Amplify Magazine

AMPLIFY ISSUE 277 JUNE 2014

WEL COME Future Publishing Ltd. Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, BA1 2BW Tel: 01225 442244 Fax: 01225 822793 Email: futuremusic@futurenet.com

EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Daniel Griffiths, daniel.griffiths@futurenet.com Reviews/Features Editor Simon Arblaster, simon.arblaster@futurenet.com Art Editor Phil Cheesbrough, philip.cheesbrough@futurenet.com Producer Chris Barker, chris.barker@futurenet.com Senior Videographer Will Seelig, will.seelig@futurenet.com Videographer Keir Doherty, keir.doherty@futurenet.com

We’ve mongered the rumours, had sneak peeks until we could sneak (or peek) no more, but finally they’re here: they’ve only gone and remade the 808, 909 and 303!

You may remember the last time Roland got busy on its heritage, birthing the MC-303 and associated Groovebox spin-offs. So with a misstep like that to foul the pathway to glory, you can bet that we’ve been watching the TR-8 and TB-3’s journey through our pages very carefully. Get the definitive unflinching review on all three current Airas starting on page 80. And check out the final piece of their retro revival puzzle on page 14.

We’re joined by two shining stars of music making this month – band of the moment Cut Copy on page 66 and Techno don Jon Rundell on page 38. Likewise there’s a cracking pair of tuition features as we show you Advanced Reverb and Delay on page 28 and give you the fast track on incorporating hardware into your DAW on page 52.

As ever, there’s audio, video, samples and data files on the disc (with our print edition) and be sure to check into our online Vault at vault.futurenet.co.uk where directed too, to get extra files that simply wouldn’t fit!

With the magazine, digital edition and amazing YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/futuremusicmagazine no other mag gives you more. Go get what’s coming to you!

E

EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS THIS MONTH… They are usually the final links in the plug-in chain, but much more can be made of delays and reverbs.

Jono takes you on a trip through time and space in our Advanced Reverb and Delay feature on page 14.

Most of us can safely say we have waited decades for this moment and Roland have finally delivered. Dan double-checks that the TR-8, TB-3 and VT-3 are all that we want them to be. Check out his expert verdict starting on page 34.

As ever, our king of software is on hand to test a ‘revolutionary’ FM soft synth that is set to lighten your wallet. Ronan locks horns with Tone2’s Nemesis and you can see him in a fight to the death with this formidable foe on page 46.

Jono Buchanan engineer, producer

Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman musician, producer

Ronan Macdonald musician, producer

CON TENTS CONTENTS | THIS ISSUE

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FILTER

ALBUMS

7 12 14 18 FEATURE

INTERVIEW

JON RUNDELL

REVIEWS

26 34 54 Q&A

FILTER FILTER | THE FUTURE OF MUSIC

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SYSTEM-1 MEET THE MISSING PIECE OF ROLAND’S AIRA LINE-UP

We had expected (in fact ‘demanded’) that the final piece of Roland’s Aira jigsaw land in place alongside the THREE new black and green units we’ve reviewed this month.

But it turns out that Roland’s new System-1 — the ‘synth’ part of the Aira equation — is still very much a work in progress. But here’s what we know so far...

System-1 won’t be appearing until May, giving Roland plenty of time to iron out final details and make sure it delivers the goods in the way the current Airas already have. Other details from Roland have been soundbite and ‘subject to change’ at best but if the System-1 works in the way we want it to it’ll be something of a game changer.

System-1’s main event is its claim to be the world’s first ‘plug-out’ synth. Other hardware synths may have excellent plug-in integration, appearing in DAWs as plug-ins, passing in their audio over USB, but System-1 blurs the relationship, being a ‘simple’ controller to a soft synth in your DAW, AND then being able to load this same plug into the hardware itself and exist as a standalone without a computer.

The System-1 hardware is a four voice virtual analogue synth based on Roland’s all-new ‘Analog Circuit Behaviour’ (ACB) technology. It hosts compatible (ie, Roland) plugins in exactly the same way your DAW does and so can therefore be

as many different Roland synths as you could ever need, taking on the guise of whichever synth you ‘flash’ its brains with before leaving for the gig or acting as a controller for whichever Roland synth you dial up in your DAW. It’s a wonderfully flexible idea but one which will only truly fly if Roland deliver these interchangeable ‘brains’ in the way we’d all like. And it’s this part of the plan that’s a little hazy. So far we’re sure that Aira will have its own unique synth engine and it’s highly likely that its ‘out of the box’ mode will be as an all-new VA synth from Roland, doubtless loaded with sounds inspired by their classic kit. We also know that System-1 can only be one synth at once and a computer connection and transfer is required for it to change personality. We know that a System-1 SH-101 plug-in is ‘coming soon’ (with ‘more on the way’), allowing the System-1 to become an SH-101 both in the hardware itself and in your DAW. And we know that you can switch between voices hosted ‘in’ the System-1 hardware (appearing as USB audio) and those as plug-ins in your DAW. It’s at this point the assumptions start. It’s very easy to speculate on the arrival of a whole raft of ‘plugout’ synths, allowing System-1 to become (and for its users to finally ‘own’) a System-100, SH-1, 2, 3, 09, Jupiter-4 and 8... Juno-6, 60 and 106... MKS-80 Super Jupiter...

D-50?... But how will these be distributed? Inexpensive downloads for sale via Roland direct (as they have done with some libraries and editors in the past)? And how much for a perfect Juno-6 made by and endorsed by Roland? £50? £100? £200?... Time will tell. And will the System-1 hardware always have to be in attendance? We know System-1 does ‘plug-out’ but does it do plug-in t oo? Can I finally own a bank of official Roland classics in a drop-down in my DAW? And will I even need to buy the System-1 hardware in order to get them?

As final details of System-1 are still ‘subject to change’ the answers aren’t forthcoming. But be sure we’ll have first word in FM just as soon as Roland play their final card.

FILTER | THE FUTURE OF MUSIC

2014: AN ARP ODYSSEY RETRO-LOVERS KORG TO REMAKE ANOTHER CLASSIC SYNTH

Shock news. Not content with recreating their own MS-20 analogue synth to , perfection Korg have announced that they are to remake the classic ARP Odyssey for a September 2014 release.

And in order to maintain integrity the Japanese analogue kings have enlisted the help of Odyssey’s lead designer and ARP co-founder, David Friend, as chief advisor on the project.

However, unlike the MS-20 project there’s the interesting prospect as to which exact Odyssey that Korg would be remaking.

Three distinct Odyssey’s exist, the Mk I being white with a knob for pitch bend, the Mk II featuring three pressure sensitive buttons for bend and a black and gold paint scheme, and the Mk III going for a retro futuristic orange and black motif and a new four-pole filter topped off with distinctive (and highly impractical) over-hanging keyboard, where the key’s extend beyond the case below.

First impressions appear to indicate that it’s the Mk II that’s getting Korg’s attention (see below) though it could be that some features from the III and I are preserved to make it the ultimate Odyssey! We can’t wait to see more and discover which classic synth Korg will have a crack at next!

WANT TO KNOW MORE? Head over to http://www.korg. com/us/news/2014/0217 to see Korg’s exciting announcement for yourself.

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IPAD Z3TA + SECTOR iOS Sector is the latest iPad app from Jonatan Liljedahl (Kymatica), the composer/ developer who is also responsible for the AUFX series and BitWiz to name but a few.

Sector is probably like nothing you’ve come across before. What is it? Well a ‘Stochastic Sample-Slice Sequencer’ of course.

It may sound a mouthful but it is really quite simple. Well the playability of it is at least.

There is a hell of a lot of maths at work here. A sound can be split into up to 32 slices, or Sectors.

Each Sector can then be fired off in any order by the Marchov-Chain matrix, which, although it may seem like it, isn’t entirely random.

All of the curved lines show you the probable destination for the next Sector to be played. On top of that you have a more recognisable 64-step pattern sequencer. And if that wasn’t enough, each sound has four warp functions all with individual probability control.

If this seems a little overwhelming don’t worry, Jonatan has kindly supplied a very comprehensive manual, which is on the website.

Cakewalk Z3TA+ is now available on the App Store. Taking the same classic waveshaping Z3TA+2 synth engine with six oscillators, six LFOs and filters, the interface is optimised for touch control. The app also benefits from over 500 preset sounds, a Modulation Matrix including 16 Sources, Curves, Controls, and Destinations, and effects including Distortion, Modulation, Compression, Delay, Reverb and Limiter. There is also support for Inter-App Audio, Background Audio, and AudioBus. It is available on the Apple App Store now for £13.99. Review next issue.

FILTER | CLASSIC ALBUM

NOSTALGIA 77 THE GARDEN TRU THOUGHTS, 2005

Roy Spencer gets nostalgic for 2005 as he reappraises a high point in Jazz-informed beats from a Tru Thoughts stalwart Nostalgia 77: the man behind the rose-tinted moniker is Benedic Lamdin — card carrying beatmaker and serious record collector.

He’d set up his stall with 2004 debut, Songs For My Funeral – an album of Downtempo breaks, chopped up with reanimated Soul sampled from long-forgotten Jazz recordings.

By the time it came to make follow up The Garden, Lamdin had started to piece together a tight core of live musicians to flesh out his mix of Coltrane and Hip-Hop beats.

Russell Knight, known for his unhinged drumming in Will Holland’s Quantic Soul Orchestra, joined in with the core team of bassist Riaan Vosloo and brass genius Kelsey Jones. Lamdin’s beatmaker’s mentality dictated that they should be treated like the Jazz samples he understood, so he recorded and chopped them just like his old Blue Note records. A new way of working was born.

“The first record was a fully sample-based thing,” says Lamdin. “But working with musicians opened up this new way of working for me. The first record was just me working out what I liked with samples. Then after that I knew what sound I wanted to go

for, and if you know musicians it’s just that little bit quicker to get that, rather than spending a couple of years looking for the right records to sample.”

LOOKING FOR LOOPS The Garden slowly came together through exploring the records he had at the time, and then trying to interpret the grooves he dug with the players he’d assembled.

“I had a set of influences that I was digging — mainly old Jazz like Sun Ra and John Coltrane,” says Lamdin. “Back then I think I definitely made music by throwing a lot more things down and seeing what it suggested to me. Then I’d just play with things to see how they’d develop.”

Each song would begin with Lamdin tinkering on his own Fender Rhodes, or with a drum break he’d pulled from a dusty 45. Then he’d see what the live bass and horns could offer.

“I would build most of the track with samples, but then incorporate a bit of a musician on the tune,” he says. “A bit of bass, or a little bit of a horn player or something. Then I’d record them and then cut them up. Rather than it being ‘live’ live,

I’d use all the playing that I did and place it with the drums — same with the double bass. I’d record maybe ten takes of double bass — all different ideas. Then take them home and go through them all until I found the loops that worked.”

“Even though the tunes had bits of live playing in, the bedrock was still in a loop mentality, a beat-making mentality.”

