tallinn—Baltic voices and strings. OT usually record in the famous and fabulous Teldex Studio in Berlin, but this time they upped sticks and recorders and headed to Tallinn to record both the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Tallin Chamber Orchestra for the aforementioned vocals and strings. “The results are quite breathtaking,” say OT, “the soft, slightly icy strings blend with the warmth and precision of the voices, and the organs are so realistic you can almost feel the air from the pipes. Everything comes together to form a perfect, atmospheric whole.” It sounds amazing and we can already visualise two shady Nordic cops making a hideous discovery – maybe under some ice or something – to the strains of these atmospheric sounds. (Our own local Bathbased murder mystery TV show is called
Loopcloud goes to 6 There was a time when Loopmasters Loopcloud seemed to get updated every week but it hasn’t seen a major upgrade for a while now. However its latest move to version 6 seems to be a big one, adding AI into the mix, that mix already being an
We report on the latest developments in phone and d ttablet bl t music i making ki
M1 Processor McDonald and Dodds, a kind of panto meets Midsomer Murders to which the only suitable soundtrack would be played by a trombone or whoopee cushion). Tallinn—Baltic voices and strings is €299. Review next issue. orchestraltools.com
already ridiculously easy way of adding audio to your tunes. ‘Find your perfect sound, faster’ is the latest tag line and when there are literally millions in the Loopcloud library, AI is an obvious next step (although we have found that sometimes it’s the random sample pairings that Loopcloud throws up that can be the most interesting). Anyway, the app can now suggest new samples to match the one you are using in a “harmonically and rhythmically way”. Add in new audio filters like Tone, Swing and Rhythmic Density, and Loopcloud will not only suggest a route to completing a tune, but spend any royalties you make from selling it. No it won’t really. And who makes money from music these days anyway? loopcloud.com
The rumour was that the new iPad Pro would have a chip comparable to the latest Macs’ M1 processor, but it turns out that both the 11- and 12.9-inch models are powered by the actual M1. This adds huge potential, and credence to the rumour that Logic Pro will be coming to the iPad Pro in due course. Will other music software developers follow suit? And will the iPad Pro become people’s main ‘computer’ of choice? The 11” iPad starts at $799/£749. apple.com
Pure Piano E-instruments have opened their iOS account with the launch of Pure Piano, a 1.1GB instrument that puts a grand piano on your iPhone or iPad. The focus here is on just one piano, but you can tweak your tone in real-time using the intuitive Morph Pad, while effects include reverb, EQ and delay. Other features include options to adjust the tuning and velocity curve, and both standalone and AUv3 plugin operation. Pure Piano is available for $14/£14 until 1 June 2021, after which the price will rise to $28/£28. e-instruments.com
Slammer M-Audio’s Oxygen Part 5 After last month’s 88-note keyboard announcement, M-Audio have revealed three additions to their popular Oxygen range of controllers. (We say ‘popular’. We made that up but as they are now at V5, someone must have bought them.) The Oxygen 25 (MKV), 49 and 61 each add Smart Controls, Automapping and a built-in Arpeggiator to an extensive feature set that includes two banks of eight velocity-sensitive trigger pads, full
sized velocity sensitive keys and eight assignable rotaries. Automapping means controls are “automatically mapped for a fluid workflow” in the major DAWs while Smart Controls add extra Scale and Chord features. And the soft bundle you always get with controllers? You get Ableton Live Lite, MPC Beats, Hybrid 3 and a Mini Grand Acoustic Piano (in software we assume) and more. Prices range from £89.99 to £169.99. m-audio.com
While some multi-sampled drum instruments are ‘serious’, with photorealistic images of kits and mic mixing options, Klevgrand’s Slammer looks more fun. It’s still capable, though: there are 12 drum slots, which can host the 30 included instruments, and instrument parameters can be adjusted individually. You can also add compression/distortion in the Dirt section, there’s a reverb module, and lots of presets. AUv3 plugin on iPad. $15.99. klevgrand.se July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 7
> news
Get with the programmers Tone2 have supplied this month’s free software. Time to talk tech with developer and director Markus Krause How did you get into music software? MK “I started programming audio software in the early 90s. There was not much available on the market in those days, so we had to develop our own. We used ‘trackers’, which were able to play back samples and you’d arrange them to create songs.” Tell us a little about your company and which products became successful? MK “In the 90s I created various audio tools as well as several trackers for SoundBlaster cards. In the early 2000s I started with Tone2 Audio Software creating freeware VSTs. reFX licensed my audio engines for several products: JunoX, Vanguard, Slayer, PlastiCZ. In 2005 I decided to go my own way and founded Tone2. Gladiator and Electra2 became very popular and were used by a massive number of producers.”
Markus Krause
What makes your software stand out? MK “I am a full-time developer and have now got 30 years of experience creating audio software. I pay big attention to the small details. The sum of all these little details makes a big difference. I also do not clone features from other synths like many other devs. I go my own ways, create my own algorithms and do things differently. That’s why the synths stand out from the crowd and sound different.” What are your three most important plugins? MK “Electra2 is equipped with a high-end quality sound engine with multi-layer support and a wide range of music production features. Its friendly, easy-to-use interface allows first-timers to easily create sounds or experts to delve into sound design as deeply as they want. Icarus2 is one of the most versatile and mightiest of synths ever. It offers 54 different synthesis methods and provides a gigantic sonic range. Gladiator is a popular synth which is used for a large number of pro productions. It provides a groundbreaking approach to sound generation. Its exclusive HCM-synthesis covers a new and unique aural territory.”
“Icarus2 is one of the most versatile and mightiest of synths”
How do they change the way we make music?. MK “The process of music production moves more with developers and the sound designers. With these you can create impressive tracks with a few clicks – simply select a complex sound or sequence and hit some keys. Everything has become very easy and you quickly get great results. As a result, creating electronic music is simply a lot more fun.” What would you like to see developed in terms of plugins? MK “Most developers would like to see VST3 disappear from the market. It has major design flaws and does not fulfill the user’s and developer’s needs (no proper MIDI support, etc). Sadly Steinberg ignores this persistently. We need a VST4 standard. It must be simple and closer to VST 2.4. And it must come with fair licensing conditions.” What have you guys got planned for the future? MK “I currently do not have plans to release new products. Instead I want to release free updates with new features for the existing products.” tone2.net
8 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
Minimal Audio launches
A new plugin company by the name of Minimal Audio launched this month. They have three plugins including a (for a limited period) free Filter called Rift Filter Lite which is described as a “powerful and compact morphing filter plugin”. Another new one is Emerge, said to be “an extensive sound library of recorded and designed sound fx”. There’s also a third one that will be announced as we go on sale, so check the website for more on that one. Best of all, Minimal describe themselves as “your friends that make plugins” which will be a new experience for us. Everyone in this industry hates us. minimal.audio
SPCTL announced
Tonsturm have announced a new EQ, the vowel-less SPCTL EQ which, while initially looking rather workhorse, does sound like it might be a cracker. First up, it allows you to sculpt and shape “up to 4096 individual frequency bands in a unique and powerful way”. It also features several modulation options “to create tense and alive-sounding patches”, and both its Shape and Transform modes should have you shaping your curves in real time and all of these features do rather point to it being, as Tonsturm say, “the creative filter for sound designers”. Priced at $99; we’ll review it soon. tonsturm.com
RipX: DeepRemix splits up
Hit ‘n’ Mix have just announced one of those oft-attempted plugins that always sound like a good idea in practice. Yes, RipX: DeepRemix attempts to split a song into its component parts, in this case “vocals, bass, drums and other layers”. Many producers, remixers and karaoke singers would dream of something like this, so it could be a great seller. And at just $69/£55/€60 until the end of the month, RipX could be worth a punt. However, the press release does then add that their plugin DeepAudio will add more power, precision and flexibility (for an extra $250/£220/€254 though). Oof. hitnmix.com
XILS-Lab announce KaoX
What with XILS-Lab, Arturia and Pulsar, Grenoble has become quite the hotbed of plugin development. The former have just announced KaoX, inspired, the press release says, by FM synthesis. But after providing a little history of FM, it then adds that, actually, KaoX has virtual analogue synthesis and chaos algorithms as well, so potentially way more sonic potential than FM (which will please those of us old enough to recall the FM heyday). Anyway, there is a fantastic product hiding behind all that, with 500 presets programmed by world class designers, and it looks great too. €179. xils-lab.com
And finally, a free piano It might come as no surprise if you’ve read this far, that the news has been quite stressful to write this month. So, to finish, here’s an easy Hope you made it this far: some good news at last (unless you’re running Catalina) one: a free piano, care of SampleScience. It is, they say, “a fully multisampled acoustic piano recorded hot for a warm, softly saturated sound. Ideal for ‘rougher’ music genres like rock, lo-fi hip-hop, jazz improv, etc.” Great, eh? Good story about free stuff; what could be easier? OK, there is one fly in the ointment: it won’t work on MacOS Catalina upwards (there’s a surprise). But whatever, we’ve finished on a relative high, anyway. samplescience.info
Ins & outs FOCUSRITE BUYS SEQUENTIAL UK company Focusrite is celebrating the purchase of Dave Smith’s Sequential synth brand. Both parties seem pretty pleased with the new arrangement, with Smith – whose company will continue to operate independently – saying he expects “great things”.
OP-10 Believe it or not, Teenage Engineering’s quirky OP-1 synth has just celebrated its 10th birthday. While not everyone’s cup of musical tea, few contemporary synths have become as iconic, and we’d argue that it can now be considered a modern classic.
BACK TO LIVE? We don’t want to speak too soon – and we know the situation is different all round the world – but it seems like live music and club culture might be re-emerging, and we could (everyone touch wood) be set for a fun-packed summer. Let’s hope so.
AL SCHMITT RIP A giant of recording engineering, Al Schmitt worked with some of the biggest musical names of the 20th century, including Duke Ellington, Quincy Jones, Steely Dan and Ray Charles. In fact, he won more Grammy awards than any other engineer or mixer.
years back Our monthly shake-of-thehead at our younger selves’ news choices… What were you doing back in July 2011? If you were reading 166, you may have been learning how to make chillout, a genre that had already gained a bit of a reputation for naffness, thanks to its use as the soundtrack to endless home makeover shows. Maybe it’s time for a revival… or maybe we should all kick back and not bother. More urgently, we asked if high-end music software was being dumbed-down
“We predicted that Android could soon be a rival for iOS in the music-making stakes” – it has certainly gotten easier to use, which is a good thing, we’d argue – and we predicted that Android could soon be a rival for iOS in the music-making stakes. Let’s not dwell on that one any more than we have to... Elsewhere, we gave you a guide to oldskool production techniques, which featured an interview with the muchmissed Godfather of house, Frankie Knuckles, who died in 2014. “Study the works and techniques of producers that were the top in their fields.,” he advised, and he certainly counted as one of those.
THE FRAHM BEFORE THE STORM We’re still bewildered by the concept of NFTs, and it’s fair to say pianist Nils Frahm isn’t a fan either. He recently called out artists who’ve sold them, calling NFTs “the most disgusting thing on the planet right now.”
SNARE ROLL OVER BEETHOVE They say don’t touch the classics, but that’s precisely what Steve Aoki and other EDM artists have done with their Beethoven Remixed album. To be honest, we’re not sure “classicalelectronica crossover” is what the world needed right now.
Chillout – another genre lost too young to the daytime TV show soundtrack graveyard
July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 9
> 15 questions with / ya tseen
15 questions with… Photo: Fernando Decillis
YA TSEEN
Alaskan-born Nicholas Galanin is a world-renowned artist and owns a recording studio to die for. But he only has one microphone in it, as he was duped by Carrie Fisher’s brother. Welcome to the wonderful world of Ya Tseen Nicholas Galanin is an indigenous Alaskan, also known as Tlingit and Unangax, and a contemporary artist who channels many of his beliefs through both art and music. As well as taking part in direct actions like the excavation of the shadow of the statue of Captain James Cook in Australia – in a call for the burial of such monuments – he has also produced pieces like Land Swipe, a deer hide painted with the NYC subway map, noting the sites of police violence against black youths (and called “one of the most important art moments in 2020” by The New York Times). As Ya Tseen (meaning “be alive” and from his Tlingit name Yeil Ya Tseen) he released Indian Yard last month (on 12 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
Sub Pop). It “explores love, desire, frustration, pain, revolution, and connection” across 11 varied “no genre” tracks, and all produced with a huge range of synths – just you wait – and software… How did you get into music? YT: “My father is an artist and musician, and was a DJ for the local radio station. His love for music has been handed down to my brothers and I as if it were a necessity. By 13, I had my first guitar and around the age of 18 I realised I wanted to understand more about the process of making music. I performed my first open mic in London while studying at London Guildhall University. Music was and continues to
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still be everything: connection to the world and internal reflection, dreams of new futures and stories of the past, a way to bring the community together, a tool for sharing and seeing the world… So much unknown alchemy in the process of collaboration with music; still brings wonder and infinite possibility!” How do you balance your music with your visual art? YT: “I’ve always tried to clear any boundaries or borders which compartmentalise my creative voice. I’ve been traveling the world heavily for over 15 years now and music has folded into that [visual art] work naturally, performances would often align with other creative work. It is not
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necessarily the traditional band touring process though I think these alternative spaces are important. Success for me is waking up and being able to create daily, working in creative fields on projects and exploring mediums and processes. What a joy. I am truly grateful for the community that engages with this work. As for success and larger support, this Sub Pop release is certainly something I couldn’t have imagined as a youth spinning Sub Pop records.” What is your overall philosophy or approach when it comes to music? YT: “I’ve always relied on feeling and instinct; exploration and sovereign creativity are important parts of my approach. Collaboration is also something that I have so much respect for: the alchemy that takes place during collaboration is something that you have to trust and be open to, the result of it is often worth the risk. Willingness to explore the unknown; it’s a channel you have to be open to. My process usually includes a few stages, from capturing and writing on the spot to editing further down the line, both of them are just as impactful and important.” When and how did you discover the route to computer music making and how has it changed the way you work? YT: “Early recordings I had made took place on 4-track tape players or 4-track digital recording devices. I had made the leap to Ableton and home studio recording years back. The amount of access to sound, instruments and textures can immediately become overwhelming if one is trying to consider all possibilities. As of now most of my studio space is digitised in controllers, patch bays etc, though all of the equipment is analogue.”
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Tell us about your studio gear? YT: “I have a healthy synth obsession and have been building a space that gives me access to these beautiful beasts. In no particular order I have a Tascam 388, Yamaha CS60, Yamaha DX7, Sequential Prophet 10, OB-6, several synthesizers.com modules, Wurlitzer 206 Student Model, Roland Strings RS-101, ARP2600 TTSH, Antonus 1601 Sequencer, 2 x Moog DFAM, 2 x Mother 32 and Moog Subharmonicon, Moog Spectravox, Moog Matriarch, Moog Grandmother and 16-voice Moog One, Helix rack, Rupert Neve Portico II, Moogerfooger pedalboard with seven pedals, SuonoBuono nABC compressor, Elektron Digitakt, Genelec 8040Bs, UAD 16x, UAD x8p, ISLA KordBot, Roland TR-8s and TB-3, Soma Labs Pulsar 23, Soma Pipe, Ableton Push, Roland Space Echo 201, Echo Fix EF-X2, Soundgas Type 636 (Grampian) spring reverb, TC Helicon VL3
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Ya Tseen’s secret weapon: Cableguys Shaperbox
Photo: Merritt Johnson
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“It’s best to remain unattached to all ideas along the way. Attachment can hinder progress” Xtreme and various guitars and MIDI interfaces plus a recent upgrade to the new Flock Audio patchbays which I love.” Wow! And we’re guessing you have as much software. Try and detail your best five plugins!? YT: Cableguys ShaperBox 1 and 2: “For rhythmic effects, I’ve been loving these bundles, auditioning new ideas or pushing synth drum percussion loops further with them; a secret weapon so use it wisely.” Arturia ARP2600 V: “I have several modular and analogue synths in my studio, though you can’t always bring them with you on the road. So I love writing new melodies or synth lines, auditioning or capturing ideas with software synths. It’s easy to save settings and translate them back to the analogue instrument when I’m back home in the studio.” Universal Audio Neve 1073: “It’s a great preamp and EQ and I love the clarity. I’ve got a Portico II in my rack [to compare] and these plugins are on fire.” UAD plugins (other): “I’ve also been loving the Studer A800 Multichannel Tape Recorder. I recently picked up a Tascam 3800 tape machine, although these UAD plugins are really something else; drum compression without all of the maintenance. UAD can I get that sponsorship discount?”
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Valhalla VintageVerb. “It’s a must have in the studio workspace. It’s lush and lively and tends to make it into most tracks.” How does one of your tracks typically start out? YT: “I like to keep this process fresh which means it will always vary. Sometimes it will start with a drum loop followed by some chords and synth layers, other times live drums and guitar riffs or live basslines. If I am working in the studio with others, then I like to give needed space for outside ideas to grow. This last record process meant we had more than 40 tracks to filter through. Some of the songs finished themselves, others we really had to work for. The transformation that takes place from initial idea to completed songs is often major. “I’ve been loving splice.com for mobile collaborations (though nothing beats sharing time and space in person); these digital services are incredibly useful, also useful for documenting versions of songs and backing them up on the cloud. I’ve lost projects in the past to theft of computers or hard drive failure, so these cloud services really change the game. “Once a song has its structure, chords and vibes, I’ll write vocal parts. Though these vocal parts can come earlier too, I have found that remaining open to changes and trying different ideas out is necessary to my process. Entire vocal sections could flip, or get scrapped in this process; it’s best to remain unattached to all ideas along the way. Attachment can also hinder the process.”
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How do you know when a track you’re working on is finished? YT: “It’s a feeling. Also some things just can’t be captured again and those moments are also worth realising and keeping in the process. I have finished song sections in first takes where I’ve tried to exhaust other ideas or explode versions of it only to come back to the initial
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July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 13
> 15 questions with / ya tseen ISSUE 296 JULY 2021 piece which had proven to be irreplaceable. A finished song’s definition will vary depending on what has been captured, what is achieved or what one is seeking to achieve through that song. This last record really felt like it had multiple stages and processes to finishing not only the complete piece but each individual song. “I thought of this as sculptural at times. I am trained in visual arts and the process of sculpting. There are many steps and stages one must take to get to a finished form, though each step alone may seem incomplete or even disconnected at times to the finished form. When looking back it might at times hold enough wonder to make you question how we got to that form. Remaining open to channelling sonic feeling is a truth-telling process.”
What would you like to see in terms of gear development? YT: “I want to see a USB rack hub that powers USB equipment and syncs with no issue to a Mac. It seems to be a huge battle, or maybe I’m not looking in the right place?
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Do you have any advice on playing live or performance in general? YT: “What is live music these days? Take note from the best. Badu changed the game with her quarantine live concert series.
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“The trick is forgetting what you think you know, or even what you want”
Talk us through at least one of your production tricks… YT: “I don’t really think of the process as trickery; the process is real to me. I think it is important to trust instinct and feeling going in, also to allow for work to breathe. You have to come back to it from a different angle sometimes. I think ‘No Genre’ is the definition and scope of this project and that means being free in creating what is felt in the moment. The trick is in forgetting what you think you know, or even in what you think you may want.”
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stands for more analogue instruments. I love all the SOMA synth projects – they’re vicious. Someday, a Roland Jupiter-8 and I have my eye on the ULT Sound DS-4 Custom.”
Were you involved in many collaborations for the album? YT: “I love collaboration. It’s so important and vital to my process, different ideas, perspectives and abilities, feelings etc. I feel like the longevity of the project expands in my ears with collaborative input. For Indian Yard, the collaborations were incredible, some legends in the game including Ish (Shabazz Palaces, Knife Knights and Digable Planets) to Nick Hakim. I had flown in some artists for a few months pre Covid to come to my home studio and work. I live in a small community in Alaska, it’s a destination for some I suppose, the island living, the quick access to the ocean, mountains and trails. It’s a special, powerful place. We eat well, I live a life of subsistence harvesting and when we work in the studio I am usually cooking up meals in the kitchen at the same time too. It’s a special process.”
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What is on your wishlist for studio and recording gear? YT: “I’d love to get some more microphones. The mic I have now was supposed to be part of a barter and trade from actress Carrie Fisher’s (Princes Leia) brother Todd. He sent me a mic and I sent him some art he had wanted, though he sent the wrong mic and bailed on his side of the deal leaving me hanging. Other gear… I’d love to expand my effects racks, my compressors and I will always leave space on these Jasper Synth
Tell us about Indian Yard? YT: “Ya Tseen is a new project working alongside OCnotes and Zak D Wass and many collaborators. Thank you to Sub Pop for believing in us and for sharing this project with the rest of the world!”
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Finally, what do you have planned for the near future? YT: “This year is crazy, I feel like several large projects that have been years in the making are about to be shared with the world, a new American monument, some new publications including two new books via Minor Matters Books, a collaboration with poet Adrian Matejka. Some new visual art installations with my partner Merritt Johnson and the Anchorage Museum in the works. A performance film piece in the works. But right now I am just excited to share this new record with you. Thank you for this Interview, I used to devour your magazines while living in the UK!”
