Music Tech August 2015

Issue 149 August 2015

1.7GB OF ROYALTY-FREE SAMPLES • 2 HOURS OF TUITION VIDEO www.musictech.net

Issue 149 August 2015

The magazine for producers, engineers and recording musicians

SQUAREPUSHER

Pushing the production boundaries

Give your music a professional edge. Read our in-depth guide, hear the results online Top music production advice www.musictech.net

20 Tips for mobile music Creative sound design Best DAW workshops

Vocals in Live Logic compression Recording in Cubase The Best Reviews

Reason 8.3, FLStudio 12 Era II library, Korg iM1 Issue 149 August 2015 £5.99

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Welcome MT

Expert Panel Studio Hardware John Pickford

John is a studio engineer with over 25 years of experience. He is a keen sound recording historian and has a passion for valve-driven analogue equipment and classic recording techniques.

Mixing/Mastering/Logic Mark Cousins Mark specialises in sound design and cinematic productions. He has recorded with orchestras across Europe and is heavily involved in soundtrack composition.

Careers Editor Rob Boffard

Rob Boffard is a sound designer with a background in TV and radio work. He is a Reason evangelist, and when not writing for MusicTech he releases hip-hop music under the name Rob One.

Digital/Composition Andy Price

With a Master’s in songwriting and a vast interest in music history and recording techniques, Andy works daily on MusicTech.net as well as regularly contributing to the magazine. He is currently heading up our Landmark Album features and songwriting/Cubase series.

Recording & Guitar Tech Huw Price

A recording engineer since 1987, Huw has worked with David Bowie, My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream, Depeche Mode, Nick Cave, Heidi Berry, Fad Gadget and countless others.

Scoring/Orchestral Keith Gemmell

Keith specialises in areas where traditional music-making meets music technology, including orchestral and jazz sample libraries, acoustic virtual instruments and notation software.

Ableton Live Martin Delaney

Martin was one of the first UK Ableton Certified Trainers. He has taught everyone from musicians to psychiatric patients and has written three books about Live. Martin also designed the Kenton Killamix Mini USB MIDI controller and is now the editor of www.ableton-live-expert.com.

Reason, DJ & Mobile Hollin Jones

As well as teaching music technology, producing and writing soundtracks, Hollin is an expert on everything Apple, mobile or computer-related, as well as being an accomplished keyboard player.

Electronic Music Alex Holmes

Alex has been a computer musician for 15 years, having a keen passion for beats, bass and all forms of electronic music. He’s currently involved in three different dance music projects.

Mastering is still the big daddy when it comes to music production. What I mean is the word still strikes fear into many, when really it shouldn’t. (The 1970s wrestler ‘Big Daddy’, for example, was a mighty chap who was actually a rather nice fellow called Shirley). Rubbish 70s references aside, the aim of our major feature this month is to de-mystify mastering. So Mike Hillier’s article on p12 looks at the nitty gritty in exhaustive detail with reference to the audio he mixed in last month’s main feature. The results will be online by the time you read this so you can hear the process in action, in all its glory. Maybe we should just give mastering a friendlier name to make it less scary. Pampering? Smoothing? Cuddling even? But that’s not the most exciting thing in this issue by any means. On a personal level, after what can only be described as ‘a lot of fannying about’, I’ve finally settled on a mobile music-making set-up that includes both Korg’s Gadget and iM1, the latter of which I take a rather self-indulgent look at on p98. On a connected mobile note, though, it’s Music IO on p87 that will be the app we’ll all probably end up using – software that will revolutionise the connectivity between my mobile set-up and my (still) slowly emerging home studio. Then, at the other end of the scale, we have the much-hyped Studio One v3 – see p7, where we answer the question ‘What is all the fuss about?’. Finally, a quick plug for our next issue. It’s number 150, so it’ll be big. I’d best get on and do something for it… Until then! Andy Jones Senior Editor Email [email protected] Twitter @AndyJonesMT

Pro Tools Mike Hillier

Mike spent five years at Metropolis Studios, working alongside some of the best-known mix and mastering engineers in the world. He is now building his own studio in south London.

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MAGAZINE August 2015

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MT Contents

MT Contents Issue 149

August 2015

MASTERING: THE GUIDE P12 20 TIPS FOR MOBILE MUSIC MAKING P48 FREE SAMPLES GO HERE P114 MT Cover feature

28 Squarepusher At the cutting edge of music production. Or is he?

MT Buyer’s Guide

12 MASTERING: THE GUIDE

Learn how to master a track and hear the results on the DVD

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103 Six of the best… preamps That most important of items in your signal chain under the spotlight…

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Contents MT p78

p73

MT Issue 149 Full listings…

p83

ADVANCE 007 | Industry news and opinion MASTERING: THE GUIDE

The latest reviews

MORE REVIEWS… than ever before. What you need for

012 | Hear how we master a track A full, in-depth guide! Read how it’s done, hear it on the DVD

p92

your studio and mobile music making

INTERVIEWS 022 | Industry Guru: Insider’s guide to film and TV music production 028 | Squarepusher An incredible chat with the man on his methods TECHNIQUE

DAW workshops

40 Logic Pro In Depth 44 Ultimate Guide to Live 52 DAW Recording New series! This month: the compressor

Everything Ableton, right here…

A new series on getting the perfect DAW take

034 | How to record… bass! 040 | Logic In Depth Part 2 The compressor 044 | The Ultimate Guide to Live 6 The only Ableton guide you need 048 | 20 Tips on… mobile music 052 | New Series: Recording into your DAW Setting up with Cubase 056 | Beat programming & sound design Big sound with Combinator SUBSCRIBE 060 | … and get a huge discount! REVIEWS 062 | Reason 8.3 DAW update 064 | Heavyocity Gravity library 068 | Novation MoroderNova synth 070 | JamHub MT16 recorder 073 | FL Studio 12 DAW update 077 | Audio-Technica 5045 mic 078 | Best Service ERA II library

Bluffer’s guide

080 | Telefunken THP-29 ’phones 083 | Pearl Concert Grand piano 085 | Tracktion Master Mix plugin 087 | Music I/O Connect DAW to iOS 088 | Rupert Neve DI box 090 | Zero-G Haunted Ground s/w 092 | AIAIAI TMA-2 headphones

106 A BLUFFER’S GUIDE TO MICS

095 | Siren Audio software bundle 096 | Digitech Polara reverb 098 | Korg iM1 iPad M1 100 | Mini Reviews REGULAR FEATURES 103 | 6 of the best… preamps 106 | A bluffer’s guide: Mics 110 | Show off your studio now! 112 | Next month in MusicTech 114 | On your MT DVD


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MTAdvance Round-ups

Analysis

Industry insight

FOR MORE OF THE LATEST NEWS CHECK OUT MUSICTECH.NET

STUDIO ONE

SO WHAT IS ALL THE FUSS ABOUT? Studio One caused a stir when it entered the DAW market in 2008. Now version 3 has landed and looks like a true heavyweight contender. Studio One Expert Matthew A. Mann, takes a look…

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t happens every so often that a new product comes along that garners much attention – be it good or bad. Often, it’s both. The Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) market is no different. Everyone has their own opinions about their favourite DAW. Everyone says theirs is best because of ‘this bell’ or ‘that whistle’ that works better than anyone else’s. The other long-standing argument refers to the sound of a DAW. “My DAW sounds better than yours!” can be heard being shouted from the rooftops. Of course, we logic-based [not that Logic – Ed] organisms know that the ones and zeros of a software program don’t really have a sound. Do they? One bit of bytes doesn’t really sound different from another. Does it? These arguments have been going on for as long as there’s been a DAW marketplace. And since there’s such fierce competition among DAW makers (and such passion from their users), it’s difficult for a new DAW to break into that marketplace. But in 2008, hardware maker PreSonus (already famous for its compressors, preamps and interfaces) entered the DAW market with a very elegant effort in the form of Studio One. This new DAW met the market with mixed reviews for certain, but thousands of people – in search of something new and intuitive – jumped at this new

Details

Manufacturer PreSonus Price Artist: £69; Professional £279; upgrade/crossgrade £35 to £249 Distributor Source Tel: 020 8962 5080 Web www.presonus.com

workstation and sunk their teeth in… and refused to let go. Well, Studio One is no longer the ‘new kid on the block’, and is now at version 3. With the release of v3, we get multiple new added features that change the game for PreSonus and may lead to many people jumping from their old DAWs to this shiny beast. Let’s take a look at what’s on offer, how it compares to some of the other DAWs out there, what it’s missing, and why you should seriously consider augmenting your current setup with Studio One 3.

With the release of v3, we get multiple new features that change the game for PreSonus What’s so special about it?

Studio One 3 comes bundled with some virtual instruments – how many you get will depend on the version you opt for

So what is it that makes Studio One so popular to its ever-expanding community? It began with a simple one-window user interface. The interface was easy to use and very intuitive. It should be said that, when Studio One came to the market, it was not the prettiest DAW out there. It was flat grey, black and light blue. So, people fell in love with Studio One for what it had inside, not what it looked like on the outside. Add its drag-and-drop capability and auto-routing functionalities and it was a no-brainer. Unlike some other DAWs, dragging an effect from the sidebar browser onto a track automatically routes the audio through that effect. Key commands are also intuitive. For example, hitting the ‘T’ key brings up the Add Track dialog. This pop-up allows one to select from a number of options, including: a name for your track(s), the number of tracks, the type of track (instrument, audio, folder), track colour, auto-colour, track input and auto ascending (for assigning each ascending input to each new MAGAZINE August 2015

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Advance MT

The Project Page The Professional version of Studio One 3 comes with a very capable integrated mastering solution called the Project Page. In the Project Page, you can drag your rendered stereo tracks from each of your songs. From there, you can arrange them (called sequencing), add as much or as little silence between each song as you want, and then add mastering-grade processing to sweeten the lot. The Project Page’s brilliance lies in its complete integration with the rest of Studio One. Let’s say you have your stereo masters laid out and ready for final sweetening, and you hear a mistake or want to tweak the EQ on a particular track or instrument in one song so it will sit better in the mix. You can go back to the Song Page for that particular song, make your changes, save your song and the Project Page stereo master will then update automatically to reflect the changes you made. A well-respected mastering engineer has said: “Studio One may soon become a ‘game changer’ for the mastering community.” This seems to be pretty much the case for the home studio community as well. track as it’s created, and output. You can accomplish a lot with this dialog box. Another point of note: PreSonus doesn’t call its instrument note manipulation format MIDI… even though it may occasionally refer to it as MIDI in the manual. It is actually a higher-resolution format, allowing for much more accurate manipulation of instrument data. This also allows for very tight integration with certain third-party developers’ plugins, such as Melodyne, for example. Melodyne Essentials (trial version on Artist, full version on Professional) is integrated completely into Studio One, and works brilliantly for pitch adjusting, format control and even developing harmonies… and it’s not an add-on insert or plugin, it’s a menu item and works really well. Other new features that you can find in Studio One 3 that make this the new Composer’s Toolkit include: ● Multitouch support and a DPI user interface for Mac and PC ● Remote control for Studio One on the iPad ● Automatic delay compensation ● Control link (very easy mapping of controls to control surfaces) ● User-definable keyboard shortcuts (including presets for Pro Tools and Cubase, and Logic shortcuts) ● Video import/export ● New, previously unavailable effects such as Bitcrusher and Roto ● Pipeline (an insert for using external hardware processors)

Studio One also comes bundled with a few virtual instruments and some loops and samples. The amount of content you get with Studio One is dependent on which version you buy: Artist (very small loops and presets library), Producer (much larger library and added VST support for third-party instruments) or Professional (a ton of loops and samples and all the VIs on offer). The virtual instruments included are Mojito (a mono synth), Presence (a soundfont sampler), Impact (a pretty versatile drum machine) and Sample One (a drag-n-drop sample player). They’re not the prettiest instruments, but they are very capable. And the loops and samples are fantastic. There are tons of electronic and acoustic loops, and all are very high quality. In version 3 of Studio One, PreSonus has changed the format of its versions of the software. There is now a free version containing Presence XT (the new version of its sampler) and a limited number of instruments, effects and

The Professional version of Studio One 3 introduces the Project Page (above)

loops. The mid-range version is now called Artist. It includes more effects, more loops and Presence XT, Mojito, Mai Tai (its new dual-oscillator polysynth), Impact (with more kits than before) and Sample One. The full version is still called Professional. It adds everything from the previous versions, and also support for VST2, VST3 and AU instruments and effects, the entire PreSonus Effects Suite, ReWire, and third-party sample libraries from EXS, Kontakt, Giga and SoundFonts in Presence XT. It also adds the Project Page for mastering your projects, which I’ll touch on later.

A songwriter’s toolkit This most recent release of Studio One adds some incredibly powerful features designed to help the songwriter/composer get the most out of Studio One and enhance creativity. The Scratchpad and Arranger are a powerful combination that let you develop different arrangements and save them within your songs. You can also try out different solos or instrumentation within the Scratchpad and then drag them into your timeline. You can save many different Scratchpads in your project, too. It’s almost like loop-based recording and arranging, but in a timeline. This is also nice because you don’t have to set up new tracks to try your different ideas, and each track is already associated to your favourite effects.

The verdict All in all, Studio One is a fantastically simple DAW that allows the artist the freedom to create without getting bogged down in all the technical know-how. And it’s complex enough to provide everything an artist needs to go from first idea to a mixed/mastered CD, all within one application. While its layout and a few missing features may turn a few people away, its pedigree and PreSonus’ track record for listening to its users and giving them what they want mean that Studio One is here to stay and will continue to grow into, quite possibly, the best DAW out there for the songwriter, recording/mixing engineer, mastering engineer and producer. It’s no wonder PreSonus is calling it “the next standard”. MT

CLARIFICATION In the June issue of MusicTech, in the review of Native Instruments’ Emotive Strings, we stated in the Alternatives box that Grosso and Capriccio don’t run in NI’s free Kontakt 5 player. Sonokinetic would like to point out that they do and that “all of our orchestral products, apart from Tutti and Da Capo do run in the free player. For the ones that currently don’t we are working with NI to bring them to KP compatibility, too, but Grosso and Capriccio (and Minimal and Vivace) already run in the free player.” Our apologies to Sonokinetic and for any confusion caused.


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MT Feature Mastering: The Guide

Mastering: The Guide MT Feature Mastering

Mastering is your final chance to make your song shine and sit comfortably alongside the other tracks on an EP or album. Mike Hillier explains everything you need to know…

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ixing and mastering require two very different mindsets. In the mix, your focus should be jumping constantly from the minutiae to the big picture and back again. Does the attack on the kick drum compressor let enough through? Is the release letting go before the next hit? Does this extra compression on the kick mean it is now masking the bass guitar? You have hundreds, perhaps thousands of parameters at your control, each capable of making tiny changes that could cascade down to fundamentally change the whole mix. However, if you want to make a change to any one channel you can jump quickly into the mix and alter that one sound. If the vocal needs something more to help it punch through, you can quickly grab a saturation tool, a parallel compressor, a delay or even an EQ. Any of these different tools could be the right one to help the vocal punch through. However, in mastering your focus is almost always on the big picture; you should be thinking not only about this one song, but how this song sits next to other songs, both on the album it is being released on, and also others by artists in a similar genre. Your tools are broader in spectrum. Any compressor you add will be applied to the whole mix; there are ways of narrowing the focus, mid-side or multiband techniques; but should you want the vocal to punch through, the tools you have are likely to impact on considerably more of the mix than were you to make a similar change in the mix. For this reason, it can be very difficult to master your own mixes. If you think the

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vocal needs to punch through more, that decision should have been made in the mix. Any attempt to decide what in your own mix needs to change begs the question, ‘was the mix really finished?’ Getting another perspective on your mix is the one reason we recommend you find an accomplished mastering engineer whose work you enjoy, to build a relationship with. Alternatively, why not find a friend to share mastering duties with? You can master their mixes, while they master yours. If you hope to one day become a seasoned pro at mastering, this is a great way to get your first few masters under your belt.