CRASH COURSE Lamdin is happy to admit that he was naive at the time, but that it added a charm to the recording. “I knew nothing about most of these things,” he says. “That would have made most people self-conscious about having a crack at them.

I was trying my hand at lots of things along the way. I learned a lot. Every record I’ve made has an element of that, but especially with The Garden.

It was a crash course in recording, and I loved it.”

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ALBU ALBUMS | REVIEWS

HTRK

DECAY

PSYCHIC 9-5 CLUB GHOSTLY INTERNATIONAL

Australian industrial outfit HTRK take on a far more stripped back and minimalist approach on their third album, Psychic 9-5 Club.

The record is the first LP made entirely as a duo following the suicide of founding member Sean Stewart midway through the making of Work (Work, Work) back in 2010. Released via Ghostly International, Psychic 9-5 Club’s central theme revolves around love and the finding of happiness through sadness, loss and struggle, played out through Jonnine Standish’s effortlessly cool vocals and sharp lyrics — a permanent fixture in the band’s output. Like the vocals, the music itself unveils a spellbinding dichotomy between forlornness and positivity.

The production however, is more stripped back than ever, concentrating on deft arrangement and inventive sound design techniques. The dubby atmosphere that came in during the last album takes more of a central role on Psychic 9-5 Club, creating a lean-

EFDEMIN DIAL

er, sparser sound that conveys the personal nature of the album so well. The production is more polished than before, adding a real tenderness to the record, begging the question can anyone inject industrial music with the kind of emotion and energy that HTRK can?

Berlin Techno stalwart Efdemin drops his most curious and arguably his best album to date with Decay. His third solo LP, after his 2007 self-titled debut and 2010’s Chicago, finds the producer, real name Phillip Sollmann, focusing more on the deeper side of Techno. This focus gives the record a far more coherent feel than his previous output whilst also adding a kind of streamlined beauty to the entire project.

The album itself, which started production in Berlin and was then recorded during a three-month artist residency in Kyoto, Japan, is all about the exploration of the paradoxical relationship between beauty and decay. This leads to a rich, highly immersive soundscape that roots itself in deep Techno but also meanders through elements of drone music, sound art and highly atmospheric electronica. The melodies are often subtle, creating an interesting juxtaposition with the vigour of the bottom end.

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UMS

REAL 6TH BOROUGH ESTATE PROJECT ATLAS DOMINO

BOROUGH 2 BOROUGH DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR

New Jersey’s idiosyncratic Indie Rock outfit Real Estate impress once again on their third studio album, Atlas. Picking up where they left off on 2011’s highly acclaimed Days, the band delve deeper into the dreamy jangle-pop aesthetic that has served them so well.

It’s unmistakably a Real Estate record, but one that is perhaps more intimate and romantic than before. The entire album is dripping in a sense of nostalgia, conjuring images of peaceful summers with the band’s trademark sun-streaked, hazy, jangling guitars. There’s a laidback and breezy atmosphere, but entangled with wistful lyrics creating this evocative and intimate feeling. The intricate musicianship on Atlas emphasises the mature and perceptive song- writing as well as the clever arrangement. It may sound chilled, but this is not a chill out album.

Two years on from their debut album as 6th Borough Project, One Night in the Borough, Scottish pair Graeme Clark and Craig Smith are back with an impressive and forward-thinking follow-up, Borough 2 Borough.

Although both Craig and Graeme (aka The Revenge) have launched their own labels since their first release as 6th Borough Project, like their debut, their second album is released via Delusions of Grandeur.

This record feels very much like the evolution of the 6th Borough Project sound. Yes, there is plenty of the low-slung, loopy disco magic that first turned heads on to the duo, but Borough 2 Borough also stretches further afield with the odd exploration into darker and more upbeat territory. We see a much more minimalist and Housier element coming into a few tracks, adding an occasional warehouse and party-starting feel to the pair’s palette. When they are in the more familiar, hypnotic

and uplifting mood on Borough 2 Borough, Clark and Smith settle into some lush grooves, injecting soul and colour by the bags full.

The vocal loops are addictive, the grooves are effortless and drums funkified. Easily the most diverse outing for 6th Borough Project yet, Borough 2 Borough hints at an exciting new future for a duo with undeniable talent.

FEATU FEATURE | ADVANCED REVERB AND DELAY

ADVANCED REVERB AND DELAY Reverb and delay are arguably the most vital effects in any mix, but there’s a lot more to them than the obvious. Here’s our guide to getting creative with these familiar friends

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

Think of the studio staple effects processes we’re all reliant on daily and both delay and reverb would feature near the top of most producers’ lists. They might be joined

by EQ and compression but there are few productions which aren’t reliant on delay and reverb and the spatial treatments they provide.

Like all effects, they have literal uses and ones which are borne of deliberately creative abuse.

Warping a plug-in’s parameters to produce the unexpected is always fun and nearly always teaches you something new about sound and how it can be placed in a mix.

But, better still, trying something new and unexpected also makes a production more unique, more your own.

So in this future, we’re going to be looking beyond straightforward uses of delay and reverb and getting creative instead. We know that you know how to add these effects either in-channel or via auxiliaries, so we’re going to skip that basic stuff and get into detail.

Finessing your use of these effects will help you build better-sounding mixes where spatial treatments become just as integrated into your project as the software instruments you choose and the recordings you make.

Many of the emails, letters and questions we receive at FM are from aspiring producers who enquire about the ‘right’ way to approach a mix or production.

How much reverb is the right amount? Should delays always be clocked to the bpm of a track?

What’s the difference between hall and plate reverbs and which type is the correct one to use on vocals? These questions are completely understandable and, in some contexts, it is possible to answer them directly, to help steer people in the right direction.

But more often than not, not only is providing specific advice difficult, it gets away from what record production is truly about.

If you look back through history, the pioneering producers have always looked to do things differently, stretching the techniques which they’ve read about or learnt from another producer, to put their own spin on how they use the technology available to them. Sometimes, a ‘blanket’ reverb treatment works very well; if you’ve recorded a piece of solo piano music and you want it to sound as though it’s playing back in a concert hall, you can easily achieve that effect. But more often than not, just as volumes

rise and fall, just as filters open and close, and just as we seek to stretch the dynamic range of mixes from one section of a track to the next, so the most compelling reverb treatments ebb and flow with a mix, so that they too respond to the emotional peaks and drops within a production.

The same is true of delay. Varying the mix level, the feedback amount, the stereo width, the tone, the drive, the colour and even the speed of delays as a track progresses usually produces a more compelling result than a static treatment which ignores those rises and falls.

Another hugely engaging approach to working with reverb and delay isn’t to see them as complete effects solutions but rather as a single effect in a chain of others. Applying filtering, EQ, modulation effects such as phasers and flangers, autopanning, distortion, bitcrushing or any one of the other plug-ins you have available after a reverb or delay, to give a spatial treatment your very own twist, can often produce highly personalised results. These could even become signature sounds if you hit upon something which you end up using over and over again.

Some of these may be spec-

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URE

A BRIEF HISTORY OF REVERB AND DELAY

tacular, standout treatments but it’s just as likely that you’ll find ways of working with these effects which allow you to create more mix space — finding ways to keep effects present but not all- consuming. The best mixes manage to combine power with clarity — sometimes the strongest ideas are the simplest ones — and that can be as true of effects treatments as it is of instrument choices.

So over the next few pages, let’s expand our knowledge of reverb and delay, at the same time as looking at slightly more involved uses of them in the hope that your productions will benefit. But once you’ve tried our approaches, think sideways to experiment with your own too.

Like many audio processing effects, the history of applying reverb and delay to sounds within a mix is long. Starting with reverb, the struggle has always stemmed from the fact that, if you hear a sound being produced in any space, the sound of that space will play a vital role in how the sound is perceived.

Put a dry vocal sound through a plate reverb emulation and it will sound very different to a room or a concert hall, despite the fact that the vocal itself won’t change – it’s only the reverb which provides detail about the kind of space in which that voice exists.

For producers, there are huge advantages to recording sounds with as little natural reverb as possible so that, as part of the production and mixing process, decisions about the type, length and depth of reverb can be carefully considered and applied later in the process. If a sound is recorded with too much or the wrong type of reverb, it’s hard to unpick or remove later, hence all the acoustic treatment you find inside recording studios, as well as the capability to bypass effects within synth plug-ins, both of which leave you with dry

sounds you’re free to configure spatially at the mix stage.

Going back through history, reverberation has been produced by a variety of devices, such as springs and plates, before digital artificial reverbs became all-conquering. More recently, even more natural-sounding convolution reverb processes have become popular and, whether you favour more retro, ‘noisier’ solutions, or super-slick modern ones, there’s never been a wider range of tools available to producers.

To an extent, the same is true of delays. Echo suggested itself as a useful technique for a range of musical applications decades ago but, like reverb, engineers had to make use of the tools available to them in order to achieve delay effects. The pioneers of tape-based recording soon learned they could achieve echo effects with varying, even regenerating feedback. They might have been frustrated that achieving these effects with tape which changed speed led to pitch- based wobbles being introduced. However, modern producers turn to tape-based delay emulations today for precisely these qualities.

FEATURE | ADVANCED REVERB AND DELAY

DELAY AS THICKENERS Digital delay provides a cleaner sonic experience, as a sound is effectively sampled, held and then repeated, without any noticeable degradation in the signal path. As with most elements of the digital recording chain, this transparency was initially heralded but, latterly, it’s seen as a little cold, which is why many producers now seek to enhance their delay treatments with effects such as distortion, bitcrushing and tape emulation, to dial in some noise and unpredictability. In fact, if you look inside a delay plug-in like SoundToys’ EchoBoy, you’ll find that the techniques and devices captured to produce different flavours of delay run to over 30 algorithms — a few decades of records made with different types of echo have spawned countless classic treatments.

You might be wondering why a potted history lesson is relevant to your workflow in the 21st century. It is because the sound design process doesn’t stop with the synthesizer and drum machine parameters you tweak to build sounds at the production stage. It doesn’t stop either with the microphones you put in front of players and instru-

ments. It stops only when you decide a mix is ready to commit to a stereo bounce and, between the production and final bounce stage, comes the mix. This stage affords anything from subtle treatments to radical reworking of individual sounds to squeeze maximum sonic potential from each track of your production.

More than most effects, reverb and delay are so well established, with plug-ins offering so many approaches that simply reaching for presets, tempting though that might be, represents a missed opportunity.

The following walkthroughs will show that with a little imagination, you can achieve personalised, left-of-centre sounds and treatments which will set your mixes apart. So next time you set up an auxiliary and call up a reverb preset, listen back and think ‘that’ll do’. .. stop, think and try harder. Use the following examples as inspiration to get your started.

It’s tempting to think that delay plug-ins will only make their presence felt on percussive material, where the delay taps have a chance to show themselves clearly in the gaps between hits.

There’s certainly no doubt that delays are great for enhancing rhythms in percussive parts as we’ve seen elsewhere in this feature. However these are by no means the only circumstances under which you’ll find delays can prove useful.