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Future PLC Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA Tel: 01225 442244 Email: computermusic@futurenet.com Web: computermusic.co.uk EDITORIAL Editor: Andy Jones, andy.jones@futurenet.com Art Editor: Mark White, mark.white@futurenet.com Managing Editor: Kate Puttick, kate.puttick@futurenet.com CONTRIBUTORS Dave Clews, Ed Strazdas, Neil Crockett, Ben Rogerson, Jon Musgrave, Robbie Stamp, Oli Bell, Roy Spencer, Andy Price, Dave Gale, Stuart Adams, Niall McCallum Photography: Getty Images, Shutterstock ADVERTISING Media packs are available on request Chief Revenue Officer: Zack Sullivan UK Commercial Sales Director: Clare Dove, clare.dove@futurenet.com Advertising Sales Director: Lara Jaggon, lara.jaggon@futurenet.com Account Sales Director: Kyle Phillips, kyle.phillips@futurenet.com Account Sales Director: Alison Watson, alison.watson@futurenet.com MARKETING Direct Marketing Campaign Manager: Will Hardy PRODUCTION & DISTRIBUTION Head of Production: Mark Constance Production Project Manager: Clare Scott Advertising Production Manager: Joanne Crosby Digital Editions Controller: Jason Hudson Production Manager: Fran Twentyman Printed in the UK by: William Gibbons & Sons on behalf of Future Distributed by: Marketforce (UK), 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HU CIRCULATION Head of Newstrade: Tim Mathers SUBSCRIPTIONS New orders: www.magazinesdirect.com / phone orders: 0330 333 1113 / email help@ magazinesdirect.com Renewals: www.mymagazine.co.uk / customer service: 0330 333 4333 / email queries: help@mymagazine.co.uk Computer Music, ISSN 1463-6875, is published 13 times a year (twice in December) by Future Publishing, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA, UK. The US annual subscription price is $194.87. Airfreight and mailing in the USA by agent named World Container Inc, 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Application to Mail at Periodicals Postage Prices is Pending at Brooklyn NY 11256. US POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Computer Music, World Container Inc, 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA Subscription records are maintained at Future Publishing, c/o Air Business Subscriptions, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 3DH, UK LICENSING Computer Music is available for licensing. and syndication. Contact the Licensing team to discuss partnership opportunities Head of Print Licensing : Rachel Shaw, licensing@futurenet.com MANAGEMENT Chief Content Officer: Andrea Davies Brand Director, Music: Stuart Williams Content Director, Music: Scott Rowley Head of Art and Design: Rodney Dive Group Art Director: Graham Dalzell Head Of Design (London): Brad Merrett NEXT ISSUE ON SALE: 16 June 2021
The album Indian Yard is out now and available on Sub Pop
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Close The Distance bit.ly/ytsn_ctd Knives (ft. Portugal. The Man) bit.ly/ytsn_knvs WWW
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E R A W D R A IS H
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Audio and MIDI connections are located round the back
Small LCD display – Roland aren’t big on displays it seems
It’ll also take pro mics, with XLR and phantom power
You can access ready-made song templates from here
Voice setting controls – that’s what the MV-1’s about
Very large, obvious Project Save button; we like that
ZENCore sound library includes more than 3000 instrument sounds
16 RGB pads, with up to 16 layers of velocity
16 RGB sequencer buttons for building your beats and patterns
Track type shortcuts – including drum, vocal, and instrument tracks
The built-in microphone lives under here; it’s very cool
Roland Verselab MV-1 Sure, the Roland Verselab MV-1 does everything – beats, instruments, sampling, sequencing, effects, automation – but the emphasis is squarely on performing with, and recording, vocals 18 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
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Who else has the groove box market covered in the way that Roland do? Nobody. They have the Aira series, the Boutique takes on their classic drum machines, newer devices based on the ZENCore synthesis platform, including the MC-707, and this, the VerseLab MV-1. Like the other products in our round up – the Akai Force, Native Instruments Maschine+, and Polyend Tracker – the MV-1 wraps up sequencing, sampling, and effects, into a single package that might just make you think differently about your favourite DAW. There’s an undeniable buzz that comes with hardware grooveboxes, that software developers can only dream of. Out of the box, the MV-1 comes across as more of a budget product, purely based on the plastic vibe of the housing; that’s one area where we guess the price is reflected. The MV-1 measures 354mm x 208mm x 60mm, and weighs 1.165 kg. The top panel is busy but wellorganised, including editing controls, the step sequencer buttons along the bottom, the main central pads, a small display, and the workflow and track sections. The front panel includes two headphone jacks, in 1/4 and 1/8 sizes (impressive) and intriguingly, there’s a built-in microphone. Round the back are connections for power, USB, MIDI in/out, SD card, stereo line in, microphone, and stereo line out. Like the Polyend Tracker, the MV-1 can be powered from a USB power bank, for total mobility – this is a trend that we want to see being continued. The MV-1 contains 16 demo songs, some with full vocal tracks included, which tells us something about what the MV-1 is focused on – the voice. It’s revealing to compare the demos across the different devices – the Force demos tend to be more what we’d call dance-y influenced and at high tempos, while the Tracker is more blatantly electronic, and the MV-1 is
more broadly in hip-hop territory. These demos are useful, but they’re only guidelines; especially as all these machines include sampling, you’re free to make any sound you want. Having used the MC-707 recently, which shares the ZEN-Core sound platform, we knew what to expect from the onboard sounds – hardware and software instruments that use ZENCore have access to more than 3000 instrument sounds and 80 kits. There’s absolutely every kind of sound represented here, from synth leads to traditional instruments and sound effects – we particularly enjoyed the wealth of percussion sounds available. The MV-1 enjoys a well-defined architecture. The Project button is highlighted with a white surround, and the workflow and track areas are clearly defined and impossible to miss. Their organisation and labelling act as a great visual aid, flowing left to right. Nice work, Roland. A ‘song’ is represented by a project – everything you need is contained within that. A project contains eight tracks in total, and there are four types of track available – drum kit, tone (instrument), looper, and vocal. Each song can consist of up to 16 sections, which can be chained together to play through uninterrupted. You’re then ready to perform live using the sequencer and microphone input, or to mix down the final song to a stereo file on the SD card and move it to a computer or other device for distribution. Presets and kits can be auditioned from the MV-1’s 4x4 grid of pads, and they’re playable with 16 layers of velocity. It’s interesting to look at how our review machines deal with the issue of pads – also significant that none of these are based around piano-style keyboards. The Maschine+ and MV-1 come in at 16 reasonablysized pads each, the Polyend Tracker has 48 pads about the size of your fingertip, and the Force weighs in with the full 8x8, 64-pad
“There’s an undeniable buzz that comes with hardware grooveboxes”
MC-707 There’s a fair bit of crossover between the MV-1 and other Roland products, most obviously the MC-707 groovebox – another device sold as able to provide a full standalone or performance hardware experience. A step sequencer is a big part of the package, as we’d expect, and clips can be triggered in real time Ableton-style, or chained together to create full songs. The 707 includes eight tracks of sample recording, synths, and effects, and once again relies on Roland’s ZENCore Synthesis system, with the same 3,000+ sounds and 80 drum kits available on the MV-1. The MC-707 is philosophically different to devices like the Polyend Tracker, where no substantial starter content is provided – with the MC-707 and the MV-1, there’s a great emphasis on the preset instruments. Although the factory presets are editable to a point, this could be where the smaller display doesn’t help; there’s not much visual feedback, and it’s more about immediacy than deep editing. That said, the MC-707 includes top notch audio effects, and then there’s the sampling – always the best opportunity to create something unique from these devices.
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Under the hood ZENCore is a system that works on both hard and software, modelling analogue and digital synthesisers, and it’s obviously something that Roland thinks of as a big deal, with literally 1000s of instrument sounds and dozens of drum kits available. Sounds can be shared across the Roland platform, on hardware devices like the Jupiter-X and Fantom keyboards, or in the Zenology software plugin. Not only can you, as a user, access your sounds anywhere, so can your collaborators. This kind of overarching sound engine, living both in the cloud and locally, is very forward thinking, and it has a lot going for it. Again, it depends on how you feel about using a system that is primarily focused on browsing and using presets, but there are two types of user who benefit from this – the beginner/casual user, who just wants to jam and get started, and secondly, the professional composer, who needs an easily-accessed library that they can go to and quickly grab a sound with too much messing around. Either way, it’s a potentially powerful system, and we can easily imagine other manufacturers, and DAW builders in particular, embracing this type of workflow.
The Roland Fantom, another piece of kit that’s part of the ZENCore ecosystem
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arrangement. ZENCore tones can be edited, within limits, as available parameters include choosing Mono and Poly play modes, tuning and pitch-bend behaviours, cutoff, resonance, send effects, and others. Looking at the small display and browsing through a massive list of sometimes generic presets does feel a bit ‘sound module’ at times, but this isn’t the case once you connect the MV-1 to a tablet or smartphone that’s running the Zenbeats software, and it all opens out somewhat. This software is also where you can upload your saved presets, sharing them with your collaborators, or simply downloading them to any other compatible Roland hardware you might own. Any lingering suspicions that this is a preset machine are countered by the onboard sampling. Import from an SD card, or record in via external microphone, stereo input, or audio over USB (with space for up to 12 minutes audio in total), then crop it, time stretch it, or process it with audio effects. There’s also an onboard looper, with up to 8-voice polyphony and up to
> Step by step
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“Suspicions that this is a preset machine are countered by the onboard sampling” 60 seconds time available. It’s the combination of sampling with the ZENCore instruments that creates more credible and interesting textures. When you’ve got instrument sounds and samples ready to go, the composition process can begin. This is based around using the 16 sequencing buttons along the lower edge of the MV-1. Each sequence can be extended up to 128 steps. It’s also possible to record a performance on the pads, which can also be configured to play chords, or can be put into section select mode, so sections can be ‘launched’ from there in a vaguely Ableton style. If you don’t mind
using pre-configured parts, there’s also a library of styles available – ready to use song sections that can be included in your own work – containing drums, bass, and other instruments. Patterns are chained to create complete song arrangements, as once again the sequencer buttons come into play, positioning each section along the timeline that they represent. The MV-1 can be put into Record mode for this, so pattern launches can be recorded in real time, and if you’ve assigned parameters to the three control knobs, their movements can also be captured as motions – what they’re calling automation here. This automation can subsequently be edited if necessary, so if your live take gets a bit wild, it’s possible to go back and clean it up later. It should also be noted that the MV-1 includes a bank of song templates that can be loaded to speed up the creative process, giving you every option from building a song with templates and sound presets, to working in a totally loose way and using custom sounds and samples in a unique structure. All good!
1. How to use vocals and effects on the MV-1
Press the Project button and refer to the display, then push the enter dial to browse through your projects or to create a new one. Name and save it onto the mini SD that comes installed with the MV-1. Press the Vocal track button and the display should show RecStandby. Press the Edit button followed by the Vocal Processor button which lights green.
As always when recording from a mic or any other source, watch your input levels, and avoid clipping – you can’t remove it after recording! Usefully, the Mic On button lights green when active, then lights yellow, orange, through to red, while receiving an input. Aim for yellow/orange – red is too hot and you’ll get distortion.
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The display now shows Vocal Proc Menu, and you can use the dial again, to choose from the effect categories – common, enhance, EQ, tune, and harmony 1-3. Each one of these categories has editable parameters as well. There are a surprising number of real-world useful effects rather than the flashy but useless examples you might expect.
For live use, you can play back your project or clips and sing/rap/speak over the top. The built-in mic won’t be great in a noisy environment; a proper mic on a stand or gooseneck will be better. A self-contained device that plays back your track and can handle live vocals at the same time is a wonderful thing.
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Press Edit and Mic, and from the display you can choose from the builtin mic (which is a very cool thing to have), or an external one, if you’ve connected it to the XLR input on the back. Dynamic or condenser microphones are supported, with a 48v phantom power option available. Use the vocal processor Tone knob and the Mic Gain knob to taste.
To record your vocal take, press Rec to enter standby, then hit the Start/Stop button to begin recording, and press that same one again when finished. You can also import samples from other projects, inserting them directly into your new vocal track. While working with samples, you may have to delete old material too.
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And finally, we come to the vocals, which is what the Verselab MV-1 is supposedly all about. The most immediate way to get a voice into it, is through the built-in laptop-style microphone. This will get the job done if you’re in a quiet environment, but you should definitely avoid touching the case of the MV-1 while you’re using it, because the mic picks up that handling noise all too well. But let’s be clear, we love that it has a built-in microphone! Beyond that, any dynamic or condenser microphone can be connected, and phantom power is available if needed. The MV-1 would be super-cool with a funky gooseneck microphone attached, like that one Korg used to do. The MV-1 does, of course, provide some vocal effects, including noise suppression, compression, de-essing, a pitch shifter and a harmoniser, and recordings can be captured with the effects baked-in, or added later. Each capture into the vocal track is called a ‘take’, and up to 16 are allowed per song, depending on the total storage used. There’s also a looper available – Roland/Boss have great history with loopers, so it’s good to see an inclusion here. Mixing the various elements is accomplished via the display again, with basic controls for level, pan, mute, EQ, and send effects. Sometimes It felt like the MV-1 was screaming out for a larger display – the editing process in particular is where it’s most needed, and that’s true for all of our test hardware, it’s an area where they just can’t compete with computers; Ableton Live or Logic Pro running across two 27” displays is a workspace that’s hard to beat. All of the devices covered in this round-up have at least one way of creating and exporting a finished mix. The MV-1 features a suite of mastering effects including compression, a
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limiter, and EQ, and can render either the whole mix or individual elements, and then use the SD card, or USB, to export the final thing to your phone, tablet, or computer, and it can go direct to your social media accounts if you use the Zenbeats software. Of course, the MV-1 can be used for gigs as well. It’s possible to interact with audio effects, the sequencer, and with your song structure live. A common drawback with all of the reviewed machines here is that there’s no real way to segue between songs. It’s a matter of stopping and loading another one, so be prepared to talk, or play from another source, as you load projects. As things stand today, the MV-1 is clearly the better choice for somebody who wants a simple, affordable, song writing and performance device that specialises in vocals. It’s possible to use the other hardware machines that we’re reviewing here, they can all do it, but the Verselab MV-1 is all about that, it’s in the name! As we were reviewing this, we started to get a feel for how each standalone device related to a prospective audience. The Akai Force is best for those who perhaps already understand detailed sampling and DAW software functions, partly because it covers such a large range of operations. The Maschine+ comes in a little easier to understand due to the focus on beats, and the excellent user interface, and the Tracker is the most simple to use, especially for anybody who’s used event list software previously, or who wants a very focused retro experience. The MV-1 fits into this selection as being perhaps more newbie friendly, particularly for those who aren’t already too used to using one particular software or hardware music tool.
Verdict + Lots of ZENCore instruments Onboard mic for spontaneous recording sessions. The workflow is brilliantly explained and conceived Goes from idea to final master Uniquely prioritises the vocal production workflow - Onboard microphone picks up handling noise A bigger display would be helpful
8/10
The Roland MV-1 is a very well organised instrument that can handle live jams and full music production tasks
Alternatively Akai MPC Live II £1039.99 The Live II is great for beat making and production, and the built-in speakers say ‘we’re here to party’
Roland Aira VT-3 voice transformer £199 For deeper vocal processing, take a look at the VT-3, with vocoder, pitch shift, and other effects
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SOFTWARE INSTRUMENTS The Force includes software instruments such as the Hype synth
MULTITOUCH DISPLAY This large display comes into its own for arrangement work
MIDI CONNECTIONS In/out/thru at the back, on 3.5mm mini jacks
AUDIO CONNECTIONS At the back – four outputs, two inputs, headphones at front CROSSFADER Switch between A/B channels or assign to other control functions OLED DISPLAYS A display above each macro shows the current parameter value
INTERNAL STORAGE All demo content is kept on the internal 16GB storage USER STORAGE Add an SSD or SD card to hold your stuff
MACRO KNOBS Touch-sensitive knobs that can apply default or custom functions
PAD GRID 8x8 grid of RGB backlit pads for playing and sequencing
FRONT STORAGE SD card slot at the front for accessible storage needs
Akai Force The Akai Force is the role model for hardware that tackles DAWs head-on – this is the closest thing to a DAW in a box… 24 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
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Akai’s Force is many things in one: a sequencer, a sampler and a software instrument host. What’s most relevant for us today is that it includes a fully-fledged arrangement view, where compositions can be created, edited, mixed, then exported as Ableton Live projects, or as ready-to-share stereo files. The package includes the Force itself, a mains power supply, three 3.5mm MIDI adaptors, and a USB cable. It’s somewhat chunky, weighing 3.87kg, and measuring 350 x 389 x 72.5mm, but maybe that’s an acceptable trade-off given the expansive control surface that’s available as a result – the top panel includes the 6.9” multitouch display, many buttons, a large data dial, a crossfader, eight touch sensitive assignable knobs, each with its own little display, and 64 illuminated, velocity, and pressure sensitive pads. Because of the sheer number of options, you’ll often find that there’s more than one way to perform any given task. The front edge of the Force is home to an SD card slot, 1/4” headphones jack with volume knob, and a cue-level knob. The rear panel hosts four CV/ gate outputs, MIDI in/out/ thru, 4 1/4” audio outputs, two XLR/jack input audio jacks, with switches for line/ instrument and phantom power, as well as a Gain knob for each of the two inputs. Two USB-A connectors have been provided for external storage, or connecting MIDI controllers, a B connector for the computer, an ethernet port, and a power switch. Underneath, there’s a bay for you to add a hard drive, which is more or less essential if you want to keep your entire sample library within reach at all times – we’d recommend an SSD drive, because they’ll be more resistant to vibrations that can often occur during loud performances – prices on these are ridiculously low right now. We installed a 240GB one on our example model.
The Force comes preloaded with demo projects, which will help you to get to grips with the workflow – they’re all in dance music styles, which tells you how Akai view the market for this. Press the Matrix button to trigger clips containing loops or one-shot samples by tapping the display, or use the launch button to allow triggering them from the physical pads. Tapping any of the vertical row of pads at the right will launch a scene – a horizontal row of clips. Press the Note button, and the pads function as a grid-based MIDI keyboard, so if the selected track hosts a drum kit or a software instrument, you can play those sounds in real time. Keep pressing to cycle note layouts, based around different scales and chords, a basic ‘piano’ type layout, or press Launch/Note together for our favourite, a split mode where the top four rows handle launch functions, while the lower four rows can be used to play notes at the same time. If any of this is giving you deja vu, it’s because using the Force is very Ableton-like at times. There are big differences, but anybody who’s used Ableton Live with Push before will quickly grasp the basic concepts of the Force. Continuing in DAWstyle, the Force has different track types, with up to eight audio tracks available, eight for plugin instruments, and the rest assignable to drums, key groups, or external MIDI sequencing – up to a total of 128 tracks per project. There are four software instruments available – Hype (EDM-type synth), Bassline (monophonic synth), Electric (piano), and TubeSynth (analogue). Although these include a number of presets, we preferred to load the vanilla settings and build our own patches as we went along. A set of drum synths have been added in a recent firmware update; each one – kick, snare, etc – can be loaded to a track as a separate instrument, or they can be loaded collectively as
“What’s relevant here is that it has a fully-fledged arrangement view”
MPC Live 2 If you’re more inclined towards the classic Akai way of working, there’s always the MPC Live 2 to consider. This has the same decently sized touch display as the Force, and a very useable array of pads and other controls. It doesn’t use the same operating system as the Force, but the two devices do seem to be gradually meeting in the middle, with many shared qualities, including some of the software instruments. The Live 2 can also make songs by organising sequences into a song structure, and then exporting stereo mixes of the finished result, or as Ableton Live projects (it can also act as Live controller). The Live 2 retains the battery power option of the original model, and adds really quite impressive built-in monitors, so it’s truly portable and perfect for those al fresco lockdown jams. We’ve witnessed people playing full live sets with just the MPC Live, and it works; it is very capable. An imminent coming software update will also include vocal pitch correction and harmonies, making the MPC Live even more viable as a self contained production device. Bonus points awarded for the MPC Live II Retro Edition, with the cool grey finish.
Plenty of input/output options on the rear of the Force
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DAW-like flex The Akai Force makes use of its larger surface area to provide plenty of hands-on control – there’s even a crossfader up there at the top right. Other than the function buttons, the interface can be broadly organised into three sections: the touch display, the pads, and the macros (knobs). Their functions can cross over somewhat – the macros have a menu of preset assignments, which you can cycle through even as you’re playing, but they’re also user-assignable to any chosen operation, adding far more depth to the customisation of the interface. The touch display can also be assigned to a range of purposes, acting as a mixer with effects, an instrument interface, launching clips and scenes, or even deploying the Force’s tasty XY effects grid. The pads of course can be used to play instruments parts, or to launch clips and scenes. Having all three of these interfaces combined into one device could induce some option paralysis at first, but in reality you’ll quickly realise that the answer is to not choose – to keep everything dynamic and fluid depending on what you’re doing at the time. In some ways, this is bringing DAW-type customisation into the hardware world.
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the Drum Synth kit. These work very well, and are an invaluable addition to the factory sample-based kits, and to any samples of your own that you might load. As we mentioned earlier, the Force’s pads are velocity sensitive, and those responses are captured during recording, and can be manually edited after the event if needed. Audio effects can be applied to each kit, or to individual drum sounds, enabling complex effect processing. The included audio effects are wide-ranging, including compression, delays, distortions, EQ, filters, and more, from AIR Instruments, and from Akai themselves, with effects including autopan, chorus, various compressors, reverb, sidechaining, and much more. Up to four effect slots are available per track (per pad in kits), and there are also slots and presets available to load and save favourite combinations as effect racks. Although it’s fully functioning as a standalone device, the Force does make a good go of interacting with a computer when the time comes – at a simple level it’ll use Ableton
> Step by step
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“Force makes a good go of interacting with a computer when the time comes” Link for sync, either wirelessly or through the ethernet port for a more reassuring physical connection. When the Force is connected to a computer via USB, we can enter computer mode, where all of the Force’s user installed storage appears on the desktop for drag ‘n’ drop of content, stereo mixes, live projects, and firmware updates. In computer mode, the Force can also act as a USB audio interface for the computer. The USB ‘A’ ports, as mentioned earlier, can be used to connect USB storage, MIDI keyboards or other controllers – we were also able to power USB gooseneck lights from
them, which could be useful for live sets and soundchecks. If the Akai Professional Network MIDI app is installed, the Force can wirelessly connect to Ableton Live and operate as a Pushstyle controller; the functionality isn’t as deep as using Ableton’s actual own Push: notably it can’t trigger notes from the pads, but for a lot of situations, the instrument and effect controls will be good enough, and it’s a useful extra even if you don’t use it too often. The Force’s native sound library can be expanded by purchasing add-on content, or by sampling directly from your own sources, after which they can be edited, and time-stretched, for looping or playback at different tempos. One-shot drum samples can be organised into kits, which can, of course, be saved for future use, but our particular favourite sampling tool is keygroups, where samples can be imported and quickly converted to keyboard instrument patches that can be reused and adapted as part of your signature sound. They can include stacks of samples within one patch, and one of the things we enjoy most about this is that if
1. How to record into the timeline
Let’s assume you have a Force project ready – even one of the demos. Open the project and familiarise yourself with the various sections and parts. Decide if you want to play any instrument sounds over the top. You could trigger clips and scenes from the display while you play on the pads (or you could connect an external MIDI keyboard).
Hold the Shift button and press the Rec button to begin recording. From then on, everything you do is recorded, including clip launches, mixer changes, effect parameter moves. Everything. Whether you listen on headphones or speakers is up to you, we prefer headphones for more detailed listening.
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As usual with grid-based music, there are judgements to be made about launching individual clips or scenes (horizontal rows of clips). It depends on what’s in your music and how you like to divide your song sections. In the real world, the answer is often to use both! Clip and scene launches will be recorded into the arrangement.
Done? Stop recording, and save your project immediately. Then start editing the recorded arrangement. Navigation tools include pinch open/close to zoom in/out. Editing tools include delete clip, time, etc. View and move, or delete, automation, and you can add more clips or even tracks after recording.
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Maybe you should have a little mindmap of where you’ll go with your jam, before you start recording; all of your control moves will be recorded as automation. You have the display to think about, as it contains the mixer and x-y fx, the macros, and the pads themselves. Recording the control moves is a big part of the capture-the-moment experience.
Once all that is done, save it again, just to be sure. You now have the option of exporting your piece as a stereo mix, or an Ableton Live .als file. Either way, move the finished result to your computer via the SD card slot, or through USB, the Force will show up on the desktop as an external drive when it’s in computer mode.
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short samples or even single-cycle waveforms are used, very little disk space or RAM is used. Whether your MIDI parts are recorded or drawn in, there’s a full range of editing tools available here, including the rather neat ‘generate random events’ function, where a MIDI clip can be populated with random drum events or melodic events, supplementing or overwriting any notes that are already present. Notes can be constrained to a user-defined scale, so in this case random doesn’t have to mean chaotic – unless you want it to. MIDI editing can be conducted in the typical DAWstyle editing view, or you can go hardcore and use the List View, where MIDI activity is presented in a vertically scrolling format, not unlike what you’d see in tracker software, or indeed on the screen of the Polyend Tracker that we also review in this feature. It’s very impressive to have all this detailed MIDI editing power in a hardware machine, and if it was all we had to make music, we could live with it, but sooner or later a job comes along where you’ll want to work on a more expansive computer display. It’d be nice if it could share its screen content to another display, like some of the old Roland hardware digital recorders could, but sadly there’s no way of doing that with the Force. What’s most important from our point of
“It’s the arrangements and the expansive user interface that set the Force apart” view is that the Force can create ‘proper’ arrangements, captured in real time and edited afterwards, automation included, again with common DAW-style edit functions such as punching in new sections, copy, paste, delete, and so on. It’s exciting to have these capabilities, and a lot can be achieved before the display feels cramped. It’s down to what other gear you have, and how averse you are to computer use. Undoubtedly this could be an excellent way to record a live performance as you’re on-stage, and perhaps that’s where it will be most useful. We’ll contradict the standalone concept for a moment by wishing for the ability to move the full arrangements to computer software for final editing, to an Akai-type DAW without needing Live conversion and export, but that doesn’t seem likely at the moment.