Listen, listen, listen When you receive a new song to master, it can be very tempting to simply revert to a sort of ‘mastering by numbers’ approach. Boosting the low-end and the top in a basic ‘smile’ curve, adding width to the top-end, and mono-ing the subs, adding your favourite stereo compressor and colour tools and then bashing on a mastering limiter at the end – maybe even a multiband limiter with a mastering preset in place. This primitive approach to mastering has become all too common, and not only among inexperienced producers mastering their own tracks, but also among a few seasoned pros who ought to know better. But mastering a track will require far more consideration of the specifics of the individual mix than any presets or even rough ‘go-to’ selections could possibly allow. The golden rule of mastering is to ‘do no harm’. The goal is to bring the most out of the mix, not to change it, nor to impose your own mark on it, simply because

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Mastering: The Guide Feature MT

The golden rule of mastering is to ‘do no harm’. The goal is to bring the most out of the mix, not change it you can. You don’t need to push the mix through all of your most expensive processors, as tempting as that can be. The best mastering engineers in the world know when to throw the kitchen sink at a mix, and when to do nothing at all. So before you reach for even a single processor, take the time to listen to the mix several times. Listen closely and determine what needs to be done, then set about doing that, and only that. Ask yourself what you do and do not like about the mix. Is there anything in the mix that pulls your attention out of the song? A click, a sibilant vocal, or piercing cymbals for example. Are any frequencies too present? Are any frequencies lacking? Are these problems constant, or things that occur only at certain moments? If they’re constant, you should be thinking about which EQ to use to change that, and if they’re only at certain Quiztones Another excellent tool for improving your critical listening is Quiztones from Audiofile Engineering. This application lets you test your ability to hear frequencies (both using sine waves, or EQ applied to music) and gain differences. Quiztones is available for Mac, iOS and Android: http://quiztones.com. ●

DDPi The final process in mastering is often to supply the necessary files for the replication in whatever formats are required. For digital distribution, this may only be 24-bit .WAV files, but for CDs a special DDPi file is required. Some DAWs can export DDPi files natively, while others may require a dedicated DDPi plugin, such as the HOFA DDP Generator – see http://hofaplugins.de/en. ●

moments, do you automate the EQ, or use a dynamic EQ, or a multiband compressor? Do all the elements of the mix sit together well? Or could it use a little extra glue from a compressor. Compare the mix to other similar songs, most importantly the other songs on the album or EP your are mastering, if that is applicable, but also to other songs in the genre. Compared to these songs, how does the frequency content in this one compare? How wide does this song sound compared to the others? Does the vocal sit above the instrumental bed by a similar amount? How loud does this mix sound compared to the others? Once you have answers to all of these questions, you are ready to start processing the song. With this in mind, you may find that 90 per cent of your masters still end up using the same chain. You may even find that you use the same settings within this chain a lot of the time, but you will be doing it for the right reasons; and you will also know, most importantly, when not to use these tools, and when to break out some other tools that you may use infrequently. What will make you stand out from a machine, or a poor mastering engineer, is your ability MAGAZINE August


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MT Walkthrough A beginner’s guide to critical listening

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In the EQ, engage the low-pass filter, and set it to play back only the sub-region.

Load your reference track into a new channel in the mix, or use the reference track trick from last month’s issue, then add an instance of a clean EQ, such as FabFilter Pro-Q 2.

Copy the EQ and its settings onto the track you want to master, and switch back and forth using the X-OR Solo mode, listening to the impact of the sub-frequencies in your track compared to the reference.

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Move the filter in both channels up, to allow more of the bass end, and add a high-pass filter to remove the sub-frequencies. Again, compare the two tracks.

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Continue moving the two filters up in tandem, or use a wide band-pass filter, to compare each of the important sections in each mix.

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Finally, remove the low-pass filter, and leave only the high-pass filter to listen to the high-end only. This is the hardest bit to get right, as you may struggle to hear some of these frequencies entirely.

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Mastering reverb Reverb is not a process that is used often in mastering, and while many all-in-one mastering applications will include a reverb, it should be reserved for the rare occasions when you are fixing a bad mix, or trying to match two disparate mixes recorded in different locations. ●

to critically analyse a track and bring only what is needed to improve on the mix.

Plan your actions In the last issue, we looked at getting a mix ready for mastering, focusing on a mix of Anchor by HART. In this article, we’re going to focus on the same track as we pass it through the mastering. The song was mixed by Mario Leal, who did an excellent job, not only getting the mix right, but focusing just enough attention on the master buss to make the master a fairly easy job. Alongside the mix, Mario provided a couple of Coldplay tracks as references – Up In Flames, from Mylo Xyloto, and Magic, from Ghost Stories. So we loaded copies of these into our session alongside the final mix. It is a good rule to always open up a good line of communication with the artist, the mixer, producer and anyone else who might have a say in the finished master at this stage, as this will help you to get an idea of what they each feel needs to be brought out in the master. It can also be helpful to provide some mix feedback, especially if the mixer is inexperienced; this may even give you an opportunity to have the mixer correct any issues you might have spotted in the mix and send a new mix, preventing you from having to find a way to “fix it in mastering” – a task (and phrase) that should always be avoided, where possible. With Anchor, our first thoughts are that a little more excitement could be brought to the mix with the help of a little more top-end, especially if we’re to try to match the tonality of the two reference tracks, while the bass needs a little more energy – but not so much as to become overbearing. In the low midrange, we want to bring some separation between the kick and


bass, while a little higher we need to try to bring power to the guitars and vocals. This frequency range can be particularly troublesome. Too much energy and you risk the mix sounding muddy, too little and it will sound thin. Getting everything just right, then, is the key to a great master. Using an M/S matrix, we can listen to the sides (the difference portion of the matrix), to hear only those parts of the mix that are panned out from the centre. The sides of Anchor are mostly reverbs and delays, with an electric piano-type sound fairly prominently mixed wide. There is also a little guitar, some violin and BVs. So, any compression or EQ we add to the sides is going to affect only these elements. The primary bass elements, the kick and bass are mono, although a small amount of both of these is feeding a stereo reverb. However, there is still a fair amount of sub-frequency energy in the sides, which we’d prefer to see sitting more squarely in the centre of the mix. With so much of the mix in the centre, bringing up the sides is mostly going to add additional reverb to the mix, which is often also a consequence of bringing up the levels; so for now at least, we probably don’t need to be bringing any additional width. But we can safely EQ the mid (or mono sum) portion of the signal to alter the beat, bass and vocal without too much effect on the sides. The reference tracks are both quite loud masters, so we know we’re going to have to try to get some extra level out of the mix. Some of this perceived extra level ISRC In addition to the audio, metadata can be stored in some file formats. The most important of these is the ISRC code. ISRC codes are the International Standard Recording Codes, used to uniquely identify songs, similar to ISBN codes on books. Each code should be 12 characters long, and will help royalty collection agencies to identify recordings in order to make payments. You can buy them and get more info from the PPL: www.ppluk.com/I-Make-Music/Why-ShouldI-Become-A-Member/What-is-an-ISRC. ●

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MT Walkthrough Comparing compressors

Duplicate the track onto another channel, and copy the pre-compression EQ, then add the next compressor. If you’re using outboard hardware before the compressor, or DSP processing using a processor, such as a UAD, and running out of processing, you can buss one track to multiple auxes with EQ on the original and compression on the aux channels.

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With the pre-compression EQ already in place, add the first compressor you want to try; here, we’re using the FabFilter Pro-C.

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Set the parameters of the first compressor to provide the best-sounding compression you can achieve for the track you are working on. Let the compressor guide you, and experiment with any built-in interesting features. Pro-C, for instance, can model three different compression types.

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Now add your next compressor. Don’t be tempted to listen back, or to try to replicate the first compressor sound – let the new compressor guide your sound towards what that compressor is best at. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for as many compressors as you want to try. Don’t go overboard here, though, more than three or four options will take quite a while to set up, and you may find it difficult to decide between them.

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Finally, level match each of the newly compressed channels, and using X-OR solo mode, switch between each to decide on your favourite. If you have a friend close to hand, get them to do the switching while you keep your eyes closed, so as not to bias yourself in favour of any one unit.

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Mastering Feature MT

will come from the added brightness – a trick frequently overused by mastering engineers, but one that does need some care, as too much can spoil the mix. The rest of the extra level has to come from dynamics processing. With all this decided before we’ve added a single plugin, we now have a road map for the track. This means any plugins we add, at least initially, should be ones that will help us approach directly the issues we’ve already discovered; so, as one would expect, we are going to reach for an EQ, a mid-side EQ, a compressor and a limiter.

The first pass We like to make any M/S alterations early in the signal chain, and so we have opted to add the Brainworx Daniel Pattison, aka HART Like last month, we have again chosen to look at Anchor by HART in this article (www.facebook.com/ hart.musica). The track was recorded by Ben Walker (www.bensroom.co.uk) with additional recordings by Mario Leal and George Murphy and string arrangements by Nico Muhly. The track was mixed by Mario Leal (www.mario-leal.com). ●

bx-digital V2 plugin first in our chain (we actually add it in Insert position two, for reasons that will become apparent). This EQ is a clear favourite of ours for this task, as it not only has five bands on each channel, plus high- and low-pass filters, but also clear controls over the M/S matrix, including a stereo width knob, L/R balance, and separate M and S pan controls. Placing the M/S EQ before the first dynamics module in our chain enables us to control how the dynamics module will respond to the width elements of our track. In the next position, we add an instance of the UBK Clariphonic DSP. This is a parallel EQ, with two high-frequency shelves (and so can be used only to add level, not as a subtractive EQ). The controls on the Clariphonic are a little esoteric, but in short the Focus engine adds midrange, while the Clarity engine adds


high-end – with shelves as high as 37kHz. Again, we want to place this before the first dynamics module; this is to improve our signal-to-noise ratio when using a compressor, and to compensate for any loss of high-end that the compressor may introduce. The final EQ we’re going to add is the UAD Manley Massive Passive Mastering Edition. This EQ has four parametric bands, in addition to high- and low-pass filters, and is to our ears one of the sweetest-sounding EQs we’ve worked with. It isn’t great at detailed precision EQing, but it can transform a track with only a few boosts or cuts, and its control over the midrange is among the best we’ve ever heard. Unlike the previous two effects, the Massive Passive is going to be positioned after any dynamics processing, so we generally leave a few spaces clear for adding additional compressors, expanders, de-essers, multiband processors, etc – even when we think we know we want to use only one of these. For the compressor, we’re going to use the much-venerated UAD Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor. But not before passing the mix through a variety of alternatives to see which brings out the right character in the mix. Determining this is tough, and over time we have developed an intuition that has helped us to move quickly towards the right compressor for the job; but we still find ourselves duplicating the track over several channels in our DAW and testing it with a selection of compressors. In this example, we’re also testing the UAD Neve 33609, and Using outboard ● If you really want to make it as a mastering engineer, sooner or later you’re going to need to invest in some outboard analogue hardware. Mastering versions of many compressors and EQs are available, but frequently at much-inflated prices compared to the standard versions. This is because instead of potentiometers, mastering editions usually have switches with dedicated stereo-matched resistors to ensure far superior stereo accuracy and improved recall, often within 0.1dB.

02/07/2015 16:26


Monitoring Nearfield monitors are the de facto standard in mixing, and many mastering engineers also rely on them, but a good pair of full-range speakers can be just as useful in a mastering environment. ATC and PMC are the most common names to be found in the big-budget mastering houses, but Unity Audio, Genelec and Barefoot all make slightly more affordable full-range monitors. ●

our own hardware quad VCA compressor – a clone of the classic SSL 4000 G buss compressor, with additional side-chain options and improved stereo handling. It is important not to get caught up in a hardware versus software debate, or any initial preferences for certain GUIs here, and blind A/B testing yourself after a short break can often result in an unexpected conclusion – as here where we might have been tempted to go with the hardware out of preference for breaking out of the box. When comparing compressors like this, it can be tempting to try to match the effect of the first with all subsequent models, but this will give an inherent advantage to the first, which is allowed to do the best it can, while all others are simply cloning it. Instead, we like to ignore all previous settings and simply try to set the compressor to work its magic the best it can each time, comparing the – occasionally quite different – results to determine our preference. Finally, we have added a brick-wall limiter; this is going to serve a dual purpose – to add a small amount of level to the track if necessary, and secondly to

It can be useful to set up two or more limiters to see which works best for the track in question ensure peaks are controlled. As with the compressor, it can be useful to set up two or more limiters to see which works best for the track in question, especially if you have several high-quality ones. In this instance, we’re using the UAD Precision Limiter, which has been a staple of our mastering chain for some while, beating all our own alternatives every time.

Further changes With these tools in place, we can start to make all the changes we feel are necessary to bring our mix to sounding more like a finished master. During this process, you will undoubtedly find new changes you want to make: a boost in the low-end, intended to add weight to the kick, might reveal additional energy in the bass, which will in turn spoil the kick. These almost circular problems can sometimes be adjusted with slight alterations to the EQ curves, and at other times can require additional processing to be added. It’s not uncommon for our final master to gain and lose two or three processors as we settle on the final sound of the track. Sometimes, a high-end boost can bring just the right polish to most of the track, while revealing a problem with the hi-hat or cymbals, which may be

18 | August 2015


fixed with a multiband compressor or de-esser. Compression can reveal a muddiness in the reverb, which is tough to fix in mastering, but there are tools, such as iZotope RX, UAD Precision K-Stereo and Zynaptiq Unveil, as well as M/S processing, if the sides don’t contain too much other information. It is important to constantly be comparing your initial unmastered mix with the master in its current state, as well as each individual change. To this end, it is useful to have a system set up to quickly bypass all your processors. The simplest method is to duplicate the track in your DAW, one with the processors, and one without, and switch between each one using solos. You can adjust for any gain changes by adjusting the level of the louder (usually, but not always the master) down, so that any comparison is being done at relatively similar levels. We prefer to use Meterplugs Perception to achieve this with a single channel. You’ll note that earlier we left the first Insert slot free; this was so we can place an instance of Perception Source, with Perception Control added at the end of our Master channel fader. Perception handles not only switching from pre- to post-processing, but also level matching and sample-accurate sync. With Anchor, after our first pass with the processing, we still aren’t happy with what’s happening in the low-end. We’re using more EQ than we would like to try to shape the bottom-end, and while we’re getting enough weight on the kick, things are starting to sound a little murky between each beat of the kick drum. To compensate for this, we’re going to add an instance of UAD Precision Multiband and engage the LF band, leaving all the other bands off. Then we set this band to the Gate mode with a very low ratio (1.1:1), and tune the frequency and envelope to pull out some low-end between each beat of the kick. This will give us the freedom to add in as much weight to the kick as we want, without also adding mud between kicks; in fact, on the contrary, between kicks the sub-frequencies will be pulled back, giving the bass elements more room to shine. By this point, the mix is beginning to take on the sound we were hoping for; however, with so many synthetic elements in the track, and having opted for in-the-box processors at every stage, we’ll also add a little extra warmth with the UAD ATR-102 tape simulator. This also gives us a little bit more level, both through subtle compression, and additional harmonics – as well as softening off any harsh transients, which means we don’t have to push the final brick-wall limiter so hard to get the track as loud as we want it. Finally, all our processing has brought the stereo image in a little. This is a common consequence of compression and limiting on the master buss, as well as with cutting frequencies on the sides with an M/S Headphones A good pair of open-back headphones can be of great assistance when mastering. However, it can also be useful to have a pair of cheaper earbud-style headphones to listen back to how a great proportion of your listeners will hear the end result. It’s one thing making a master sound great on expensive systems, but many consumers use laptop speakers or earbuds, so check your masters on these, too. ●

MAGAZINE

02/07/2015 16:20

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MT Walkthrough Setting a multiband compressor

Turn the solo band off to hear the whole mix. If you have the option, be sure to use linear-phase crossovers. Engage that mode, as this will produce the least phase distortion in your mix, although it will also produce the greatest amount of latency.