If you have a more sustained sound which is lacking presence at the mix stage, adding a delay can also be hugely effective, even though the repeats of the source signal will be smeared by the sound’s sustained qualities. In fact, it’s this smearing which is often the most useful feature, as pads are blurred as their notes change, as abrupt releases in string samples can be softened and as reinforced power can be added to held vocal notes, for example.

Of course, sustained sounds fill up more of their active frequency bands for longer, so it’s worth being a little careful with tone controls if you’re adding delays to sustained sounds. It’s easy to make sounds too thick by delay-

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ing the entire frequency range of a sound and it’s just as easy to add unwanted resonance to a narrow active band by setting tone brackets too narrowly around just a single frequency group.

As ever, if the delay effect you’re using has extra parameters, such as drive controls to add distortion, or pitch-wobbling parameters, experiment at will. Using an EQ after a delay can help control frequency content too and help tame any out-of-control frequencies.

Don’t stop there. Delay and reverb can transform your gear.

We’ve all been there; bought something, used it once and then put it in a drawer. Dig out that old sound module that hasn’t seen the light of day in years and give it a new lease of life. Using reverb in a non-linear sense can give you just as exciting results as multiple ping-pong delays.

JON RUND IN THE STUDIO WITH | JON RUNDELL

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Alongside close friend and mentor Carl Cox, Jon Rundell rose to fame as an international DJ and took to running the seminal Intec Digital label. Having moved into production, Rundell now releases on his own Etch Recordings. Danny Turner visited Rundell in his Dalston studio to discover how joining the ranks of the Techno elite didn’t come easily.

DELL

IN THE STUDIO WITH | JON RUNDELL

JON RUNDELL IN THE STUDIO WITH

A long time has passed since Jon Rundell bought his first set of decks at the age of 15 and started pestering Carl Cox with mix tapes on the Brighton club scene. Cox quickly became an avid supporter of Rundell’s productions, before asking him to join his own Intec Records as A&R/ label manager in 1996.

Since then, Rundell hasn’t looked back, cementing his reputation as an international DJ and acclaimed producer, with demand for his remix skills coming from the likes of Moby, Fatboy Slim and Paul van Dyk. Meanwhile, Rundell’s own prolific releases have become commonplace on the Beatport chart. As a DJ, Rundell has learned from the master to become adaptable to his audience, whether he’s playing large festivals, super clubs or the more intimate residencies that he tends to favour.

FM: How have things been for you on the road, and where have you been getting the best reaction?

Jon Rundell: “Well, Europe’s heavily focused on our style of music, so throughout the summer there was obviously Ibiza and Space, that went very well, and we’re looking to build on that for this year. Moving on from that, we’ve been going to places like Zurich where we did a party for Ali Dubfire’s SCI+TEC label, and Fabric in Madrid as well as ADE. We also did a 5,000 capacity

venue for Awakenings, which was a great test for us. Amsterdam’s always had a good strong affinity for Techno music, so the way people receive what we do there is one of the best experiences.”

How did you initially get involved with Carl Cox and the Intec label?

“I’ve known Carl for a long time.

When I was a kid I used to go to the Zap Club down in Brighton when he was a resident and give him mix tapes. Eventually I started travelling up to London to hear him play and we started talking more. Although I was label manager at Amato, when the Intec label manager told me he was leaving I just said yes straightaway, and was offered the job a few weeks later. Here we are years later; we’ve toured round the world and pushed out music every day for a long time now. It’s something we’re very proud to be doing.”

Did you depart before Intec was rebranded as IntecDigital?

“That’s right; we took a break for about three years. At the time, vinyl sales were really decreasing and downloads were increasing, so we just let the dust settle with a view to coming back once we felt we’d understood what was happening.

It was quite good for us in a way, to listen to what people had to say, come back and start the label up again. Of course, there’s still no

hard and fast rule, but hopefully through having done a little bit of research we didn’t make too many mistakes. We’re trying to build the labelinaverysurefooted,carefulandconsidered way, which reflects through the release that we’re putting out. For the artists that do come through, the production level is very, very important, and the events that we do are very carefully selected. We just feel it’s really important to give people a consistent quality level that they can trust in.”

Due to its association with vinyl, you might think Techno is one of the few genres that could withstand downloading, but it hasn’t been able to?

“Yeah, I think it’s a generational thing more than the style of music.

It was really heavily associated because of the way people played the records on the turntable.

People like Ben Sims, Dave Clarke and Jeff Mills were pioneering this quick mixing style and the way the records were produced lent them to that period. It’s not just vinyl, CD sales are decreasing and people don’t really buy albums as such; it’s all about big, strong individual tracks. Maybe the future isn’t even downloading [laughs]; it changes at a scary rate.You see kids walking down the road with their parents and they’ve got iPads already. That’s their entry point, so what’s their mentality going to be

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in ten years’ time? I have no idea, but they’re not going to want to do what this generation’s doing.”

How important has it been to have Carl as a mentor and reach the widest possible audience?

“It’s obviously helped, there’s no doubt about it. I don’t know if you could call it luck or fate, but I think it was just a good thing that both of us felt at the time as individuals.

Carl’s helped a lot of artists over the years anyway, even way back to people like Adam Freeland who was also from Brighton. Carl gave him a leg-up very early on, as he might have done for me too. It definitely helps when you’ve got an influential voice within the scene saying ‘I believe in this person, I think you should check them out’.

With the internet, there’s so much information getting pumped out all the time, it helps poke your head above the parapet a little. But at the end of the day you’ve got to back it up. Your skills, production and DJ sets still have to be of good quality.

You don’t really want to let them down either.”

What’s the most important thing Carl has taught you about the art of DJing?

“The way I found out about DJing was through Hip-Hop really. It was on TV, Public Enemy were playing and Terminator X was scratching records. That was the thing that

got me hooked and then I caught the tail end of the Rave thing, when it was much more legal and wasn’t as popular as it was in the late ’80s.

I just wanted to play all the big records all the time, one after the other. The main thing I learnt from Carl is that anyone can do that; it’s about challenging yourself and pushing new sounds and new ways of thinking about music onto the crowd. Try and throw a few curveballs, and also break your set-up a bit, because playing two hours of one style of Techno becomes a bit linear, so if you can break it up with other sounds and styles it gives them a bit of a rest and allows you to regroup as well.”

What’s the difference between playing out to a crowd of 20,000 as opposed to a smaller venue?

“It’s obviously much more difficult to interact with people more directly, so to speak. You can still try and experiment, but usually the set times are a bit shorter so you literally have to go in and give them a good time there and then. It’s very hard to make out the faces 15 or 20 rows back to see if they’re smiling or not. They might be putting their hands up, but you can only really gauge what’s immediately in front of you and how they’re moving around and interacting. That’s something that kind of frustrates me a little bit, but at the same time

it’s quite an achievement to be able to move that many people into one place that are all into the same music.”

What about the more intimate venues?

“The smaller events I love; absolutely love them. We did XOYO in London back in April; it’s an 800-capacity venue in two rooms.

Me and Carl were playing in the downstairs room and the intensity we got in there was just ridiculous.

The ceiling’s quite low, which helps with containing the music in the room. The sweat was dripping down the sides of the walls before Carl even got on. You can pretty much see the whole club, see them getting into it and totally feeling it as much as you are. I think I probably felt most exhausted after playing that set as I managed to do all year. You could tell that the people there were really into their music, and I think when that happens you can’t touch it.”

As a DJ, are you a purist when it comes to technique or do you prefer using whatever technology will make things most simple?

“I’m not really a purist to be honest.

Ironically, it’s really difficult now to get 1210s put into a club unless you’re a certain DJ, but I don’t miss breaking my back lugging records around in heavy metal cases and

IN THE STUDIO WITH | JON RUNDELL

paying excess baggage. The advent of technology is integral to a genre like Techno. It came out of technology in the first place with Derrick May, Juan Atkins and the guys in Detroit. Then obviously you’ve got someone like Hawtin who really runs with it and is always trying to push the boundaries of what’s possible. I’m still a bit more tactile and hands on; I really enjoy the feeling of manipulating a record by hand as opposed to doing it on a screen or with controllers. At the end of the day, as long as the people in front of you are having a great time, you have to do it the way you feel most comfortable. If you feel uncomfortable and nervous then you’re going to hold back and I think they can sometimes feel that in the crowd.”

Have you tried other technologies?

“I tried Traktor for about a year and in the end just packed it in.

Then Record Box came along and I finally found a way to travel around with as much music as I could on my laptop’s USB stick — just plug it into the decks, link it all up and off I go. To me, that’s less stress, whereas when I was working with Traktor, I just kept worrying the whole time that the cable was going to get pulled out or I’d put a cable in the wrong channel [laughs]. It’s dark sometimes and you can’t really see what you’re doing.”

Do you keep your entire catalogue of MP3s on USB? “Not everything, I’ve got hard drives full of stuff all over the place.

Say you’ve got 10,000 tracks with you, how do you flick through that there and then in the club to find the one you’re looking for? You’ve got to make it easy on yourself as well. If I’ve been to a venue before, I’ve got a rough idea of what people liked last time, what they didn’t like and some new things I’d like to try on them. So the time is spent during the week creating those playlists, but then I obviously also have certain things backed up, maybe some releases that have gone down well in the last year, or some classic records. If you’re finishing last it’s always nice to send people off with a proper classic record.”

How much do the sound systems vary at these gigs?

“I think it depends on a number of things. The sound system I feel is quite important, and when it’s looked after and loved it can sound brilliant. I recently played at a venue in Moscow called Monasterio. I can’t remember the name of the sound system but the guy there really knew his stuff and we talked through how far I would leave the levels on the mixer and the gains to the top to give him more room to push it on the actual main desk. When you under-

stand those things, it does make it sound a bit better. I think the tendency from some DJs is to just ramp everything up on the mixer and then it sounds all compressed and limited and crunchy. But if you leave the head room for the guys on the mixing desk, they’re the ones that can boost the volume, and that’s when it really powers through. I wish more people would take pride in it, but these things aren’t cheap to do either.”

Do you always use what the venue provides?

“I always use what’s provided, which can be problematic if it’s not working properly, but then I usually have at least three CDJs. I do adjust settings to certain points that I prefer, including the way I use the jog wheel. Another part of the preparation of using Record Box is that I have at least three cue points within each record, which helps me do much quicker mixing. But generally I have to say that most people are fine. I think venues have understood they have to raise their game to get good DJs to come.”

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IN THE STUDIO WITH | JON RUNDELL

You’re primarily thought of as a DJ, but when did you decide to focus on production as an aside?

“I think it was probably about eight or nine years ago when I started to get intrigued by it. It was a cultural shift as well; I started to see other DJs making records and producers playing at events. Not that it really made me want to do it. It was just a curiosity. It’s like I’m playing these records but I don’t really know how they make them. I was awful for, like, two years. I managed to get a copy of Logic and I’d just sit at home and couldn’t produce for toffee really [laughs]. It was literally trial and error. I used to get so frustrated and was talking to people that I knew produced when I was at clubs and trying to remember what they were saying, writing these notes down quickly when I got home and waking up the next day and going, ‘right, let’s try this!’