Once an arrangement’s been created, it can be exported as a stereo mix and transferred to a computer. Or it can be saved as an Ableton Live project, converting the Force parts to audio or to MIDI clips – there’s no way to retain the instrument sounds and settings, as they’re unique to Akai hardware, so some rebuilding in Live is required, and there’s a lot to be said for considering a Force arrangement as a done deal. This isn’t a one-way procedure, by the way – Ableton Live projects can also be imported into the Force, as long as they’ve been saved in a recent, compatible version of Live 10 or 11, that is. It’s kind of trippy to take a years-old Live project and open it into 21st century hardware! If you love to work with arrangements, you probably wouldn’t want to edit them with the Force, day in, day out, but this is great functionality to have on board, and as we said earlier, a useful way to capture your live sets at the very least. It’s the arrangements and the expansive user interface that set the Force apart… oh yes, and the Ableton integration. We’ve used the Force in the studio, and for a handful of live sets, and it has performed solidly in all situations. Live users have long called for a hardware, standalone, version of their favourite software, and right now this is as close as you can get.
Verdict + Great combination of different control types Expandable storage via SSD or SD Edit recorded arrangements in the timeline section Very useful on board instruments including synths Sampling, sequencing, instruments, effects, in one box - The bulkiest device in our roundup No connection for an external display
9/10
Force is the boss of hardware-witha-timeline. It’s flexible and inspiring to use, on stages or in studio
Alternatively Elektron Octatrack £1350 Lets users chain their patterns in an arrangement, with tempo, pattern offset, and even mute options
Ableton Push £499 For the computer musician. Push includes a copy of Live, from £499 for Intro, up to £1,038 with Live Suite
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SEQUENCE ANYWHERE Run it off a USB power bank for extra mobility
SAMPLE ZONE These four buttons cover sampling needs, from recording to effects
PERFORM BUTTON Push this to take control over effects, other parameters and up to 16 layers of velocity PUSH BUTTON MUSIC Press here to sequence notes, instrument selection, and effects values and patterns
LOOK AT ME This 800x480 display takes up much of the surface area
TAKE IT WITH YOU The compact but solid design keeps the Tracker travelfriendly
PLAY THE PADS Kind of small, but these pads are still playable enough
MULTIFUNCTION BUTTONS These screen keys below the display update their functions dynamically REC BUTTON Press the Record button to enter and exit editing modes
DIAL UP Nice chunky old school jog-wheel will get you around tracks
CHAINED MELODY The Song mode lets patterns be chained into full arrangements
Polyend Tracker It could be said that the Polyend Tracker looks quite unassuming, but there’s a huge amount of sequencing and sampling creativity lurking below the surface… 30 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
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The Polyend Tracker is a hardware manifestation of the classic tracker software concept, which dates back to Amiga computers in the 1980s. Trackers are programs that use a vertically-scrolling listbased method of entering notes and other info (such as mixer and effect parameters) to create patterns, which can then be chained to make songs. Editing a list may not be rock’n’roll, but it can be surprisingly productive. It’s not like they ever went out of style – trackers are still around, courtesy of software like Renoise and ModPlugTracker. Anyway, back to our hardware version. Can a 2021 hardware version of a 1980s bit of software compete with modern DAW software in any way? Let’s see. The Polyend Tracker is impressively compact, measuring 28.2 x 10.7 x 3.3 cm, and weighing just 1.2kg. The box also includes a few accessories, in the form of a USB power supply, micro SD card, a 3.5mm MIDI adaptor, a 3.5mm stereo to 2 x 1/4” audio adaptor and a USB/SD card reader. The top panel features a relatively roomy 800 x 480 display, a 4 x 12 grid of silicone pads, 33 buttons, and a large rotary jog-wheel. At the back there’s stereo/headphones out, line input, microphone input, MIDI in and out, a micro SD card slot, a reset button, USB C port,
and a power switch. That USB C port will serve up power via the included adaptor, but it also can power the Tracker from a computer’s USB port, and convey MIDI data while it’s doing so. Furthermore, the Tracker can be powered from a USB power bank – add a pair of headphones and you’ve got a very portable setup! We love the compact nature of this and the fact that it can operate in a self-contained way, with sequencing, sampling, effects, or expand out into a bigger system. This machine has the look of classic Yamaha sequencers, and we know the Polyend folks like those machines, because there’s a Yamaha RM1x MIDI groovebox in one of their product shots. We also can’t help but think how the Tracker would pair nicely with another retro/future music device – the pleasurable nerd-bait that is the ever-popular Teenage Engineering OP1. For this review, we powered the Tracker from an iMac, via a USB cable; that’s one mains plug less to deal with. Before anything else, we recommend checking online for firmware updates; it seems Polyend are very active with these, and you’ll need to use a micro SD card like the one included, to install them (you can swap this for a higher capacity card if you prefer). We began by transferring some of our samples to the Tracker. Samples must be in .wav
Plugability Although the Polyend Tracker works incredibly well as a fully standalone music machine, it can of course connect to the outside world. There’s the micro SD slot, which is an essential part of importing audio samples from a computer, but also at the back there’s a microphone input (no 48v phantom power is available), line input, MIDI input, and MIDI output. There’s no provision for CV or Bluetooth, but otherwise all your connection basics are covered, and along with the builtin FM radio, there’s everything you need to capture and process sounds from the outside world. As well being a sampling source, the line input can be used as a feed for external stereo signals to pass through the Tracker and be included in the mix for your headphones or speakers – sadly, the mic can only be accessed in sample recording mode, and isn’t available for real time use like singing over a song or pattern. The Tracker’s sequencer can send MIDI clock and transport via USB or the MIDI jack, and can send and receive MIDI notes as well as receiving MIDI CCs. And of course mixes and audio stems can be exported for use with any DAW software.
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This unassuming little machine packs everything but the kitchen sink
To PC or not PC? Is the Polyend Tracker a hardware monster that can kill off our software? Well, it’s sitting here next to our computer, and Ableton Live hasn’t deleted itself yet! However, we think that for a lot of people it might just be true; there are so many strengths to the Tracker – the sequencing works so well, and it’s just amazingly fluid and creative, and satisfying to use. If you’re a more experimental type, fill up the micro SD with short samples and just get jamming, maybe using the scale FX to keep everything in some sort of musical order. Mess with odd pattern lengths and chain them together, and use the randomisation effects to make pitch and timing unpredictable adventures. If you’re the kind of person who likes things more organised and on the grid, of course it’ll do that too. An ambitious artist with a goal in mind could clearly produce an album using nothing but the Tracker; all they need is their sample library, and maybe a mic – people have done it with less. You’ll still need a computer to share your music though, so don’t throw it out just yet! 32 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
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format, and the project total sample memory is 133 seconds mono, or double that if the low quality setting is used, with the longest possible single audio file being about 45 seconds. Because the Tracker has a microphone input, a line input, and an on-board FM radio, it’s easy to record samples, rather than importing them, although sadly there’s no built-in microphone like on the Roland MV-1; that would’ve been the icing on the cake for this thing. While we’re talking of importing things, we should just mention that yes, the Tracker can import .mod files, and export .it files, used by tracker software. To play a sample, it first has to be loaded as an instrument – there are 48 instrument slots available per project – then it’s ready to play from the pads, sequence, or subject to various editing and effect processes, including wavetable and granular synthesis, slicing, and delay. We loaded a bunch of individual mono drum hits, and programmed a beat, which works fine as long as you’re crafty about allocating resources – you only get one hit at a time per
> Step by step
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“Adding your own samples is what brings the Polyend Tracker to life” track (all Tracker tracks are monophonic). A one-bar drum loop sample was then loaded and sliced successfully. Then we loaded some single-cycle waveforms, which made the perfect starting point for keyboard-based instruments, being easy to work with. We were creating a sustained sound using the available loop and playback parameters, and adding filter, reverb, and delay, as send effects, and all requiring very little memory, coming in at only a few kilobytes for each sample. The principle of using tiny samples suits the minimalist philosophy of the Tracker experience.
Different scales and note layouts can be applied to the pads for each project, so, for example, they can conform to a harmonic minor scale, with a root note of C3. Truthfully, we felt that playing notes from the little pads was the least rewarding input method for live playing, but everybody has their own preferences; a MIDI keyboard connected via a USB hub could do a slightly better, but less portable, job of it. However you shake it, there are enough ways to get your parts in, we just happened to prefer drawing steps in the pattern editor. Navigate to the step where you want to add something, and use the coloured buttons to choose a parameter – Note, Instrument, FX1, FX2. There are eight tracks, and a pattern can have up to 128 steps, while a project can hold 255 patterns. You won’t use time signatures as such; pattern lengths are based on the number of steps, as just mentioned, so it’s based on choosing the appropriate length rather than typing an x/4 value. Press and hold one of the FX buttons to see what’s available for the current step, including
1. Sample pleasures
Adding your own samples is what brings the Polyend Tracker to life. In fact, because there aren’t any software instruments, you really have to add them, unless you plan to use the demos forever! Use your favourite software to create and edit samples as 44.1 wav mono file, and use the supplied micro SD card and USB reader to get them into the Tracker.
We prefer to crop samples on a computer before loading, but if you haven’t done that, that’s one of the editing options available here. You can also opt to embed audio effects in the sample at this point, if you’re sure you’re ready to commit. Effects include normalisation, delay, bit crusher, chorus and limiter.
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Insert the micro SD card in the rear slot, and power up the Tracker. Press the Sample Loader button, then navigate to the folder containing the samples. Use the Arrow keys or the dial to highlight your first sample, and press the Preview button if you want to check it. Select an empty instrument slot in the right hand column, then press the Import button.
Press the Pattern button. Use the buttons below the display to choose pattern number, and length. Use the arrows or dial to go to the top of the pattern, and l/r arrows to go to the desired track. Press the Rec button to enable step entry. Press the Note button and turn the dial until your chosen note shows.
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You can use the Tracker’s Sample Playback button to view the current sample’s waveform and decide how the sample will play back when triggered. Set the play direction (1-shot, forward loop, backward loop, ping-pong loop), slice it, or apply wavetable or granular synthesis. Now press the Sample Editor button to access the effect-based editing tools.
Keep the Tracker running while you do this, by the way. Use the instrument, fx1 and fx2 buttons to enter values on the step in question. Note that you don’t need to visit each step, and you don’t have to enter values for all four types unless you specifically want them to change. Press the red button again when you’ve finished.
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volume, micro tuning, chance (that a note will play) and then the randomisation options – note selection, instrument, FX value, volume, and then on to audio effects and much more. Entering steps for non-note info can be used to create ‘automation’, where a value evolves over time, even if the note remains the same. Each track is monophonic: one note at a time, as we mentioned earlier, but there are MIDI chord FX available, although they’ll take a separate track for each note in the chord. There are useful tools like the fill command, where a number of steps in a pattern can be filled with the same parameter values at once. Sequencing with the Tracker can be robotic and clinical (good), or unpredictable and organic (also good). It’s surprising how fast and dynamic this kind of programming gets – it’s not exactly like live coding, but it’s not like using a regular DAW either. Ultimately, it’s really just another way to write music – position in the bar, note, duration, instrument choice, effects, that’s all. You can leave it there, with a pattern that loops forever, or create more patterns, then press the Song button, where you’re presented with a vertically scrolling list of slots that represent each of the eight tracks in the project. This is where the Tracker gets closer to taking on the big DAW boys, as you chain together the patterns you’ve made. It’s another process that feels clinical at first, and is unarguably retro, but there’s more than that to it, because patterns can have different lengths in the project, it’s possible to depart from a smooth flow of steps and create unusual or disruptive breaks, with odd lengths and extreme parameter changes. All the way through the process, the Tracker stays fun (and that’s before we even mention the very old-school games that are included with the factory content, and can be accessed through the File page). A music device being ‘fun’ means nothing if the results aren’t there,
“It may not look it, but the Tracker makes a brilliant live performance device” but they are. There aren’t tons of multifunction buttons and menus to navigate, it’s all fairly toplevel stuff, and it’s very like using an older sequencer product, but with the benefits of USB, SD, and a much improved display. Of the products reviewed in this feature, the Tracker is the fastest to get going with. It may not look it, but the Tracker makes a brilliant live performance device. Not only can you get very fast at entering new pattern steps mid-jam, pressing the Perform button as mentioned earlier brings up a customisable screen that contains favourite parameters that can be tweaked in real time, with up to 12 effects available. What was really interesting to us was the ability to mix in tracks from other patterns as we played, adding more depth and sonic complexity, taking the performance beyond simple playback, beyond effects – this is great if you like restructuring in real time. You can experience the entire conception/ production/mixing workflow with the Tracker, as you finish up with mixing and mastering your arrangements. The master track includes reverb and delay send effects, EQ, space (stereo enhancement), and a limiter – it’s also possible to bring a connected external source into the mix. A final stereo file can be exported to the micro SD card, but also as separate mono audio
files for each track, send FX mono files, for songs or individual patterns. ‘Freeze’ the project there, call it done, or else import the bits into a DAW for more work. All of the machines reviewed here represent the best of what’s around, and the Tracker holds its own, by being a modern take on something that Elektron might have done in their early years, which is nothing but a compliment. To be honest, the worst thing we can say about the Tracker is that the audio-out adaptor cable flapping around at the back got a bit annoying. By merging retro and modern, Polyend have created a beautiful piece of industrial design, with a very logical interface. After some time using it, it felt like the Polyend Tracker’s value for money increased: discovering and implementing the tools on offer (and not getting too sidetracked by the games), and figuring out how to integrate it with our favourite working methods. It’s kind of mysterious at first, but it gives up its secrets without too much trouble, and button presses and navigation become second nature, as they should with any well designed machine. Load it up with samples, hook it up with your favourite outboard, and all is well. Can you make entire tunes with this, as Polyend claim? Yes you can. Feature-limited, bit of a throwback, quality industrial design… we couldn’t be more excited.
Verdict + It looks cool and that matters! Fast and fluid list-based composition Solid construction and logical, easyto-learn, operation Create full songs with the help of pattern chaining Some useful onboard editing tools and effects - The dangling audio adaptor gets quite annoying Would love a built-in mic
10/10 Tracker might seem quirky, but in reality it’s impressively designed, with a great interface, and it’s fun and productive
Alternatively 1010 Music Blackbox $599 A neat, rugged, hardware sampler with 16-note polyphony, touch control and sequencing, streaming from SD card, and USB MIDI
Model:Cycles £329.90 From Elektron’s ‘budget’ range, but still very credible, a six-track FM synthesis groove box, with trademark Elektron sequencing style
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STORAGE SD card slot sits at top left for file transfers
USB PORTS Two USB-A ports to connect other MIDI control devices
SLIDER STRIP Control/slider strips can make your playing more organic
MIDI INTERFACING Full-size MIDI ports, plus foot pedal jack
STEPS The Note Repeat/Arp button adds movement to your parts
AUDIO INTERFACING At the back - line in/out, mic in, headphones jack
KNOBS Eight user-assignable macro-style knobs for hands-on tasks DUAL DISPLAYS Uniquely includes two separate colour displays for more visual feedback
METAL BOX The anodised aluminium casing feels both solid and classy
MULTITASKING Functions as controller for Maschine software, or as a standalone device
PADS FOR ALL 16 velocity-sensitive, RGB backlit pads, with a keyboard mode
Native Instruments Maschine+ Native Instruments’ Maschine+ is a unique example of a software product that’s become a hardware device – how well has it adjusted to its new standalone lifestyle? 36 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
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Of the four units we have in this hardwarefocussed roundup, we spent rather less time than we would have liked with Maschine+, simply as there weren’t enough units available for NI to get us one in time. That said, we have had enough time with the unit to get a good feel, and certainly enough to discover that Maschine+ is actually a very good piece of equipment. Maschine+ is unique amongst our ‘DAW killers’ because it was originally a software product-plus-controller that worked with a Mac or PC – it’s migrated out of the computer and into the controller itself, you might say, although even this standalone example can still be used as a controller and audio interface for the
computer/software version as well. As well as being a sampler, Maschine+ comes ready loaded with preset sounds from NI products such as Kontakt, Massive, and Reaktor, to name a few. Once unpacked, the Maschine+ is heavier than it looks, which is probably down to the aluminium case, giving it a feel of solidity and durability. It’s very quick to get started – attach the curious locking power supply connector, press the power button, then follow the on-screen steps that use QR codes to get you online, registered, and learning fast. That WiFi connection can also get you hooked up with Ableton Link, for wireless sync between the Maschine+ and any compatible software or hardware, including the Akai Force that’s
Hardware gone soft It’s not often we see a hardware product derived from software. The Maschine+ takes NI’s existing Maschine controllers and software, and merges them into a new device that can operate independently of the computer that used to bind them. The Polyend Tracker follows a similar path, but it’s more what you’d call ‘inspired’ by tracker software, rather than directly based on one application. Any device created this way has to resist feature bloat, as a fixed hardware interface can’t convey the same amount of information that a more flexible software display can. Of course, we usually see the exchange happen the other way round – although there are many forward-thinking plugin makers, there are many others proudly modelling the sound of classic hardware, whether vintage synths, tape delays or legendary recording studio consoles. There’s still a feeling that this approach gives credibility to a software product, and it’s marketing friendly too. The ultimate conclusion of softwarelike-hardware syndrome is seen when software adverts use graphics that make the software interface look like the front panel of a hardware box!
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> Step by step
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Connect the Maschine+ to your mixer, monitors, or headphones. Start with your volume levels set low. Connect the Maschine+ mains power supply at the back of the unit. Note that this is a locking connector, so refer to the little graphic on the back to ensure the plug is locked correctly, otherwise it’ll keep falling out and shutting down your music in midflow!
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As soon as the mains is connected, the power button on the front of the Maschine+ lights red; there’s no hardware button at the back. Press this to start up the Maschine+, and the twin displays show a logo on the left and a ‘Maschine+ is starting’ graphic on the right. This should then turn into a view that shows Master, Group and Sound buttons.
Going live
The Maschine+ clearly has a studio role as a beat-making and production instrument, but it’s arguably even more at home on stage. First, it is of course a standalone device – you don’t need to drag a delicate, possibly unstable computer along with you. Second, it has just enough of everything to make an effective front-end for performance, with 16 large, hard-tomiss, backlit pads, ready-to-launch song sections or to play instrument parts. The surrounding function buttons are also large and easy to locate during a set, and there are the eight user-assignable knobs below the dual displays. These knobs feel like quality items in their own right, with a sensible amount of space between them, and a good amount of resistance as you turn them. Above the knobs are the dual displays, they provide an excellent opportunity to divide tasks between them, and to make sure you see what you want to see at any given time. Finally there’s the touch strip, which is a cool way to add pitch/mod wheel type interaction for anybody who misses those from their MIDI keyboard. Lots of interaction here! 38 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
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By the way, take note that these displays are not touch enabled – you’ll be using the row of buttons above them, and the large rotary control and other knobs, to do most of your navigation and selection. Press the large rotary control, the lower section of the display should now say ‘Type/Instr’. Then rotate the second knob until it says ‘Vendor/NI’.
This preset has a little velocity response dialled in, so if you play the pads more dynamically, you should hear the volume change accordingly. When in the Keyboard view, it’s also possible to change the scale that the notes are mapped to, using the Bank and Type selectors on the lower left. The right-hand display will show the note names associated with the selection.
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Press the Keyboard button above the pads and you should be able to play that sound from them now. Press it again if you want to use the upper buttons to change octaves, or even change pitch in semitones. Each macro knob has something assigned to it, so tweak them and give it a try, turning the knobs while you hold down notes on the pads.
Press and hold the Note Repeat button to keep a note repeating till you release it. As you press that button, you can also select repeat note values from the macros. Hold down two or more notes together, and you’ll hear an arpeggio as playback cycles through the notes. Finally, don’t forget the touch strip, which can give you pitch, mod, or effect control.
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reviewed elsewhere. We can certainly praise the Maschine+ for the included sounds and slick workflow, and at the same time comment on it lacking I/O, while also observing that this incarnation of the Maschine platform isn’t so much a ‘radical departure’ as it is an enhancement to what already exists. We enjoyed using the Maschine+ and wish we’d had more time to explore it. It makes a great impression physically, and the control layout is superb, with even the smallest buttons being a decent size, the pads doing their thing, and the macros and twin 480x272 displays working together. This thing is very fast to get around on and tells you everything you need to know. Those displays are easily colourful enough and clear enough to view patterns or entire song timelines. The Maschine+ is very capable, whether it’s being used to knock out a few beats, or it’s laying out a full arrangement, or performing live. We’d like to see more I/O included, but be aware this can be dealt with by connecting an NI USB audio interface to one of the rear posts, and equally if 16 pads aren’t enough for you, connect a USB MIDI keyboard to the other port and you’re pretty much covered. That’s a good trade-off for keeping the core unit at a compact size. If you’ve come up using NI software, and you want to get into something more independent from the computer, this is the proverbial no-brainer.
Verdict + Anodised aluminium case feels very solid The standalone Maschine many dreamed of Full-size MIDI ports are welcome A great balance of interface elements The included sound library is great - Overall it doesn’t feel ‘cutting edge’ We’d like more stereo audio inputs
9/10 Sturdy, great workflow and a great independent option for lovers of NI sounds and instruments
Alternatively Native Instruments Maschine £539 You still have the option of using NI’s original Maschine controller with the software running on a Mac or PC
Akai MPC One £615 More related to the MPC line than the Force, the One is Akai’s ‘entry level’ standalone hardware, sitting below the Live series
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> cover feature / is hardware killing software?
Conclusion Let’s face it, DAWs (like Cubase, Live, Logic) could be said to have plateaued: radical new features are few and far between. We can’t help but wonder if this could be behind the renewed interest in standalone music hardware – especially hardware that mixes DAW-style functions with hardware vibes and interfaces. Different music gear inspires different approaches – the clinical vibe of a simple layout with a laptop, a grid based controller, and an audio interface comprising the entire rig, or at the other extreme, the satisfying weight and complexity of a modular rig being unpacked during soundcheck; both of these are quite unlike using a trackpad to make beats. It used to be that software was essential for arrangements – where an entire song could be laid out from start to finish – but that isn’t the case anymore. Anything from chaining patterns in a ‘song mode’, up to full-on arrangements on a colour multitouch display, counts, and now we get these new integrated products from companies that have a foot in both camps, a bit computer and a bit hardware, and they’re fully capable of producing full arrangements or performing entire live sets. We all want the cool factor of using hardware, but we also want the flexibility and updatability of software. So how well do these items meet the requirements of DAW-less music making? Let’s try to answer that, in strictly alphabetical order. Of all the contenders, the Akai Force is the one that best handles DAW-style tasks, and more. It’s a big, capable machine, that’ll work on stage and in the studio – it’s not unlike having an earlier version of Ableton Live in a hardware box. The multitouch display’s big enough to accommodate a detailed control layout, for MIDI programming, sample editing, mixing, and – crucially – arranging, while the physical controls are plentiful. With onboard instruments and effects, and full sampling capability, the Force lets you take a whole studio onstage. The NI Maschine+ also delivers as a selfcontained DAW, and scores highly for its clear layout. Once again there’s a functional arrangement timeline available, as well as a suite of onboard instruments built on the
Roland Verselab – great for people with something to say (and sing)
“Think about how complex even a basic DAW like GarageBand can get” expected names from the software version of Maschine. We would have liked more inputs and outputs on the Maschine+, and after a while felt that 16 pads might be enough for beats but it’s not enough for melodic instruments – you might need to add an external MIDI keyboard. The Polyend Tracker looks niche, but it simply has a different take on what it should be, and how to get there. The fundamentals are still there – a decent display, pads, and so on, while
Maschine + : are 16 pads really enough?