03

Add an instance of your multiband compressor to the mastering chain – we usually place it just before our full-band compressor, if we’re using one.

01

Here, we’re using the UAD Precision Multiband. We’ve used the solo band function to solo only the lowest-frequency band, and we’ve scrubbed through the range to find the cut-off frequency that is just the sub-frequencies of the kick. You don’t need to use every band, usually one or two is more than enough.

02

Use a very low ratio, a moderate attack and a closely timed release, and dial down the threshold until gain reduction starts to bring the compressor into action.

04

EQ, so we return to the Brainworx bx_digital V2 and dialled the stereo width knob up a little. This essentially turns up the difference channel in the matrix before it is all summed back together.

Bouncing down the master In the previous part of this feature, we looked at creating a number of different versions of the mix. With the master of the basic mix done, we now import these additional mixes to different playlists within our DAW, and pass each one through the same processing. This takes very little time, and means the versions will all have the same polish as the final mix. All bounces are done at the original sample rate and bit depth of the mix, which should be at least 44.1kHz/24-bit. We then produce a dithered 44.1kHz/16-bit “CD quality” version, as well as any other files the artist wants. The exact signal chain we’ve used here on Anchor is something that will almost certainly not work on any other track, but the process by which we came to the

20 | August 2015


If need be, set the compressor to act a little too heavily while you focus in on your attack and release settings, then dial the threshold and ratio back down.

05

Finally, bypass the effect and compare the processed signal with the unprocessed version to be sure that you have made an improvement to the master.

06

decision to apply that processing is something that can easily be applied to any song. While each time it may produce a different signal chain, you can be confident that the signal chain it results in is one that has been specifically engineered for that one track. When working with albums or EPs, you will need to reference all of the other tracks on the EP/album as you work through, trying to give each a sense of being part of the whole work. It is often useful to employ similar signal chains; however, this does not mean that each has to be identical, simply that as each processor has its own colour, you can quickly get a similar colour on another track by using a similar processor. We often use the same compressor, limiter and at least one EQ on every track, but will also allow ourselves freedom to apply other processing as necessary, as well as to remove any of these processors as they are no longer required. Check www.musictech.net for audio exmples to go with this feature. MT

MAGAZINE

02/07/2015 16:20

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MT Industry Guru Aisling Brouwer

MT Feature Interview

Industry Guru Aisling Brouwer If you have ever wanted your music to score major TV and film productions, you could do worse than taking advice from someone who has been there and done that. MusicTech talks to Aisling Brouwer about how to succeed in the world of media music composition…

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Aisling Brouwer Industry Guru MT

T

he chances are you’ve realised that writing pop music is only for the brave and that getting music syncs for TV and film is where your creative focus could and possibly should lie. In fact, this has become one of the prime outlets for today’s music producers’ output, because there are more TV shows, video games and films produced than ever before, all requiring soundtracks of one kind or another. But it can be a difficult area to break in to. Aisling Brouwer has scored major TV shows such as The Apprentice, The Calling and The Taste. Her set-up has already appeared in MusicTech’s Show Off Your Studio feature, but we were so impressed with her musical CV that we had to get her in for a MusicTech guru grilling…

Aisling Brouwer has built an impressive CV of TV and film soundtrack work since moving to the UK

MusicTech: How did you get into music production and working on TV and film composition? Aisling Brouwer: I have been writing and producing music ever since I was a kid, but initially started as a singer/songwriter. After moving to the UK to study songwriting, I decided to change my course to music and film composition with an aim to focus on writing music for the screen. I spent my second year studying in Los Angeles as an exchange student and, encouraged by my tutors, I started approaching the film, animation and theatre departments to instigate collaborations. These projects confirmed

I am struck by how accessible music technology has become to people with less experience this was the path I wanted to go down, and during my MA in composition for film and TV, I started working as a freelance composer for several London-based companies. I met Dru Masters and was given the opportunity to pitch for one of the series he was scoring for the BBC (The Big Allotment Challenge). Luckily, he liked it and I started several more projects with Workhouse Music. Once the ball was rolling, I started getting in other projects and I moved to London to pursue the career full-time. MT: What was your original goal? AB: It was to be able to sustain myself from music alone, and write music for film in particular. The problem with film is that unless you are working on big projects, the budgets are often derived from personal funds – and therefore TV and production music can be a more lucrative starting point. I fell into writing for TV and documentary series, and try to balance that with film, trailer, production music, and personal creative projects. I have achieved the goal of writing music for a living for now, but I don’t believe in chasing one isolated goal in my career – my objective is to challenge myself, push my work further, and be creatively innovative.

MT: What have been your most successful projects? AB: I’d like to think my most recent projects are always more successful than the last few, and I always treat every new project like it’s the best thing I’ve worked on. I don’t think my career has spanned long enough yet to pick one out of the hat that’s peaked my career, but I guess the one that jumps out on my CV the most is the 10th series of The Apprentice. Working with Workhouse Music, I got the chance to work on some great TV series for BBC, Channel 4 and TLC – but in terms of my best musical work I am proud of some of the tracks I’ve written for production music, film music and even personal projects that sent me down new compositional paths. MT: What do you think about the way music production technology has progressed? How has this been good or bad for the media composer? AB: A decade ago, I had just bought my first DAW and was recording mostly in other people’s studios with more experienced engineers and producers, so I am mostly struck by how accessible music technology has become to people with less experience. The interfaces have become much more intuitive, and it is no longer necessary to own a vast amount of hardware equipment and expensive gear in order to produce good music. Given that I spent the past seven years moving cities nearly every year, and was back and forth between the US, the UK and The Netherlands, I could transport a fair amount of my studio without too much effort; this had considerable advantages. On the other hand, one could argue that because music technology has become so widely available, and much more affordable, it tends to make the competition tougher. Distinguishing your sound from the masses, and competing with a much larger pool of composers, producers and artists can be a complicated process – and keeping up with new developments equally challenging. There is a rawness and authenticity to production that is lost when everything is so easily perfected digitally, and demos no longer suffice if they are actually demos when pitching against so many people – they should more or less be the final product for the project. MT: What happens with a typical commission? AB: Depending on whether I’m working directly with the series producer/director/creative or through an

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MT Industry Guru Aisling Brouwer

agency/music production company this varies hugely. If I’m involved from the beginning, there are usually several meetings, coffees, and spotting sessions to talk through the overall aims of the project, and in what ways the music can serve to achieve this. More often than not, a temp track and/ or reference music has been added during the edit. Rarely, the composition comes before the edit. If this is the case, or if the track is production/library music, I write the track according to the stylistic brief but not directly to picture. Most of the time, however, the music is the last thing to be added, and thus the deadlines can be exceedingly tight. Once I’ve established the musical palette, I start by tempo mapping and marking the various hits, builds, fades, transitions and so on. I then get cracking on establishing the main compositional elements and try to do most of my mixing and processing along the way to avoid changing the sound too much at the end. If the project isn’t under a tight deadline, the composition usually goes back and forth between the composer and the client a few times to make room for adjustments, tweaks and variations before the final version is delivered and the project concluded. MT: You must get asked about music production and breaking in to the industry all the time. What do you get asked about the most? AB: I think because I’ve written for orchestral ensembles quite a lot, I often get asked about my arrangement and production techniques concerning

As well as being versatile, try to figure out where your strengths lie and build on those the amalgamation of classical and commercial music. Most of the emails I get, however, are more inquisitive about how to break into the industry, which companies to approach, which sound libraries or plugins I use, or just general advice on making money from composition. I think it’s useful for any composer to have a basic knowledge on orchestration and arrangement (The Study of Orchestration, by Adler, is great), as you will never get the full potential out of ensemble instruments if you’re pitching them in the wrong register or layering them inefficiently. Never pan orchestral patches that have been recorded in their original layout, or the whole ensemble will sound incoherent. I tend to try to find natural-sounding patches so that some light reverb, compression and creative EQ are sufficient to create an authentic sound. Waves MV2 is wonderful for getting the best out of a sound. MT: Are there any particular production processes that trouble you on scoring projects? AB: One that I am completely guilty of myself is

24 | August 2015


Forever changes MT: What is the future of music production in less than 100 words? AB: Unfortunately, I suspect the large increase in use of production and library music will continue to surge, and therefore composers and music companies will have to find new ways in which to work around and alongside this. Large conventions such as NAMM and Musikmesse constantly exhibit exciting new turns in music production technology that will continue to shape and innovate music production worldwide; and given how much has changed in the last decade, it is difficult to imagine what the next 10 years will bring, but also exciting!

overwriting a piece. It is so easy to get carried away and to keep adding layers to an arrangement, but I usually end up stripping off half of it at the end of the process. The advice passed on to me back then was be confident with the sounds you use, let them cut through and remember that in most cases, less is more. MT: What advice would you give anyone entering the world of music production with the view to making a living from it? AB: It sounds dull, but networking really does make all the difference. Approach as many people as you can and listen to what they have to say or any advice they can give you. Aside from getting to know directors, producers, and liaising with agencies, it can also be valuable to develop relationships with other composers, because often work is delegated between them if they are unable to complete projects on their own. Be confident in your own abilities, but never stop learning from others. I often send mixes off to friends who are producers/engineers/composers, and no matter how finished I think a track is, there is always something a fresh pair of ears will pick up on, that you may have missed. Be disciplined enough to keep yourself constructively busy, even if you have a period of less work. Most importantly, be open to new opportunities and don’t get too hung up on ‘only working on certain projects’, or achieving a certain goal immediately – it’s the jobs you do in-between that define you and build your skill set. As well as being versatile, try to figure out where your strengths lie and build on these. Just because you want to be versatile, doesn’t mean you have to be able to create every single genre of music, so pick your battles and develop a style of your own that people can identify you by. MT: Finally, what are you working on now, and where can people find out more about you and your work? AB: I am currently in development with some exciting new projects, and I try to update my website: www.aislingbrouwer.com and soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/aisling-brouwer as frequently as possible. The documentary series Extraordinary Pregnancies has just started on TLC Discovery Networks International, and I hope to release an EP later this year of my personal projects as well – so keep an ear out! MT

magazine

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MT Interview Squarepusher

MT interview

SQUAREPUSHER

After bringing to a close his selfconfessed ‘guitar-overload’ period, Tom Jenkinson (aka Squarepusher) goes back to basics with Damogen Furies, an album that signifies a return to his love of pure electronics and brutal sound manipulation.

I

nterviewing Tom Jenkinson is a special treat for any interviewer – clichés go out the window, response mechanisms become unfiltered, and as long as you have an inquiring mind, intellectualising about music is encouraged. Stark honesty is the order of the day, and Jenkinson is not one to let you down. He’s a man who cares deeply about the music he makes and the process behind it, less so regarding the desire to infiltrate the personality behind the performer. For many artists of his ilk, interviews are an infrequent chore, and he initially greets with a look of suspicion. But ultimately, Jenkinson is surprisingly easy to talk to, generous with his time and provides a fascinating, cerebral glimpse into the obsessive mind that resides behind 20 years of outlandishly inventive electronic music. MusicTech: I read an interview in which you stated that you wanted to find out whether beats or bass lines could be catchy; did you ever find an answer? Tom Jenkinson: I think what I was alluding to was: can

28 | August 2015

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MAGAZINE

02/07/2015 16:13

Squarepusher Interview MT

you make music that is devoid of hooks, big melodies or ear worm? Can you make music without all those elements that’s appealing, memorable and compelling, and can you get those low-frequency background elements to grab people in the same way that a conventional melody line could do? The answer is that you could make them, but in 50 years’ time I still might not really know because the history of music is the only thing that’s going to give us the answer. The experiment is an ongoing thing; provisionally I’d like to say ‘yeah, I think you can’. MT: Your track My Red Hot Car seems to support the theory. I remember replaying those beats in my mind as I would a pop song… TJ: Well if it works for you then it’s already shown that it can work. One thing I wouldn’t expect is for it to work universally of course, but if it can genuinely be said to have had that effect on a handful on people then that suggests it can work. I guess it gets

Take the bass and drums away, the obvious parts are still there but the music no longer has life

MT: When did that all begin to unravel for you? TJ: It’s intriguing because I remember my early forays into trying to understand how music was made and I didn’t have access or know anyone that understood these things either, so a lot of work was being done using my imagination. I really wanted to know about the cog wheels behind this thing that affected me and how they were working. Music was steering me towards the obvious elements; it’s partly sold on the basis of the vocalist and their personality and image, so you’re always pointed at them, yet there are all these other elements that are potentially as significant, if not more. For me, it’s certainly to do with a sense of inquisitiveness about the workings of things; the bass and drums are the workings of a pop song, take them away and all the obvious bits are still there, but the music no longer has any life. MT: The bass players that influenced you include Mick Karn and Pino Palladino, who both played very melodic chord structures… TJ: I really loved [Karn’s] Japan actually; it was some of the first music I heard. Admittedly not all of it, but there were certain songs of theirs that I found very haunting, that almost scared me. As a six or seven-year-old, the music was scary but really compelling. The Mick Karn element was quite important in the construction of that strange, sort of mysterious atmosphere. The fact that it was in the low registers but almost taking a lead line, again, that sort of topsy-turvy element has always been interesting to me.