But yeah, it took me a couple of years to get to grips with it. Then other things started to come along like Ableton, which I’m experimenting with at the moment, though I still keep trying to do Logic shortcuts in Ableton — just out of pure habit.”

Do you have your own studio at present?

“Yeah, it’s based at home in the spare room. I tend to start a lot of tracks on my laptop, while I’m

moving around just getting ideas down, then I develop them at home and fully arrange everything.

I use a Focusrite Saffire Soundcard that I run through an 8-channel Mackie Mixing Desk.”

What speakers are you using?

“I’ve got the Mackie HR924s for monitors. They’re probably not the best monitors to have at home because of the dynamics of the room. Because of that, I take everything from that set-up to a studio in Dalston Junction.

There’s a guy there, Alex Tepper, who’s behind quite a lot of records for people like Nicole Moudaber, Steve Lawler and Nic Fanciulli. His studio is properly treated, so I’ll go with anything from six to eight records and we’ll sit there for a day and mix them all down. The reason I do that goes back to what I said earlier about sound systems.

I can’t get them at home to sound as strong and punchy as I would like, to have an impact on people.

Ever since I made that decision, I’ve been really pleased with the results. You have to be putting out a consistent level of good production otherwise no one’s going to listen to your music these days.”

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I managed to get a copy of Logic and I’d just sit at home and couldn’t produce for toffee really. It was literally trial and error

INTER VIEW INTERVIEW | CUT COPY

CUT COPY

Cut Copy took the Ralph Waldo Emerson route to putting together album number three, the aptly titled Free Your Mind. JoE Silva talks to two members of Australia’s electro-pop heroes about the journey

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R W

INTERVIEW | CUT COPY

Dave Fridmann’s such a legend that we felt confident from the beginning that we’d end up with something really exciting

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When it gets round to the timbale bit, things could go terribly wrong.

This is one of the chief concerns of Cut Copy guitarist Tim Hoey as he readies for gig number one of the band’s US tour in support of their latest long player, Free Your Mind.

While not terribly handy on the drums, when the moment comes during tonight’s set when some auxiliary percussion is needed, the young Australian six-stringer will have to make do. And because the band are running a touch behind schedule, they may not get a soundcheck. This, as it turns out, is just one of several challenges going into their latest tour.

“We want to play as much of (our record) live as possible,” Hoey says.

“Our music has a very strong electronic component and this record is very dense and, because it has so many tracks, it always takes so long to put a show together. During our rehearsals, we realise that we need to get ‘this’ piece of gear or we need to set up a track in ‘this’ certain way and figure out how different things talk to each other. I think we’re nearly there. Well... we have to be because we’re playing tonight.”

Hoey adds that last bit with a touch of nervous laughter. The band are one of the key draws at the new Mountain Oasis Electronic Music do in Asheville, North Carolina and the four piece will be test-driving a fair bit of their Free

Your Mind album for the first time this evening. Hoey and singer/ songwriter Dan Whitford are simultaneously keeping busy with interviews and other band housekeeping as they head out on the road in support of a record that has a lot of its stylistic roots in the blissed out haze of early ’90s Dance culture.

Think Primal Scream, New Order’s Technique album, and the endless stream of 12-inch singles that propelled UK Rave culture. But there are guitar pop elements as well and Cut Copy (which also includes drummer Mitchell Scott and bass player Ben Browning) spent quite a bit of time fashioning their third album, putting the disparate bits they came up with together before heading to Dave Fridmann’s Tarbox Studios in Northeastern New York to further mould the material.

“It was a really amazing experience,” says Whitford. “He’s such a legend that we felt confident from the beginning that we’d end up with something really exciting. It’s also unusual that someone would come in at the mixing stage with so many creative ideas, but he had many cool thoughts on how to approach the songs.”

In many ways going with a wellknown production face like Fridmann (who’s helped shape releases for The Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, MGMT, and many others...) makes complete sense for Cut Copy as the momen-

tum behind the band continues to ramp up. Since 2010’s Zonoscope LP, which featured key singles like Where I’m Going, the band have continued to wind up their fan base. In mid-2013 they began to stir up excitement about the coming album by literally pressing and selling a limited run of 120 vinyl copies of their new track Let Me Show You Love at a US festival date. Then came a campaign where fans were guided to certain geo-coordinates around the world to stand by one of six Free Your Mind billboards in order to stream the record in advance of its release.

And if that wasn’t enough, more eyebrows were raised when the band managed to snare the world’s handsomest vampire (True Blood’s Alexander Skarsgard) for the title track’s video.

It all makes sense when viewed in the context of a band’s steadily ascending star, but the music that’s propelled all this activity came together in a far less calculated fashion. We sat down and connected with Hoey and Whitford about what it took to free their musical minds.

INTERVIEW | CUT COPY

FM: Now that you’re on album number three, how refined is the process of putting tracks together?

Dan Whitford: “I usually write the basic ideas for songs and then we work on them together to record all the live drums, guitars, and percussion, and often this will change the direction, or at the very least make them feel like proper Cut Copy songs.”

Tim Hoey: “Initially we all have home studio set-ups, and the process on this record was more like starting a new idea every day.

If we had an idea, we’d just put it down. We wouldn’t second guess it and then the next day we’d start something completely fresh. So the whole thing was to try and free up the writing process and not get bogged down. We spent two months doing that and then at the end we just started going through the endless folders of music and going ‘Oh this idea that we did on 2nd March sounds like a verse and this other thing we did on 15th April sounds like a chorus’. We started putting it all together and finding a bit of a theme for the record. We set up a studio in an old converted church in Melbourne on the outskirts of the city.” DW: “On the last two records we’ve rented warehouses for a long period and turned them into temporary recording studios by pooling all our gear. It’s a cool way to work,

because all we really need is an engineer to set up mics, pre-amps and then press record. Everything else is just as good as being in a professional studio, except it’s much cheaper!”

Before you get to that stage though, what sort of gear are you using to put these ideas down with?

DW: “I have a fairly basic setup for recording at home with an iMac running Cubase and UA2-610 for vocals and acoustic recording. I’ve got a decent collection of vintage synths including Yamaha CS-80, Roland Jupiter-8, Prophet 5, Korg M1, Korg X-911 (Guitar Synthesizer), Moog Prodigy, Waldorf Blofeld and a Synthesizers.com modular synth. I also have an Original Roland 909 and 808 for drums and some samplers.”

TH: “I have a Mac laptop and I mainly use Logic to record a lot of guitar at home, so I just have my amp and some mics. I don’t really do a lot of electronic stuff.

I just try to focus on the guitars and maybe a little bit of sampling. It’s a very modest set-up because I like the idea of just having a very limited amount of things to work with.”

Was there a particular piece of hardware or software gear that you acquired before the

new album that had an impact on the direction of the record’s sound?

DW: “I guess the 909 and 808 were pretty useful for getting into some classic House production sounds. But I also bought the M1, which was more or less my favourite digital workstation of that British Acid House period. I always thought that digital synths and sounds were a bit difficult to work into my music and mixes, but I think I got excited about digital sounds at the start of making this record, so they appear throughout.”

It seems like there are flavours on this record that hark back to bands of that era as well like vintage Primal Scream. Was that at all an influence?

DW: “Sure, I’ve always been a fan of bands like Primal Scream and Spiritualized. But also a lot of the producers and Acid House producers that came before their big records, like Andy Weatherall, The Orb, A Guy Called Gerald, 808 State , and so on. I actually bought a lot of those 12-inches at the end of the ’90s when I was finishing high school, but I’ve been listening to them again recently.”

So is that how you came to cover K-Klass’ Let Me Show You? TH: “Dan was listening to a lot of that and it was one of the last

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We thought it was kind of interesting to throw these weirder guitar ideas with old Chicago House pianos and organs

INTERVIEW | CUT COPY

tracks we did. We had the K-Klass sample in there for the chorus.

We pretty much re-recorded the track and pitched everything down. The original is like 130bpm and ours is like 90! We didn’t even know if it was going to come out, but when we finished it we really just loved it and wanted it on the album. But that song has like six writers so it was a logistical nightmare getting it cleared. They were really into it though. Those guys are really cool.”

On the other side of the spectrum, you have a track like Dark Corners & Mountain Tops, which has a tremendously psychedelic flair to it...

DW: “That song came from putting a few different demo ideas together and making one, weird, stylistically diverse track.

We spent ages trying to find the best groove for the drums, but finally settled on a heavily percussive jam. It reminds me a little of George Harrison.”

Which is similar to the trippy vibe during that guitar intro of Take Me Higher.

TH: “Dan gave me that track without the intro even there, and so it was just this kind of verse and chorus loop. I started recording the lead stuff over the verse. And then I thought for some textured parts I’d just use a Line 6 pedal

to reverse some things for layer after layer. Then I gave it over to Dan who thought it was interesting so he wrote the whole intro for it and put that all at the start of the song.”

So there was definitely always room for guitar elements on what turned out to be a very Dance oriented record?

TH: “We were all listening to very different music throughout last year. I wasn’t listening to any Dance music, and Dan was listening to a lot of House music.

So we thought, rather than try and figure out what kind of record we wanted to make... a guitar record or a Dance record... we just thought let’s see if these things could kind of co-exist. We thought it was kind of interesting to throw these weirder guitar ideas with old Chicago House pianos and organs. Especially since Dan had just bought the CS-80 before this record for a ridiculous amount of money! So we knew that no matter what we were going to include some CS-80 and those types of sounds on the record.”

What about all the interludes between the main tracks?

TH: “It’s kind of reference to The KLF’s Chill Out record where there are all those samples of radio stations. So we went around and recorded random people in

the street and asked them their thoughts on spirituality. Then we just sampled them. But we wanted to strip the music away from any sort of religious connotations or drug references. The record is called Free Your Mind, but it’s really just about people’s encounters with states of euphoria.”

How about We Are Explorers, which is also a track that has a great pastiche feel to it with the timbale bit at the end?

DW: “The initial idea came from the most innocuous moment.

I found myself humming the chorus melody while I was doing the dishes at home and had to run into my studio room to quickly sketch it out on a keyboard. I guess that’s the advantage of having a home studio set-up! The rest of the song evolved while we were working in the warehouse together.”

TH: “I had this idea from The BarKay’s Holy Ghost, which has a crazy three minute timbale solo in it. Up until that point in the track it’s very electronic and on the beat. We just thought it would be good to have something more unexpected and organic in it, so we had Mitchell play heaps of different solos and then we could pick something out. But unfortunately I have to play that live!”

Tarbox Studios where you worked with Dave Fridmann, is

PAGE | 33

kind of remote. What impact did that environment have on the record?

DW: “The most unique part of the experience was probably living at the studio, so we would shop, cook meals together and hang out in the space 24/7. It really gave me an insight into what it would be like living in an artists’ commune. It really made us want to be creative in every waking hour of the day.”