42 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
the actual process of constructing music is different, using the list-based entry method. This is a dated system on the surface, but it’s quite dynamic and weirdly entertaining. It still offers pattern chaining, sampling, onboard instruments and full MIDI connectivity. It’s also compact and can run off batteries, and includes built-in games! The Tracker could be seen as the opposite to the kitchen-sink approach of the Force, and the price is fair. We enjoyed using it a lot, and sometimes that counts for a lot. The Roland Verselab MV-1 has a typical Roland approach to matters, being more interested in chaining patterns, with a sequencer-style interface, and a very small display. Roland fans will get to grips with it quickly. It’s the emphasis on vocal performance and recording that’ll make this interesting for the mic wielders out there. Expansion and syncing is also a possibility in our hardware world – adding a synth, sequencer, or sampler, to one of our review items can open a lot of doors; hey, you could even sync up a couple of these together. But really, are any of these machines going to replace your DAW? Think about how complex even a basic one like GarageBand can get… a hardware equivalent of even that would require a lot of tracks, a lot of sampling, software instruments, effects, and a timeline with automation. Even Korg Gadget running on an iPad is a monster workstation. The Force, Maschine+, Verselab, and Tracker, can all do part of what a DAW does, but not all of it. It’s about the workflow, you can have a hardware product that is essentially a computer anyway, and make it a powerful one, but the interface is always going to work against you. If you want it all, and you want it to be mobile, get a laptop! However, and it’s a big however, it’s true that today’s music hardware is more capable than ever before, and it’s fun and hugely creative to use. Hardware hasn’t killed software yet, but it’s keeping those developers on their toes.
is hardware killing software? / cover feature <
Polyend Tracker is a whole lot of fun
Akai Force: least likely to leave you craving the comfort of a DAW
July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 43
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July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 45
> interview / she’s got claws
46 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
she’s got claws / interview <
SHE’S GOT CLAWS
All photos by: Oten Photography
With a sound that melds ominous synth textures with effect-driven bass guitar, yet simultaneously leaves space for sparkling, transcendent pop hooks, She’s Got Claws haven’t let a pandemic stand in the way of a fierce new record, co-produced by OMD legend Andy McCluskey Propelled by a wide-ranging passion for retro synth-pop, industrial rock and 90s electronica, Hull-based duo She’s Got Claws have been rapidly gaining plaudits and fans, enamoured by the pair’s intense dark sound and glam-recalling aesthetic. From her home studio, vocalist, producer and frontwoman, Micci Lou, has been making music in this guise since 2011, initially as a solo electronic project, and now paired with longtime friend and accomplished bassist Chris O-Ten. Last year, despite the pressures of lockdown, She’s Got Claws’ third album Doppelgänger was completed and released on solo label SGC Productions. Impressively, it featured two tracks that were guest-produced by OMD figurehead and industry titan Andy McCluskey, his interest piqued by the unique aural character of this
ferociously independent outfit. We caught up with the duo to find out more about the process of crafting their last record, managing every aspect of their identity, and keeping focus in an often overwhelming technological world.
just give it a go?’. So since then I’ve been making and producing my own music, I’m inspired by lots of different types of artists really and did a lot of reading about the process. It was just trial and error that led us to the sound we have now.”
: So Micci, can you take us right back to the beginning, and tell us how you discovered your affinity for music making and production? Micci Lou: “Well, like many young girls, I always aspired to be a singer. I eventually got into singing for different producers on different tracks. I was really interested in how they used technology and equipment, at the time I was listening to a lot of people like Trent Reznor and The Prodigy, and wondered how I could get that kind of sound myself. I thought ‘well, why not
: Can you tell us a little about your transition from old-school hardware to computer-based music-making? What’s some of the key gear in your setup? ML: “It was a little bit of a shock. On my debut album I mainly used an Atari STE and S3000XL sampler, and I was just so used to working with a patch-bay. I still have my 8-bus, 32-track Soundcraft Ghost mixing desk, but I was generally just used to being quite hands-on. Now I produce everything in Logic Pro X on my MacBook Pro, but still use the desk to monitor July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 47
> interview / she’s got claws
with. The plus thing about working mainly in-the-box is that there’s less set-up time; it’s all a lot more spontaneous. I use an M-Audio Keystation 49 as my primary MIDI controller, and an Akai EIE USB interface. I tend to hang on to older gear, so I will need to have a bit of a sort out soon! “Also in my studio (Chameleon Studios) I’ve got my Korg MicroKorg; it’s amazing how monstrous it can sound for something so tiny. I do like Korg gear, I’ve even got a Korg Prophecy (one of their earliest virtual analogue synths). I heard it on the Bowie album Earthling, and wanted to capture a similar sound. “I’m trying to actually limit myself with sounds, because there’s a real danger of being overwhelmed by them; even in Logic, you can spend months and months exploring each instrument. It’s always great to have your go-to sounds. I use a softsynth called Dominator (by TA Programming) quite a lot. I like using ring modulators with that which you can hear on my track Hurtbeat and the track Adulation which opens Doppelgänger. “Switching to computer music-making was the result of wanting to get my ideas down as quickly as possible. It’s taken me a while to get used to doing everything in my laptop. Just believing an entire studio exists within this tiny little box is mind-blowing. Years ago I’d have thought you were crazy if you’d said a computer was all you needed.”
: What’s your typical approach to starting new ideas these days? Do you start with musical frameworks? ML: “Now that Chris is on-board, we tend to start with bass. He’s always inspired me with his bass riffs, often they’re so strong that I can just build melodies around them. Occasionally I’ll start ideas with a beat, something simple in Logic that’s slightly effected perhaps, and then build it out. I know some people start with a top melody but I start from the bottom and then work my way up.”
Double trouble
: So Chris, you’re now a key part of She’s Got Claws, how did you come to know and work with Micci, and what do you sonically bring to the table? Chris: “Well I’d known Micci for a while, we’d
“The plus thing about working mainly in the box is that there’s less set-up time; it’s all a lot more spontaneous”
been in previous bands together and toured together. I’d recorded some bass for her debut as She’s Got Claws but returned as a full co-member for this record. Andy McCluskey, who we know, was listening to some early versions of our new tracks and asked if he could produce two that he really liked – Adulation and Love Lies Bleeding. It was actually Andy who inspired me to pick up bass guitar long ago. So it all came full-circle for me. I’ve got other bass heroes too, like Flea and Mick Karn, but it was watching OMD that first made me want to be a bass player. “In terms of the bass sound on the record, I’ve got a few synth-pedals in my board – I’ve got the Bass Mono Synth from Electro-Harmonix, the Bass Synth Wah from DigiTech along with compressor, cab simulation, micro chorus and Big Muff distortion. I like to write riffs this way and present them to Micci. As she says, she then builds up from there.” : Let’s talk about the Doppelgänger album, there’s such a range of songs on this record, and sounds that meld electronica, gritty industrial rock and some endearingly retro textures. Was it the case that these tracks were written specifically to be on the album, or had some been around for a while? Micci: “The majority were written with the album in mind but there were a couple that had been sat on the shelf for a while, Lying in the
“Just believing an entire studio exists in this little box is mind-blowing,” Micci says
Micci uses the classic Soundcraft Ghost mixing desk in Chameleon Studios, coupled with Dynaudio BM15As
48 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
Some Korg titans slumber in Chameleon Studios: “It’s amazing how monstrous the MicroKorg can sound for something so tiny”
she’s got claws / interview <
Chris O-Ten joined Micci as a fulltime second member of She’s Got Claws recently
Dust and Musik we’ve been messing around with for a few years. The track Lying in the Dust would never quite fit anywhere even though it had a lot of potential. One day I was just experimenting with some beats, Chris came in and plugged in his bass and turned on all of his pedals. This massive dirty, distorted sound came out. It was huge, and Prodigy-esque, that was just a real moment of discovery. We decided that it would be a tribute to Keith Flint when it was finished.” Chris: “We channel inspiration from lots of different people, it’s amazing how many people that we really admire doubt what they’re doing.” Micci: “That’s part of being an artist though, you do doubt what you do and that’s what drives you to improve. The day that you stop doubting is the day that you’ll never create anything. There’s always so much more to be learned. Music production is just a vast field. I learn as I go along.” Chris: “My dad was a swing band drummer in the 50s and 60s, and he said to me, ‘once you think you know it all, hang up your instrument’. That always stuck with me. The last track on the record is a remix of Musik which is by Andy McCluskey’s nephew. He did a really great job. The most popular track seems to be Love Lies Bleeding, a track that I wasn’t a fan of initially – but Andy produced it, and it’s become the standout in terms of streams. Micci always stood by it, and she was proven right. The fans love it.”
“My dad said to me ‘Once you think you know it all, hang up your instrument’”
: There’s some really massive beats on this record, that complement the multi-faceted synths, and dirty bass. I imagine the mixing process must take a while? Micci: “I try to avoid samples. It’s all built depending on how I feel that day. I was listening to Kraftwerk on the day that I build the beats for Musik, and that really informed the final sound. I like using Ultrabeat in Logic. Once you get compression on some of those drum sounds; they can sound really effective.” Chris: “Micci follows The Prodigy trick of having three different kick-drums, you’ve got the subkick, the mid-kick and the top-kick and then you can bounce them all together.
Micci: “I love that ‘wall of sound’ type of rhythm section. I just need to stop throwing the kitchen sink into everything! It took the best part of 18 months to put this album together.” : There’s some really interesting use of vocals on the record, you tend to use the vocal as another instrument in the mix. At what stage do you work on them? Micci: “They come later in the process. Chris will often come up with some song titles and so I’ll make a list of titles to use as starting points, I then assign them to any musical ideas that we have going. Primarily I’ll create an instrumental, and if it stands up on its own merits without
The ingredients of Chris’s huge bass sound
July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 49
> interview / she’s got claws
vocals, then I know it’ll be strong. I typically have to re-arrange it around the vocal, but they do come afterwards. I’m always by myself when I do them. I use an SE X1 and Shure SM58, which always reminds me of Gary Numan.”
The full package : How does the co-producing process typically go for you two? And do you have assigned roles in the studio and in terms of your brand management? Chris: “If the song has started with a bassline then I will leave Micci to build up the track on her own. I’ll then come back to see if I can hear or suggest things. Micci is fantastic at coming up with melodies. I instinctively know now when Micci hits that sweet spot with a melody. If I was in the studio constantly it wouldn’t work the same way. I’m also responsible for all band photography and oversee our music videos.” Micci: “There’s a lot more responsibility on the artist’s shoulders now, so it’s not just writing the songs any more. Labels expect you to have everything in place, and then they just take it. You have to come with the full package.” Chris: “You stand or fall by it, and we’re pretty stringent with what we do. Micci has built up a fantastic fanbase already.” : What advice would you give for artists like yourself, self-sustained and making music on their own terms? Micci: “I think you need to learn to limit yourself. With limitations comes great creativity. Have an idea and stick to it, keep on that path and keep the focus. It’s also important to believe in what you’re doing. Even those doubts, don’t see them as something to stop you, but see them as ways of trying to improve what you’re doing.” Chris: “You learn more from your mistakes than your successes. Sometimes when you create something new, sometimes people don’t get it straight away. You have to believe in it yourself.” Micci: “Once people see that belief in you, they are more likely to believe it themselves, and become fans. That’s the most important thing.” Doppelgänger is out now
HEAR MORE
Adulation bit.ly/sgc_ad Love Lies Bleeding bit.ly/sgc_llb WWW
shesgotclaws.co.uk shesgotclaws.bandcamp.com twitter.com/shesgotclaws facebook.com/shesgotclaws2011
50 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
Micci’s distinctive, new romantic-evoking look, coupled with the duo’s myriad pool of influences (not to mention their Gary Numan-referencing monicker), have seized the attention of many. “We’ve just given a track to a compilation called Generation Blitz. A guy called Martin James contacted me on Twitter and asked if we wanted to be included, as he’d discovered our tracks and thought we fit in with the new romantic/Blitz club style,” Micci tells us. “It’s a small record label called State of Bass. It’ll be released in July. It’s a lot of electronic, post punk and synth-pop underground stuff. So Adulation will be on there. Our music can fit into different genres, and we can certainly hold our own with the Blitz kids!”
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54 Synth Masterclass Synth tweaking with Dave Gale
Dave Gale grabs the mighty Plugin Suite and asks how you can get punchier bass… for free!
56 Organic Machinations An all-new masterclass with Mode Audio
with Audiotent
Adding humanity
An all-new series where the experts at Mode Audio explain how to add a human feel to your computer music
58 Production and Sound Design
How to get punchier bass
How to get a walking bass
With a DVD chock full of bass, it’s something of a low-end special, which Audiotent celebrate here July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 53
Synth
masterclass with Dave Gale
#02
DOWNLOAD
Punchy bass
Download the accompanying video and the MIDI/audio files at filesilo.co.uk/computermusic
In the second of his new synth series – focussing on the free plugins we give you each month – Dave Gale makes your basses punch As anyone making commercial music will cite, using the perfect set of basic sounds can make or break a track. This begins with the essential components of bass and drums, but getting your bass sound to punch through a mix can be a real challenge – and indeed sit well with the kick – especially when the whole mix may be reproduced on eversmaller devices that lack the ability to play low frequencies sufficiently. In this tutorial, then, we will take a close look at how to get a
>Step by step
synth bass sound to rumble at the bottom end, while providing plenty of top-end colour, to keep the iPhone generation happy. Vintage synthesiser hardware is still very much a weapon in the armoury of the commercial producer, with the classic MiniMoog synthesiser, and it’s later affiliated clones or reproductions, continuing to be highly regarded. Beyond this American classic, the 80s-based Japanese machines from Roland continue to provide a stylish sonic sound-set and hierarchy,
which we can look to imitate in software form. This will be our sonic template for creating a punchy bass patch from scratch. We’ll employ a sub-oscillator to provide the bottom end, and an envelope controlled filter for some added bite and crispness, as we go all 101 with Zebra CM. This new synth series is designed to show you some useful production techniques employing the free synths in the suite of plugins we give you each month at FileSilo. Download them now from filesilo.co.uk.
1. Punchy bass
1
If you haven’t done so already, you’ll need to open your favoured DAW package and load an instance of the Zebra CM plugin. We’ll start by initialising the patch, by clicking in the central display area, just below the Computer Music graphic. Select UH Initialise.
4
To assist with our editing process, decrease the volume of Oscillator 2 completely, in order to create some sonic space, so that we can hear what we’re doing. This will merely have the effect of muting the audio output of Oscillator 2, while we work with Oscillator 1.
54 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
2
The bass sound that we’ll create could be considered old-school, so we’ll start by tightening up the initial sound of the oscillators. Directly below the legend ‘Oscillator 1’ a dropdown menu-box allows for the selection of the number of aliased waves. We’ll keep it simple to start with by selecting a Single wave.
5
We also have a modulation source in play, which we need to remove; the Env2 pot, located in the filter section, should be placed in the 12 o’clock position, which will simultaneously read ‘zero’ on the central display, while making the alteration. The resulting sound will now be fairly quiet, next to the previous output.
3
In much the same way that we altered the number of aliased waves on Oscillator 1, we’ll make the exact same adjustment for Oscillator 2. The process is the same, but you’ll need to move to the upper right-hand-side of the plugin window, to address the second oscillator.
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Our sound is currently affected by a large degree of filter cutoff, so reaching for the Cutoff pot in the filter section, increase the pot amount to make your patch more audible. Set the cutoff to around the 10 o’clock position, as an ideal starting location.
creative zebra oscillation / synth masterclass <
Dave Gale
PRO TIPS
Dave Gale is an Emmy award-winning media composer, producer and orchestrator, with an enormous passion for synthesisers, in all their forms. His varied composing style embraces everything from full orchestral and hybrid scoring, to fully electronic scores, employing synths wherever possible. He also happens to own some of the finest synths in existence but we’re not jealous, OK?
FINISHING TOUCHES The patch we’ve created can give a perfect low-end for many commercial tracks. The elements, like the bright snappiness up-front, can be fine-tuned to create the perfect balance for your style of production or music. With such an exaggeration of volume, some compression will help keep the output signal under control. Some of the favoured compressors for classic synth basses are the vintage FET-based compressors, like the Urei 1176. Many DAWs offer a vintage-style compressor with reverence to the 1176, so look out for acronyms like FET, or some form of black styling, after the original. On a musical level, one final alteration that can be made to our patch for even greater classic status, will be to switch it to Monophonic mode. This is an easy setting to change, from the voice mode settings, underneath the central display. This means switching from a Polyphonic mode, where chords
7
Moving back to Oscillator 1, we’re going to check that we have a suitable wave source. With the Wave pot located all the way to the left, we should hear a Saw waveform. You can hear the other waveforms available, by sweeping the pot through its wavetable, but for the purposes of our bass patch, keep it to a saw (fully left.)
10
Oscillator 2 needs tuning, so to do this, we will drop the main tuning pot to -12.00, which places Osc 2 one octave below Osc 1. We will also need to eliminate any subtle detuning, which can be altered by placing the accompanying Detune pot at exactly 12 o’clock.
may be played, to a mode where only one note at a time can be played. It’s a perfect setting for creating cool-sounding bass lines, as each new note will cut out the preceding note, for legato effects, often heard in R’n’B or hip-hop.
8
11
We’re going to add Oscillator 2 back into our mix, but in order to do this, we’ll need to reinstate the volume of Oscillator 2. We won’t actually need very much of this oscillator, so turn up the volume to around 50%, relating to a 10 o’clock position on the Volume pot.
We now have a relatively thick and sustained texture, but we want to create some attack and punch at the beginning of each note. We’ll use the main envelope (Env1) for this task, assigning a spare pot in the filter section, by pressing Control+mouse click. Once assigned, increase the pot amount slightly. You’ll hear a bright attack at the front of each note.
9
12
Our motive for Oscillator 2 is to create a sub-oscillator effect. Classic subs are based around using a square wave, which can be set with a small and subtle movement of the Wave pot within Oscillator 2. Place the pot in a position around 8 o’clock, which will result in the central display reading 2.00. This should be a square wave.
We now have the basis of our patch, which is ready for some fine tuning, to suit your production needs. Try altering the Decay and Sustain phases of Envelope 1, along with the Env1 and Cutoff pots, located within the filter section. Altering the decay element will dictate the snappiness of the front-end punch.
July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 55
Organic
machinations with Mode Audio
#01
Adding warmth It’s another new series in our Expert Guides, this time helping you to add some humanity to your computer music-making One of the most well-worn criticisms and shortcomings of electronic music, and indeed digital sound in general, is that it is too clean, precise and, well, just too damn cold for human ears. Luckily, today’s technology affords us producers a plethora of costeffective solutions to this conundrum; though as ever, properly diagnosing the issue and applying a little knowledge is the
>Step by step
best route out of even the frostiest of musical tundras. In this tutorial, kicking off a series called Organic Machinations – where we add humanity to a computer music world – we’ll take a look at just what a term like ‘warmth’ even means in a sonic context. We will explore a number of tools and tricks you will be able to readily apply in your productions in order to heat up those cold
mixes quicker than you can switch the gas on. As with most timbral aspects of sound and its relation to human perception, the spectral distribution of energy within a given sound is a key concern here; thus, the humble EQ will be our greatest ally in the battle against aural chill. A closely related device, the filter, will also play a role, with saturation and distortion rounding out my studio fire-starting toolkit.
What do we mean by warmth – and how do we get it?
1
To kick things off, we first need to establish just what we mean when we talk about ‘warmth’ in sound. If we think in terms of frequency, as an EQ does, separate the audible spectrum into four broad bands: bass runs from 20Hz to 200Hz, low-mid from 200Hz to 1kHz, highmid from 1kHz to 5kHz, and finally, treble, taking us up to 20kHz.
4
So, whenever you find that the synth part you’re working on is a little on the wintry side, or that vocal you’re processing has something of a nasty chill about it, pull up an EQ and start selectively boosting its notches in this low-mid zone till you hear things starting to warm up. This is also an important area to consider on your master or any bus channels you’re summing to.
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2
The band we’re most interested in is the low-mid section; the high-mid and treble regions pertain to descriptors such as ‘presence’, ‘brilliance’ and ‘sheen’, whereas the bass region gives us weight, depth and the iconic ‘boom’ of the kick drum. Thus, it’s largely left to the low-mids to establish whether a sound is perceived to have sonic warmth or not.
5
Another effective method involves the opposite approach: rather than boosting the low-mids, dial back the highs via low-pass filtering. You could argue this is simply aiming at the same goal posts by shifting emphasis back down the frequency spectrum, but filtering will have a different overall sonic effect than working with your EQ notches.
3
The area from 300Hz to 500Hz is crucial; a useful experiment is to pull up your favourite EQ with an analyser, and just carve out the frequencies in this region from a test sound, using a notch filter. Even the thickest, voice-stacked sawtooth synth will be rendered weedy and lacking in temperature without these vital frequencies to call on.
6
Consider a tune like Daft Punk’s Around The World; of course the duo’s use of chunky drum machine hits and vinyl sampling has much to do with the perceived thickness and warmth of the track’s sound, but I also think that the fact that things begin in heavily filtered fashion goes a long way to establishing the tune’s toasty sonic vibe.
adding warmth / organic machinations <
Niall McCallum
PRO TIPS
FILTER ACTION
SORT YOUR BUS TRACKS
Getting a drum sound absolutely nailed typically means getting each individual part sounding as good as possible, then sending everything out to a single stereo bus. The processing on said bus is crucial, as it’s responsible for gluing everything together into a single force – using a filter with a mix control can be extremely valuable here, as it allows us to mix a low-passed, warmed-up version of our drums in with the original signal.
Another example of parallel processing is to set up some bus tracks in advance, each containing a single device such as chorus or overdrive. With processing pushed into extreme territory, these buses allow us to make quick and comparatively subtle modifications to any element in the mix – say a kick is on the thin side, for example. Sending a little signal to an aggressive overdrive may do just enough to give it the heft and heat it lacks on its own.
7
Running your sound through a lowpass filter, even if the cutoff is set fairly high up into the high-mid or even the treble frequency region, can thus help to add warmth; a shallower filter slope, such as 6dB per octave, is especially useful here, as this involves removing less of the frequency content above the specified cutoff and is less obvious as such.
The subtlety and precision required is precisely why creating a satisfying saturation tool is no easy task; in fact the situation might be likened to the difference between white and pink noise. White noise gives us equally loud sound across the full frequency spectrum; pink noise produces a result that drops gradually in intensity with frequency.