a bit more blurry with the bass line because it’s using exactly the same materials that a melody does but it’s differentiated by the register. The way I approach music, I tend to want to hear activity in the low registers – in the high end I tend to prefer stasis and continuum and feel less comfortable with busy activity in the treble register. I’ve always been MT: You were originally a bass player, so what intrigued by what happens behind the scenes and, triggered off this journey into electronic music? traditionally, bass and drums. With popular music TJ: My early thinking about music wasn’t split up and beyond, those elements have been used as the into acoustic and electronic. All those categories foundation for the forefront elements like vocal lines retroactively superimposed on my musical world, and guitars. I think it comes with understanding but when I was first recording things off the radio, how music’s made. records from jumble sales, or however I was LYRAFADERDUPSMusicTech131x86mmJUNE15_Layout 1 04/06/2015 11:42 Page 1 Multitracking USB Audio Interfaces with MDIO expansion

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02/07/2015 16:13


accessing music, it didn’t come to me in a divided-up way. I had no access to music media, so I was approaching it in its totality; electronic music was as much a part of music as everything else. To me, the things you use to make music are all fascinating. In the same way I didn’t define music into categories or styles, according to how it was made, I didn’t divide-up instruments – any instrument is interesting to me. It wasn’t like there was software available to immediately access sound-making things. What’s going to be accessible when you’ve got not money? I used to make instruments, like basic drums. I remember putting a load of drawing pins in a biscuit tin and made a skin out of masking tape; it was like a snare drum. MT: I had a ZX Spectrum and would write HTML code to play little melodies. Did you do the same? TJ: Precisely the same. Latterly on the Commodore 64, but earlier the first thing I had was a Vic 20, which was similar – a 6502 chip and loads less RAM, but it had a really cool sound. The Vic chip had three square waves and the semblance of a white noise generator. It was basically a sample of white noise that you could pitch up and down – high pitches were cymbals, mid pitches for snares and low pitches for bass drums. So I’d make sequences by pitching it up and down to make a semblance of a drum pattern, again, all based on my idea of what a drum kit was like. I’ve got those recordings, one day I’ll release them, but I think the majority of the public would think, like, ‘why?’ MT: Some artists say music does not come from them, but through them – as if they’re acting as a conduit. Can you empathise with that statement? TJ: No, I don’t buy into the conduit thing, because the next stage of that is talking about supernatural activity and being guided by otherworldly beings, which is just bullshit and doesn’t mean anything to me. One thing I would say is that you don’t necessarily associate the creative activity with yourself because it’s not principally deliberate – music is not entirely the result of a rational decision-making process. This is one of the problems of having to talking about music. If you don’t have to talk about how it’s made the problem doesn’t arise, but because people ask how you did it, you reflect back. A lot of the time you don’t quite know how, but sometimes it’s a wholly formed idea

30 | August 2015


before you even go in the studio. There are different corners to the compositional process. For me, I’ll regularly have an idea before I even start, and it’s a question of almost translating it rather than coming up with it as I go along. MT: If you can’t put your finger on the origins of the creative process, could you explain it as a backdrop of stored emotions? TJ: That introduces the problem, and assumption, that what a listener felt when they listened to a piece of music is the same as the person who wrote it felt. I think the listener will tend to make the assumption that what they’re feeling is not only what the composer was feeling, but what they intended the listener to feel. I really don’t think the world’s that simple. For example, if you reflect on your own experience, I’m sure you’ll find that one record on a given day sounds flat, yet there’ll be a different moment – when you think differently about the world – and suddenly it makes perfect sense and talks to you. It’s such a hall of mirrors that drawing anything resembling a straight line from a composer’s intentions to a listener’s experience is a hiding to nowhere. One thing I would say is that if you’re happy or sad, it tends to affect how quickly you work. If I’m annoyed or not feeling so good about things I just blunder along, yet I’ve wrote some brutal, aggressive music when I’ve felt on top of the world. It’s not like I’m sitting there punching things in the studio and generating this aggressive, nightmarish soundscape. If you think about it on a world stage, some of the most happy and colourful, vibrant music comes from people who live in diabolical situations. MT: I asked as there’s a track on Damogen Furies, Baltang Arg, where you brutally repeat the same note, which sounded to me like a writer trying to get something out of his system? TJ: This is the beauty of it, that you can have that response – and who am I to tell you that you’re wrong. But I think it’s best looked at as fun, and you can imagine whatever you want. Really, I’m just a

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TJ: The quote you referred to earlier, where I was trying to figure out if I could make music where the bassline and the drums were the hooks; that relates back to what I was trying from about 1998 to 2005. After that I felt a pull towards songwriting, again not by most people’s standards, but with reference to what I’d done. I wouldn’t put it as ‘commercial’ and that’s not just being a snob. I know what you’re saying, but as much as I’m fascinated by DSP and ripping sounds apart, smashing them together and seeing what happens – almost being as destructive as creative – I love a good tune; can’t deny it.

cardboard cut-out image of the artist – a vessel of ideas that you fill up. I’m not being funny, but the person of me is probably not someone you’ll ever meet, and certainly never through my records. My records are a fantasy, I like making things up – I like imagining stuff, it’s got fuck all to do with my life in the sense of what I think about. MT: So when you make music, the wants and needs of your listener do not enter your consciousness? TJ: I suppose there are different listeners that we could talk about. In the case of being in the studio writing, the listener is me, and I think we should differentiate between the listener in that sense and the broader audience. I see it as trying to do justice to those people and to not assume what they want to hear, because I think that’s patronising – treating them like sheep, as if they don’t have their own intelligence. I like to put things forward and let them make of it what they will; I don’t want to gear it to them or second guess their preferences and

Any machine will do a number of things above and beyond what the manufacturers intended build it into the music. Maybe some people can do that, but even if I could I wouldn’t because, for me, the best you’ve done is fulfilled some expectations, but you’re almost certainly shutting down the routes to new experience and new musical events. The Holy Grail is basically doing what you want and people liking it, and I’ll always do that – it doesn’t always work, but if it does everyone wins. This was apparent to me long before I started having a career as a musician, but you can look at many examples of popular music where the image they created through their first few records also created a sense of notoriety and became a prison through which either the record label wouldn’t let them escape, or their own egotism, selfishness or desire to sustain the lifestyle it gave them, couldn’t break out of.

(Below) Tom didn’t supply a kit list but these shots of his studio reveal a few choice items, including his mixer plus an array of outboard.

MT: Do you encourage that or shy away from it? TJ: I will sometimes try and subvert that and push it away, and sometimes it comes to the fore, and if it comes to the fore I’m not so contrary that I’ll refuse to do it. If I think of a tune and it feels compelling I’ll write it, it’s not a big deal. I will employ concepts in my music and get fair use out of them, but I’m not going to be governed by them. Again, it’s another form of self-imprisonment saying ‘I’m not allowed to do this’, and while I’ll do that to a point to explore ideas and things that are less obvious, at some point you think, ‘Man I’ve just thought of a killer melody’. That came to the fore a few years ago, but that’s gone away now and I’ve been more and more wanting to start ripping things apart and shredding fucking sounds. To explain it you’d have to write the book of my life, and eventually who fucking cares? The music’s sitting there, that’s the important thing. MT: How much of your music do you allow the machines to take over, as opposed to you being in full control? TJ: My basic premise is... if I’ve got a tool I’ll try and understand it as deeply as a I can, but that doesn’t mean I’ll always use it with respect or in a sophisticated way. For me, that doesn’t mean you become a prog wanker, you can be as punk as anyone, but you understand what the sonic

MT: Which is the case for the majority of artists… TJ: Well that’s it, it’s endemic. I guess everyone will deal with it in their own way, but I’ve seen at close hand people who gradually run out of steam because they feel they’re not allowed to do things that are not encapsulated in that brand they’ve generated. For me, you have to change and go with it, otherwise you’re going to rot away inside that concrete prison. But you’re fighting against the tendency of the industry, because the industry is only interested in short-term revenue – the big 1D, sum it up in three fucking sentences, stick-it-on-thesupermarket-shelf approach. What you gonna do? Everyone makes their own choice. MT: Your music was heading in a more commercial direction – albeit not by most people’s standards – but Damogen seems to take a step back and focus very much on sound manipulation. magazine August 2015


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manifestations can be. I’m not really a manual guy, I like to get stuck in and if something’s not apparent then I’ll refer to the manual, but part of the enjoyment of it is exploration and the manual gives the game away, if you like. I have to say, I do think that we’re seeing a lot of music that is preset-driven. I guess sometimes the instrument has an architecture that will steer you around; it will present possibilities that are easier to do than others, but a lot of musicians seem to be demonstrators, because they’ve basically followed the path of least resistance with an instrument and are therefore exposing its principle characteristics. That’s not something I’m keen to do, not out of egotism because promoting the instrument is of no interest to me, so I’m always trying to steal control back from it really. With some of the instruments I’ve used, people would be surprised about some of the results I’ve got out of them because they’re not designed to do certain things and yet, if you put your mind to it and really get to grips with how it’s built and not the manufacturer’s intentions, any machine will do a number of things above and beyond what the manufacturer intended. It’s just looking at it with an open mind, then those things become apparent. MT: Do you still work from home and are you forever expanding your studio? TJ: I hate the whole collection of gear thing. To me it’s another hiding to nowhere, thinking ‘if I get the CS80 I can really make beautiful music, but until then I’m not going to do anything’. I’ll just make

music with anything, a mentality that was borne out of me having no access to musical instruments yet a burning desire to make music. That still prevails to this day, so I don’t care, I’ll just use whatever’s there. On the last record I was using gear that I used on Go Plastic; the Yamaha FS1R and TX81, those synths formed the backbone of the last record. MT: Do you mainly use hardware for sound generation and software for sequencing? TJ: The single thing I tend to use for hardware is the Yahama QY700 sequencer, that’s the centre of my sync set up, and I’ll augment it with the computer if I need to. On this record, the only hardware element is the sequencer, everything else is done in software that I’ve worked on myself – it’s all self-developed.

A lot of musicians seem to be [gear] demonstrators. I’m not keen. I want the control back These insider shots (top and below) might not reveal everything in the sharpest detail but that is very ‘Squarepusher’ if you think about it. What can you spot?

I’ve been working on that on and off for the last 15 years. The first manifestations of it were on Do You Know Squarepusher in 2002, but this is the first record I’ve made entirely from patches that I’ve made up myself? MT: Is that because software is not doing want you want it to do, or that you want a distinct sound? TJ: As I got a more developed idea of how musical instruments work, my desire of what to do with them changed. I tended to think about making the instrument rather than trying to adapt or make do with something else. The software I created is not always related to really flash audio stuff, a lot of it’s on the control side – being able to switch between certain kinds of parameters and modulating them without having to reload a preset, or making that real-time control as smooth as possible. All of these things drive me towards wanting to make my own stuff, and as I go on, the only instruments that I want to use are acoustic, not software or digitalbased instruments. MT: Is the software you’ve created intuitive? TJ: Sadly not. I’m sure you have a very good understanding of these things but if I showed it to you right now, you’d be looking at it going, ‘what’s that?’. It’s not designed to be user friendly; I know what it does because I made it. It’s laid out in a way that makes sense, but everything’s abbreviated; it wouldn’t be a nice thing to use if you weren’t me. So from the sequencer onwards it’s now all my stuff, from sound generation to processing to mixing. MT: That surprises me. I imagined you to be hands on and enjoy the physicality of working with hardware rather than click-mouse approach? TJ: I dunno, bear in mind the musical inputs are still going through the hardware sequencer, so there is the physical aspect of that. The tweaking of sounds I am doing with a mouse, but I do sometimes set up

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no edits, no stems generated, no piece-by-piece construction, it’s all a live, all-in-one take. The thing that fascinates me is more about making a small amount of instruments sound like a lot of instruments, so that sometimes what you thought was a synth is also doing the drums. I’m stretching things about so that instruments are swapping roles and augmenting each other to build sounds as if they’re made out of hundreds of different things. MT: Do technical problems still infuriate you, like latency for example? TJ: I don’t know if latency was ever a problem, I’ve always managed – there’s always a work around. I guess technology has got better, but I don’t look at things in terms of problems, I look at them in terms of, ‘right, how am I going to make it work?’. I don’t think sit back and think, ‘There’s a problem, fuck it’. I’ll just fix it and then it’ll be fine. Years ago, trying to do live DSP on a guitar, you’d go through the computer and back out, so there’d be the latency of the soundcard times two, because you’re going in and back out again, plus whatever’s happening in the software – but you can just play ahead of what you hear, even if it’s not immediately natural.

a MIDI controller and there are moments when I want to bust out the hardware and go mad with all the faders, but a lot of the time I tend to veer towards brute data programming. Don’t get me wrong, there is a spontaneity in putting that data together, but the final form has an extremely chiselled, artificialness to it. MT: What about mixing, do you do that in the box? TJ: I tend to do it as I’m going along. With the writing process, I’ll just get a rough mix together and tweak it a bit for the final mix down. The mix down is almost in the track. As a really basic example, I’ll build an EQ volume control into the instrument – so I’ll just kind of set all the gains then do all the volume balancing as I’m going through, and if it needs a bit more bottom end I’ll just turn up all the bass. It’s all automated as I go along – it’s just a data thing, you just change the parameters. MT: How much data are we talking? TJ: It varies, you’d be quite surprised. In terms of the actual tracks, it’s less than you’d imagine. Bear in mind it wasn’t ever boiled down to stems, it was just a live take played on the sequencer and that’s it;

MT: Does technology still excite you; are you always on the lookout for new gear? TJ: I’m not a gear head really. I’ve spent so much time with it that, to me, it’s just about using it. I don’t necessarily see a connection between a new instrument and new sound. You look at a lot of electronic music now, yeah it’s all new software but it sounds like fucking clockwork crap. I understand there are obviously new instruments coming out that reveal new possibilities, but I’ll still look at a four-string bass guitar and think there are infinite possibilities that I haven’t explored. I think that getting obsessed with gear is a bit dangerous. I know a lot of people that have done it and I think you can end up throwing away a lot of energy trying to find a new instrument; nine times out of ten, just use the old one. MT: In the early 80s technology did make things sound brand new, is that possible at all now? TJ: That’s a very interesting question, but I think the core thing that I will always come back to is the excitement of composition. However much I’m fascinated by and how much time I’ve spent experimenting with sound, timbre and sonic characteristics, it’s always secondary to the core rhythmic and harmonic activity. Sometimes I just want to sit there and play a guitar. I’m interested and fascinated by technology and how developments bring different possibilities to bear, but I think the danger is the emperor’s new clothes thing, whereby ‘I’ve got a new instrument so I’ve done something new’ – well not necessarily. The history of popular music is littered with examples of the flash new trend, but in 20 years’ time it’s just crap, vacuous gimmickry, but the thing that doesn’t erode is great writing. So we can make more sound frequencies available, brilliant! Sounds to me like it would just be adding loads more treble, but I like bass. MT magazine August 2015


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MT Technique How to record bass guitar

MT Workshop How to record bass guitar

How to record bass guitar In the latest of our occasional series on recording instruments into your DAW, John Pickford tackles the bass guitar… spill and open up options later on in the recording process. Some bass guitars have active pick-ups, meaning that their output is high enough to be plugged directly into your mixer or interface, however most basses feature passive pick-ups, necessitating the use of a DI box to boost the low-level signal. Although bass recorded through a DI can sound tight, dry and clean, it can also lack some of the body and punch that you get from a great-sounding bass cab. However, when recording a band live in the studio, using a bass DI not only avoids unwanted spill, it also allows a good drum take (for example) to be saved if the bassist makes a mistake. And if the bass part is perfectly played but the sound isn’t quite right, the clean DI signal can later be fed through an amplifier and mic’ed up; this technique is called re-amping (see Step By Step 2). Nowadays, there are many outboard recording channels or channel strips that feature excellent DI inputs. Some of these are based upon vintage console designs and most feature both EQ and dynamics control, enabling superb results to be produced without the need for amplification.