TH: “He hadn’t really done a dance record before, so we thought it would be really interesting to have him do it. And he was interested in doing that.

When you get to the mixing process you want a fresh perspective because you’re so involved with the record up to that point. Hearing his approach to the mixes really made us sound a lot different to what we were like before. He kind of treated them in the way he does for The Flaming Lips with big drums, big reverbs, and very psychedelic sounding phasing within all this 4/4 House music. So that was really cool.”

So it sounds like the finishing touches he added to the project were really key to the final product?

TH: “Well the way he mixes is all outboard. It was kind of crazy to see his process. He just loves over-driving the desk. You’d

hear a mix and say ‘Is this track clipping?’ and he’d say ‘Oh no, I just have distortion going on every channel’. And it’s all going into this one compressor, and you could see the meter going into the red. We just tried to use as much hardware as we could in the studio and working with Dave, of course, really suited that.”

REVIE

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EWS

REVIEW | ROLAND AIRA TR-8 RYTHM PERFORMER

ROLAND AIRA TR-8 RHYTHM PERFORMER INTUITIVE INTERFACE

Roland’s hugely-hyped TR-8 drum machine is finally here! Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman takes a world exclusive first look...

There have been fascinating analogue vs digital debates all over the web since Roland started teasing us with glimpses of their new TR-8 and other Aira products around a month ago. We’ve all been hanging on every word, picture and video clip that Roland have been serving up, hoping that rumours of a brand new TR-808 and 909 are true. But what are Aira and the TR-8 about?

Firstly, Aira isn’t an acronym.

Roland describe it as “a product range aimed at DJ/producers who make their own music in a studio by day and then perform it at night”. Now comes the burning question — is the TR-8 analogue?

In a word, no! It’s a digital drum machine utilising Roland’s new ACB modelling engine (Analog Circuit Behaviour) that aims to faithfully recreate analogue circuits and the way they behave (ACB is nothing to do with SuperNatural, it’s entirely new). Now, before any diehard analogue heads skip the rest of the review, the TR-8 seriously challenges the notion that virtual analogue can’t sound as good as real analogue and it deserves your attention.

Opening the TR-8 box, I was greeted by a sleek and futuristic-looking box with a black brushed aluminium front panel, day-glo green

plastic trim, a plethora of knobs and backlit buttons/ faders and Jupiter-50/80 style multi- colour plastic pads. All the function buttons and faders are backlit green and this not only looks great but is very practical in dark lighting.

Build quality is very solid throughout and, although the plastic casing is lightweight, it doesn’t feel cheap in any way. The faders/ knobs are also impressively tight and solid feeling, which is better than most other products I’ve tested at this price point. All the controls are coated with a nice grippy rubber too, which stops any finger slippage and I would have no hesitation throwing the TR-8 into my rucksack, taking it on tour and playing the hell out of it every night!

The TR-8 Rhythm Performer is a standalone drum machine in the classic TR-808/909 mould and although it’s currently limited to models of 808 and 909 sounds (there are no samples onboard) there’s a strong possibility that Roland may add more of their classic drum machine sounds/ models in the future – this simply wouldn’t be possible if the TR-8 was analogue.

As the TR-8 has been designed with live performance as its focus, the front panel has an intuitive knob-per-function ethos and it’s easy for newbies to grasp, yet there’s enough depth for seasoned beatmakers too. There are some hidden functions but these are generally the ‘set and leave’ type, including MIDI settings/channel assignments, clock sync, MIDI Thru on/off for the MIDI Out port, routing sounds to the two assignable outs (there are four physical outputs in total) and output boost.

On the front left are the step and real-time recording modes, plus kit select (there’s 16 kits for mixing 16 808/909 sounds together) and an instrument select button.

Tr-Rec mode is the step recording mode found on the TR-808/909, where you sequence up to 16 steps per instrument. To step

PAGE | 37

SUPERB SOUNDS record, simply press any of the 16 fixed-velocity drum pads then hit Start to listen. Alternatively, use the Inst Rec mode to record beats in real-time using the pads as the sequencer cycles.

In Pattern Select mode, you can select from one of the 16 user-writeable patterns by hitting any pad.

Each of these 16 patterns also has two parts with 16 steps each (A and B) and if you select the A and B buttons together, the TR-8 automatically chains them to form a 32-step loop. The Scale function from the TR-808/909 is also included and lets you select from various triplet or straight feels (double-time, halftime etc). Changes to patterns/ sounds/effects are also continuously stored and saved when you power down.

Finally, there’s Live Inst mode where you can tap out beats whilst another plays back and Last Step mode (also on the TR-909) that allows you to adjust a pattern’s length by switching steps on and off. It’s much like ‘active step’ on Korg’s Volca range and it’s great for creating odd time signatures and fills. Simply hold Last Step, press the step that you want to be the last and when you’re ready, hit step 16 to bring everything back in on the one.

Roland have done a superb job.

The build quality is way beyond what I was expecting for the price and the ACB technology has captured the essence of the original TR-808/909 amazingly well. These are the most authentic emulations I’ve heard in the digital domain, especially as the sounds aren’t static and subtly change on each step.

There are small differences in sound compared to the originals (the most obvious being no hiss and a little less dirt) but generally the models exhibit few of the downsides often associated with digital emulations and samples (such as lack of warmth, aliasing/noise at extreme tuning levels, brittle highs, and flat sound). As a live performance box it’s totally addictive to use and the workflow is super-fast as every control and function is instantly accessible – there’s no reliance on a screen/menu system either, which is a winner!

THE VEREDICT While the TR-8 feels largely complete, there are still some missing features that would further enhance workflow. In an ideal world we would like to see an instrument solo function (currently, you have to mute out all parts manually), a revert/undo option, DAW pattern backup and a way to set how many beats/bars you want to play before a pattern switches. We’d also like to see the addition of internally sequenceable knob movements, along with the ability to record and recall these movements via USB. Right now, it’s not possible to sequence sound changes and knob/ fader movements on-the-fly and feature them in your patterns when the TR-8 is used standalone.

You can’t yet tweak and record, for example, the tuning on the snare and have it play back. Furthermore, although all knobs and faders do output CCs over USB/MIDI and it is possible to record their movements on-the-fly into your DAW, the TR-8’s sounds don’t yet respond when they receives the data back. We assume Roland could fix this if they ever were to decide to.

But most of all there’s something strangely reassuring about having a new Roland-designed, one-stopshop for authentic 808 and 909 sounds at your disposal. I also hope

REVIEW | ROLAND AIRA TR-8 RYTHM PERFORMER

that the TR-8 helps put to bed the notion that digital can’t sound as good as analogue. As an example, I tested the TR-8 alongside my DSI Tempest running its 808/909 samples and the TR-8’s modelled sounds were more natural and open sounding — a testament to the ACB engine’s quality. Of course, there will always be haters simply because the TR-8 isn’t analogue but I challenge them to try the TR-8 before passing judgement — this has to be heard in person on a high-quality system to be appreciated. Above all, the TR-8 feels like a new classic in the making and Roland have shown they now have the technology to faithfully model their iconic drum sounds. I have no doubt it will fly off the shelves.

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REVIEW | ROLAND AIRA TB-3 TOUCH BASSLINE

ROLAND AIRA TB-3 TOUCH BASSLINE SLEEK LOOKS

Roland’s new TB-3 is inspired by the TB-303 but takes it in a whole new direction. Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman touches bass...

The TB-3 is Roland’s second major Aira product and the Touch Bassline name on the front perfectly sums up what this box is about – you play the touchpad to create monophonic basslines and sequences! While it’s not a direct TB-303 clone, it contains a bank of 26 TB-303 sounds (Bank A) modelled on the original’s circuitry.

There’s also a bunch of new synth leads, basses and effects onboard over three further banks (Banks B, C and D).

Like the TR-8, the TB-3 uses Roland’s new ACB modelling technology (Analogue Circuit Behaviour modelling) which is designed to recreate the behaviour of the entire analogue signal path, including oscillators and filters.

The TB-3’s new four-oscillator engine is coupled to a 32-step sequencer, with 64 patterns over eight banks. All pattern edits are continuously saved and all patterns output MIDI note/timing data too, which is great for external MIDI layering/archiving.

The sequencer has step and real-time modes, a Last Step mode (like the TR-8) where you can adjust pattern length from 1 through 32 steps (accessed by pressing Step Rec and the Value dial) plus there’s Shuffle with positive and

negative values, for more twisted feels. There’s also the Scatter effect (featured on all the new Aira products) which randomises playback or creating fills, variations and general madness! To finish off, the TB-3 also acts as a 24-bit 96KHz, two in/two out USB Audio/MIDI interface, compatible with all DAWs.

The TB-3 mirrors the look of the other new Aira products with its brushed black aluminium front panel, day-glo green surround, tough black plastic case and calming green lighting for the sequencer steps and button backlighting. Like the TR-8 and VT-3, build quality is excellent for the price point and the six knobs (Volume, Cutoff, Resonance, Accent, and the Value dial) feel nicely solid. I’ve no doubt it will stand up to prolonged stage and studio abuse and it’s compact and light enough to throw in a backpack. It won’t take up much space in your studio too.

Navigating the TB-3 is child’s play.

Like the TR-8, there’s a simple three-digit LED display but this time it displays bank/pattern/ sound number, plus tempo, Scatter modes, the step number in Step Rec mode and shuffle settings. There are also a handful of under-the-hood settings for MIDI channel, clock source, MIDI Thru functionality and pad aftertouch sensitivity. Though there are a few button combinations to memorise for certain functions, there’s no menu diving, so you can just enjoy performing. Programming is straightforward too, though I wish there was a metronome or flashing

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A NEW DIRECTION dot in the display (especially when real-time recording), as it’s easy to lose where beat 1 is.

To program a sequence using Step Record, you scroll through steps with the Value dial (each step has a green light at the top of the panel) and use the red keys on the touch keyboard to enter a note, or a green key to add accents, rests, slides/ties or octave up/ down. You can also transpose patterns and there’s a handy feature that lets you chain up to eight 32-step patterns by simply swipe/ selecting a group of patterns together. This effectively gives you up to a 256-step pattern!

Once you’ve entered the note/ function info on any given step, the TB-3 automatically moves to the next sequential step and you repeat the process until you have up to a 32-step single pattern. It’s very ntuitive and the large touch keyboard is more playable than the tiny touch ribbon on Korg’s Volca Bass. Also, the red keys turn dark when active and recorded notes sound as you scroll through the steps manually, so it’s easy to keep tabs on all note/function events within a busy sequence.

Presets 1 and 2 in Bank A feature models of the classic TB-303 saw and square waves and they sound pretty authentic in isolation. However, the TB-3 takes the basic 303 sound somewhere entirely different, as each preset has a specific set of filter, accent and effect settings which are directly controlled by the Cutoff, Resonance, Accent and Effect knobs. Not only will you find classic 303 saws/squares with drive, delay, reverb and stereo panning, but also stacked/ unison and detuned 303 patches which simply weren’t possible on the original TB-303.