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Let’s now take a look at saturation. It’s important to be wary of the snake oil amongst the genuine article, but once you’ve found a decent saturator it can be hard to resist whacking it over every sound in your mix. Soundtoys’ Decapitator is an excellent option, with Softube’s simple Saturation Knob freeware being a surprisingly effective choice also.
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So, in the battle against the sonic cold, saturation is your friend. It can be especially rewarding to run your most fullyfeatured digital softsynth, all bright clarity and precision, through a choice vintage emulation device, thus affording you the power and possibility of modern synthesis with the retro warmth of yesteryear.
Niall is a passionate musiclover and multiinstrumentalist, with over 10 years experience in designing sounds for some of the biggest companies in music technology. He is also co-founder of sample creators ModeAudio Ltd (see more below).
ModeAudio is a small team of four music-obsessed friends, formed as an outlet for quality, inspiring sounds for music producers but now encompassing a wide range of sound design activities for the likes of Native Instruments, Reason Studios and Ableton. Listen here: modeaudio.com
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Any saturation control should also offer results similar to running a signal ‘hot’, or into the red, on a vintage, analogue mixing console. This should give us a soft, gentle, overdriven effect, bringing fresh harmonics into play for a ‘fuller’ sound, as well as boosting those allimportant low-mids; arguably the very essence of vintage emulation.
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The rules of mixing require our arrangements be as clear and detailed as possible, which effects like saturation threaten. So, approach your processing with caution, though you don’t exactly need to search for long to find examples of OTT processing that works (like the drum sound in Kaytranada and Anderson .Paak’s Glowed Up).
July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 57
Production
techniques with Audiotent #10
Synthesising a walking bassline Discover how to create a moving bass that changes in pitch When we think of walking basslines, often the association is with steppy sequenced synth sounds played in low octaves. Mostly this is played in by hand, alternating octaves. We can replicate a similar style using synthesis techniques. During this guide we’ll walk you through the creation of an original walking bassline sound with Sylenth1. The patch will be based on two sawtooth oscillators. By keeping the oscillator choice simple, you’ll be able to replicate this patch within most software or hardware synths. We’ll
>Step by step
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further develop the patch and incorporate some tricks to enhance the stereo image. The walking style of the bass originates from a square LFO assigned to Osc B pitch. To build on the rhythmic complexity, a second LFO is assigned to the filter cutoff. The LFO rates can be automated throughout your arrangement to further personalise the sound within your track. It’s always useful to have a performance aspect when creating your sounds. This is frequently in the form of a mod wheel and/or macro assignments. A good choice of target for
the mod wheel is the LFO rate. You can then use the mod wheel to increase intensity. This works especially well for buildups and transitions. Finally a touch of delay always helps to add the extra depth and position it in the mix. We often prefer the delay to be un-synced/free running and dialling in the delay times by ear. In the case of Sylenth1, disabling the master sync will also un-sync the LFOs to BPM. There is no way of having a un-synced delay and keeping the LFOs locked to BPM. Having said that, let’s get to it.
Making an original walking bassline
The first step is to load LennarDigital Sylenth1 into your DAW (or your choice of 2-osc synth). Then click ‘Menu’ and ‘Preset > Clear | Init’. This will initialise all of Sylenth1 parameters to its default state. If you play the keys on your MIDI keyboard, you should only be hearing a raw, unaffected sawtooth patch.
Introducing a noise oscillator can help intensify and thicken your patches. In this example, we’re also using it in stereo to expand the overall width of the patch. In Part A, choose the noise wave and increase the voices from 0 to 1. Make sure you reduce the volume of the noise oscillator as this is very loud in its default state.
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Inside Part B, we’re enabling a new Sawtooth in Oscillator B1. This is done by increasing the voices from 0 to 1. The reason we chose to use Part B instead of another oscillator within Part A is because we want independent control over the oscillator pitch when using an LFO later on. Transpose Oscillator B1 up +1 octave.
Since we’re making a bass sound a low-pass filter is your friend. Engage filter type Lowpass to both Part A and B and pull down the main filter Cutoff control. Sylenth1 lets you drive the filter stage to give a somewhat analogueinspired sound. Turn on Warm Drive and adjust the Drive parameter. The sweet spot here is around 9 o’clock.
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To add some stereo width to the patch, we can increase the voice count of Oscillator B1. Changing the voicing from 1 to 2 and dialling in some detune gave us the result we were after.
Now time to dial in the signature sound of a walking bass. LFOs help add movement to your otherwise static patches. Square LFOs are often overlooked against sines and triangles. But for a stable change in pitch without it sounding like a pitchbend, the square wave is the perfect tool. Select the Pulse wave for LFO 1 and set the rate to ¼.
walking basslines / production techniques <
PRO TIPS Saw/Square waveform, add another oscillator with a pure sine and invert it 180 degrees. This works great for carving space in your bass for your kick. PANNING OSCILLATORS
A good technique to make your synth patch stereo without the use of FX (chorus, delay, reverb etc) is to pan the oscillators. Choose a different waveform for each oscillator or slightly detune them. Next, pan them left and right until the desired stereo width is achieved.
Ed Strazdas
Neil Crockett
Ed is an experienced dance producer and sound designer, working in the scene since 2004
Sound designer and mixing engineer, Neil is a huge fan of Eurorack modular synths
About Audiotent Our Production Technique experts are from Audiotent, a team of creative producers and sound designers who provide inspirational tools and education for professional artists worldwide. They focus on both techno and progressive genres, offering presets, samples, templates, MIDI files and production tutorials. More from: audiotent.com
CARVING SPACE FOR YOUR KICK DRUM WITH SOUND DESIGN
To reduce the fundamental frequency of the
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You can assign the pitch of LFO 1 to both oscillators. Having said that, we are only assigning it to Oscillator B. This will replicate a similar feel to a duophonic patch. When tuning the Pitch B amount we find that fifths and octaves sound the most musical. Set LFO 1 gain to 5.0 and Pitch B to 4.067.
The patch is sounding nice and close to completion. To add more interest and movement for held notes, an envelope to filter cutoff can be applied. A slow decay and medium release will close the filter down over time.
10
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To keep the patch interesting, we are going to apply another LFO and this time target the cutoff frequency of the main filter. To build on the rhythmic complexity, we’ll set the rate of LFO 2 to 1/16 and choose the same Pulse wave as the source.
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In all of our patches we like to assign a performance element, either in mod wheel or macro assignments. As Sylenth1 doesn’t give you the option to assign macros we will have to make do with the mod wheel. Set Misc 1 source to Mod Wheel and the destination to LFO 2 Rate.
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Experiment with the amount of modulation and make sure that you have your main Filter Cutoff knob somewhere towards the middle (12 o’clock). This will enable you to hear the effect. You can also try changing a variety of waveforms. Select Saw and hear the difference in modulation.
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The final step is a touch of delay to make the preset sound alive. Settings chosen for this were a 40% dry/wet mix, 1/8D delay times on both left and right channels. Low cut increased and pingpong option enabled.
July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 59
> interview / lau.ra
60 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
lau.ra / interview <
LAU.RA Laura Bettinson’s multifaceted career has found the Midlands-hailing artist leaping seamlessly from the technicolor avant-garde pop of FEMME and the cerebral intensity of Ultraísta to the fresh, wonky electronica of lau.ra. On the heels of a slew of new singles, we ask what initiated her new direction, and discover how lockdown has fuelled a new studio approach
“I really should have been here five years ago, producing my own music,” states Laura Bettinson, the 33 year-old Rugby-born artist whose marked successes in the guises of FEMME and as one third of Ultraísta, haven’t stopped her from deviating her focus on becoming a completely selfsufficient composer, producer and performer. Laura’s infectious debut as FEMME, Educated, was the first of many stunningly off-kilter pop bangers, while her side-project Ultraísta, alongside Radiohead’s mighty producer Nigel Godrich and REM/Beck player Joey Waronker, serves as an ongoing experimental musical vehicle, and yielded a second record right on the cusp of lockdown last year. Now adopting the new moniker of lau.ra – and dropping some sublime new releases at a rapid rate (such as the irresistible Don’t Waste My Time and the hypnotic I’ll Wait), Bettinson explains to us how she’s taken complete control of every stage of the musicmaking process.
: Hi Laura, taking it right back to the beginning, when did you first discover your affinity for music, and how did that lead you to starting your career? LB: “Well, I trained my voice by imitating other pop stars when I was growing up. I grew up in a small town in the Midlands and there wasn’t that much music coming through there, but I was exposed to a lot of mainstream pop. So I learned to sing from copying people that I saw. I started writing my own music from about the age of 16. At that stage it was all just piano and voice. “It wasn’t until I moved to London at age 18 that I discovered live electronic music, and realised that I didn’t have to take a piano to gigs. I could just get everything into a suitcase and start messing around with loop stations and samplers. I began compiling loads of loops from free sample websites and putting them into this little loop station, so at that stage I’d build my tracks over them. “A couple of years into that I met Nigel Godrich. He’d heard about my solo show and was very intrigued by it. July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 61
> interview / lau.ra
So we became friends, and then the band Ultraísta started with him and Joey. I then launched myself as FEMME, which I think was an antidote to Ultraísta in some ways. I’d never grown up with a desire to be in bands; Ultraísta is amazing, but it’s very collaborative. There is a lot of compromise from everybody to get to where we need to be creatively. Off the back of that I decided to go full throttle with pop. “I thought I was making pop, but listening to it now it’s actually pretty alternative. So I did that for a few years which was really enjoyable, but the last 18 months or so, I’ve really enjoyed flexing my muscles more as a producer.” : What was it that initiated that shift into being entirely self-sufficient, and re-labelling yourself as lau.ra? LB: “It wasn’t until around 2018 that I went to Miami music week and I saw just how much fun DJs were having, playing this stuff they’d made and touring with just a piece of hand luggage. I was very impressed and thought that’s where I needed to be. It was the answer to all my prayers as an independent artist.
“I’ve enjoyed creating my own sonic signature… with the hope that someone will hear a track and know it’s me” “As soon as I started DJing more, it started to bleed into what I was doing more of in the studio. When I was in Miami I discovered more bouncy, fun tech house music. I kind of consciously wanted to combine some of that with a UK flavour, and a little bit of that French electro, glitchy unexpected stuff.
Getting creative
: Turning to the tech side of things, what gear would you say is the cornerstone of your work in the guise of lau.ra?
LB: “To be honest, I can make a banging tune with very little equipment. A laptop and a USB keyboard, with a set of headphones is all I need to get working. I’ve never been that hung up on getting loads of gear. “I have a little Yamaha CS-5 which I use for bass sounds quite a lot, that I couldn’t live without. I have a little Korg Minilogue synth here too which is perfect for me as it’s small and fits nicely on my desk! “I really don’t like faff actually, so I have a few choice vocal mics that I’ve been enjoying and use a lot. Aston mics are really affordable and high quality. I don’t really get a lot of the elitism that comes with gear a lot of the time. I’ve never had that much of a budget to spend, and I’ve never really lusted after gear, because my restrictions of the gear that I used informed the sound that I was making. “Don’t get me wrong, given the time and the money, there’s a long list of synths that I would love. With the kinds of basslines that I write, like the one in Wicked for example, you need to be doing those on analogue synths really. It’s not quite the same to do it all in software. There’s definitely more punch with the real deal. But I’m happy to live within my restrictions – I actually think that it makes me more creative, to have less stuff. “I work in Logic. When I first started producing music about ten years ago, I used Cubase on a pretty crap PC laptop. I think I was only using that for about half a year before I moved over to Logic. I’ve been using it ever since then.” : How about synths, do you have an extensive collection of softsynths? LB: “I’ve not used it for a while but NI’s Reaktor in Kontakt is something that I quite enjoy using. It was always my go-to for bass sounds. Recently I’ve been enjoying the Arturia Analogue Lab. It’s got some amazing emulations of Prophets and classic analogue synths. I’ve been enjoying using their stuff. I will also still occasionally use Massive. There’s one sound in particular in there, the B-Low 2 preset, which adds quite an effective 808 sound.” : Is there anything else you want to complete your setup? LB: “I do collect a lot of plugins, sample packs and keep refreshing that side of things more than hardware. Most of my work is chopping up audio. I work with drum samples and choppedup bass loops that I’ve found, or bass performances that I’ve recorded in someone else’s studio. “In terms of actual hardware, I’m not all that interested really. I should be more, especially now I have a new studio space. I need some new monitors and a new compressor. I use Focal CMS65 monitors, which I love. I’ve also got a pair of NS10s that I use for reference.”
lau.ra’s fresh focus on production has led to some exhilarating new music
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: So with that plethora of samples, we assume you’ve got jam-packed hard-drives? LB: “Yeah, well I mean I have my favourite samples obviously. For the lau.ra music, I’ve really enjoyed creating my own sonic signature where I will use the same kick sample, the same percussion samples and very distinctive sounds, with the hope that someone will hear a track
Thomas Jackson / Alamy Stock Photo
lau.ra / interview <
Mixing it up Lau.ra’s skills as a remixer have been acknowledged by the MPG this year, as she has been nominated for a prestigious gong. We asked her to detail her general remixing process, and how it feels to be nominated? “It was quite a nice surprise to get the MPG nomination,” Bettinson enthuses. “Ever since I’ve had that nomination I’ve been doing more and more. I’ve had eight remix projects since January this year. I always enjoy doing them, and it’s been good this year in the wake of the pandemic, being unable to tour. It’s a really nice way to connect with other artists across genres that I wouldn’t usually be in touch with. In terms of how I approach them, it’s not that different to how I approach writing a track from scratch to be honest. I will usually always isolate the vocal or lead instrument first, then start to pick the hooks and samples out of that. That’s usually the starting point. I’ll then map it out a little bit, next stage is programming a beat and a bass line. “I’m really consciously trying to make the most banging tunes using as little musical information as possible,” she continues. “It’s something that actually I learned from a lot of those tech house producers. Someone I’ve recently ended up on a record with is Chris Lake, who’s an amazing producer. I would play a lot of his songs in my DJ sets because they’re just so ‘anti-music’ sometimes. There’s really not a lot of melody in them, but you play them in a DJ set and everyone just loses their mind for it. I wanted to make some stuff like it. But not throw the kitchen sink at it. Make sure that every instrument in the mix serves a purpose, and be really meaty.” July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 63
> interview / lau.ra
and know it’s me. That’s good for me, that’s the calling card I want. A production signature. “My first single Sideways in February last year really set me on that path, it was just the right combination of left-field weirdness and a very hooky vocal. That set me on the current path. But yeah, I’ve been using the same kick and snare in every track! “There are so many options. I always say to new producers coming up, if you find something you like, just stick with it. Find something that is working for you. If it stops working, then move on. I’ve really enjoyed having my own personal song-starter I guess!” : You’re well regarded for using your voice as an instrument, is there a particular technique that you tend to employ when mixing your vocals? LB: “Yeah for sure, it’s different in different contexts depending on what I’m writing for. Certainly on my own music, I will approach my voice as a sample, as an instrument. I’ll sing something – usually nonsense – chop it up and get the best bits out of it, then start constructing the track around that. “Ultraísta is a bit different to that. There are a lot of quite complex vocal loops that serve as the initial blocks that I start writing the melodies from. A lot of the time we’ve recorded them live, during improvised sessions. Nigel will then go and grid it, and sort it out basically. “It usually develops from there, but every single Ultraísta track, especially on the new record, began life as a jam. The majority of
which started several years ago. “When I’m writing top line for other artists, that is a bit more traditional, in the sense that I will be a bit more hands off with the production. You’re working with another creative vision and you have to allow space for them to do what they want to do with it. So I never get too precious about what they want to do with it. I just try and get a great vocal and a great lyric and send it off into the world to see how they want to use it. There are different approaches for different contexts.”
Strange formula
: The Ultraìsta record Sister was released just before the pandemic. It’s a really fascinating record, as well as being a longawaited follow-up to the debut. What accounted for that gap? LB: “Life I think! The blessing and the curse of Ultraísta is that there is no pressure on it. It might be very different if we were three upstarting musicians who needed that to be our main focus, but realistically Nigel and Joey are very well-established in their careers, doing other things, and I’ve been working hard doing my thing. Getting us all together in the same country, never mind setting aside the time to actually achieve anything is really hard, and usually very expensive! “It’s slow going with that, and a lot of Sister was started right after we finished the first record, back in 2012. We had a lot of it kind of mapped out. Then years went by, and Radiohead records were made, Thom Yorke
Back to life Laura is hopeful that the imminent reopening of live venues can level the playing field. “I actually think we have a unique opportunity to support more home-grown talent, especially in dance music,” Laura tells us. “Over the last five years, the same names were on every club line-up in three different countries every weekend. There really wasn’t much room for anyone new to come through. I think now with the travel restrictions, it presents a unique opportunity, once venues re-open, to have a bit of space to come through. Especially for women and black DJs, and queer artists. I hope we don’t go too quickly back to the same 12 white guys, who are on every single line-up every weekend.”
Photo: Getty
Laura’s Femme persona is on hiatus, though she still uses the monicker for certain vocal projects
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lau.ra / interview <
records were made and Nigel’s focus was on those. I was doing my thing, too – I had my entire FEMME career during the span between album number one and two. “There was a lot of time that went past, and I’ve no idea when we’re going to make any more music – it could be another decade. “One thing I really appreciate about working in Ultraísta is that it’s so different to what I do on my own. It really is the culmination of those three creative brains. Mine, Joey and Nigel’s input. I couldn’t make that kind of music without those two people. It’s a nice thing to dip in and out of. “It’s strange because the last time we put out a record, there were so many natural disasters that stopped us from touring. Then this time we put out a record and a fucking pandemic hits. We’re destined not to do any touring. If you’ve ever seen an Ultraísta show live you’re really lucky, they don’t happen very often.” : How has the Covid-19 pandemic, and lockdown, affected your creative process? LB: “Well I’ve just moved house, so I’m still in the process of setting up my new home studio. I’ve always had a studio in my house which, before the pandemic, I was questioning whether I should do away with – to try and distance work from home life. “Then the pandemic hit and I was so grateful for having my studio in my house because then my workflow wasn’t disrupted at all. If anything, I’ve found myself being much more productive because I haven’t had the distractions and crap that comes along with being an artist. All of the stuff that breaks the creative flow disappeared and I’ve been able to really treat my musicmaking as a job. “I get here at 10am every day, make a load of tunes, walk the dogs at 4pm, maybe do a couple of hours more work on music then that’s it. I do the same the next day. I’ve written so much music. It’s so productive compared to what it was like before. Especially when you’re touring. Studio time was just precious. I’ve actually enjoyed the pandemic in many ways.” : Are you finding that you miss the live experience, and getting there as a performer and a DJ? LB: “I’m more focused on DJ-ing now rather than performing per se, that’s what I miss. I thought that I would miss the ritual of getting dressed up, stepping out on stage and seeing people appreciating the melodies and tracks that you’d written yourself – that is very special. But actually, I don’t at all – it’s a kick for me to be able to make music in the afternoon in my studio, mix it to a good enough level, slap a limiter on the end of it, master it in a rudimentary kind of way, put it on a USB stick and see how it connects with a room full of people is just a huge kick. I’m looking forward to getting back out there.”
Be bold : What advice would you give to anyone looking to have a career like yours? LB: “I’d say just get on with it. I appreciate my journey, going through pop and stuff like that helped me to arrive where I’m at, but I really should have been here five years ago. Producing my own music. Equally the reason I
Photo: Getty
didn’t end up here earlier was that I hadn’t seen anyone that looked like me growing up in Rugby in the Midlands. It was so long before I saw a woman in a technical role, let alone a woman producing her own music. Even when I was doing pop songwriting sessions, it was always a bloke sitting in front of the computer. So it never really occurred to me that I could really be doing that myself. “Ultimately, I just got so frustrated with stuff not sounding the way I wanted it. I needed to learn how to do this myself. That’s what really set me off on this path. I hope, moving forwards, that we’re going to have more women in technical roles, inspiring people to do it a bit more themselves. “I always try and speak to school kids and say ‘just get on with it, and don’t be intimidated by all the bullshit that surrounds it’. “What’s amazing about technology now is that you really can make a hit record with just a laptop, a tiny USB controller and a USB mic probably. There are no rules anymore. So, be bold! The lau.ra single I’ll Wait and the Ultraìsta album Sister are out now. Check out her Soundcloud for remixes and more
HEAR MORE
Heart Attack bit.ly/lr_hrt_ttc I’ll Wait bit.ly/lr_illwt WWW
lau-ra.co.uk soundcloud.com/lau_ra_lau_ra twitter.com/lau_ra_lau_ra
July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 65
PRODUCER’S GUIDE TO ELECTRONIC MUSIC THE HISTORY, GEAR, PIONEERS AND TECHNIQUES
ON SALE
NOW
Ordering is easyy. Go onllin ne at Or get it from selected supermarkets & newsagents
reviews <
The latest computer music gear tested and rated! 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
68 ARTURIA PIGMENTS 3
Arturia’s own-brand synth gets a new upgrade – potentially adding even more colour to your projects
5
This product’s problems outweigh its merits
6
A decent product that’s only held back by a few flaws
7 8
Solid. Well worth considering
9
Excellent. First-rate and among the best you can buy
10
Exceptional. It just doesn’t get any better than this!