Mic’ing the cab

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he bass guitar features in most styles of popular music, ranging from deep, dub bass in reggae, to the bright, punchy slap-tones of funk, with all manner of genres and tones in between. No matter what style you’re recording though, the bass guitar should provide a solid foundation for your track and, along with other elements of the rhythm section, define its groove. There are several ways of recording bass, the most popular being DI – Directly Injecting the instrument to your recorder, mic’ing a bass amp/cabinet and, as many engineers like to do, combining a blend of DI and microphone signals (see Step By Step 1.) One thing to consider is whether the bass is to be recorded simultaneously with other elements of the track, such as drums and guitars, or performed as an overdub. If you’re recording other instruments in the same room as an amplified bass, it’s likely that there will be a certain amount of spill. This is fine as long as the leakage isn’t going to adversely affect any future processing during the mixing stage, and some bands thrive on creating a live groove in the studio. However, adopting the DI approach can both avoid

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(Above) MusicTech hardware guru John Pickford in the studio preparing this feature. John is a vintage hardware nut and we’ll be featuring his amazing set-up in MT soon.

Often, though, to achieve the very best bass tones, only the sound of a mic’ed-up bass cab will do. The sound of a good bass amplifier, particularly if it’s a valve model, is hard to emulate with DI techniques alone. Most engineers favour either dynamic types with a strong low-end response, or a large-diaphragm condenser. Ribbon designs can sound great on bass but are more delicate than other types and don’t like to be placed close to sources producing high SPLs. Microphones designed for bass drums – such as the classic AKG D112 – usually work well on bass guitar as they generally have a pronounced low-end boost that is flattering to bass signals, and can handle very high SPLs. Don’t worry if you don’t have one of these though, as most general purpose mics, such as the Shure SM57 will do a reasonably good job if positioned correctly – see the More On Mic Placement box below right. Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick often recorded Paul McCartney’s bass as an overdub, using an AKG C12 set to figure 8 (bi-directional) and placing the mic around 4 or 5 feet from the bass cab. For most recording situations though, moving the mic between 5 and 18 inches from the speaker should give you all the tonal options you could want, unless you’re after a particularly roomy sound. Whereabouts along the plane of the speaker the mic is

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How to record bass guitar Technique MT

aimed will also determine the final tone. Pointing the mic at the centre of the speaker cone will give the punchiest sound, while moving along to the edge of the cone will give smoother, warmer tones. If you are using a mic with a cardioid polar pattern, bear in mind that the closer you place it, the more bottom-end will be heard due to the proximity effect. This can be used to advantage if you only have a vocal mic (such as a Shure SM58) at your disposal, as these mics tend to have a rolled-off low end response.

Compression techniques Bass guitars typically have a wide dynamic range and it’s almost always necessary to use some compression. The amount required will depend very much on the style and technique of the player, but as a rule of thumb, some gentle

Although bass recorded through a DI can sound tight, dry and clean, it can also lack some of the body when using a cab compression at the recording stage with a heavier squeeze during mixdown is a sensible starting point. Try using a 4:1 ratio to begin with and then, if the bass part is still too wildly dynamic, try a higher ratio when mixing. Some bass playing styles, such as slap-bass, feature an occasional very loud note that can be tamed by using a much higher ratio of 10:1 or more to limit the peaks. Using extremely fast attack and decay times is not a good idea when recording bass as the initial transients will be lost and the compressor will struggle with the complex waveforms of bass signals. Instead, set the attack time so that the plucking of the string can be heard – around 50ms should do it – and then set the release time to around 250ms or, if your compressor has an auto release setting, use that. Before using a compressor, it’s worth making sure that the basic tone of the bass is correct as a compressor will emphasise the main tonal characteristic. Therefore, it’s a good idea to make any drastic EQ adjustments before compressing. If your bass sound needs fattening-up, a boost at around 80Hz often helps. However, experiment with upper-bass and low-mid frequencies (100Hz – 400Hz) to help the bass part bed-in with other elements of the mix such as the kick drum. As bass guitars don’t produce much in the way of usable high-frequency information, rolling-off the upper frequencies from around 5kHz will allow space for the treble elements of the track. Similarly, when mixing, the bass guitar will have more room to breathe if a high-passfilter is applied to other instruments and voices that don’t require a lot of low-end energy. Using effects with bass isn’t nearly as common as with electric guitars but can produce distinctive results. Reverbs and delays should be used with caution as they can smear the bass part and rob the part of punch and drive. Some distortion effects can give bass parts a gritty edge, however

MT Recording tips Re-amping a DI’d bass Recording bass with DI during a group tracking session can both help avoid excessive bleed onto other mics and allow greater flexibility when mixing. However, bass DI alone lacks the body and drive produced by a decent amplifier. Once the DI’d bass has been recorded, the signal can be sent to a bass amp/cab and re-recorded in isolation. You will then have two channels of clean bass with no spill from drums or other instruments.

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The best device to use is a dedicated re-amping box, which can be obtained reasonably inexpensively. These work like a DI box in reverse, matching the recorded DI bass signal to a level that is suitable for the amplifier. Indeed, a passive DI box can be used in reverse, however a re-amping box will offer a more flexible and hassle-free approach to matching both impedance and signal-levels.

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Simply take the DI bass signal from your recorder and plug into the input of the re-amp box. Connect a microphone to the box and mic-up the amp/cab to your satisfaction. The sound of the amplified bass can now be overdubbed onto a separate track. Of course, if you are using plug-in amplifier mods instead of the real thing, the DI sound can be treated in the box without the need for a re-amping box or bass amplifier.

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the extreme distortion caused by fuzz-boxes will reduce the low-end impact of the sound. During the 1980s it was fashionable to use a chorus effect, often with fretless bass guitars, which were also in vogue during that era. So, there are several ways of recording bass guitar and only your own personal circumstances can dictate which method works best for you. As always, take time to experiment – and trust your ears! See John’s step-by step tutorial over the page. MT

MORE ON MIC PLACEMENT Unlike electric guitar amps, that can sound good with a mic almost touching the speaker, bass cabs benefit from further distance between the speaker and mic. Around 5 inches is the minimum distance to achieve a decent tone, but longer distances can give excellent results if the recording situation permits.



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MT Technique How to record bass guitar

MT Step-by-Step Bass amp and direct combined

Recording bass both direct and through a bass amp can produce great results. You get the clean, clear and present sound of the instrument from the direct signal, combined with the warm low-end and rich harmonics produced by the amp/cab combo – particularly if you use a valve amp. Unless the bass guitar has active pick-ups, you’ll need to use a DI (Direct Injection) box to match impedances and boost the low-level signal from the instrument.

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Plug the bass into the instrument (jack) input of the DI box and take a feed from the box into the input of the amp. Use the XLR output on the DI box to connect to your mixer or interface. Once the bass cabinet has been suitably mic’ed you will have two channels of bass. As the signal from the mic enters the recorder a couple of milliseconds later than the DI signal, the sound may become vague when combined due to phase issues.

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To solidify your bass sound, play both channels together and send the DI signal to a digital delay. Dial in the delay (around 2ms is usually about right) until the bass sound snaps into focus. A continuously variable delay is best for this job so that you can hear precisely when the sound becomes solid and punchy. Alternatively, simply move the DI signal within your digital recorder so that the waveforms match and are not out of phase.

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01/07/2015 15:26

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Milled from a single piece of solid aluminium, when you hold the Babyface Pro in your hands you’ll understand why RME is the choice of professionals, renowned for rock solid stability and build quality.

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Music is Our Passion

www.thomann.de MusicTech.indd 4

24.06.2015 15:16:37

MT Technique Logic Pro X In Depth – Part 2

Technique Logic Pro X In Depth – Part 2

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The Compressor With a revised GUI as part of Logic Pro X 10.1, the Compressor has never been easier to use. Mark Cousins demonstrates the dynamic dexterity of the Compressor plug-in…

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ne of the most useful improvements included with the release of Logic Pro X 10.1 has been the redesigned Compressor plug-in, arguably one of the most important plug-ins in Logic’s arsenal of software outboard effects. While the functionality of the latest compressor incarnation hasn’t changed too greatly from the original version, its redesigned GUI offers some key functional improvements in terms of the plug-in’s day-to-day operation. It also highlights some key sonic differences between it and the seven other compressor models on offer in Logic. With this in mind, we thought a revised and

On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD

Thanks to its revised GUI, it’s never been easier to exploit the number of sounds it offers in-depth look at Logic Pro X’s Compressor plug-in was perhaps well overdue…

Crossing the threshold The basics of compression, of course, revolve around the interaction between threshold and ratio. Signals that exceed a given threshold are attenuated at an amount defined by the ratio. Put simply, the compressor attenuates loud signals, effectively reducing the dynamic range of the input. As a result of this process a signal will potentially benefit from increased loudness, as well as an increased amount of body and sustain. Setting the Threshold and Ratio on Logic Pro X’s Compressor is easy thanks to the reactive and visuallystriking Gain Reduction Meter. Begin by setting the strength of compression you want – varying from a soft and subtle 1.4:1, through to harder-edged compression at 5:1 and almost limiting at 12:1. Starting from a high threshold setting, lowering the threshold will result in more compression being applied, indicated by the aforementioned Gain Reduction meter.

SIDE CHAIN FEATURES The Side Chain section of the compressor contains a number of powerful features – most notably, frequency-conscious compression. Try setting a steep roll-off above 8kHz using the LP mode in the EQ section (you can always use the Filter Listen button to hear what this is like). Once active, the filtering makes the compressor particularly sensitive to the low end. Try this on a drum loop, and notice how the kick drum can really dictate the movement of the compressor, creating a noticeable ‘pumping’ effect over the loop. Likewise, you can always reverse this process (using the HP mode) if you feel the bass drum is having too much impact on the compression taking place.

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Ideally, you want to achieve some movement both in and out of the Gain Reduction, so that the signal has time being both compressed and un-compressed. As you set the compression, note how Compressor’s Auto Gain compensates for any Gain Reduction that’s taken place, letting you hear the result of your Threshold/ Ratio settings without having to constantly adjust the output Make-Up control. That said I often find that the gain Make-Up, though great for auditioning purposes, can be over generous in its output settings. Once you’ve found your desired Threshold and Ratio, therefore, consider switching Auto Gain to Off and then manually adjusting the Make Up control to ensure consistent output levels with and without compression. One area that can cause confusion is the Attack and Release settings. Thanks to the new Graph Display feature, though, Logic Pro X’s Compressor is a breeze to set up. Mapped against the transients of the input, the Graph displays the movements of the compressor over time. As such, it’s easy to see how the Attack and Release move in relation to the input. A slower attack, for example (which is more forgiving on transients) is easy to fine-tune in relation to the attack transients on the graph. Likewise a softer release is easy to set as you can almost see the compressor ‘breathing’ in relation to the dynamic envelope of the input. One aspect of the Compressor that’s become more apparent is the role and sonic contribution of the model parameter. Previously, only cryptic model names distinguished the different types of compressor you could select. Now the change in model is reflected in GUI itself, with clear visual similarities to hardware compressors. The Studio VCA, for example, has a distinct Focusrite-like look behind it, while the Vintage VCA is eerily reminiscent of an SSL compressor. On the whole, look towards the FET and Opto compressors if you’re after a more characterful vintage sound, while various VCA models balance a more retro performance with sonic accuracy. Though blander in character, Platinum Digital is a precision tool with plenty of transparency. Beyond the basics covered here, there’s plenty of additional functionality to be discovered from such a flexible production tool. To the right of the interface are the Output and Side Chain tools that really extend the functionality and sound of the compressor. The Output section, for example, includes a built-in Limiter (which is great tool for catching problem transients that slip through the net) as well as a Mix control that lets you explore the sonic possibilities of Parallel compression, whereby a hard-acting compression is ‘softened’ by

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Logic Pro X In Depth – Part 2 Technique MT

MT Step-by-Step Compressor

The key characteristics of compression are formed by the interaction of Threshold and Ratio. Start by increasing Threshold to 0dB and then select your desired ratio. 2:1 is a good medium starting point for a transparent and effective sounding compression.

As a point of comparison, try the same setup using a higher Ratio, like 8:1. In this example, note how much more Gain Reduction is being applied in response to the signal exceeding the given Threshold. The result is a more heavy-handed compression.

An alternative way of viewing the compression can be found on the Graph screen. Here you can see the Input/Output graph on the left-hand side, as well as a history of the Gain Reduction applied to the waveform on the right.

With the Ratio established, lower the Threshold and notice how Gain Reduction (measured on the VU meter) starts to be applied. The lower the threshold, the more compression (or Gain Reduction) is applied, resulting in a kit that sounds increasingly ‘squashed’.

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Technically speaking, the output of compression is a signal with less amplitude, so it’s important that Gain is restored at the end of the process. Logic’s Auto Gain applies Make Up automatically, letting you hear the output of compressor in context.

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Load an instance of the Compressor plug-in across the drums on track 1, or a track in your mix. At the top you can select the desired compression model. Platinum Digital is ‘clean’, while the other designs add various forms of analogue-like behaviour.

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reintroducing some of the un-compressed signal. Although there are some great third-party modeled compressors available, there’s little doubt that Logic’s own compressor is both versatile and sonically effective. Thanks to the Compressor’s revised GUI, it’s never been easy to understand and exploit the variety of sounds it has to offer - from soft and subtle gain reduction, to something far

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more extreme and hard acting. MT This tutorial is available as one of a set of all-new tutorials in our Logic Pro X 2015 Focus, on sale now. It is endorsed by Point Blank Music School, which specialises in courses on production, sound engineering, the music business, singing, radio production, DJ skills and film production, all run by top British music producers and media professionals, with regular visits from legends in music and media. More info here: www.pointblanklondon.com magazine


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MT Step-by-Step Compressor...con’d

Remove the Release’s auto setting and experiment with Release times. Using a slightly slower setting (around 500ms) makes the compression appear more ‘pumpy’. The Graph display really helps here, so that your eyes and ears can work together.

Use the Limiter to control any stray transients that slip through the net. With only an on/off control and threshold, the Limiter isn’t the most subtle dynamic tool, but it can provide another layer of dynamic control without using another plug-in.

The Mix controls set the balance between compressed and un-compressed signal. Increasing the amount of Input restores some of the transient energy lost by the heavy-handed gain reduction, while still retaining the extra body added by the compression.

While we’re here, it’s worth picking up on the Knee parameter. The Knee governs the transition between no compression being applied and gain reduction being introduced. Lower Knee settings create a more defined kink in the Input/Output graph.

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The Output section also contains a mix control, which is useful if you want to experiment with Parallel Compression. Start by setting a fast-acting hard compression using the Studio FET model (quick attack, 8:1 ratio and plenty of gain reduction!).

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The Attack and Release controls govern the movement of the compressor, which can be seen pictorially on the Graph display. Try temporarily reducing Attack to its lowest setting and notice how the Transients are sharply attenuated.