Though the TB-3 doesn’t sound exactly the same as an original 303, it captures the essential vibe — the filter models scream, the basic oscillator tones are solid and the new effects are high quality too. It’s a buzz making acid-style sequences and then scrolling through sounds whilst messing with the filters and effects. Also, syncing the TB-3 with a TR-8 is hugely inspiring and addictive!

Let’s also not forget the other versatile monosynth sounds onboard.

The quality and scope of these sounds is great, plus the TB-3’s general character is warm, chunky and present. You’ll find synth leads with LFO effects and panning,

futuristic vocal-like basses with distortion, detuned patches with delay and quirky noises/effects too. The downside here is that sound edits can’t be saved but then it’s clearly been designed as a simple ‘tweak in the moment’ box that captures the TB-303 vibe but takes it somewhere new.

In particular, I found Real-Time touchpad recording a blast and many random yet surprisingly funky basslines ensued. When you also consider that the TB-3 is a USB Audio/MIDI Interface, a MIDI controller and a versatile monosynth module, it seems like a real bargain!

REVIEW | ROLAND AIRA VT-3 VOICE TRANSFORMER

ROLAND AIRA VT-3 VOICE TRANSFORMER 18 years since the VT-1 Voice Transformer was launched, there’s finally a new version! Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman checks it out...

Roland’s BOSS VT-1 Transformer has gained a bit of a cult following in recent years, having been used on hit tunes and albums by major acts including The Knife and Air. Though the old VT-1 was limited, many artists and producers found ways to get unique sounds out of it, running not just vocals through its effects but pretty much any other available audio material too.

Second-hand prices for the VT-1 have recently been hitting the £300 mark but as the new VT-3 is just £159, that’s starting to seem pretty steep!

The VT-3 is unmistakably an Aira product. It has the same solid build quality, sleek looks, green lights, brushed black aluminium front panel, black plastic case and green day-glo trim as its TR-8 and TB-3 siblings and it’s also very compact too. The VT-3 doesn’t stray far from the VT-1’s concept in terms of functionality and the hardware itself; in fact it’s strikingly similar, though thankfully the garish orange and blue colour scheme has departed! For starters, there are the same four front panel sliders: Pitch which has a one octave range in either direction for turning your voice into a mouse or a deep voiced Lothario; Formant which effectively turns a

WHAT’S NEW? male into female and female into male; a Mix Balance fader which balances the amount of effect with the dry signal; and a Reverb fader.

Then there’s the Robot button which was also found on the VT-1 that turns your voice into a monotone vocoded and indeed robotic voice, that can then be processed using the faders to get all manner of evolving alien effects. Check out the Beastie Boys’ Intergalactic which sounds very similar to this Robot effect, even though it was done on a different brand of vocoder. Robot is a well-known and classic VT-series effect and I’m glad it’s included here in all its glory.

The first major difference you’ll notice between the VT-1 and VT-3 is there’s a large dial slap bang in the centre of the front panel surrounded by green LEDs to signify which of the new effect modes is selected. This is a big improvement over the VT-1 which only had the Robot mode, along with the four faders already mentioned. In addition, there’s now a volume control (strangely absent from the VT-1) and the input level control has now been renamed Mic Sens and moved round the front next to the peak input light for easy tweakability.

The user/preset system has also been revised and now instead of four user slots, there are three scene buttons (labelled 1, 2 and 3). Simply press and hold one of these buttons to save a snapshot of all front panel settings. The genius thing here is that, if you save three scenes with deep, high and medium pitched voices, you can flip between them and effectively have a multi-gender conversation with yourself!

The Manual button puts the front panel into live mode, where the sound you hear reflects the actual position of the four faders and the effect type selected. You can also bypass thew effects at any

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time by hitting the Bypass button, which can also be controlled from a footswitch. This is great for solo instrumentalists whose hands are often tied up playing a guitar or a keyboard.

A MIXED BAG In use, the VT-3 is great fun just like the old VT-1 and, in particular, the new Synth, Bass and Lead modes (that turn your voice into a synth, bass or lead sound) are great for anyone who wants to record or perform synth lines but can’t play a keyboard. The Scatter effect is great for real-time chopping and twisting of audio and beats, plus the onboard reverb sounds great on all sources, though it’s a shame you can’t alter the time, size or type.

The VT-3 is in its element when you start pitching up or down beats/ instruments and samples or when you want to harmonise with yourself, plus the effects such as Radio and Megaphone, though clichéd, are handy to have on tap. Surprisingly though, it’s the new Autopitch and Vocoder

effects that are the weakest — not in terms of sound so much but in terms of implementation. For example, whilst the two Autopitch effects can pull off convincing auto-tuned/pitch-corrected vocals, ironically you have to be able to sing in tune to get the best out of them, as the pitch correction doesn’t like out of tune voices, and this was after trying different mics and signal levels.

The Vocoder effect has a classic vocoder tone but as there’s no internal pitch correction on the Vocoder preset and no way to use an external input source to the carrier signal, all but the best vocalists will struggle to keep the effect on the correct notes! In practice this means you can’t get those classic Vocoder or Talkbox effects, as they require an instrument and mic signal simultaneously. This is a real shame, as most of the VT3’s competitors have this feature.

To sum up, the VT-3 is a mixed bag. It’s certainly fun messing with your voice, it’s a great box for voice-over artists and the built-in USB Audio interface is a real bonus. However, for pitch-challenged singers like myself, the Autopitch and Vocoder presets are a little disappointing compared to the competition. Having said this, the

VT-1 became a classic and the VT-3 beats it hands down, so who knows what might happen once some forward-thinking artists start abusing its effects!

REVIEW | FABFILTER PRO-MB

FABFILTER PRO-MB FabFilter’s dynamics processors offer fantastic sound in a great design.

Jono Buchanan finds out if its Pro-MB multiband compressor follows suit

Anyone who has ever worked with a FabFilter plug-in will know that they don’t design their effects quite like anybody else. Their latest release, the Pro-MB multiband compressor, adds to the Pro-L and Pro-C in its dynamic processing range. The first of the Pro-MB’s secrets is that its default mode uses a Dynamic Phase algorithm.

Frequently, multiband compression treatments suffer colouration of the input signal even without any compression being applied.

Adjacent bands create phasing issues as one band crosses to the next and whilst both, more common Linear Phase and Minimum Phase algorithms can be used in Pro-MB, Dynamic Phase produces more transparent results.

Like FabFilter’s Pro-Q, Pro-MB opens with no bands activated.

When you press play, you’ll see a frequency analyser working in the background and, to create a band, double-click anywhere you like. You can adjust the frequency brackets around the central point and then use a semi-transparent pop-out control bar at the bottom to configure either Compression or Expansion settings to taste, including parameters such as Range, Attack, Release and Threshold. The latter is animated,

so that the input signal for each band is displayed, making adjustments to pick out only frequency peaks – or selecting a more immersive level – easy. Unlike most multiband compressors, there’s no obligation for bands to ‘touch’, so you can target just the frequency areas you want. If you do want bands to meet, each crossover point can be configured with subtle or dramatic slopes, ranging from 6dB to 48dB/octave.

Alongside dynamics settings, each band also features its own Output dial and, around the outside of this is a pan dial. Rather than controlling left/right movement, this controls the mid/side image, so if you want to narrow a band to mono or expand its stereo image, you can. The Expert panel on the far right can also be opened and among the features in here is an option to set a Free sidechained frequency range for each band.

This means that rather than the low mid range, for example, acting as its own frequency trigger for dynamic reduction, instead the high frequency content could be used to duck those low mids. As an example, you could use a vocal part’s frequency content to punch more of a dynamic hole in an adjacent frequency group. Flexible stuff.

All of which means that the ProMB is certainly the most intuitive and most natural-sounding multiband compressor I’ve used to date. And its capabilities hugely outstrip multiband compression alone. The processor is relatively inexpensive when purchased in isolation but better still, the ProMB joins the Pro-L, Pro-Q and Pro-C in FabFilter’s Mastering bundle which is available for less than twice the price of the Pro-MB alone. The Pro-MB is a more than worthy new addition to its dynamics processing family.

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REVIEW | TONE2 NEMESIS

TONE2 NEMESIS Tone2’s new synth aims to be their most cutting-edge yet. Will Ronan Macdonald find it a worthy adversary?

Nemesis sees Tone2 coming up with another ‘new’ style of digital sound generation, following in the footsteps of the superb Rayblaster with its Impulse Modelling Synthesis. NeoFM, they say, takes a “completely new and improved approach to FM”, combining PM (Phase Modulation) synthesis with FM (Frequency Modulation) and thus enabling a wider range of waveforms to be used effectively for FM than the sine waves of, say, the Yamaha DX7. It also aims – as many synths do – to make FM synthesis easy and approachable.

However, while Nemesis puts NeoFM front and centre, many other types of digital synthesis are also onboard.

Each of Nemesis’ two oscillators hosts a pair of waveforms — a Modulator and a Carrier — chosen from a diverse list of 119. Launching the Additive Spectral Editor overlays 16 adjustable vertical bars on each wave display, representing the gain levels of the first 16 partials, while a collection of Edit presets enables one-click modification of the first 32768 partials – Phase Shift, Volume Up/Down, Noisify, etc. It’s a very dumbed-down system in comparison to a dedicated additive synth, but it certainly keeps this side of

things manageable and intuitive.

Impressively, you can even load and reshape your own samples, too, and export waveforms as WAVs; it’s just a shame you can’t modulate the waveform selection, wavetable-style.

The block diagram to the right of the waveforms in each oscillator displays the signal flow of the currently selected synthesis mode, of which there are 22 on offer. The first eight of these are NeoFM and variations thereon, while the rest include ‘regular’ FM/PM, Wavetable, PWM, Formant and more; and with the ability to mix two modes at once, that’s a lot of possible combinations. Each oscillator also incorporates two digital filters (one each for the Carrier and Modulator), which simply attenuate partials as they’re lowered, and thus are ‘colder’ and less flexible than their analogue equivalents.

The main oscillator controls centre on the Neo FM knob, which adjusts the FM amount in NeoFM and FM/ PM modes, and varies in function with the other modes — waveform morphing with Waveshape, ring modulation amount with RingMod, formant frequency with Format, and pulse width modulation with, er, PWM, for example. Laid out around the Neo FM knob are

various tuning/drift and phase adjustment parameters, as well as envelope depth for the Carrier filter and NeoFM, and oscillator Feedback level.

BACK TO NORMALITY Moving on from the oscillators, we’re largely back into conventional synth territory. The Main section houses pan, volume, glide and unison controls alongside an ADSR volume envelope, and to the right are two LFOs, then two envelopes.

These are joined by many other modulation sources in the 12-slot modulation matrix, accessed via the multifunction section under the Patch display. Like Tone2’s other synths, Nemesis is big on modulation, with all sorts of intriguing sources available, including decay envelopes, fixed sine wave LFOs, the synth’s audio output, and a handful of mathematical functions.