Very good. A well-conceived and executed product
70 Leapwing Audio Al Schmitt
72 SSL UF8
74 Waves Vocal Bender
76 Cableguys DriveShaper
77 Mini Reviews
80 The 6 Best… Bundles
Awarded to products that challenge existing ideas and do something entirely new
A product has to really impress us with its functionality and features to win this one
If the product exceeds expectations for its price, it will receive this gong
In the opinion of the Editor, the best product reviewed in the magazine this month
July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 67
> reviews / arturia pigments 3 PRESET BROWSER Access a multitude of factory presets, and save your favourites
UTILITY ENGINE New Utility Engine adds noise, analogue samples, and sub osc
EFFECTS Click to add effects including filter, EQ, compressor, and delay
SEQUENCER Access controls for arpeggiator and sequencer, with polyrhythms and randomisation
HARMONIC ENGINE Pigments 3 features the Harmonic Engine, which includes additive synthesis
MIDI Click here to view and change MIDI CC control assignments
TABS Click on these tabs to view the keyboard, envelopes, etc E
STANDALONE AND PLUGIN Pigments runs standalone as seen here, or as a plugin
MODULATION Use this panel to configure global modulation and macro settings
COMBINATORS The Combinate tab now has three Combinators for modulation tasks
E
MPE Configure your MPE parameters here for deeper hardware control response
Arturia
Pigments 3
€99
The Pigments powerhouse gets upgraded to v3, adding more engines, more waveforms and more effects. Have we reached saturation point? After 20 years of successfully producing software synths based on classic hardware products, Arturia released their first unique synth, Pigments, in 2018 – and now we have Pigments 3. Pigments is a synth instrument that works as a standalone application so you can play live with a keyboard controller, or as a plugin within your favourite host software. Pigments combines virtual analogue and wavetable synthesis, and includes filters, effects, modulation, sequencing and arpeggiation. Version 2, released in 2019, added sample-based and granular synthesis, as well as MPE (MIDI Polyrhythmic Expression). Now we’re looking at Pigments 3, which includes a new Harmonic Engine for additive synthesis; a Utility Engine, with a sub oscillator, supplemental analogue waveforms, and two noise sources – so now up to three Engines can be layered together. There are also 80+ new wavetables, and other additions and 68 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
improvements. Pigments 3 installs as Audio Unit, VST, or AAX plugins, as well as the standalone mode. The review was conducted with a 2019 iMac running macOS Big Sur, Ableton Live 11, and assorted MIDI keyboards and controllers. All of Pigments’ controls are contained in one panel, but some tab-clicking is required –
“More focused on blatantly being a synth rather than emulating real instruments”
inconvenient but not unusual for such a fullfeatured synth. From left to right, there’s the preset browser, Synth, FX, and Seq tabs, a Tips icon, and Master Volume. Below that, there are the tabs for three Engines – 1, 2, and Utility, followed by a Filter section, then a row of modulation controls, with more tabs – this time toggling views of an on-screen keyboard, envelopes, LFOs, Functions (three complex modulation sources), randomisation, and Combinators (another type of modulation source that combines two other modulation sources). Finally at the lower right are four Macro controls, and a button which enables MPE and displays some relevant options. The extensive preset library tells you everything you need to know about Pigments in general – excellent quality sounds, with depth and movement, more focused on blatantly being a synth rather than emulating real instruments, and many using the built-in
arturia pigments 3 / reviews <
“Pigments has always stood apart from Arturia’s more ‘traditional’ collection of vintage softsynths” arpeggiator and Sequencer, which are always good with Arturia. Beyond that, as we’ve reviewed Pigments before, let’s focus on what’s new in version 3, starting with the Utility Engine, which is a third sound engine in its own right – you can even turn off the first two, and use Utility on its own, dialling up two different noise forms, and adding the oscillator and filters. The noises are based on a range of samples including machine noises, digital tones, and natural sounds such as forests and rain. The oscillator presents a choice of waveforms, and each element, noise and oscillator has its own Filter, Mix and Volume controls (two filters are shared by all Engines). Being able to stack up three of these Engines leads to some profound sound design moments, the third Engine enhancing what’s already an excellent sounding synth. In the same way, a third Combinator takes modulation into wild new areas. As we said earlier, these are a way of building a modulation source from others, with assignable behaviours for each, so you might take LFO 1 and LFO 2 as sources, then choose how they’ll combine (difference, multiplication, and so on). Each Combinator can also use the other two Combinators as a modulation source. Four new audio effects have been added, in the form of a rather excellent pitch shift delay, a multiband compressor, the BL-20 flanger, and Jun-6 Chorus, derived from Arturia’s V Collection. We didn’t have an MPE-compatible controller available for this review, and it’s not a new addition to Pigments 3, but we just want to mention that we used Live 11’s new MPE envelopes features to control Pigments, and it worked very well, with some of Sensel’s free Pigments presets. Pigments 3 is up against many other big name synths, but really it’s not a competition in that sense; they all have their good points. A list of the usual names could include Serum, Massive, Iris 2, Hive 2, and Sylenth. And let’s not forget that most DAW software includes a great synth or two, examples being Ableton Live’s
Now that Ableton Live 11 includes MPE control, it can send those messages direct to Pigments 3, with or without a compatible hardware controller
Arturia’s Analog Lab
Analog vs digital As far as Arturia’s software synths go (they also have a range of hardware synths), they’re primarily about emulating vintage hardware products – anything from a Synclavier V, to a Moog Modular, to a Roland Jupiter 8. The Moog Modular V software instrument was designed in collaboration with Dr Bob Moog himself, and has been supported and maintained with the necessary updates since it was first released in 2003 – we’ve had it that long and still use it. Against that background, Pigments stands out as something unique and unashamedly modern, although Arturia have certainly benefited from the experience of working with the
Operator, Bitwig Studio’s Phase-4, and Logic Pro’s Alchemy. The truth is, we all end up with more synths than we know what to do with. Pigments has always stood apart from Arturia’s more ‘traditional’ collection of vintage softsynth instruments, and we mean that in the best possible way. This isn’t a situation where you choose one style or another, and for Arturia, we’d guess it’s a way of keeping users connected to them even when they want different, more modern, sounds – especially as bundle prices and discounts for current users are available. And why on earth not? Pigments isn’t a token gesture – it’s a fully functioning, potentially deep, synth in its own right. There’s no need to debate the value of upgrading, as it’s free for anybody who’s using Pigments 1 or 2 already. For those who aren’t using Pigments already, this could be a good time to jump onboard. This is a great-sounding synth that can go very complex in function while still being easy to use, with some fantastic presets, and the control layout is impressively clear and rewards experimentation. Sometimes we wish we could see more of the content contained in the various tabs at once, but that’s about it as criticisms go. Used as a plugin or standalone, Pigments 3 is a fine addition to any synth library. Web arturia.com
virtual classics. Unlike the more focused synth instruments of the past, synths like Pigments aim to cover as much ground as possible, with synthesis types including wavetable, virtual analogue, granular, and samplebased. Arturia are offering a discount price for current users of their Analog Lab, which is kind of a ‘greatest hits’ of their analogue-style offerings – with that, and Pigments, you’re pretty much covered for synths! Anyway, the point is that philosophically, Pigments is quite different from the analogue offerings, and it’s so comprehensive, we can’t imagine that Arturia could ever come up with a second original synth!
Alternatively XFer Serum 213 » 10/10 » $189 Ever-popular wavetable synth that includes sample loading and editing in the synth Izotope Iris 2 216 » 10/10 » $149 Iris 2 is primarily about samplebased synthesis, but also includes osc-generated synth waveforms
Verdict For An incredibly powerful modernsounding synth Upgrade greatly expands potential Pigments 3 includes four new effects Runs as a plugin or standalone Users can import samples/wavetables Against Too much to fit the display Almost too much factory content! A great synth and a bargain given the number of features and sound quality
9/10 July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 69
> reviews / leapwing audio al schmitt SOURCE TYPE Select between the six main profiles
MAIN GUI Displays an image of the current profile, with real-time volume display
PRESETS Flick between the preset options for the selected profile
INPUT GAIN Adjust level of the signal coming into the plugin
OUTPUT GAIN Adjust output level and allow for gain staging
AIR LEVEL Boosts or reduces the top end of the EQ based on Al’s specifics BODY LEVEL Boosts or reduces the sub 1kHz frequencies based on Al’s specifics
COMPRESSION Scroll between various compression ratios and thresholds
ECHO LEVEL Adjust the reverb level
AIR TYPE Switch between three types of Air adjustment
ECHO TYPE Choose between three echo chambers and hardware types
Leapwing Audio
Al Schmitt
£139
Bottling the sonic signature of the sadly departed producer, Leapwing Audio’s latest plugin promises the sound of a legend… Ever since the impressive DynOne made us re-think everything we knew about parallel compression, the Belgium-based Leapwing Audio have kept us well fed with a slew of instant-buys. From the algorithmic, spatial manoeuvring of CenterOne, to the clever, harmonic sculpting of RootOne, Leapwing have cemented themselves as key plugin players. With their latest sound tool, the company veer off from the ‘One’ series (to be honest, it was getting quite confusing) and deliver a series of carefully crafted sonic profiles under one roof, tailored to enhance specific instruments in a mix, as well as the entire mix bus. The source of these profiles, one Al Schmitt – legendary producer of Jefferson Airplane and Neil Young, and engineer for Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and Madonna, who sadly passed away as we went to press. Needless to say, Al’s studio processes helped shape some of humanity’s most beloved music. 70 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
So, having this genius’s twinkly aural magic sat on your hard drive, waiting to be applied to your own tracks, is an incredibly appealing prospect.
Take flight
In making this plugin, Leapwing studied Al’s workflow across the decades, carving the nuanced profiles from his favoured approaches,
“Having this genius’ twinkly aural magic sat on your hard drive, applied to your tracks, is an appealing prospect”
ranging from mix-wide considerations, to subtler harmonics per instrument. The six district profiles are Vocal, Piano, Bass, Brass, Strings and Mix, each of which have unique parameters. There are a handful of presets within each profile, though not multitudes (just 14 in total) as the emphasis here is on getting to the ‘instant Al’ sound quickly. Upon installing, and loading up the Vocal profile, we add an instance of Al on a dryly recorded vocal track. We’re presented with the gorgeous (and scaleable – tick!) UI. At the centre of which, we see an image of a small, old school vintage microphone. As we quickly skim through the profiles, we see the main image change to reflect what’s currently selected. Sticking with the Vocal profile in the first instance then, we try out the Edgy Vocal preset, which adds a heap of compression but lots of air to our track, immediately altering its attitude and tone. Flicking to the second of the three
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“The shining light in our tests was the Strings profile, which exceptionally spotlighted the detail of a piece” presets, 50s Vocal has a more restrictive quality, though the compression here is quite low. Dabbling with the parameters at the bottom of the UI, we can discern that the Body Level adds a low body boost or cut to our vocal, while switching between Air Level can increase our high-end sheen by 5, 8 or 16kHz. There’s also some very nice reverb here, dubbed Echo Level. The mystery of just what the three, traditionally sculpted, reverb profiles are is maintained by their cryptic labelling as A, B and C. Though we can confirm that all three are instantly characterful and mood-enhancing, particularly B in this case. As we route audio through the plugin, we see volume lines emanate from the central image, with yellow lines indicating volume level in real time, while the outer blue lines indicate any applied gain reduction, at half a dB per ring.
Schmitt it
Moving through the rest of the main profiles now, and we examine the effect it has on our low end. We strip a DI’d electric bass of all mix tweaks and just apply Al’s Bass profile. Straightaway, the bass part swells with oomph. The three scaleable parameters for Compression, Body Level and Air let us position it in our mix more comfortably. Switching to the ‘Subtle and Thick Bass’ preset however, just sorts out our bass tone with no fuss, sitting it well and adding a touch of weighty rumble. Nice. Similarly, the Piano profile wrenches some subtle piano forward, enhancing the per-note clarity. There are only two presets here – Pop and Jazz – both of which aren’t really genres we’re working in, but slight tinkering, particularly with the Echo Type, Level and Compression limit coats our track with added class. Exactly the same could be said of the Brass profile, which we sample on the upbeat horn section of one of our funkier experiments. The shining light in our tests though, was the Strings profile, which exceptionally spotlighted the detail of a piece composed using a
The profiles have been carefully tailored for each instrument, containing specific presets and parameters
Using Al on the mix bus can spruce up your sonics in preparation for mastering
Call me Al Leapwing spent many long painstaking months developing this plugin, forensically deconstructing Al’s studio alchemy via classic tracks, gear simulation, and of course, by asking the man himself. The reverbs – or ‘Echo’ as it’s dubbed here – in particular have been sculpted based on Al’s favoured room types. They can be wildly different per-instrument with each Echo containing three different switchable modes. The Echo terminology harks back to Al’s use of actual echo chambers back in the day,
well before the widespread uptake of electronic reverb. The reflections here then, are remarkably realistic. Bearing in mind that a similar amount of instrument-specific tuning has been applied to the other parameters per profile – particularly EQ – it’s pretty apparent that warm and vibrant sonic enhancement is rapidly achievable. Additionally, careful adjustment of the Input signal and Output signal provides an old-school way of providing some satisfying levels of gain.
combination of Spitfire’s BBC Orchestra and Native Instruments’ Session Strings. We’d previously overwrought an arrangement with additional layers of strings to emphasise a motif. Applying Al to our central violin track enhanced the tonal vibrance so much that we could mute the majority of the rest.
Alternatively
Instant class
Waves CLA Signature Series 158 » 8/10 » £85 Another sonic stamp by a renowned, albeit rockier producer, Chris Lord Alge
Finally, the Mix Bus profile lets you route the full mix through the plugin, with a helpful Sub Boost that ramps up the low frequencies, useful when prepping your mix for mastering. Upping the Air Boost can help to add breathing room to your higher end, while the three band compression is helpfully designed for taming transients. Throughout all our tests, we were impressed at the speed at which perceptible enhancement was reached. Benefit will of course vary depending on your genre (this isn’t really designed for electronic music) and, though there was some heavy taxing on our CPU at various points, the overall experience here was undeniably positive. If you’re after a speedy, efficient route to polish your productions, and are up for delegating some decision making to a bona fide studio icon, it’s a great buy. Web leapwingaudio.com
Toontrack Decades SDX 275 » 9/10 » €159/£140 This collection of Schmitt-produced drum kits is a great AI fix, covering jazz and big band to funk and AOR
Verdict For Instant, bottled Al Schmitt – add sparkle to your tracks with ease Tailored profiles per instrument Intuitive, scaleable interface Against Not a good fit for all genres Can take its toll on the CPU Leapwing’s first foray into the world of signature plugins is a triumph, and spreads some professional polish on our tracks
8/10
July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 71
> reviews / solid state logic uf8 LAYERS Configurations are arranged into layers, which can be switched here 360° Open and close the SSL 360° application directly from UF8
DISPLAYS Per-channel high resolution colour displays provide detailed visual feedback
CHANNEL NAVIGATION Quickly select send/ plugin slots, and step between pages of parameters
FLIP Swap the functionality of faders and rotary encoders
SOFT KEYS Assign functions to Soft Keys, with labels shown on displays
ROTARY ENCODERS Parameter name and value being controlled on display
SOFT KEY MODES One preset and five userdefinable banks of Soft Key assignments
FADERS 8x super-smooth 100mm touch sensitive motorised faders
Solid State Logic UF8 £1199
CHANNEL SELECTION Select which tracks are under fader control, per-channel or bank DAW NAVIGATION Zoom around with these buttons
DAW controllers let us take direct control over our projects – can SSL’s new UF8 bridge the gap between software and hardware? Solid State Logic’s large format consoles are found in most high-end mixing and post production facilities the world over, and they’re considered by many to be about the best that money can buy – although you should note that you’ll need an awful lot of the stuff if you want to buy one for your own studio! Those of us with more modest budgets tend to settle for recording and mixing in the box, and really, with modern computing power and circuit-modelled instruments and plugins, that’s not such a bad thing sonically. What it lacks, though, is the hands-on element, and while high resolution graphic user interfaces are all well and good, compared to working on a large format console, poking at faders and knobs one-at-a-time with your mouse is a bit like trying to paint your hallway through your letterbox! DAW controllers are a great way to bridge this gap, and with their new UF8, SSL are aiming to bring a slice of their peerless 72 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
expertise and enviable cachet to this particular area of studio technology. The UF8 is a mid-sized controller, with a similar footprint to a large laptop. This allows for a comfortable, uncluttered layout, with plenty of space given to each of the unit’s eight channel strips, which include 100mm touch-sensitive motorised faders, a continuous rotary controller,
“Poking at knobs with your mouse is a bit like trying to paint your hallway through your letterbox”
and a high resolution LCD display panel. At a height of less than 5cm, UF8 is surprisingly svelte too, and this slimness is enhanced by the top surface having no raised or angled sections. If you do want to angle the unit towards you, SSL have included a pair of clever stands that can be attached to the underside of the unit in a number of different configurations so that you can achieve the desired angle. Alternatively, an optional kit allows the UF8 to be secured in a rack, where it occupies 6u of space. The unit connects to the host computer via USB-2 served from a USB-C socket, and there’s also a secondary USB-A socket intended primarily for daisy-chaining additional UF8s (up to four can be connected to a single computer), but you can use this just like any other USB port on your computer. These USB sockets, along with the DC power inlet and two footswitch jacks, are located on a recessed section of the rear panel. This keeps the connectors nicely
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“The 100mm motorised faders are delectably smooth, not a jot of resistance or ‘trembling’” tucked away for neatness, and protects them from being knocked accidentally. Notable by its absence, though, is any form of power switch – there is a tradition that older SSL consoles are never switched off, but we don’t think such an approach is the best for a DAW controller! The Soft Keys function is a smart way of showing button mappings between DAWs
Push the button UF8 arranges the setup and functionality of all of its faders, knobs and buttons into “Layers”, with three layers available. The idea is that you configure each layer to work with a particular DAW – or indeed to work with the same DAW in three different ways – and you can then instantly switch between layers using the dedicated buttons on the UF8. Layers are configured using the SSL 360° software, which acts as the main hub for UF8, and deals with converting the hardware’s control signals into protocol- and DAW-specific messages. SSL 360° contains layer presets for all major DAWs, but these are highly customisable, especially with regards to the functionality of the Soft Keys (see boxout). Not all of UF8’s button functions are modifiable, of course – there’s plenty of standard fare that’s common across all controllers, such as zooming and navigating, selecting subpages of effect or synth settings, and of course controlling which DAW channels are being controlled by the UF8. This you can switch in banks of eight tracks or, by twirling the unit’s data entry dial, you can step forward and back by one track at a time. The names of the currently active tracks are shown in the LCD panels, and often that name will be truncated to fit the available space, which can get a bit tricky if you haven’t allowed for this in your track naming. Nonetheless, the label is large, clear and easy to read. The displays show other useful info too, such as the names and values of the parameters that are under the control of the rotary encoders at any time, the channel signal level, and the channel’s record enabled state. However, when focussing in on just one channel to edit EQ, plugin or instrument settings, for example, the
360° app is described as the “brain and command centre” of UF8
Soft Keys UF8 can communicate via both HUI (Human User Interface) and MCP (Mackie Control Protocol, aka MCU), and so can work with all major DAWs. On the HUI front, SSL has additional features that enhance the core abilities of the protocol, giving Pro Tools users a greater degree of control over channel sends and pans, and plugin parameters, than is available with a standard HUI controller. UF8 communicates with all other DAWs via MCP, but different DAWs implement the protocol in different ways. Typically, DAW controllers deal with this through the use of printed overlays that you place over the controller’s buttons, thereby
full track name is displayed across as many of the displays as it needs. This of course means that the names of the other tracks are hidden, but their level meters and record enabled markers remain on display. This combination of single-channel focus and multi-channel readout, all within one screen, is a bit confusing until you become accustomed to it. At heart, UF8 works like any other DAW controller, allowing you to navigate your session, perform basic editing operations within your DAW, and of course modifying mix, plugin and instrument parameters – it’s a fairly standard recipe these days. UF8 does, however, stand apart from much of the competition: it is more compact than most, yet manages to have a less cluttered control surface, all without sacrificing any functionality. The 100mm motorised faders are delectably smooth, with not a jot of resistance or “trembling” from the motors, and the displays are bright, clear and detailed. It’s positioned at the upper end of the DAW controller market so won’t suit all pockets, but UF8’s design and build quality render the circa £1k price tag very reasonable. And, let’s face it, it always feels a bit special to approach a bank of faders that carry the Solid State Logic badge. Web solidstatelogic.com
giving the buttons accurate labels for the DAW you’re using. SSL have sidestepped this issue entirely, though, thanks largely to the UF8’s “Soft Keys” feature: running along the top of the unit is a set of eight of these so-called Soft Keys, one above each channel. Each key’s function is displayed at the top of the channel’s LCD screen, which is located just below the Soft Key, and you can quickly switch between six different Soft Key mappings using the bank of buttons at the top-left of the controller. This allows UF8 to be much less cluttered with buttons, and for it to adapt effortlessly to whatever DAW you’re using.
Alternatively Icon Qcon Pro G2 Around £460 Functional and affordable, and can be expanded up to 32 channels with Qcon Ex expansion modules Mackie Control Universal Pro Around £1020 The brand who laid down the communication protocols used by most DAWs and DAW controllers
Verdict For Super-smooth 100mm motorised faders High definition displays on each channel Flexible and adaptable Soft Keys system Extends the standard HUI protocol Against No power switch? Mixed info on displays – confusing UF8 is a slick, attractive and highly useable DAW controller that exudes SSL’s legendary quality and attention to detail
9/10 July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 73
> reviews / waves vocal bender PITCH SHIFTER Change the fundamental frequency of your input vocal signal
PRESETS Choose from a range of varied and colourful presets
FORMANT SHIFTER Adjust the tone/characteristics of the input vocal signal without affecting notes
FLATTEN Forces the entire vocal signal to a pitch, specified from a drop down
MIX KNOB Defines the wetness or dryness of the plugin’s effect on the vocal signal
FINE Allows cent-based tuning of Pitch and Formant Shifters
MODULATORS Click to bring up the modulation windows where you can edit the LFO or Sequencer
ORGANIC MODULATORS Click to open up the Organic modulator windows where you can edit Amplitude or Pitch
LFO/SEQUENCER Alter the behaviour of a modulator by switching between LFO or Sequencer AMPLITUDE AND PITCH Use these to trigger plugin modulation based on input signal pitch or amplitude
MODULATION CONTROLS Increase Rate, Warp, Phase and Smoothness of the selected modulator
Waves
Vocal Bender
£110
This appealing vocal mangler lets you give music’s most essential instrument the colour and dexterity modern pop production demands It’s hard to know exactly where the trend for overtly pitch-shifted, processed vocals in modern pop first began. While vocoding had been commonplace in more outré fields for decades, and intermittently used in a somewhat gimmicky fashion on various big hits, particularly those concerned with technology (here’s looking at you, Trevor Horn) it arguably wasn’t until Cher’s 1998 dancefloor-filler Believe that on-the-nose auto-tune became the viable ingredient in the stew of modern pop production it is now. Since then, processed vocals have become commonplace across many genres, with the rise of EDM and its often cartoonish musical landscapes bleeding across the spectrum of pop. Vocals that – to varying degrees – modify in pitch and intensity, distort, stutter and loop can be found almost anywhere. It’s a state of affairs that plugin heavyweights Waves are 74 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
keenly aware of. Their solid form in this field is demonstrated by products such as the recent voice-controlled processing synth OVox and their classic (but still mightily useful) Tune. Waves now offer up speedy, real-time pitch shifting and instant access to some of the modern vocal producer’s tricks, all controlled via an intuitive UI.
Haven’t we met before?
The basic simplicity of the UI invites immediate experimentation, and reminds us in no small way of SoundToys’ excellent Little AlterBoy, with which it shares an identical dual-knobbed design. That being said, there is a significant amount of complex, and utterly unique, programming potential here. These two knobs, labelled Pitch and Formant, can be scaled up or down by 12 semitones (or, if selecting the ‘Fine’ view, by 1200 cents). Pitch in this context is
referring to the central tone of the human vocal, whereas Formant covers the resonant frequencies that shape the overall timbre of the vocal. If you’re a tad confused as to this subtle difference, a quick dabble on a pre-existing vocal track sonically illustrates that difference – and also how dramatically this simple tool allows us to totally transform our vocal sound. To the left of the Pitch control, the Flatten button allows us to force the input signal to snap to a predetermined note from C2 to B3 – and makes it affect an eerie monotone. Our tests prove that this is a really handy, speedy tool for building up augmented choruses and harmonies across multiple tracks. The resulting effect of building several carefully tuned, flattened vocals can easily conjure that slightly robotic Bon Iver-esque texture. There’s a simple Wet/Dry mix knob to the right of Formant too, while between both our
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“Once we reveal the modulation and automation options, vast creative scope presents itself” major knobs, a small link chain simply allows us to move both controls simultaneously while thoughtfully keeping any offset in play. This is particularly handy once we get into the more advanced controls.