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MT Technique The Ultimate Guide To Ableton Live Part 6

Ableton Live The Ultimate Guide to Ableton Live Part 6

Recording and manipulating speech samples Time to do some audio recording and get mic’d up. Martin Delaney shows you how to add some speech samples to our ongoing Live project.

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o far we’ve used MIDI and we’ve used existing audio samples, but we haven’t covered how to record our own audio material. Instead of jumping in at the deep end and attempting to record fully-blown vocal or instrument takes, let’s make it easy on ourselves by recording a short speech sample that’ll also work inside our ongoing project. To be

I record short speech samples into Session View and anything longer goes into Arrangement View honest, this is more frequently the type of recording I do with Live anyway – capturing short snippets to use in the Session View. We aim to record one short sample, then use it to create three different clips. Note, because this is such a variable exercise, and I can’t hear what you’re doing from here(!), I’ve included an ‘after’ voice track to make it clear what kind of result you’re shooting for. It might not sway Pro Tools snobs, but Live does a great job of recording audio. It has the advantage of two views, so two distinct approaches. As a rule of thumb I record short clips like speech samples and effects into the Session View, and anything like a full vocal track for a song, rhythm guitar parts, and so on, goes into the Arrangement View. In either View, you can record into multiple tracks at the same time, and Live has very


thorough and immediate routing options, so you can send and receive audio freely throughout the application. There’s also the lovely Resampling input option which provides post-master, post-everything, capture of Live’s output, straight back into the Live set. Live works with audio samples at different sample rates, mono or stereo, and combines .aiff, .wav, and .mp3 files in the same project. Despite what some say, there are no audio quality issues with Live; you’re more likely to experience problems through user error – choosing the wrong Warp mode for time-stretched material or stretching a clip way beyond what any reasonable person would do (we’ll be coming back to that later). Although Live isn’t an audio editor, it covers some of the basics. Crop Sample, which we use in this tutorial, discards unwanted portions at the start and end of an audio clip; and Consolidate – available only in the Arrangement View – combines two or more audio clips to create a new one. These functions are non-destructive – you’ll find the new samples in the sub-folders inside your Live project folder. You probably already have the necessary equipment to record a voice sample – most computers have some kind of built-in microphone. Then it’s a matter of scaling up from there with a dedicated microphone and soundcard (as far as we’re concerned, a ‘soundcard’ and an ‘audio interface’ are the same thing). You can get excellent affordable USB soundcards – look at the Focusrite Scarlett range – and a basic microphone for not much cash at all. There’s an ever-growing number of good USB microphones, too, although you lose the flexibility of a soundcard. There’s also

FOCUS ON… THE MICROPHONE It’s nice to use expensive microphones and recording hardware but you should be willing to work with what you’ve got. It’s easier for us because we’re recording a simple speech sample here so we’re not tied up in the complexities of recording a sung vocal against backing tracks and creating a headphone mix. What I will say is that unless you have a very specific idea of what you want, you should always try to get a clean voice recording, without distortion or baked-in effects. Other than that limitation, anything from your computer’s built-in microphone upwards will do fine.

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The Ultimate Guide To Ableton Live Part 6 Technique MT

MT Step-by-Step Recording and editing speech

Choose your soundcard in the Audio Input Device and Audio Output Device lists then close Preferences. Connect your headphones to your soundcard (watch your volume) and turn your monitor speakers off to avoid feedback.

Use Alt-Cmd-I to open the In/Out View. This will display the audio routing options at the bottom of your tracks. Click on the Audio From chooser to select your input – Ext. In.

Set up your microphone and mixer so you get a manageable volume level. Exactly how this works will again depend on what equipment you’re using but please avoid red peaks anywhere in the signal chain!

For this walkthrough we have to make some assumptions about your microphone and soundcard; read our main text for more details. Connect your mic and soundcard, launch Live and go to the Preferences Audio tab.

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Open our example Live set. Make sure you’re using the updated ‘part 6’ version and use the shortcut Cmd-T to create a new audio track. We’re still working in the Session View, of course.

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Below that is a list of available audio inputs – click to view the list. As you talk into your microphone, you’ll see a level displayed alongside one of those inputs. That’s your microphone. Click it.

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the Apogee One, which is unique because it has connections for a microphone and instrument, but also boasts a built-in microphone. It’s a cool tool for the travelling musician. I’m not going further into this discussion now, because it’s a whole other tutorial… Well, a whole other book, actually! I’ve suggested that you set the track’s Monitor switch to Auto, which means you’ll hear the mic input when you arm the track, but bear in mind that your set-up might enable

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– or require – you to monitor somewhere else along the signal chain. As I said, we’re not singing along to a backing track with this exercise, so frankly, accurate monitoring is not so critical. There are different ways to initiate recording: you can use a mouse or trackpad, your controller, or even your iPhone. You can go into record while Live is already running or enter record to start Live running. Record start and stop are quantised so that means if you’re using the default magazine August 2015


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MT Technique The Ultimate Guide To Ableton Live Part 6

MT Step-by-Step Recording and editing speech (cont’d)

As you arm/disarm the track for recording you’ll see the square stop buttons in each empty Session View clip slot (in that track) transform into circles; that means you can record into these.

Press the space bar to stop Live when you’re finished. Note the clip length is cropped to the nearest bar. Disarm the track so you can’t record anything else by mistake and always save after recording.

Double-click the clip to view the waveform if necessary. Let’s discard some of the silence around it. Position the loop brace around the ‘keeper’ part and the start marker at the front of that.

Set the track’s Monitor In switch to Auto, and arm the track – click the small circular button in the mixer, it goes red. Stop your other clips – you’re not singing along to anything for this one!

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We’ll record a short phrase to use as a one-shot sample and a rhythmic loop. Click a slot button to start recording. Wait a beat or two, then record yourself saying ‘Please be aware’.

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Before you launch your other clips again, listen to your voice recording on its own, checking for distortion and also checking that you haven’t chopped the start or end off as it’s very easy to do.

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global quantization of one bar, recording commences on the next bar. It’s important to remember this and not start talking too soon, otherwise you lose the beginning of your sample. Record ending is also quantised which is great as it gives you ‘pre-cut’ loops, rounded off to bars and more likely to loop in sync with your other content straight off.

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The most important thing when recording is to avoid overloading and distorting your input levels. It’s very ‘rock’ to record to tape with everything in the red, and it sounds cool, but sadly it stinks when you do it with digital recording. Live has some great distortion effects, so why not save that fun until later? If you’ve erred on the side of

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The Ultimate Guide To Ableton Live Part 6 Technique MT

MT Step-by-Step Recording and editing speech (cont’d)

Make sure the Loop Brace is an even bar length, though. Right-Click inside the area contained by the loop brace and choose Crop Sample. Duplicate this clip to the slot below using Cmd-D.

Use Cmd-D to duplicate the second clip. Double-click above the right end of the waveform to add a Warp marker. Grab it and drag to the right, doubling the length of your original sample.

Quantize the audio-click inside the waveform and type Cmd-U. Watch the waveform peaks snap to the grid; you’ll see Live inserts yellow Warp markers to achieve this.

The Loop Brace is that bar above the audio waveform. You can drag to reposition it and grab either end to change the length. FYI the Loop Brace dimensions and coordinates are MIDI-mappable.

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Select the first clip. From the Sample View at the bottom of the screen, deactivate Warp so it’ll play just once at its original speed. Now you have a one-shot, plus a looping version.

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Make sure you adjust the length of the Loop Brace to accommodate the stretched waveform. Experiment with Warp modes – the difference between Beats and Complex is very noticeable (but let’s stick with Beats).

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caution and recorded at a low level, use the clip Gain slider to boost the volume. Do this while the clip’s playing, so you can check for the distortion that arises if you go too far! We’re touching on Warping and audio quantization during our walkthrough; it’s fun to over-stretch audio samples and tweak the Warp modes; I can’t resist it with

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vocals, which is why we’re doing it here. A bit of quantization also adds to the unreal effect, but it can also make a looping speech sample sit more neatly on the beat. That’s it for now. I hope that over these six workshop parts I’ve given enough tips to inspire and help your music making – happy producing! MT magazine August 2015


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MT 20 Pro Tips Mobile music-making tips

Mobile musicmaking tips

Creating professional-sounding musical projects on iOS devices is becoming easier all the time, with dedicated equipment for phones and tablets. Here’s our essential guide…

keep it tidy You will need to practise good housekeeping and resource management on your iOS device, just like you do on your computer – perhaps even more so. Whereas computers can be upgraded with more RAM, faster hard drives and sometimes even new CPUs, iOS devices can’t, and so the amount of power available to you is determined by the particular device you have. Very broadly speaking, an iPad 3 or newer and an iPhone 5 or newer are the baselines for decent performance – and the newer the better. There are some good rules of thumb to remember; make sure you have a decent amount of storage space free. Force quit apps you’re not using and restart prior to any serious audio work. Switch on Do Not Disturb so you don’t get calls, texts and other notifications in the middle of trying to record.

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The importance of getting decent headphones cannot be overestimated. Don’t skimp…

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A MIDI input device such as the iRig Keys, below, is a very good idea…

get a good set of headphones The importance of getting some decent headphones cannot be overestimated. Aim for closed-back, over-ear models, as these will stop sound leakage if you’re working in a public space. They should be comfortable, too, for long periods of listening, and preferably pretty lightweight if you’re carrying them around. Don’t skimp on these, since a good pair will serve you well.

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get a midi input device Touchscreens are great, but a dedicated MIDI input device will make your life much easier if you work on the move a lot. IK Multimedia makes lots of these: the iRig Pads, Keys and Blueboard in different versions. The company also makes the iRig MIDI, which can be used to connect

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conventional MIDI gear to your iOS device. Windows and Mac users can also use networked MIDI over wi-fi to iOS, though latency can be an issue.

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Mobile music-making tips 20 Pro Tips MT

USE A CONTROLLER APP iOS controller apps are sometimes bound to a specific desktop application, and at other times are assignable to control anything that can receive MIDI. Setting up a controller app means you can perform live, or join a jam session. Ableton Live and Traktor are particularly well catered for when it comes to iOS controller apps.

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WORK REMOTELY Steinberg’s VST Connect allows users in different parts of the world to video chat and record audio and MIDI directly into Cubase in high quality. The free Studio Pass app lets someone broadcast a mix live to your phone as well as video chatting with you. So you can let people audition mixes and sessions without them having to be present.

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MASTER YOUR MUSIC It’s even possible to master your tracks on an iPad. Probably the best app for this is Positive Grid’s Final Touch, which is amazingly powerful considering it runs on a mobile device. There’s also an app called Audio Mastering, which is a little more technical but similarly priced.

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SEND AUDIO BETWEEN APPS As music-making on iOS has become more of a serious proposition, Apple has beefed up the core technologies of the system to help you out. One of the most useful capabilities in iOS is Inter-App Audio, which allows you to send audio between different apps, despite them not being on screen at the same time. So, for example, you could load a standalone synth and then route it into a mobile DAW, using virtual MIDI to trigger it, and then record the results – all inside the iPad. It’s also how new solutions such as the Music IO app work: you just need an app that acts as a hub for the audio streams. There’s also Audiobus, which is actually a third-party app, but enables a similar thing, with a little more flexibility for routing audio internally.

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BUY AN AMP/EFFECTS SIM Guitar effects have been one of the most popular uses for iOS devices, and they’re better than ever. Tools such as BIAS FX, AmpliTube and JamUp provide great functionality for guitarists. Add an interface, even one as simple as the iRig, and you can monitor and play with minimum fuss.

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PLUG IN A MIC There are an increasing number of microphones coming onto the market that plug directly into your iOS device, typically using a Lightning connector, because the older 30-pin version was discontinued some time ago. The benefits of this are pretty clear in that such a model would allow you to plug in wherever you happened to be with no extra interfaces or cabling required and record a performance. Admittedly, only with a single mic, but this is enough for simpler recording tasks. They range in form and price, depending on whether you want something more conventional and hand-held or more ambient and omnidirectional. There’s Blue Mics’ Mikey Digital, Apogee’s MiC 96K, Zoom’s iQ6, IK’s iRig Mic and HD, Blue’s Spark Digital, Samson’s C01U and several more. Some are better suited to the studio and some to field recording.

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(Above) Amp simulators such as BIAS FX, AmpliTube and JamUp come with dozens of effects, too (Below right) When your projects start to get serious, you’re going to need some external storage (Below left) More and more mics that plug in to your iOs device are available.

GET SOME EXTERNAL STORAGE iOS devices have never had expandable storage and probably never will. The base 16GB configuration of iPhones and iPads is not really enough to do lots of recording on, or hold more than a few high-quality DAWs and instruments – which can easily run to 1GB each. So you might find yourself constantly struggling for space, but there is a workaround. Not everyone knows about the existence of wireless hard drives. These are fairly affordable standard hard drives that have Wi-Fi built in, and usually a companion iOS app as well. They can be used independently of a computer or an internet connection to transfer files to and from your iOS device. They’re maybe not suitable for recording directly to because of latency, but you can use them to manage your data without having to lug a laptop around. Especially useful for saving and loading projects on the move.

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MT 20 Pro Tips Mobile music-making tips

TRANSFER BETWEEN DESKTOP AND DEVICE Increasingly, larger developers have started to bring together their mobile and desktop offerings, though it’s still the case that not every DAW has a mobile equivalent. If you are looking to get started, or happen to already have a desktop DAW and want to combine it with a mobile equivalent, you can sort something out that will let you start a project on the move and then transfer it back to the desktop for more heavyweight work, either via the cloud or via iTunes file sharing. Some of the more prominent systems that do this include NI’s iMaschine and Maschine desktop, Steinberg’s Cubasis and Cubase, GarageBand for iOS and GarageBand or Logic Pro on the desktop, FL Studio Mobile HD and FL Studio for PC – and in a slightly different way, Propellerheads’ Take, Figure and Reason combo.

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USE THE CLOUD Take advantage of cloud services to transfer projects between your iOS device and computer, or to upload your finished tracks directly to streaming services. Some of the most commonly implemented cloud sharing options in iOS apps are Apple’s iCloud, Dropbox, Box, SoundCloud and Facebook. You get a standard storage allowance with most services, that’s adequate for many users, though you can of course pay to expand this. Even if you don’t use the cloud to transfer or share material with others, it can be useful simply as a backup technique to ensure you always have a saved copy of a project stored somewhere other than the device itself. Bear in mind, also, that if you are uploading data over a cellular connection, a DAW project with a few WAV audio tracks can quickly burn through several hundred MB of your data allowance.

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LINK UP TO YOUR DESKTOP Historically, iOS and the desktop have been two separate worlds, and getting data from one to the other has meant exporting to iTunes or uploading it to the cloud first, then re-importing into your computer. A new system called Music IO (www.musicioapp.com) does away with this. It uses a server app for the Mac (with Windows support planned) and an app on your iOS device, plus a VST/AU plug-in to seamlessly incorporate both systems, using only the regular USB cable you already utilise to charge the device. Four tracks of stereo audio can be sent bi-directionally between iOS and OS X, and MIDI can be sent too. This means you can record audio from iOS synths into your DAW, trigger iOS instruments from your Mac and even use iOS effects apps, such as guitar processors.