Rhythmic and melodic movement can be generated using the Arpeggiator and stereo Gate step sequencer. The arp is particularly

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noteworthy, with its automatic chord generation, pattern save/ load facilities, and doubling as a ‘StepLFO’ modulation source.

Finally in the multifunction section, the Config page sports a wealth of options for tweaking the overall sound and feel of the synth, including high- and low-cut master EQ, Boost modes for enhancing certain predefined frequency ranges, a soft clipper, and some interesting microtuning and glide modes.

MEET YOUR NEMESIS On to the sound, and this is one of the most exciting (and, indeed, excited) soft synths I’ve heard in quite a while. From hard-edged, punchy basses and face-melting leads, to scintillating, beautiful pads, vicious arps and dazzling, hyperactive sequences, it has a voice all of its own.

Throwing the Neo FM knob around in NeoFM mode is a blast, leading to all sorts of wild and unpredictable tones; and mix it up with the other synthesis modes and things start to

get really crazy. There’s an upfront shine and energy to everything it does that makes it particularly appropriate for Dance and bass music applications, and the 1,000-odd presets that ship with it make for a stunning (if effects-heavy) showcase of the instrument’s capabilities. They’re presented in a tag- and rating-enabled preset browser that looks great and works well enough for basic browsing, but loses points for the lack of a search function and filtering — what’s the point in rating presets a score out of five if you can’t then filter the browser view down to them?

Ultimately, it’s the oscillators that are Nemesis’ main draw. They’re deep, fun to program and very versatile within their remit — obviously, that decidedly digital architecture limits them somewhat in terms of warmth, mellowness and other analogue characteristics, nd I can’t help wondering what an analogue multimode filter or two at the end of the line could bring to the party.

That aside (or perhaps because of it!), Nemesis is a synth that comes at you with attitude, conviction and a genuinely different approach to sound design. You need to hear it.

REVIEW | FLUID AUDIO F5

FLUID AUDIO F5 Fluid Audio promise more for less in the compact reference monitor arena. Robbie Stamp listens in...

BEEF VS THE HUMP

Fluid Audio have sprung up with three compact powered monitors, with the largest and most costly being the F5. At £199 a pair the F5 is being thrown into a volatile part of the market, so it needs to perform well above its price.

Straight out of the box the F5s feel light but solid. The rear panel sports a finned amplifier heatsink with power inlet/switch below, line inputs above: XLR, TRS and RCA. The rigid plastic front baffle centre houses the silk dome tweeter (in waveguide), coated paper composite woofer, volume trim fader and slot shaped bass reflex port.

Between the drivers is a tiny power LED that shines red for a muted standby and blue when running.

Standby kicks in after 15 minutes, which is a nice touch. The volume trim fader is easy to access at the front and offers a full range right down to ‘off’. Balancing the stereo field with tiny faders was a tad annoying, but at least there’s a detented -6dB position as well as the top 0dB point.

Small LF drivers are an unavoidable limiting factor for compact monitors, whether the cabinet is ported or closed. The F5, with its 5-inch driver, has a quoted low range limit of 49Hz, though in practice the roll off is audible from 80Hz. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it really depends on how evenly the frequency response extends above this. In this case there is a pronounced hump in the 100Hz to 200Hz range, giving these monitors a beefy aspect. Speaker characteristics are subjective so this may or may not work for you. I had the F5s next to the monitors I use daily so this characteristic took a little getting used to, but I quickly came to appreciate the perspective they offered.

Small monitors can sound harsh due to their limited low-end leading to the user’s mixes ending up dull and hollow. The F5s don’t sound harsh, partly due to this compensated low-end. They do overemphasise the body of kick drums and the early harmonics of basses, but so long as you keep these elements well forward in the mix you can use the F5s to listen in to this critical region.

SMOOTH POWER The upper frequency response is very smooth from the mids to the top of the HF range, and this makes working with the F5s a much less fatiguing experience than I would expect for this size and price. Performance around the crossover region (2.5kHz) is good with no audible sign of the phase response problems indicative of poor crossover circuits.

The smooth highs are coupled with a gentle roll out in the final octave (>10kHz), making ‘airiness’ easy to overcook, but again familiarity would soon alleviate this potential.

They are by no means dull sounding and they can ably translate bite and aggression without compromising clarity. They are punchy and open sounding, with the 70 watts of bi-amplified power proving capable of a surprisingly loud delivery – plenty of clean SPLs for most small/medium rooms. Finally, the off axis response remains stable over a wide angle, which makes for good stereo imaging.

Without a doubt the F5s deliver a performance beyond their price. Good transient response, a smooth mid to HF range and some punchy power make them a good candidate for a small

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budget. The slightly bulbous low-end isn’t marred by any overt resonant peaks and so should just be a matter of familiarity. I would advise placing them on stands, even short ones, just to keep them up and away from flat surfaces to prevent/reduce comb filtering of this crucial frequency area.

REVIEW | SPITFIRE AUDIO HANS ZIMMER PERCUSSION LONDON

SPITFIRE AUDIO HANS ZIMMER PERCUSSION LONDON Famous for his huge-sounding percussive parts, film composer Hans Zimmer has built a sample library with Spitfire Audio.

DOWNLOAD AND GUI TWEAKS

Since the release of their first Kontakt-powered collection, Albion, I’ve taken great interest in the development of Spitfire Audio’s range of sample libraries. Since then, more orchestral section libraries, solo instruments and smaller chamber libraries have followed, notwithstanding Spitfire’s Percussion Redux library which offers a comprehensive and well-recorded collection of ‘standard’ orchestral percussion instruments.

Spitfire Audio now return with a new library of percussive sources as part of the Signature range. As collaborators go, they have set the bar at the top for this release, as the project has been jointly overseen by Hans Zimmer. So Hans’ engineers and chosen session players have been hand-picked to record the library’s sounds at Air Studios. As such, the library forms the London collection (HZ01), with a Los Angeles equivalent to follow.

Once downloaded, the core library runs to 54GB of content and, once activated via NI’s Service Centre, you’ll find that it’s organised into three main folders. These provide mix configurations as chosen by Hans Zimmer and two of his trusted engineers — Alan Meyerson and Geoff Foster, with more engineer configurations due in future.

The reason that separate mixes are available is that the exhaustive recording sessions included multiple microphone set-ups to provide the broadest range of recordings possible and, as you might expect, different sets of expert ears would choose to balance that raw sample material differently. Accordingly, each folder provides access to the same sound sources but each sculpts a different balance from the available microphones. These provide Close, Room (mid-distance) and Surround (far) options and, as per other Spitfire libraries, you can blend all three of these microphones in any volume configuration you choose.

A separate download supplies additional microphone content, with dedicated programs letting you access these. The additional mic arrangements are Tree, Bottle, Mid-Field, Gallery, Overheads, Pair and Piezo Tree, so if the main

patches don’t provide the sound you’re after, there are plenty of other options. You’ll need an extra 29GB of hard drive space for the additional microphone content (at no further cost, of course), swelling the library to 83GB. The GUI is different to past Spitfire releases in other regards, too. You’ll find a series of semi-circular controls at the top; these are designed to perform quick, easy tweaks.

Response comes first, letting you compress the dynamic range of the samples. This is extremely useful as some of the drums progress from a ‘barely there’ tap to a cacophonous smack, so being able to temper this range from within the library itself is often essential. Pitch lets you detune things dramatically, with extreme settings pushing the drums into sound design territory. Finally, Boom and Crack dials provide filtering; low-pass and high-pass respectively.

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BEAT ME UP Thereafter, it’s all about the instruments. Hans Zimmer is famous for bombastic percussive writing through his scores and this library captures his techniques beautifully. You can either load programs which access multiple sound sources (which can be individually loaded/ unloaded via keyswitches) at once, or pick individual programs to focus on a single Ensemble. The bottom of the GUI then loads a keyboard graphic to show you which keys are active, with the playing style, stick type, beater choice or technique arranged across the keyboard. These are uniform through the library, so the Hard beater hits are always assigned to C1 and D1, for instance, ensuring that you don’t have to learn new key positions for each program.

Most programs are Ensembles, marrying complementary groups of sounds together, and these are organised into Bucket Hits, Exotic Hits, Low Hits, Metal Hits, Timpani Hits and Taiko Hits. This final Ensemble group is the only one which provides access to individual drums, with Hi, Low and Large programs available alongside the Ensemble patch which combines all three. This might sound limiting, yet the sheer range of combi-

nations, accessible via keyswitches and hugely complemented by the tonal and timbral differences afforded by the microphone choices, means in practice it’s easy to find, program and blend programs to your track. And, despite its size, this is one of the easiest libraries to navigate and integrate into a project that I’ve come across.

Hans’ success as a composer will provoke two reactions. Some will love to get in on his signature explosive sonic action and this library will fast-forward them to that place. But some will feel his sound is unique to him and should be avoided in a bid to carve out a more personalised voice. If you fall into the latter category, don’t be put off – there’s so much flexibility that, at its core, HZ01 is ready to be, percussively, whatever you want it to be.

REVIEW | sE ELECTRONICS MAGNETO

sE ELECTRONICS MAGNETO A marvel mic? Trevor Curwen gets attracted to sE Electronics’ first venture into the budget mic market

KEEPING COSTS LOW

A large diaphragm condenser mic is pretty much an essential item for any home studio, jot just for recording vocals but also for a myriad of other tasks that would benefit from a microphone that can properly translate high-end detail. While there are any amount of mics available for three and four figure sums, there are very few for those recordists on a really tight budget. sE Electronics aim to alleviate that situation with their Magneto which is at a price point more in line with a hand-held dynamic mic.

The company say that the Magneto has been designed from the ground up to produce outstanding results at the owest price point they’ve ever set and to bring the heritage of their studio mics to those on a budget. At £79, it’s definitely affordable and it’s going up against the likes of Audio-Technica’s AT2020 and AKG’s Perception series.

The Magneto features a back-electret design, and to keep prices competitive, sE have equipped it with a capsule that has not been designed in-house but bought in. sE explain that this is what all mic brands who produce at this price do, but unlike their main competitors, the Magneto is hand- tuned and quality-controlled in-house for a consistent and controllable sound.

Plus the Magneto certainly seems robustly put together, something bourne out by sE’s promise to replace it if it breaks within three years.

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VOCALS AND MORE Finished in a black/gunmetal or limited edition purple colour combinations with white legending and a red sE logo, the Magneto looks smart. There’s no pad switch or high pass filter so it’s just a case of plugging in, applying phantom power and getting on with recording through its fixed cardioid pattern. The lack of a pad shouldn’t be a problem as the mic is quoted as being able to handle SPLs up to 140dB. On a vocal the mic supplied plenty of detail with quite a neutral character, airy top end being present but not over-emphasised, lower end warmth not quite as prominent as in some more expensive models. It was here that the optional Isolation Pack came into its own. The mic ships with just a standard mic clip but, as an optional accessory, the Isolation Pack offers a very practical shock mount and pop shield combination for just £39. While an elasticated cradle mount is always an asset to help stop any vibrations or knocks being transmitted to the mic, it’s the pop shield that’s essential for vocals and, although this one is a single mesh metal shield as opposed to a more sophisticat-

ed multi-layer nylon affair, it is a no-brainer to easily fit it into its slot on the cradle and really does help to kill those plosives.