You took the words right out of…
Though the main controls are simple to experiment with, and results can be crafted speedily, once we reveal the modulation and automation options, vast creative scope presents itself. The four sub-windows can be revealed by clicking on one of the four acronyms beneath the main window – this is easy to miss if you’ve not consulted the manual. Each of the four modulators can be neatly dragged to the Pitch, Formant or Mix knobs, to kick in once a certain threshold is met. Clicking on M1 or M2 opens up a sub-window where we can delicately build up unique LFOs, and Step Sequences, using both a Pen tool and the delicate carving of the Phase, Warp, Smoother and Level controls. The ‘Organic Modulators’ (AM and PT) use the input signal itself as the starting point of their modulations, AM (Amplitude) allows you to use the amplitude envelope of your vocal signal to dictate when other modulations come into play, while PT (Pitch) erases all pitch detection data from the vocal signal to make way for more detailed and individual pitch variations. A simple blue ring, along with a small indicator displaying the acronym of the modulation appears beneath one of the main knobs, once you’ve dragged and dropped. Dragging vertically over this modulation slot adjusts the modulation depth, illustrated by a small coloured arc inside the knob. This type of automation can be a superb way of introducing vocal effects (such as sudden pitch drops, or additional vocal support) that activate based on the volume of the input signal, so the intensity of your performance can be the triggering factor.
Mouthing off
While we’re only really scratching the surface of the range of possibilities presented by the
Presets can be a good starting point to pursue your own adventures in vocal effect creation
Round the bend Digging into the presets a little further reveals a diverse range of instant effects. There are some presets that can bolster a performance, like ‘Fake Vibrato’ which sneakily adds a realisticsounding vibrato to your vocal. It’s actually astonishing how our (admittedly sub-par) vocals can take on a studied polish by delicate application of this preset. Dad Support provides us with a very recognisable sound used by many to fatten up a vocal section with a low baritone. It reminds us of the numerous Stormzy tracks where this technique is frequently used. The more fun presets include Game Over which
plugin’s modulation controls, the aim of the game with Vocal Bender is really getting that professional-sounding vocal manipulation at speed. We’re happy to report then, that not only did Vocal Bender provide that within minutes, but that there was absolutely no processing lag. We can dramatically scale the pitch of our backing vocals on the fly during track playback, and experiment with modulating our vocal in order to get the right tonal qualities without any CPU slack. If you just want to jump straight in to emulate the tricks of the pros, then Waves have thankfully provided a wide range of impressive presets. These include those that add additional deep and high voices, vocal doubling, harmony effects and humorous ‘character’-types such as ‘Chipmunk’ and ‘Broken Bot’. See the boxout for more information on these. Vocal Bender is certainly one of the slickest vocal plugins we’ve experimented with. While those hankering for more expressive vocoding effects will find more appeal from Waves’ larger OVox vocal synthesiser. The (complementary) Vocal Bender is undoubtedly the best in class for quick-fire, modern pitch manipulation. Web waves.com
The basic UI of Vocal Bender has a simplicity that invites fun experimentation
add a cool arcade game effect, which could be used to add some sonic colour, while the demonic Dark Magician is – genuinely – absolutely terrifying, particularly when applied to a tender, close-mic’ed voice. It’s clear that some of these presets should only be applied to vocals at specific parts of a track, while others could subtly run throughout sections (Low Double Tracker is a nicely subtle enhancer). All of these presets could serve a purpose in your tracks, and can be used as jumping off points to explore the outer reaches of what Vocal Bender is capable of.
Alternatively Output Exhale 225 » 9/10 » £180 A vast ‘vocal engine’, similarly geared towards emulating modern pop vocal quirks. SoundToys Little AlterBoy £70 With a similar UI to Vocal Bender, this has been a staple of modern vocal production for a while.
Verdict For Incredible levels of manipulation Simple and accessible UI No latency or sync loss Against Make sure you update to Waves V12, as default UI size is tiny! More complexity available elsewhere Modulated vocals are going to be in vogue for a long time, and with this valuable tool, you’ve all you need to shape your own with no stress
9/10 July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 75
> reviews / cableguys driveshaper
Cableguys
DriveShaper
€39
Analogue-style distortion and creative wavefolding make this a pulsating box of gritty filth… which is far more pleasant than it sounds DriveShaper is the latest effect to be added to Cableguys’ modulation-focussed multieffect plugin ShaperBox 2. It arrived as a freebie for existing Cableguys users towards the end of last year, meaning all existing ShaperBox owners had it added to their collection without paying. For those that missed out, it’s now available for €39, which is still rather reasonable for such a feature-packed distortion. DriveShaper’s core setup is broadly in line with the rest of its ShaperBox stablemates. It’s UI is focussed around the familiar LFO shaper, which allows users to define a custom curve that, in this case, controls drive level. These custom waves can either be drawn in manually, using an assortment of tools and an editor grid, or selected from an array of handy preset shapes. As is standard ShaperBox fare, DriveShaper is multiband, allowing three distinct frequency bands to be freely defined via the spectrum view in the top left of the UI. Each band has its own effect controls and shaper curve, meaning users can set different modulation patterns and distortion styles for the high, mid and low parts of the spectrum. As well as being able to sync the rate of these custom LFOs, each also offers MIDI triggering and a one-shot mode, meaning they can act like envelope shapers as well as standard cycling LFOs. ShaperBox’s MIDI switching is here too – a fantastic performance feature that lets users store multiple waveshapes and switch between them on the fly using incoming MIDI notes.
There’s an envelope follower too, for dynamic, reactive distortion effects. DriveShaper itself comes with ten distortion algorithms. These cover analogue-style hard and soft Clipping, a pair of fuzzy, mid-boosting Square modes, hard and soft Rectify – which can boost high frequency content creating octave pedal-like effects – and four varieties of wavefolding. These modes each sound excellent even in the default settings, but they can be refined and enhanced further using the plugin’s Accent, Tone, Grip and Push parameters. Accent can adjust the volume of the distorted parts of the LFO wave, effectively controlling how much the drive is emphasised in the overall mix. Tone, meanwhile, adds a bi-directional low/ high-pass filter after the distortion to tailor the effect’s frequency qualities. Grip is probably the most interesting tool. This adjusts the degree by which low-level and ambient elements of the incoming audio are affected by the drive. For example, when applied to a reverberant loop, Grip can create an ambient squash of distorted reverb at one extremity or, at the other, completely remove the reverb tail by emphasising the transients and silencing the ambient release. Finally, Push – only available for the Rectify and Wavefolding modes – introduces a DC offset before the distortion creating a more dissonant, asymmetric effect. The DC offset is then filtered out before the output so as not to be present in the final mix.
What’s in the ’Box? DriveShaper is the seventh effect to join the ShaperBox 2 roster. It joins similarlydesigned tools for modulating stereo width, pan position, filtering, amplitude and audio playback speed. ShaperBox also features another distortion tool, in the form of CrushShaper, which is fairly similar to DriveShaper in its application but instead deals exclusively with digital lo-fi/bit reduction effects. 76 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
While we’re not trying to force an upsell here, ShaperBox is clearly at its best when combining two or more of its effect modules. Applying, for example, rhythmic filtering before the distortion effect or creative stereo tricks after it, is a whole lot of fun. ShaperBox lets users combine effect configurations into custom presets too, and has a cloud-based library where users can find both official and user-generated presets.
As with CrushShaper before it, DriveShaper really suits the modulated, multiband setup of ShaperBox. The ability to precisely sequence and target the distortion opens up lots of creative possibilities, from adding weight and presence to individual elements in a sampled drum loop to introducing rhythmic movement to a static pad sound. The Accent and Grip parameters make DriveShaper a solid alternative to standard transient shapers too; it sounds great for adding a gritty touch of attack emphasis to drum hits or boosting the release of weak-sounding one-shots. A real must-try. Web cableguys.com
Alternatively Output Thermal 288 » 8/10 » £134 Costs way more, but contains its own complex multi-effect options FabFilter Saturn 2 179 » 10/10 » £114 A modern distortion classic, Saturn is pricier, but you get more distortion flavours for your money
Verdict For Distortion effects suit ShaperBox’s modulation-centric workflow Grip and Accent parameters work great for transient shaping MIDI triggering and switching are great for performance Against Has fewer distortion modes than some other dedicated plugins Another stellar addition to the excellent ShaperBox, offering a whole lot of creative potential for a reasonable price
9 /10
mini reviews / reviews <
mini reviews Orchestral Tools
IK Multimedia
Umbra
iRig Pre 2
€79
€49.99
Web orchestraltools.com Gear Creative Soundpack
Web ikmultimedia.com Gear Phone mic interface
Best known for exceptional orchestral libraries – the clue is in the name – OT branched out into more diverse, yet cheaper themed collections last year. Umbra is the latest of these ‘Creative Soundpacks’. It runs within OT’s free SINE Player, like Kontakt. Subtitled ‘Shamanic ritual ensemble’ it contains all of the instruments within such a ceremony, eight in total, with up to 10 articulations and two mic positions. With vocals also an important part of the Shamanic ceremony, OT have also included a bass voice with what they describe as “arcane mutterings, and humming that morphs through multiple vowels”. Eight instruments might not sound many, but there really is enough to cover the entire range here, with the bass voice, and percussion providing a very solid bass and base. Don’t expect all panpipe niceties; this can be more dark and ethereal and is all the better for that. And obviously it’s not just for Shamanic ritual music; we just wish we had an Umbra back in the early 90s – we’d have been psytrance megastars… n8/10n
IK’s ‘iRig’ range is so huge now it has become bewildering. Just the interface part alone delivers 11 models! Frankly we didn’t realise there were so many different situations where you’d need to interface one product to another, but there must be, as many have now hit v2. With iRig Pre 2, that ‘situation’ is simple: it’s about plugging a decent mic into a mobile phone or DSLR as the mic that comes with said device won’t win too many awards alone. We’re talking podcasters, videographers, even mobile musicians, but those journalists who shove iPhones into MPs’ faces might benefit most. A decent mic that plugs directly into a phone might be a simpler solution – having three devices in a chain seems clumsy for mobile recording – but of course IK have plenty of those anyway; this just gives you an extra bit of headphone flexibility, and the 48+ phantom power means that any condenser mic can plug in so you can use your favourite mic anywhere. Extra flexibility, then, for not that much cash. n8/10n
PreSonus
Marshall
Revelator
£133
Major IV
£139
Web presonus.com Gear USB mic with StudioLive processing
Web marshallheadphones.com Gear Wireless headphones
This section is fast turning into the podcast accessories area of Computer Music, so important have these become, especially over the last year, for obvious reasons. Here we have something a little different in the form of a USB mic with voice processing built in by way of PreSonus’ StudioLive tech. The thinking is that you can step through eight presets to home in on a sound that works best for whatever use you’re putting the mic to, or just go wild. These include Broadcast, Female Vocal, Space Overlord, Screamer, Slap Echo, Android and AM Radio, so some are more useful than others! The mic comes with Universal Control software that lets you set it up with additional effects to customise sounds. It also features a monitor control and preset buttons to step through those eight, and all of this can be done – plus a lot more – from UC. The mic itself feels great and the stand makes it a solid desktop solution. With three polar patterns on offer plus a good bundle of software, this really is a great buy. n9/10n
We all need good headphones. They’re great as a second pair of monitors to go alongside your main set, or if you’re challenged acoustically, can make decent monitors on their own. To most of our readers, Marshall might be better known for their amps but they’ve been in the headphone game for a while, these being their wireless options – so it comes with our usual latency caveat – and Marshall claim 80 hours of battery life which eclipses pretty much everything else out there. Top marks there. They have a retro look – rather rock-like, obviously – and a collapsible design, and they can also be charged wirelessly or with a USB-C cable, which is a plus. They also feel pretty comfy, not particularly well insulated noise wise, but this needn’t be too much of a problem. In terms of accuracy versus sound, we really want the former as producers. These are quite bass-forward, perhaps not surprising given their heritage, but that’s not so good for accurate mixing. You’ll like the sound, though – and the battery life is great – but for detail and accuracy, you’ll need to go back to your main monitors. n7/10n July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 77
> reviews / mini reviews
Soundware round-up Amon Tobin
Two Fingers Sample Pack $40+ And, as luck would have it, those delightful digits belong to none other than electronic music legend, Amon Tobin. For his latest pack he arms us all with an expansive sample library that has his famed and foley-funky handiwork all over it. Big, bad, and heavy sound designs, from the off, then. As vintage gear sources get combined with esoteric DSP processing, each result opens up your senses and delights your ears in equal measure. The phased Reese-style sub basses alone get a thumbs-up from us.
gumroad.com n9/10n
Sample Tools by Cr2
Eats Everything £34.99
Audiotent
Kiji Standard Edition £27. MIDI: £17. Deluxe: £37
The dance music don with the voracious appetite for banging tracks serves up a real plateful for this Artist Series selection. From juicy basslines to sizzling synths, these 200+ samples bubble away with his signature flavours. The drums pack a punch too, with loops and individual sounds offering up a bouillabaisse of beats for you to get your teeth into. Besides those beefy bits, you get your greasy mitts on some serious songstarter kits, giving you that rare chance to see just how this masterchef cooks up his mouthwatering music. Yum!
sampletoolsbycr2.com n9/10n
Osaka Sound
Always a treat to have another classy bit Study Session Lofi Beats $9.90 If your YouTube account’s inner algorithms know one of kit plundered for its bespoke bleeps. thing, it’s that it’s always a good time to suggest checking out a playlist of “lo-fi hip-hop chill beats to For this round, the Audiotent pitchers study/relax to”. Well, now you can go one step further, and make your own. Yes, that particular brand of latehave built you a lovely little library night, boom-bap can be found, dismantled here, and ready for you to resemble at your will. Get into deep concentration as you lose yourself in a world of captured from the circuitry of the Black soothing grooves, steady drums, and enticing vocals. Just don’t go operating any heavy machinery Corporation’s Kijimi synth – a soughtimmediately afterwards. waproduction.com after 8-voice polysynth with huge n8/10n sounds just pouring out. And, as a bonus, the dry content they offer is Niksu One Shot Suite £15 doubled, as world-class FX chains have There are no small sounds, just small producers. So, been shackled to the loops for wet make a beat from a single hit. A track from a chord. Or a full song out of one-shot samples. This fully variants, giving even more value. And, if loaded pack of pint-sized power punches will have your creativity tested, as you get busy with the clicks, claps, hats, stabs, stings, and bass you’re rich to the tune of an extra tenner, individual notes inside. And with 700+ to rifle through, you’ll be mixing and matching up a storm in no time. Say it pick up the Deluxe version. with me: “Loops are for cowards!” (Oh, wait. There’s audiotent.com n
9/1
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52 bonus loops in here, too… cowards!).
samplemarket.co.uk n8/10n
mini reviews / reviews <
Zero-G
Zenhiser
Mobeus £40.75
Pilot – Techno $60
Pro noise maker, Si Begg, has put together a doozy of a “soundscape generator”, culled from his own personal library. This loop-based, three-channel sampler player for Kontakt lets you invent, tweak, and flummox a myriad of musical patterns, throbbing pulses, and rhythmical textures. Evocative categories you can lose yourself in range from “Abstract” to “Darkside”, and each have a staggering opportunity for wild manipulation. It’s easy to use, too, so you’ll be whipping up cinematic atmospheres like a pro movie trailer maker before you know it.
A whopping 5GB of heart-pounding samples, straight from the platinum production house itself. From songstarting kits, to serious stems and hits, you’ve got enough driving drums, rushing riffs, and propelling pad sounds to get you where you need to be going, or start your journey there. Inspired by the bold directions taken by the likes of Adam Beyer and his fellow cosmic techno travellers, this collection of sounds will help you take your music out of this world. Or, at the very least, give you the keys to the rocket. You just buckle up, and brace for impact.
timespace.com n9/10n
zenhiser.com n9/10n
Bingoshakerz
Singomakers
Trap & Hip-Hop Trax 2 $19.95
Slap House Hitmaker £29.95
Dem Bingo boyz’ search for the perfect skitty hats, knocking drums, and subbed out bottom end continues. And, as before, they are more than happy to share their findings with the class. This time we get plenty o’ those vital elements, and a blissed-out mix of next-lev stereo wide pads, dreamy grooves, and mournful melodies, to add to the pot. Delivered over ten song kits and bits, you get arrangements to inspire, and all the raw ingredients to make sure your next brappy, clappy, trippy, trappy track, sounds as dope as theirs.
We love a sample pack with bold claims embedded right there in the title. Why not? It’s a crowded market, you gotta shout. But, do the claims stand up? A resounding, yes. The big room, divalicious drops, pops, drums, and bass string strums, all reek of crossover potential. And, as these grooves and moves are heavily inspired by chart climbers like the rosey Imanbek and goosebump-inducing HVME, everything already has a foot in the door. The 1.12GB of polished and groomed release of loops and licks should come with a star for your dressing room door.
bingoshakerz.com n8/10n
loopmasters.com n8/10n
Bingoshakerz
ZTEKNO
Power House Sessions 2 $19.95
Ethnic Techno £11.97
More super-fresh construction kits to be pulled from a Bingo haul, and this time it’s back on that pumping, thumping, get-the-crowd-jumping, house music tip! This future-forward collection covers all the components needed to bash out a bassy banger in the time it takes to microwave last night’s takeaway – whompy wobbles, mangled vox, and hair-raising leads, all jump out first. With backroom boys like the FX and percussion, ready and willing to glue the rest together. It’s drag ’n’ drop time, people. Get among it.
Sheri Marshel – a singing sensation with Greek/ Bulgarian roots – gets another ZTEKNO sample set for her exquisite non-English vocals to soar over. She’s the heart of this 2.62GB collection, with her plaintive, passionate, piercing lyrical range cutting through the bulk of the solid techno loops that help bolster this pack out. It’s a million miles away from, “Reach for the sky!” type vocal diva business, and better for it. (Although, she could be saying that. We’ve not bothered to read the lyric text files that come with this release… yet.)
bingoshakerz.com n8/10n
loopmasters.com n8/10n
ModeAudio
Renegade Audio
Luminous £12.60
Retro Funk Vocals £14.97
180 string sample textures. Eight bars a piece. Keylabeled. At 120bpm – that’s the facts. The feeling is more like dawn breaking over the distant ocean horizon, as last night’s triumphs settle in your memory, and the feel of the warm sun spreads its glow over your face. That’s this pack, son! Each mesmerising swell, rich in harmony and orchestral majesty, soundtracks an endless loop of time lapse images in your mind. God knows what it would do to a crowd at a festival, at 6:45am, three days in. Completely sublime.
A superfly selection of super fine and funky vocals. Fit for flipping in beats, over breaks, or anything groovy and in the pocket that needs some sweet female attitude. And this monster crate of loops and song kits clocks in at a devastating 6.69GB, giving you enough riffs, hooks, choruses, and adlibs, to keep you in honeyed tones for an epoch or two. The vibe is sweet 70s, throughout, and the singer a seasoned pro. With all her pipework getting pulled through a throwback FX chain that would have Patrice Rushen gushing. Preach!
modeaudio.com n8/10n
loopmasters.com n8/10n July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 79
>
the 6 best
the 6 best … Bundles! When companies bundle stuff together, it usually means big savings. Here are six of the best bargain bundles…
Accusonus ERA 5 Bundle Pro
Arturia V Collection 8 €599 10/10 cm292 Bundles don’t come much bigger or more focussed than V Collection. This beauty contains pretty much every classic keyboard imaginable and is a must for anyone into classic synths. We concluded: “it’s not the cheapest bundle and can certainly be a bit daunting, but the latest incarnation of this classic package offers so much it’s impossible to ignore. As a vintage instruments bundle with a modern twist, V Collection is hard to beat.” arturia.com 80 / COMPUTER MUSIC July 2021
$39/month or $999 9/10 cm291
This set is for restoring compromised audio but goes further, with great creative inclusions in the 13 plugin collection. “An excellent toolkit of easy processors that is great for music, dialogue and beyond.” accusonus.com
Tom Wolfe Premier Collection £240 9/10 cm295 How about a bundle of presets? This delivers 1600 sounds for Spectrasonics Omnisphere, Arturia Pigments and u-he Zebra 2. “Huge abundance of usable content, inspiring from the get-go.” tomwolfe.co.uk
the 6 best <
Native Instruments Komplete 13 Ultimate £1349 9/10 cm291 The clue is in the name – this really is the ultimate bundle, with everything Native Instruments has on offer. Way more than you’ll ever need but also a massive bargain, all things considered. Clear our hard drives, we’re going in. “Perhaps a pick ‘n’ mix buying approach might be appropriate now, such is its size, but really, there is no better suite and probably never will be. It’s the ultimate production tool.” native-instruments.com
IK Multimedia SampleTank MAX €600 9/10 cm269 Not so much a bundle, more whatever IK could wedge into one title, and what a great job they’ve done. 8000+ instruments, 120,000 samples, 7500 loops, 4000-odd MIDI patterns. “A new level of refinement and versatility with a cavernous soundbank.” ikmultimedia.com
Audient EVO Start Recording £199
9/10 cm294
Finally, how about a software and hardware bundle, with everything you need to get up and running for recording vocals and instruments, including headphones, microphone and the fabulous EVO 4 interface. “With light versions of Cubase plus Waldorf and G-Force instruments thrown in, this bundle really is all you need for starting out – just add a decent magazine!” audient.com July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 81
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TONE2 FILTERBANK3
How to claim and use this month’s amazing free filter/synth
DUB & BASS
MUTATED BASS INGLORIOUS BASS
free samples
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BASS SPECIAL! NEW & CLASSIC PACKS! We have some exceptional low-end samples for you this month
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An in-depth guide to all of the plugins in our Plugin Suite can be found as a PDF at filesilo.co.uk
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> free software / tone2 filterbank3
DOWNLOAD
> Free software
Get this great plugin for your PC/Mac at filesilo.co.uk/computermusic
TONE2 FILTERBANK3
Is it a filter? Is it a synth? Find out about our free software now with our hands-on, step-by-step tutorial! (Hint: it’s actually both!) We have a cracking free plugin this issue from German developers Tone2, who also produce some wonderful synths in the form of Gladiator and Warlock (which we review next issue). While this freebie is available as either a 32- or 64-bit plugin for the PC, it is currently only 32-bit for Mac users. But don’t worry 64-bit Mac fans, as later in the tutorial, we show you how you can use a piece of bridging software to run it. This does come with caveats though, as not all bridging apps run with all DAWs. We’ve used some which
worked in our tests but you may have to Google one that runs 32-bit plugins in your particular 64-bit host. Onto the plugin, and FilterBank3 can’t really make up its mind whether it is a synth or a filter; the truth is it’s a bit of both which makes it quite a beast in our book, and one capable of creating some amazing sounds. It is also pretty easy to use, with a lovely modular design – something that Tone2 pride themselves on – and everything is laid out and invites you in to experiment. And that is what
FILTERS Not surprisingly, FilterBank comes packed with two fully independent stereo-filters
we recommend: FilterBank3 can be tweaked, pushed and abused, all in real time and locked to your DAW tempo, so you should never get anything that sounds too out of the ordinary… unless you want it to that is. That said, our tutorial will show you the ropes if you want some background before you dive in. As ever we’d thoroughly recommend checking out Tone2’s other plugins (head to tone2.com), and you can get a further insight into their development with our interview with Tone2’s Markus Krause on p8. Enjoy!
LOOK AT ME A real-time frequency display gives you some visual feedback
TYPES The plugin comes with 58 different filter types including Moog, Resonator and Formant
REVERB/DELAY FilterBank3 comes with 20 different stereo reverb and delay types
OSCILLATORS Two to choose from and 15 different types including classic virtual analogue STEP UP! A built-in step sequencer to create rhythmic sequences
TWEAK IN TIME All parameters can be tweaked in real-time and it locks to your DAW bpm
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DISTORTION A saturation module can add one of several distortions and lo-fi effects like tube amp and bit crush
MANAGE YOUR 320 PRESETS Select, copy, paste, load and save here
MODULAR DESIGN Everything is logically laid out on the UI, with a semimodular design
EXTRA TWEAKS Even parameters like room size can be changed in real-time, resulting in some crazy effects
tone2 filterbank3 / free software < > Step by step
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1. Getting started
To get your own copy of Tone2 FilterBank3 you need to register an account and log in at www.filesilo.co.uk/ computermusic. If you don’t already have an account, hit the Register button.