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(Above) Music IO is invaluable for linking your iOS and desktop projects (Below right) An iPad dock could be a good alternative to buying a second MIDI or audio interface.

iTrack Pocket is a stand for your phone with an integrated high-quality microphone

GET A DOCK FOR YOUR DEVICE If you already have a desktop audio and MIDI interface, you may not want to buy another one simply to add proper I/O to your iPad. In this case, you could consider an iPad Dock, such as the Alesis IO Dock or the Focusrite iTrack Dock. These are designed to physically hold an iPad, and can often be connected to a phone as well, even if it’s not held securely in place. Be sure to choose a dock that suits your iPad model, since there is some variation in what’s compatible. They add phantom power, XLR audio, hardware MIDI and USB connectivity in various configurations; and if you plan on using your iPad for music a lot, can even replace a computer setup. Smaller accessories are available, too – many from IK Multimedia, such as the iRig MIDI 2, iRig HD and iRig Mic to name but a few. Each of these brings a specific kind of I/O to your device, and usually at a lower price point.

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RECORD WITH ITRACK POCKET You can record audio and video of yourself from an iPhone at the same time, but in higher fidelity than the built-in mic allows. Focusrite’s iTrack Pocket is a clever device that is a stand for your phone with an integrated

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PACK SOME CABLES Always carry a couple of cables if you’re planning to record anything on your travels. A simple mini-jack-to-minijack, a small-to-big adaptor and a mini-jack-to-phono cable will allow you to record from almost any instrument or audio device into your iOS device. There’s no need to carry interfaces, though of course if you do, you will benefit from better audio fidelity.

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MAKE SOME FIELD RECORDINGS iOS devices make surprisingly good field recorders, though you are better off not simply relying on their built-in microphones to do the job. The addition of a dedicated field mic, such as IK’s iRig Mic Field, or a Blue Microphones model, will greatly enhance the clarity of any recordings you make. Radio producers and interviewers often use an iPhone with a specialised mic attached, and you can too.

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Mobile music-making tips 20 Pro Tips MT

It might sound obvious, but if you’re making music on the move you’ll need a proper mobile DAW (Above) An interface that can connect to both desktop and mobile devices will save you time (Left) Focusrite’s iTrack Pocket will improve the quality of your recordings (Below) Mobile DAWs are highly capable and not as expensive as you might expect.

INVEST IN A MOBILE DAW It might sound obvious, but if you’re making music on the move you will need a proper mobile DAW. These are now amazingly capable and dwarf the simple four-track recorders that were standard when iOS first allowed third-party apps. At the very affordable end, there’s GarageBand; and for a little more, FL Studio Mobile HD, NanoStudio and Cubasis. All of these work differently, but support virtual effects and instruments, audio and MIDI recording and editing, and even mastering. Some, such as Tabletop and Auria, are even more advanced and allow adding modules. If you’re going to spend a few quid on a decent mobile DAW (and they’re still much cheaper than desktop versions), you’ll want to add some kind of audio and MIDI I/O device, as there’s no point spending on one part of the system and skimping on the other. MT

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high-quality microphone and also a guitar line in with amp simulation. Record audio and video, apply the mastering effects and upload to YouTube. DON’T RUN OUT OF BATTERIES If you’re making music on the go, always carry a battery pack to avoid running out of juice at crucial moments. Compact ones can cost more, but if you don’t mind a big brick, you can charge for hours without going near the mains. Remember that charging will tie up your Lightning port.

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GO MULTI-FUNCTIONAL Getting audio and MIDI into and out of your iOS device is key to leveraging its power as a music-making platform. You have a number of options, but an increasingly popular one is to choose an audio and MIDI interface that has both desktop and iOS compatibility. Thanks to Apple’s CoreMIDI and CoreAudio frameworks, developers are able to design interfaces that can be plugged into a Mac, PC or iPad or iPhone and work right away. The benefits are obvious: you get pro-quality inputs and outputs in a device that can be used both on the move and back in your studio. Check that an interface does specifically have iOS support, because not all do. However, more and more are becoming compatible: smaller models from Steinberg, Apogee and Focusrite to name but a few.

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MT Technique Recording Instruments Into Your DAW: Part 1

MT Workshop Recording Instruments Into Your DAW: Part 1

Starting to record

Requirements Our DAW Recording features are illustrated using Cubase, but you can apply the principals to whatever DAW you use.

In the first of a new series we’re going to turn our attention to the technical aspects of recording your instruments, with a focus on Andy Price’s DAW of choice: the brilliantly intuitive Cubase. In the opener we look at how to set your DAW up for the ultimate recording session…

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ne of the biggest, and perhaps most unexpected, changes in popular music recently has been the return of the ‘authentic’ strippeddown singer/songwriter. The Ed Sheeran approach has been replicated across the western world, with more and more artists shunning complicated gear-based music-making and keeping things straightforward. Regardless of how simple these artists might think they are, to give their compositions some clout and polish they will need to record with a DAW, so in this new series, I will explore how to marry instruments from the outside world into your DAW-based set-up. While Ableton Live, Logic Pro and all the rest allow you to do this, I would argue that Cubase Pro 8 is the most flexible DAW on the


Cubase Pro 8 is brilliant, with simple functionality to turn your song ideas into reality market today, and even has the edge on the campusfavourite Logic Pro in terms of the range of options it gives you. I will, then, focus on the Steinberg stalwart but hopefully many of the principles I discuss will be transferable to your DAW of choice.

My DAW of choice Trepidation was the first thing to creep into my mind when Steinberg unveiled Cubase 8; for one thing, I’d only just found my feet with 7 (.5!) after admittedly several stubborn years of using not-exactly-the-latest version of Cubase. However, this was to be unfounded because Cubase Pro 8 is brilliant, with flexible and simple functionality to turn your song ideas, demos and even full-blown masterpieces into a reality. Hyperbole out of the way. Cubase 8 introduced a range of new features and simplified the recording process to minimise the effort needed to capture your compositions.

In this series, I’ll explain how some of the software’s features can help to bolster your sound from being rather flat and basic to sounding full, warm and radio-friendly. Of course, I’m going to be making some assumptions about the type of artist you are; this isn’t necessarily going to rule out artists of other genres, but primarily these tutorials will be aiming to transform singer/songwriters into confident producers of their compositions. We’re going to look at recording vocals, guitars and keyboards, then manipulating your audio, before turning our attention to mixing. Initially, however, it’s important to outline how Cubase 8 has improved the working environment for composers and music-makers. Many traditional songwriters will approach their DAW initially as a glorified tape recorder; that is, they’ll jack in their guitar, or a microphone, and simply record some ideas, without taking too much time to think about levels, tone or anything too specific, because to record a decent ‘real’ take would take time and a lot of fine tuning, which – often when you’re dealing with a creative ‘flow’ – can disrupt the creative process. Cubase Pro 8 cuts out a lot of this tweaking by giving you a variety of preset templates. These templates present you with all your project tracks set out and auto tweaked to have the optimal settings for guitars, pianos, vocals, bass guitars and more besides. Steinberg has also updated the core engine of Cubase to make everything run that little bit quicker – this sounds minor, but when inspiration strikes and you want to record your latest idea, a little extra speed and efficiency counts. I’m going to assume you have a copy of a DAW and are a composer of music some experience although readers of all levels – both studio and musically – will hopefully benefit from this new series. Overall, then, I’m going to target the keen singer/songwriter overwhelmed by the amount of choice on offer, so let’s start recording. MT

FOCUS ON… MICROPHONY So, what physically do we need to record effectively? Well, firstly of course, we need a decent microphone; there’s no getting around the fact that the more expensive the microphone, the better the final recording you’ll have to play with. If you’re using a condenser microphone for vocals and acoustic guitar, then you’ll also need a preamp to supply it with phantom power (or an audio interface that can supply it directly). Many producers use a physical mixing console as well, before sending their recordings to their DAW. However, with the range of onboard options for equalisation that Cubase 8 provides, this isn’t really needed as much as it used to be. To reiterate: a decent mic is the one ‘big’ investment that is essential.

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MT Step-by-step Getting started

Open your DAW, and you’ll be prompted to choose your audio interface. In Cubase 8 you’ll see the Steinberg Hub, which syncs online and provides a range of useful tutorial videos. Click on the Recording tab and you’ll get a list of templates, with suggestions of how best to use them. Select the one that best applies to your style/ instrumentation. I’m going to choose ‘Acoustic + Vocal’.

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You’ll now be thrown into the project window – get used to it, because this is where you’ll be spending hours of your life! In here, you can manipulate every single aspect of the sound you’re about to record. When opening a preset template in Cubase 8, you’ll notice that it will have automatically added relevant EQ and reverb effects to the individual tracks.

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Be sure to click the ‘input monitor’ button so you can actually hear what you’re doing with your tracks. Once selected, you should be able to hear your microphone and/or guitar through your monitors or headphones. Make sure you have also selected the Record Enable button to arm these tracks for recording.

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Be sure to also click ‘Prompt for Project Location’ before you click Create – this will enable you to create a new folder and a name for your project on your desktop, so it’s easily locatable later.

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On the left of your tracks, you’ll have some options; the one we need to look at is above Trackversions, and is the recording inputs and outputs. Make your sure vocal track input corresponds to your microphone input, your guitar track to the jack input, etc. It sounds obvious, but it can take a while to get every track set up correctly. The output should automatically sync to your interface’s output.

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Call up the MixConsole (F3). Here, we can see the levels for all our tracks. As our track is set to monitor the input, we should be able to see the signal levels from the sounds we’re making going up and down in their respective channels. We can also see that the faders are set to zero. Going higher than this causes a problem that is one of the biggest bugbears of any sound recorder’s life…

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MT Step-by-step Getting started… cont’d

If we go beyond the designated fader level, clipping will occur – fuzzy, distorted sound that results from the input overloading – and the bottom of the track will turn red. If this happens, it’s imperative to go back and re-record the sound, as there’s no way of addressing this later on in the process. Make sure your input volume isn’t set too high and we should be able to avoid this happening.

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Set your tempo by clicking inside the transport panel (the long floating rectangle that defaults at the bottom of your window). A ‘fixed’ tempo keeps the entire project set to one BPM. However, if you intend to up the BPM, you can do so by unclicking ‘Fixed’, which should now say ‘Track’. Cubase 8 allows us to easily ‘draw in’ BPM changes (command + T). We’ll cover this further later in the series.

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We’re going to cover general recording techniques later in the series; for now it’s best to record in a comfortable environment (as you may have to record several takes of the same track). Make sure you’re not too close to the microphone when recording vocals, as this is a sure-fire way of clipping the track. Keep your guitar volume low. Now you can begin to record a take of your song – or part of it.

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Does that all make sense? OK, that’s the basic stuff out of the way, now it’s best to record a short passage of your song to make sure that your levels are set correctly. Record around four bars and you should get a good indication of how you’re sounding.

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Once we’ve set our BPM, we can now record with our click track (press ‘C’) so our recorded parts are in time. It’s important to play and sing in time with this digital metronome, as this is what every other element of the project will be guided by.

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Disable the input monitor to listen back to your recording. Does it sound good? If any clipping occurred, we’re going to have to re-record whichever track it was on. If you’re happy with the recording generally, but have noticed slight problems (a fudged note or chord for example), don’t worry – we can edit this audio later. So long as our levels aren’t clipping, we’ve got a good solid recording to play with.

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22/06/2015 14:28

MT Technique Beat Programming And Sound Design

MT Workshop Beat Programming And Sound Design

Requirements

Creative sound design using Reason

The Combinator is a remarkably powerful tool for designing your own multi-instruments, if you know how. Hollin Jones reveals all…

O

ne of the best things about software is that it removes the physical limitations of having to own lots of outboard. Apart from the really obvious space saving, this also means you can be far more creative with sound design than if you were reliant on hardware. With real synths and effects you can only use as many as you have, and getting them all working at the same time means MIDI syncing and a fair bit of audio routing, which can get pretty complex. Software lets you layer up as many modules (and as many copies of the same module) as your hardware can handle. And it does this with the greatest of ease, rarely requiring any tedious fiddling about. Reason has a special tool for layering and grouping modules called the Combinator. This technique is possible in other DAWs too of course using their specific approaches, whether it’s creating channel presets with a load of stuff pre-configured, or using a clever tool like Blue Cat Audio’s Patchwork plug-in which is able to host a bunch of other plug-ins inside it on a single slot. The idea with all of these is that you bring together multiple devices to create a sound that’s bigger than any single one of them is capable of. We’ll be looking mostly at layering though zoning is also easy to achieve – the splitting of different sounds across multiple MIDI key zones. The Combinator acts like a miniature version of the Rack inside the main Rack. It’s the same concept as a channel preset or track preset in other DAWs, only here it’s embodied in a module with a name. Reason actually refers to the Combinator as a ‘utility’ and it’s grouped as such in the Create menu. This is because it does not in


itself generate or process sound but is a container into which you can place modules which do. There are several advantages to using this approach. For one thing, you get to send a single stereo feed into the main mixer by default, though it’s also simple to split feeds off from inside the combi if you prefer. Despite having a stereo output it’s possible to route and mix creatively within a combi using any of Reason’s suitable modules like mini mixers, audio and CV splitters and mergers.

Get creative Entire combis can be moved around, loaded or deleted, bringing a number of pre-created chains into a project en masse with a single click. Again, this is the same with track presets or hosting plug-ins in other DAWs. The fact that a Combinator, by default at least, accepts a single MIDI input also means it’s a quick and easy way to trigger multiple modules from a single device. Otherwise, if you wanted a single MIDI part to play, say, six different synths at once, you would have to record a part once then duplicate it in the sequencer, or set up six different instrument channels all accepting the same MIDI input at the same time. The latter solution is a little cleaner but it’s still not a patch on just sticking everything inside a combi and playing it like a regular instrument. Submixing inside a combi, which is more or less a requirement of using more than a couple of modules, lets you balance the different component modules against each other before the sound is passed to the main mixer. So an example might be to have a piano patch with a

FOCUS ON… KEY MAPPING

As well as layering sounds you can key map them, assigning each module within a combi a specific range of MIDI keys to which it will respond. This can be different for every module capable of receiving notes, and they can of course overlap. Along the base of this section are some other useful features like specifying a velocity range outside of which sounds will not trigger, which performance controllers a module will receive and whether that device is transposed. All of these work individually for each module inside a combi, making it a remarkably flexible and powerful system for building complex multi-instruments with a minimum of fuss. Utility and effect devices can’t accept notes but they can accept other kinds of data.

56 | August 2015

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MAGAZINE

26/06/2015 14:58

Beat Programming And Sound Design Technique MT

MT Step-by-Step Sound design with Combinator

Now drop a synth into the area directly below the mixer but also still inside the combi. If you go too far the synth will be placed into the main rack, which isn’t the aim. Done right, it should sit inside the combi.

Add a second module to the combi and you will find it is triggered by the main MIDI input along with the first. Round the back you will see the auto routing take place. Use the line mixer to balance the relative levels of the two synths.