On a couple of different acoustic guitars the mic provided very usable results with a good overall sound balance. We also tried it as the hi-hat mic on a fully-miced drum kit and were impressed with the amount of high-end sizzle it was able to capture.

If you’re looking for a mic to do all those condenser tasks but are on a tight budget, the Magneto offers good value for money.

Q&A

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Q&A’S | AMPLIFY

SPLURGE OR SAVE? Dan Westbury asks: I’m looking into buying a used Urei 1176 as I know it’s a bit of an industry standard, but I’m wondering whether I’d be best getting a plug-in version instead. I’ve been told that the Waves CLA-76 sounds pretty close to the original hardware.

I’d obviously like to spend as little as possible and one hardware compressor is going to eat up pretty much my entire studio budget. So, if the plug-in is as good as people say, I’ll probably shoot for that.

Dan Goldman replies: Dan you’re correct that the Urei 1176 is an industry standard. It sounds right on so many sources and thus is a great all- rounder.

There are also many hardware clones that capture the originals amazingly well but there are plenty of excellent plug-in emulations around too. Obviously, buying an original hardware unit or a new hardware clone involves a much bigger financial commitment but I’ve no doubt you would love owning one and they hold their value well. Do keep in mind that with hardware you’ll never find that you can’t use it because you haven’t upgraded your computer OS, which is a big deal! With plugin emulations, the initial outlay is a lot smaller and what’s also good is that UAD and Waves bundle several 1176 revisions together

for one price. Not only this but all the plug-in versions work in stereo unlike the hardware 1176 which is mono (though the old 1178 is pretty much a stereo Silverface 1176 but with just one set of controls).

In terms of sound, I’ve found that the plug-in versions get you about 90% there and you’ll find lots of listening tests comparing hardware/software 1176s all over the net. Keep in mind each manufacturer’s emulation has a slightly different character due to the different modelling techniques used but all the plug-in versions I’ve tried (CLA, T-Racks, UAD) capture the essential basic flavour of all the classic 1176 models. One of my faves is the Waves CLA-76 which has both Blue and Black models included and captures the essential mojo of the 1176, particularly when pushed hard. Also, the ‘all buttons in’ setting is uncannily like the original. The T-Racks and UAD emulations are also very close to the originals, again capturing the essential mojo of the hardware units but with slightly different flavours. The UAD version is the most expensive as you also have to buy the UAD card to load the plug-ins onto. Some might see this as a downside as you are then getting locked into another proprietary system, but that’s not to write off the UAD system as the emulations are superb.

However, I think if you are going the plug-in route you shouldn’t be

tied to specific hardware to run that software on. I would go for the CLA-76 or the similarly great T-Racks Black 76. Price wise, the CLA-76 is part of the CLA bundle with the CLA-2A and CLA-3A and costs £270, whilst the T-Racks Black 76 comes in the T-Racks Vintage Compressors Bundle with three other vintage compressors and costs 119 euros, which equates to just £98.

Hope this helps!

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ONE GIANT LEAP? Carl Knowles asks: I saw recently that IK Multimedia announced something called the iRing, a motion controller for iOS devices. It sounds like something that I’d like to have a play with, but I was wondering – will it work with my existing music apps or would they have to be converted?

Also, it got me thinking – is there anything similar available for desktop computers? I quite like the idea of being able to control my DAW and synths by moving my hands.

Mark Gyver replies: For those not in the know, I should explain that the iRing, as Carl says and its name suggests, is a piece of wearable tech that tracks movement using your iOS device’s front-facing camera and translates this into MIDI data so you can adjust parameters simply by moving your hands. The product actually comprises two rings and, assuming you’ve got both of them on, enables you to control up to six parameters using two hands.

Having not tried the iRing (it should be available by the time you read this, priced at $24.99/19.99 euros) I can’t say how well it works, but I can tell you that it won’t just work with your entire collection of iOS music making apps. Third-party developers can choose to sup-

port it (IK has launched a free development kit and licensing programme), but it does require some work on their part. That said, the iRing FX/Controller, one of two IK iRing apps announced at launch, apparently enables you to create custom MIDI control setups and use them to control other music making apps (or even send data to a computer via Wi-Fi), so this may serve as a workaround.

As for desktop solutions, the one that currently seems to be getting people talking is the Leap Motion device ($79.99). Designed for all kinds of computing applications, this is a USB motion controller that, in the words of its makers “tracks both hands and all ten fingers with pinpoint precision and incredible speed”. It does this using a mixture of cameras and LEDs. As with the iRing, the Leap Motion won’t enable you to control all of your music making software out of the box, but thanks to its app store model, musicians are being catered for. There are some simple standalone motion-controllable instruments – the AirHarp, for example – but if you want to use the hardware with your existing software you need to check out Geco MIDI ($9.99). This enables you to set up to 40 different ‘control streams’ spread over two hands, with each control stream being mappable to MIDI CC, Channel Pressure, Pitchbend and

Pitchwheel messages on up to 16 different channels. There’s OSC support, too, while an integrated virtual MIDI port in OS X enables you to send data to other applications (you’ll need a free utility such as loopMIDI if you want to do this on a PC).

If you happen to be a Cubase 7 or Cubase Artist 7 user, the news is even better. Download the Cubase IC Air app, which is compatible with the Leap Motion and also depth cameras developed using the Intel perceptual technology SDK 2013, and you can have gesture control over Steinberg’s DAW right away. It’s worth saying that the Leap Motion won’t replace your keyboard, mouse and MIDI controller, but it might be something that you’ll enjoy experimenting with (look on YouTube to see what other people are doing with it).

Q&A’S | AMPLIFY

NEW BOARD Al Moulton asks: I’m about to start gigging with an R ‘n’ B/Soul/Funk band and I’m after a new live board to suit these styles. What do you guys feel is the most authentic Hammond/EP/Clav emulator out there? Really interested in any insight.

Dan Goldman replies: Hey Al, well that’s a big question but I’ve played enough of the contenders extensively to give you some insight. As far as R ‘n’ B/Soul/ Funk keyboard sounds, we are basically talking solid and authentic Rhodes, Clavinet and Hammond emulations. You’ll find these sounds in all the main contenders, which I would say are the Nord Stage/Electro, Korg Kronos, Roland FA, Yamaha MOX/Motif and Hammond SK1.

Which is best is a tough call as a lot of it comes down to personal taste but let me give a quick overview of each. Firstly, let’s look at the Kronos, Motif and FA, as they are all workstations that contain Rhodes, Hammond and Clav sounds. The Kronos has the respected CX3 tonewheel organ built in with drawbar control (which sounds pretty authentic) and a decent Leslie simulation too. Its EP sounds are great and there are several models on offer including Wurli, plus Rhodes MK1, MKV (and more), and what’s also great is you have detailed

control over attack and release noise, brightness of the attack and hammer width too, so you can really go in and make some very authentic custom EP tones.

The Kronos Clav sounds are very usable too, though they’re not as authentic as Nord’s Clav samples in the Stage2 and Electro.

In contrast, the new Roland FA is a lot cheaper than say a Stage 2, Kronos or Motif but it’s still got some very strong EP sounds in particular. There’s also a nice tonewheel organ onboard, though you can’t control the virtual drawbars from the front panel and there’s no dedicated chorus/ vibrato unit built in, whilst the Leslie emulation sounds similar to the Motif’s, which is good. The Clavs onboard are very playable but like the Kronos they lack the mojo of a real Clav D6.

The MOX/Motif excels at authentic EP sounds too and you can purchase and upload Yamaha’s Chick Corea MkV Rhodes or the NeoSoulKeys EP, which are both killer libraries. The Clavs onboard can be great as long as you program your own from scratch and don’t use the presets (which aren’t the best) though there’s no dedicated tonewheel organ model onboard with drawbar facilities, which is a shame. The basic organ tones included are solid but not super authentic and certainly they can’t match the Kronos or Nord.

Moving on, the Nord Stage 2/

Electro 4D have very authentic organs onboard and a great Leslie too. They also have what I consider to be the most authentic Clav engine around in a keyboard, though strangely the samples lack key on/off noise and a mute sample. The Rhodes and Wurli samples onboard are also authentic but need tweaking with the onboard effects and EQ/compression to make them punchy enough for soloing duties, though for normal comping duties they are excellent. Also with the Stage 2 you get a synth in with the deal too, which is handy. Finally, the Hammond SK1 is often overlooked but it has probably the best organ/Leslie emulation of the bunch (no surprise there!) and it has surprisingly good Clav and EP emulations too.

Obviously, which board you choose depends on your budget and the general tone/vibe you prefer but if I had to narrow it down from these options, the Nord Electro 4D and Hammond SK1 offer the best bang for your buck, not only because they sound authentic but because they both also have waterfall keyboards and dedicated drawbars too.

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I WANT THUNDERBOLT Sam Willis asks: Thunderbolt technology has been around for a while now but there still aren’t many affordable audio interfaces that use it.

I’ve just bought a MacBook Air and would like to get a portable audio interface to go with it, but all the ones I can afford are USB 2.0. Could you point me in the direction of a Thunderbolt one?

Mark Gyver replies: There has been some take-up of Thunderbolt among hardware manufacturers, particularly those who make high-end video and audio gear, but it hasn’t become the dominant connection standard for more affordable audio interfaces. Until recently, Thunderbolt was primarily seen as ‘Mac-only’, and most manufacturers like to release interfaces that work with PCs as well.

Also, despite its massive bandwidth and fast data transfer rates, some have questioned the need to implement Thunderbolt in audio interfaces that have a fairly limited amount of I/O. Some manufacturers argue that USB 2.0 already does the job perfectly well, with latency low enough that users wouldn’t notice any difference with a Thunderbolt connection. In fact, the biggest impact of going down the Thunderbolt road might be to make the product more expensive to produce and sell.

That said, more affordable Thunderbolt interfaces are starting to emerge. Zoom’s new TAC-2, for example, is a sleek-looking 2-in/2-out device that promises “ultra-low latency and 24-bit/192kHz performance”. It should be available soon but, with a retail price of $399, it’s still considerably more expensive than a lot of USB 2.0 interfaces that offer the same amount of I/O. You might also consider Universal Audio’s Apollo Twin, a desktopfriendly 2x6 Thunderbolt audio interface with UAD DSP inside.

At £729 for the entry-level Solo model this isn’t exactly cheap, but at least you’re getting powered plug-ins as well as audio I/O for your money.

Ultimately though, you shouldn’t base your purchase on whether the interface has Thunderbolt on it or not. What’s important is that you get an interface that’s suited to your requirements at the right price, and that might very well be a USB one.