No simply hit the ‘Unlock Content’ icon to download the instructions. It shouldn’t take long as it is a simple text file. Open it!
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Head to this issue (296) and click on it. You will get a question related to the issue (it will be quite easy!). Simply enter your answer, making sure you put the correct casing on the letters.
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In this document, there are a couple of links to both the 32/64-bit versions of FilterBank3 and the 32-bit Mac version. (Yes the links are blacked out like some kind of CIA UFO document, but blame the software pirates, OK?)
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You should have now unlocked the content for this issue (296). Scroll down to the software section of the content, download and open the file, ‘Free Tone2 plugin instructions’. You will see the screen above.
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Click on your chosen version. For 64-bit Mac use, see our later tutorial. This will download the installers direct for each platform. You should get a .zip (PC) or .dmg (Mac download (as shown).
POWER TIP
> Real time
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No serial numbers needed, now you can simply install your plugin and you’re on your way!
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The plugin should be installed in all 32and 64-bit PC DAWs or older 32-bit Mac DAWs. For later 64-bit Mac usage, please follow the tutorials on the last page of this workshop. Now, load it as an instrument on your chosen channel as usual and turn the page for more advice on getting the best from it.
As you will see, some of FilterBank’s most creative results come from tweaking the sound in real time. We found the best way to do this is to loop a section and either tweak with a mouse, or if you are lucky enough to have a controller, assign several of its controls to filter and oscillator parameters, although the effect parameters are pretty dramatic too. OK, just fill your boots, there’s a lot to tweak!
July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 85
> free software / tone2 filterbank3 > Step by step 2. FilterBank3 Effect
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Our free giveaway this month is FilterBank3 from synth giants Tone2. It’s pre-authorised so all you have to do is install it and start creating. The plugin is a 32-bit and 64-bit VST for PC and a 32-bit only VST/AU for Mac. Check out our final page for advice on running 32-bit plugins in 64-bit applications.
The filter display shows a single highpass filter being modulated by the first oscillator. Try adjusting the Cut off (f), Resonance (Q) and Modulation amount (Send +/-). The filter type is HP Fat, but you have almost 60 other filter styles to choose from. Spin through some of these from the dropdown (Type) menu.
FilterBank3’s effects include delay and distortion. For the latter, try the Bitcrush and Cubic for edgy sounds and Tube Amp for something subtle. We can also use the many filter shapes to create static and modulated effects. Options include Phaser, Comb filters, a rather nice Resample and delay-based reverbs.
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FilterBank3 is no ordinary filter plugin. It combines two separate resonant multimode filters with two syncable LFOs, an assignable envelope follower, effects (distortion and delay) and step sequencer. In addition to the main effects plugin you also get an instrument version which uses the LFOs as sound-generating oscillators and we’ll look at that on the next page.
FilterBank3 has two filters and you can select a filter type for the second filter from its dropdown menu. However, with two filters in play you also need to consider the routing options. We’ve made our second filter a low-pass (LP Silk) and combined the filters (Filter 1 + 2). Other options include assigning them to left and right channels.
For slightly different parameter control you can use the Step Sequencer. From the destination dropdown choose a target parameter. We’ve chosen both filter cutoffs. Then select an amount using the Send control. Set the sequence speed with the Sync option and then click the required steps.
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Let’s start by loading up the effects plugin as an insert. If you like building your effects from scratch, select the Reset option. Alternatively load up a preset – there are more than 150 to choose from. We’ve loaded up a basic FIL Highpass across our beats loop.
Returning to the LFOs, here we can select Shape and Target. We’ve assigned one LFO to control the cutoff for both filters (f Filter 1 & 2). There are 15 LFO shapes to choose from – we’ve chosen Saw Up. Finally, use the Sync dropdown to select tempo-synced options, or select Sync ‘none’ and use the f control for the LFO rate.
With so many parameters, FilterBank 3 can deliver some crazy effects. We absolutely recommend you take a look through the many presets, where you’ll find cool delays (ECHO Formants) and stereo effects (EFF Panning), alongside some great creative sounds (EFF VOICE Witch and FX Modulator Vocode).
tone2 filterbank3 / free software < > Step by step 3. FilterBank3 Synth
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Now let’s use FilterBank3’s synth plugin. To get started, load this up on an instrument track and choose a preset. FilterBank 3 has more than 150 categorised instrument presets with oscillators assigned for sound generation. We’ve selected a very basic preset – the SYN Inside.
From here we can spin through the various oscillator shapes to see how they sound. In addition to typical synth oscillator shapes (Saw, Square and so on) we have a few more basic waveforms and some more complex ones (Layer, String, Organ and so on).
The step sequencer is excellent for adding more movement. Here we’ve selected the Destination as Panning with the Softest onset shape and Sync on 1. Then we’ve created our pattern by selecting the desired steps. The overall panning effect can then be finessed by using the Send control.
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The first thing to note on our preset is how the oscillator (Osc 1) is routed to Input L&R and how Sync is set to ‘none’. These are the settings we need when using the plugin as a synth. With independent oscillator destinations, it’s also possible to use both oscillators for sound generation or keep one for modulation duties.
To create more complex sounds, try combining two oscillators. We’ve used Strings and Square. We can also use the oscillator Frequency (f) to set pitch offsets. We’ve created a decent fifth offset with frequencies for Osc 1 and Osc 2 set to 0.50 and 0.75 respectively. Finally, balance the oscillator levels using the Send knobs.
Finally, we can finish our patch with some effects. First up, add some subtle grit with the Tube Amp setting in the Distortion section. And then finish up with some Delay. We’ve set the mode to Left-Right and tempo sync to BPMx2. Now select the Save button at the bottom to create a new user preset.
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The instrument plugin has the same 15 oscillators as the effects plugin, though they now respond to MIDI pitch. Our simple preset is using one oscillator (Sin). The other oscillator has no selected destination and the filters are bypassed. Some subtle modulation is being added by the Step Sequencer.
Next up, add a filter. We’ve selected LP Fat 7 and set the Cutoff to about half and the Resonance to about a third. We can also assign the Envelope to add some movement to this. So our Envelope destination is Filter One Cutoff (f Filter 1) and we’ve adjusted the Send and Time amounts to taste.
Like the insert effect, FilterBank synth has some awesome and whacky presets. We like the handy stock effects (ATM Storm and FX Noisedown) but there are also some great sequence sounds (SEQ Groove Dwarf and SEQ Electro 3) and more out-there effects (SEQ Computervoice and SEQ Thri0).
July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 87
> free software / tone2 filterbank3 > Step by step 4. Bridging 32-bit and 64-bit plugins
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If you really need to use an old 32-bit plugin you could run an old version of your DAW. On Mac OS X Cubase, up to v8.5 can be run in 32-bit or 64-bit mode. However, if you need to use the latest 64-bit DAWs, you’ll need another workaround. We’ll look at OS X shortly but first, Windows and some general advice to run 32-bit plugins on a 64-bit DAW.
Once installed, you’ll need to run the jBridger tool from the Start menu. This asks you which sort of host you’ll be using. We’ve chosen 64-bit. The next window then has some options. Unless you know what you’re doing, it’s best to simply select all the recommended options. Finally, click the recommended ‘create files’ option.
On Mac OS X, the introduction of 10.15 Catalina had a negative impact on 32-bit compatibility. For OS X 10.15 or later there’s no reliable solution we can recommend to use 32-bit plugins in 64-bit software. However, if you’re on OS X 10.14 Mojave or earlier then you’re in luck. Here are two options.
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On Windows some DAWs include their own 32-bit bridge. This may work fine for their own plugins but third party plugins are more unpredictable. Here, we are going to show you how to use an application called jBridge, which you can find at jstuff.wordpress.com/jbridge/. It costs €15.
Next up, you have to specify the VST folders or files you want to scan. For testing purposes we have simply selected the 32-bit versions of FilterBank3. Then you need to create a destination folder. Note that this can’t be the same as the original folder selected above.
32 Lives from Sound Radix ($99) is a Mac-only VST and Audio Units adapter that lets you run 32-bit versions of these plugins in 64-bit applications. It has a slick interface and is easy to use. That said, it’s not cheap and will probably never be updated for 10.15 or later.
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To get started, download and run the installer. If you want to give it a try before you buy, there is a demo version as well. This limits saving and loading and goes silent after 20 minutes, but at least you can see if it works on your system or provides the functionality you’re after.
The final stage is to make sure your DAW can find the bridged files. Either direct your DAW VSTplugin directory to the new folder created above, or simply copy the bridged files to your regular directory. Now launch your DAW and you should have your jBridge 32-bit plugin working inside your 64-bit application.
jBridgeM is €10 and runs on Intel Mac 10.6 to 10.14 versions. It is a VST 2.4 only application that allows you to bridge in both directions, so 64-bit plugins can be run in 32-bit applications and vice versa.
> your free samples / all-new samples
New bass samples Your two new sample packs this month come by dropping the bass… through all types of effects. Get them on the DVD or download direct at filesilo.co.uk
MUTATED BASS INGLORIOUS BASS Mutated Bass
Inglorious Bass
After last month’s warped keys, we’ve set our pro sample providers the task of mutating their bass ends. Here’s what Robbie from Cyclick Samples has to say on his new pack…
Oli Bell from Groove Criminals reveals the processing behind his filthy low-end collection…
“This collection was created with two basses, a heap of pedals and absolutely no intention of making clean bass tones. “The Epiphone Ripper is a modern remake of the 70s big body classic and features a P-bass style neck pickup and a Jazz-style bridge pickup. For most of these samples the neck pickup was used. “Where the Ripper focuses on the mids, the 1977 Musicman Stingray has loud and proud bass and treble, though I have the controls rolled to midway. “The chain they were recorded through started with a Boss EQ and Korg compressor and ended with a Mutron III and Eventide Modfactor. What happened in between changed with each set. Once I had gnarly or mutant tones, the 70s bass lines were run through four virtual bass amps from UAD and Amplitube 5. “Despite the heavy, effected tones the basslines are musically useful, as opposed to fiddly squealings or rumbles. Some are whole, heading into P-Funk territory, and for that I blame the Musitronics Mutron III…”
90 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
“We have moved away from the more traditional synth bass sounds and concentrated on a more warped vibe. Loops are split between software and hardware, with software loops from either Alchemy, Massive or both. We used more unusual effects like phase shifting, ring modulators, modulated reverb and delay rather than rely on just tweaking filters. We also used Heinbach/Audiothing Wires to layer on some lo-fi grit. “For hardware we used the wonderful Arturia Microfreak for some modulated sounds and the non-acid side of the Roland TB-3 (its touch screen envelope feature). The Korg Volca kick provided solid low end, processed through the (wonderfully) unpredictable synthy fuzz of the Guitar Disruptor and Robodog. We also threw some kick samples through the fab Boss SYB-5 synth bass pedal, a trick of ours on sounds that are not traditionally tuned to any scale. The drones were provided by the minimal but full-sounding MSG2 drone synth with some live knob twiddling.” SELECTED GEAR USED
OTHER GEAR USED
Musicman Stingray (1977) and Epiphone Ripper basses
Arturia Beatstep Pro
Musitronics, Moog, Sandpit, TC Electronic, Electro Harmonix, Boss, Eventide, Fendre, Boss, Dr No, Korg and Vox pedals
Moffenzeef MSG2 AC noises AMA Bluffchill Devices Robodog Electro Faustus Guitar Disruptor
Little Labs Redeye Reamp/DI, Focusrite ISA828 preamps, and Antelope Audio Orion 32 AD/DA interface
Red Panda Labs Particle
Steinberg Nuendo, UAD and IK Multimedia 5 software
Various delays, reverbs, ring mods and phase shifters
Audiothing Motor Sonic Charge Permut 8
from the FROM THE
vault / your free samples <
VAULT
Classic Dub & Bass We’ve gone far back with the mighty Vault this month as we dig deep for some dub and almost as deep for even more bass mayhem… Crikey, we’re going far back in time this month to issue 124, April 2008, where we gave away a huge selection of dub bass samples. What better, we thought, than to present them to you alongside our all-new mutated bass sounds. So here’s what our samplists said, or at least one of them (back then we didn’t let Oli speak…) Robbie from Cyclick Samples said: “The tempo has been slowed down and with a shout of ‘Jah’, subby bass and the emphasised third beat has been laid down for a dub collection of samples. “Taking the golden period of the early to mid 70s (King Tubby and Lee Perry in particular) as inspiration, four construction kits and eight multisampled instruments have been created. The loop kits feature beats, drum hits, guitars, organs, pianos, a
monosynth (a la Lee Perry’s Double Seven) and lots of percussion. “Everything has been given a big dose of spring reverb and tape delay to create that dub sound. The tempos for the kits are around the 130bpm area, though the half-time emphasis of dub means the pulse is really half that. “The looped samples are cut to whole-bar lengths, but many have a few extra bars left on the end to allow for reverb and delay decays to roll out. “The multisampled instruments have been made with four notes per octave at tone-and-a-half intervals. Each loop kit also has a folder of ‘dub outs’, which are dubstyle cut-ups of the construction kit instruments with the obligatory delay/reverb swamping.” For another bonus bass set, we’re going back to issue 171, Nov 2011.
For Cyclick’s: “These were made using an Epiphone Ripper and early issue Stingrays, recorded through a Focusrite ISA828 mic preamp and given a gentle squeeze by the ART ProVLA optical compressor. The multis were made using Kurzweil, Jen and BassStation synths, as well as a variety of softsynths, all recorded through outboard units and pedals so that as much processing as possible was applied in the analogue domain.” For Groove’s: “We used a variety of gear to create these, unearthing a 360 Systems pro MIDI bass module from the late 80s. Low-end synth effects were created with simple tone generators like the Korg Monotron and Bugbrand Weevil, run through multiple effects.” All these samples are in the Free Samples folder on the DVD or at filesilo.co.uk under issue 296.
DUB & BASS
INCLUDES… 4 Loopkit folders 2700+ Samples 72 Soundfont sets PLUS Bass Blitz, Low End FX, Multi and more bass folders Drum, guitar organ, rolls and stab dub folders
SELECTED GEAR USED Musicman Stingray basses (1977 and ‘79) Fender Stratocaster (early 70s hardtail) Fender Stratocaster (90s with trem arm) Ibanez E335 copy Very knackered Gibson SG bass copy Synthetone SX-1000 Jen monosynth Kurzweil K2600r Mutron III+ envelope filter Electro-Harmonix Poly Phase Focusrite ISA828 8-channel preamp Focusrite LiquidMix Homemade Gyraf G9 dual valve mic preamp
Actual photos from those early magazines, taken in the editor’s garden (yes he bought them all off eBay, bless…)
July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 91
> your free samples / loopmasters
Loopmasters 01 02 03 04
LM Egoless - Experiments In Dub RV Lo-Fi Deep House LM VIBES 15 - Ska & Rocksteady Vol 2 Tone Kitchen Neo Soul & RnB Keys
92 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
296 samples 05 06 07 08
LM Brame & Hamo: Rave House Techno Sample Diggers Reel to Reel Hip Hop LM Creatures - Deep & Dark DnB Loopmasters Pastel - Modern Bossa
> 15 questions with / morcheeba
15 questions with…
MORCHEEBA
As producers of lush, downtempo tunes, Morcheeba have had more than a quarter of a century of success. It’s been quite a ride, and we’re not just talking about the transition from Atari to Mac… Morcheeba return with their tenth studio album this year, although it’s not been the easiest of journeys, by any means (and consequently, really it’s actually their 11th release). Brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey formed the band in the 90s, after meeting singer Skye Edwards, and released a succession of successful albums over the next decade, four of which went top 20 in the UK. After the band’s Charanga album, however, Edwards left to be replaced by a string of other vocalists until she returned in 2010 for the band’s seventh album, Blood Like Lemonade. Happy ever after? Not quite. Paul 94 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021
left the band in 2014, leaving Skye and Ross to record their next album under that name (2016’s Skye & Ross) rather than Morcheeba. However the duo reverted to Morcheeba for 2018’s Blaze Away and this year’s latest offering, Blackest Blue. Why can’t brothers in music just get on? We asked Ross Godfrey for his thoughts… Tell us how you got into music production in the first place? Ross Godfrey: “Ever since I was a boy I have loved music of any kind. I started to play guitar at the age of seven and joined bands from 12
1
onwards. I was heavily influenced by Jimi Hendrix and blues artists like John Lee Hooker and Lightnin’ Hopkins. Later I started to get into early hip-hop and electro.” When did you start to feel you were getting somewhere”? RG: “From the age of about 15 I was playing professionally as a session player and doing gigs. I made enough money to buy food and marijuana. My brother [Paul] and I met Skye at a house party in London in 1994 and we wrote and recorded [debut single] Trigger Hippie together the following year. We released it on a small
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morcheeba / 15 questions with <
indie label and it became an underground hit so we recorded the album Who Can You Trust? and then started touring around the world.” What is your overall music and production philosophy? RG: “It is best not to have a plan because they always go wrong. Be adaptable and follow the magic wherever it leads you.”
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Tell us about your ‘computer music’ production history? RG: “We used Atari computers to trigger Akai samplers initially, and recorded the instruments onto ADATs or 2-inch tape. Around the year 2000, we upgraded to a Mac with Pro Tools. It was obviously a lot easier to edit things and it saved a lot of time; we didn’t need to splice tape together anymore!”
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Tell us about the rest of the gear in your recording studio RG: “I have a pretty basic setup now. Loads of vintage instruments and amps scatter the room with a Pro Tools system in the middle. I have a few nice mic pres and compressors to get a good sound going in. Even though everything ends up in a computer, it starts organically. I don’t use plugin instruments much but I do use them to process sounds.”
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What are your favourite plugins? RG: “I use Soundtoys a lot – EchoBoy and Tremolator are mainstays as they are very intuitive and sound vintage. Devil-Loc is great for getting some lo-fi crunch on things. I also love G-Force’s M-tron. I have enough old keyboards in my studio so having that in the box makes life easier; same goes for their Virtual String Machine. I mainly use that for Solinatype violin parts. The Valhalla Plate reverb is lovely for epic atmospheres. For quick dial-in compressors I use Waves Renaissance Vox and Axx for vocals and guitars respectively. They don’t need a lot of attention and bring everything to the front of the mix nicely. The Air Music Tech Spring Reverb and Phaser are used quite a lot too, to get some different
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“Nobody ever did anything interesting by trying to fit in” colours for things that I recorded that I think sound a bit one dimensional.” How do you tend to start a track? RG: “Some tracks take 10 years, like the instrumental Sulphur Soul on Blackest Blue. I started it in Los Angeles and never finished it, then it cropped up recently and I finally got it finished. Others can take a few days, for example Falling Skies was recorded in less than a week. It really depends on what is needed and how inspired I feel at the time. I like to work very fast if possible, and the only thing that slows me down is plugging stuff in and getting the sounds working well.”
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How do you know when a track’s done? 8 RG: “The point when I want to kill myself is usually a good indicator that the track is finished. It is best not to overwork things; it’s either good or it isn’t.” Do you have any production tricks? 9 RG: “I learned this technique on recording acoustic guitar from John Martyn. I record my Martin D00016 acoustic guitar in the same way. I put a Royer Ribbon mic on the soundhole to get a clean sound. Then I plug the old 1950s DeArmond into a Watkins Dominator amp and mic that up with a Shure Unidyne mic to get a distorted bluesy sound. I then pan them 10 to 2 and put the Valhalla plate on the ribbon and the Air Spring on the amp to get a contrasting sound. Sometimes I put the amp through a Space Echo to get a dubby sound.” else have you worked with for this? 10 Who RG: “Brad Barr from The Barr Brothers features on a track called Say It’s Over. I am a big fan of that band and was delighted when he
agreed to collaborate. I wrote a piano part and sent it to him; he returned it with a mumbled scat vocal which Skye turned into a finished song. He re-recorded his vocals over in Montreal and sent them back to us. “Duke Garwood was somebody both Skye and I dreamed of recording with, so we plucked up the courage to ask him and he said ‘yes’. We got together down in Brighton at a little studio and recorded The Edge of the World. The contrast between Skye and Duke’s voice is great, like Nancy and Lee. Duke also blew a Raita clay pipe solo; he learned to play it in Morocco with the Master Musicians of JouJouka. Far Out!” What’s on your gear shopping list? RG: “I’d like a ’50s Telecaster but I’d have to sell my house to buy one. Modern gear-wise I think it would be good to have a modern modular synth. All the ones I have, like my EMS Synthi are so old and delicate you spend more time fixing them than you do playing them.”
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What studio tech would you like to see being developed? RG: “The interface for using Pro Tools could be more intuitive; I hate learning key commands. I need a Bluetooth connection direct to my brain.”
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Any advice for playing live and/or working in the studio? RG: “I hate quiet in-ear stages. Turn the amps up and have some fun! As for being in the studio, it should be fun so if it isn’t, stop. Also it is best to learn how to do everything yourself these days so you know how it works and you don’t need an engineer when inspiration grabs you.”
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What have you picked up from being in the industry that you can pass on? RG: “Follow your own path, nobody did anything interesting by trying to fit in.”
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What have you got coming up? RG: “Blackest Blue comes out in May, and hopefully we’ll start playing shows when it’s safe. The record is an exotic trip to the deepest, darkest reaches of the soul. I’m also soon going to record an EP with my wife Amanda Zamolo.”
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Morcheeba’s new album, Blackest Blue, is out on Fly Agaric Records this month
HEAR MORE
Sounds Of Blue bit.ly/mrchb_sdsobl The Sea bit.ly/mrchb_thsea WWW
morcheeba.uk twitter.com/morcheebaband facebook.com/MorcheebaBand
AIR Music Tech reverb, GForce Virtual String Machine and Waves Renaissance Vox
July 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 95
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BACK ISSUES Catch up on what you’ve missed – all of these issues include FileSilo downloads!
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• Modular Synthesis For The Computer Musician • FREE Kilohearts Carve EQ worth €79 • Junkie XL Justice League (Snyder Cut) interview
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• Your Free Virtual Studio – a guide to using your FREE Bitwig Studio 8-Track • Fourward Masterclass • Uéle Lamore interview • Recording Masterclass
• Essential Recording Masterclass for guitar, bass and drums • FREE Simple Concept synth from Krotos, worth $24 • Krust interview
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• Logic vs Live – Logic’s latest update pitted against Ableton Live • FREE compressor worth €50 + 2,000 samples • 22-page guide to getting perfect acoustic drums
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June 2021
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MORE BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE Vault downloads available only from
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MAKE YOUR OWN! PLUS: The complete guide to take your sound on stage
Next issue we are looking at the detail of making your own plugins (not nearly as hard as that sounds), and as we return to live music (hopefully), we have an extensive feature on how to take your sound out live. It’s an issue not to be missed! PLUS!
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Top samples
Tone2’s Warlock synth, UVI’s 8-Bit and more!
How to build a recording studio from scratch!
Dust down the vinyl, it’s the ultimate breaks collection!
98 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2021