Here we have dropped a Pulverizer onto one of the synths so it’s being processed through it, but the other elements of the combi remain unaffected. Use the effect’s dry/wet control to manage levels.

Begin by loading a blank Combinator either from the Browser or from the Create > Utilities menu. The first thing you should drag into it is a Line Mixer, since this will enable other modules to be submixed.

01

If you hit the Tab key to spin the Rack around you will see why it was important to add a mixer first. The synth has been routed to the mixer with more slots free for the next steps. The signal then goes from the mixer via the combi out to the main mixer.

03

Most of the same rules apply inside a combi as in the main Rack. So if you take an effect module and drop it onto an instrument inside a combi, Reason will auto-route the audio signals accordingly.

05

couple of string or synth pad sounds mixed quite low to provide atmosphere behind it. The pads would react more slowly than the piano too, so the overall effect wouldn’t be weird. Building mega-synths is fun and easy to do too. Imagine you start with a synth lead sound, then add another module playing a sub sound with lots of attack and distortion. Then you add something rhythmic skittering away in the background, or perhaps that only triggers above a certain velocity level. Pretty quickly you

02

04

06

have a really involved and interesting sound that you’re able to play from a single keyboard and record on a single track in the sequencer.

Take control One of the combinator’s other talents, and one which can be harder to replicate as easily in other DAWs, is its controller section where you can assign shortcuts and quick controls to multiple parameters within a combi. magazine August 2015


| 57

26/06/2015 14:58

MT Technique Beat Programming And Sound Design

MT Step-by-Step Sound design with Combinator (cont’d)

Use the Aux dial on each of the six channels to apply compression to instruments. Changing the compressor’s settings will affect every signal routed through it. Think of it as a mini send effect system.

For any module, choose a combi button or dial and then a parameter to assign it to. You might want to have a dial control a delay rate inside one of the synths or an effect dry/wet level.

Helpfully, most parameters can also have minimum and maximum values set in the column to the right, the options depending on the parameter. So you might want to ensure a volume control can never go too quiet or too loud, for example.

The Line Mixer can host a single effect on its aux buss. Drop an effect onto it, something like a compressor that you might want to use as a send for different modules inside the combi.

07

Press the Show Programmer button on the Combinator’s front panel and you will see a list of the modules contained inside it. Select one and on the right you will see a list of available parameters that can be assigned to quick controls.

09

Utility devices can be controlled in this way too, not just instruments and effects. So you could have quick controls to turn individual channels inside a Line Mixer up or down for example – a nice hands-on mixing system.

11

Let’s say you have your four variable dials and assign one of them to control the cutoff filters on a couple of synths, and another one to detune an oscillator in one module and also increase distortion level on a crunch unit. In a few seconds you have created a way to morph a sound in cool-sounding ways. Since these assignments are all stored within the combi, they are recalled whenever you load it. Modules

58 | August 2015


08

10

12

can even be ‘uncombined’ and exploded out into the Rack, with Reason handling all the audio routing or alternatively, multiple elements in the Rack can be selected and then brought together into a combi with a couple of clicks. Layering and submixing sounds in this way brings a new level of creativity to the software and enables you to create much more interesting, diverse and unique sounds for your tracks. MT

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26/06/2015 14:58

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MT149.subs.indd 67

02/07/2015 16:05

MT Reviews Propellerhead Reason 8.3

MT Lead Review Hardware

Software

Mobile tech

Accessories

Choice

9/10 9 9/ 10

PROPELLERHEAD

Reason 8.3

Details Manufacturer Propellerhead Price Reason 8 €369 Upgrade to Reason 8 €129 8.3 update free for existing Reason 8 users Distributor Propellerhead Contact Via website Web www. propellerheads.se System requirements Dual core Intel Mac Dual core Intel or AMD Opteron PC 4GB RAM OS X 10.7 Windows 7 64-bit

Key features ● Audio and MIDI recording and editing ● Multiple bundled effects and instruments ● Factory Sound Banks ● Native sampling ● Compose with Blocks ● MClass Mastering effects ● Remote MIDI control system ● Rack Extensions ● New convolution reverb ● New workflow enhancements ● Batch export ● Drop to Propellerhead cloud service

62 | August 2015

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Propellerhead has updated Reason with some new goodies. Hollin Jones gets a sneak peek…

T

he last few versions of Reason have seen many changes, some big and some small. Audio tracking and editing came a couple of years ago, then Rack Extensions, and finally a flattening of the UI and streamlining of the workflow with a new Browser and drag and drop method of device creation. Since the release of Reason 8, Propellerhead has been adding smaller features and making modifications with more minor updates : something made easier thanks to its ability to now detect and download program updates without having to include all the library content as well. Version 8.3 continues this trend and we will look at exactly what has changed in a moment, as well as noting what else is new since the original version of Reason 8 was released.

A recap Reason is now a fully fledged DAW, though with a somewhat different approach to most of its competitors. It doesn’t have the advanced features of Cubase or Logic like scoring, video support or heavyweight MIDI programming – but it makes up for this by arguably being far more accessible

and quick to work with. That’s not to say it lacks tools however; in fact it has unique features like CV patching, free audio routing, the Combinator and a powerful mixer that many other DAWs would do well to take note of. The Props also unlocked the world of third party add-ons but did so in their own inimitable fashion. Rather than supporting VST or AU plug-ins, which if poorly coded or out of date can crash an application, they introduced Rack Extensions. These are fully fledged members of the Rack : instruments and effects that are developed independently but work just like Reason’s own modules. This removed one of users’ biggest gripes, a lack of expandability. More recently, the Props have started creating bundles of Rack Extensions at significant discounts, themed around types of production. The Backline Rig, for example, is a bunch of instruments and effects for people making rock, pop, blues and the like. As well as some fixes, Reason 8.1 added the new Drop to Propellerhead service into the application. This allows you to start a project on the move using the Figure app to put together some beats and sounds, then send it to the

cloud or to another user to open in Take, the Props’ vocal recording mobile app. Both mobile apps are now free. These ideas can either be sent to Discover, which is a sort of online gallery of musical ideas, or opened in Reason on your computer via the website. Tracks from Reason can be mixed down to the cloud as well, and you can contribute ideas to other peoples’ projects. It’s easy to use though not hugely flexible at the moment, even if it feels like a service that has the potential to become more advanced in the future.

Three’s company And so to the 8.3 update, which adds a few more interesting things. The biggest change is the upgrading of the venerable RV7000 reverb unit to mkII. Although visually the most obvious change is a new, lighter colour, the unit now becomes a convolution reverb, bringing Reason in line with other flagship DAWs, most of which have their own model. Convolution reverb enables you to simulate real spaces by performing complex equations on the sounds you pass through it. In short, it’s far more flexible than just using presets like “hall”, “room” and “cathedral”, though

MAGAZINE

01/07/2015 11:38

Propellerhead Reason 8.3 Reviews MT

these are still available, of course. You get several hundred impulse responses in a free ReFill, plus a stack of patches to go along with them. In terms of using the module, the Programmer section now lets you select ‘convolution’ as an algorithm and then select from a sample preset. Even better, it lets you sample in your own impulses or load existing impulse samples using the new buttons on its front panel. Convolution reverb can be more realistic than other types and is certainly easier to customize. This new model sounds great and brings Reason’s capabilities into line with more heavyweight competitors. Sticking to the same design as the original module means there’s really barely any learning curve in transitioning over to using convolution reverb.

Workflow changes The second change is that the browser is now accessible not just in the main window as before but from the Rack window after it has been detached. Reason’s window management can still

question why it’s taken this long to introduce it, but it’s welcome nonetheless. More needs to be done in the area of navigation of the sequencer to make negotiating large projects easier, and it would be nice in future to see a marker system implemented. The final workflow change is that MIDI can now be assigned from the Rack section. Previously, directing MIDI input to any device meant going to the sequencer and selecting the device’s channel before you could play it live. Instrument modules now get a blue arrow to show they’re selected, and clicking inside this area to change it to a grey arrow denotes that master MIDI input has been directed to the module. This is also more useful in everyday situations than it might sound, especially if you spend more time in the Rack than the sequencer. Last but not least, when you open an automation clip for editing in Arrange mode, the static value for the parameter is now available in the track list. This means you don’t have to go to Edit mode to adjust it. This is quite a minor change, but if you spend a lot of time working

The new zoom feature is so useful you’ll question why it’s taken so long to introduce it… be a little fiddly and ideally it’s best to run with two separate windows where you have the screen space. Previously this meant always returning to the main window to browse, but now it’s possible from both windows. Apparently a response to many user requests, this will certainly be useful for a large number of people. Another workflow niggle that’s persisted in Reason is zooming in the sequencer, which again could be a little fiddly. Zooming from wide to close has meant dragging sliders and if you have to do this a lot, it can get tedious. Now, the Z key will zoom in to whatever is selected in the sequencer, and pressing Z again zooms back out to a full wide view. This is so useful for editing you’ll In use The RV7000 mkII is now a convolution reverb and lets you load impulse response samples as well as recording your own directly in. This means it’s possible to simulate a far wider range of physical spaces, including actual physical locations, as long as you have the impulse files.

with automation it’s going to be a welcome one.

Free? No brainer Given that the 8.3 update is free for registered owners of Reason 8 or Reason Essentials 8, it’s a no-brainer if you fit that description. The workflow changes are welcome, and hopefully it’s the first of a few longstanding interface issues to be tweaked and improved. Getting a convolution reverb for free is great news too, and helps Reason’s case for being considered at the more pro end of the DAW spectrum. If you’re not yet a Reason user, the program’s strengths are numerous. It’s extremely stable and surprisingly kind to your

Alternatives Reason is quite unique in its design and approach, shunning conventional plug-ins for its own Rack Extension system. FL Studio 12 (€159) is currently PC-only though a Mac version is in development, and although it does do VST, it also has an unusual approach to sequencing and recording. Cubase Artist 8 is dual platform and a more conventional approach to sequencing. It costs £220 and has a deeper feature set than Reason, though perhaps also a little more of a learning curve.

CPU, friendly and intuitive to use and comes with a bunch of great instruments and effects. The Propellerhead cloud collaboration system is in its infancy but shows great promise, and expandability via Rack Extensions as well as the ever-present ReWire mean it’s possible to go beyond the standard toolset fairly easily. Although Reason 8.3 still shares a few graphical similarities with its very earliest incarnation back at the turn of the millennium, it’s a far more capable and polished program with a wealth of tools for music-makers of all levels. MT

MT Verdict + Exceptionally stable and CPU-efficient + Very friendly to learn and use + Full 30-day trial of all Rack Extensions + Excellent mixer + Free audio and CV routing + Clever drag and drop browser + ReWire, MIDI out + Native REX file creation + New reverb sounds great + Welcome workflow changes + Drop to Propellerhead shows promise + Browsing from the Rack is helpful - Zooming and window management could still be improved - Drop is quite simple, at least for now - No video support - Audio editing could be more in-depth A small but welcome update to an extremely solid DAW that does things on its own terms. Fast, friendly and fun but still more than capable of professional results.

9/10


MT149.Rev Reason.indd 63

| 63

01/07/2015 11:38

MT Reviews Heavyocity Gravity

Choice

9/10 9 9/ 10 HEAVYOCITY

Gravity

Libraries for soundtrack composers are at something of a peak in popularity. Andy Jones loads up Heavyocity’s latest, which uses vast swathes of hands-on control and customisation in an attempt to lift it well above the rest…

Details Price $449 Contact sales@heavyocity. com Web www.heavyocity.com

Key features ● 12GB library ● 2,200 sound sources; 815 snapshots; 325 motion presets; 780 pads; 390 stings; 19 riser menus; 9 hit menus ● AU, VST, DXi, AAX, RTAS, Standalone ● Requires Kontakt 5 player

64 | August 2015

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I

t would be easy to think that today’s media composer – that is a soundtrack producer for film, TV and video games – has it too easy. With libraries comprising gigabytes of data becoming 10 a penny (almost) and sample collections available every month with magazines such as MusicTech [you mean there are others? – Ed] the soundtrack artist has never had it so good. Or have they? Yes and no. With so many collections of samples, loops and instruments available, the bar to entry is now so low that pretty much anyone can attempt to have a go at scoring film. Like music production before it, everyone having the tools to do so is not necessarily ‘a good thing’. So, while there might seem to be more collections than ever being reviewed in MusicTech, each one is fighting for a unique position, or is – as Stella Artois used to claim – reassuringly expensive, to filter out some of the unwashed masses…

Rising above Heavyocity’s Gravity is a bit of both. With a price tag of $449, it is by no means the cheapest collection out there. And with more hands-on tweaking and customising tools available than your average collection, it is more of an active instrument than a passive library.

So while the aims and audience of the collection will quickly become obvious – think tension-building scores to back high-drama, horror, sci-fi, or anything needing atmosphere, basically – there is hopefully enough going on in the manipulation department to make Gravity more about being inspired than copying; it’s more about being

and the ‘Agressive, Ethereal, Experimental and Unnerving’ categories are as descriptive as it gets. Each pad comprises three layers, which you can tweak individually, in terms of volume, ADSR envelope, pitch and panning. Each layer can be modulated with several parameters and shaped with an EQ page that has a three-band EQ and

Gravity is about being inspired – more about being the sheep dog than the sheep the sheep dog than the sheep. Hopefully, anyway…

The only way is… Installation is via the Continuata installer, itself a small download and one that you paste your code into, select your destination and let the 12GB download do its thing. Gravity opens within Kontakt as an instrument, as normal, and you are immediately presented with some filmic sonic options: pads, hits, stings and risers; as each has a set of unique parameters, I should look at them in turn. The Gravity pads comprise four descriptive types

five filter types (with the cut-off able to be modulated by four parameters). This is just the opening salvo in Gravity’s hands-on control arsenal, offering familiar analogue-style sound synthesis over what we will see and hear are very non-analogue sound sources (despite many actually being created on modular systems). The second section has 48 hits, and you get four parts: Sub, Impact, Whoosh (swell) and Tail with which to create them, as well as a ‘Hit Designer’ to combine them. There’s also a Random button that is great fun for some fast creativity. Again, the individual parts

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01/07/2015 15:58

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03/04/15 12:59

MT Reviews Heavyocity Gravity

GRAVITY: PADS SCREEN Within the Pads section, you can adjust the levels of the three parts (centre), effects (left) and ADSR (right).

1

MOTION: THE PARTS Gravity has a very neat Motion section, which – especially for pads – provides a great way to alter a sound’s pitch, pan or volume over time.

1

can each be EQd on a separate page. The third section is for stings, and contains more than 450 atonal, tonal, reverse, sweep and metallic effects. They are set out in tuned menus for easy audition, and can again be EQ’d (and filtered) and have envelopes edited. The final section comprises 72 hybrid risers and 45 orchestral risers, which are tempo synced with three layers: Hybrid/Organic, Synthetic and Effects. The hands-on editing features here are similar to the pads section, with volume, panning, EQ, etc, plus a designer page for the three layers. So this all sounds great in theory; how about in practice?

All rise The Pads section is the most musical, and those descriptions really do nail it. Everything is here for ethereal and atmophere, but also for fear and tension. The front panel makes

GRAVITY: EQ All sections have EQ and filter options. Here are those for the Pads, allowing access to the three parts.

2

MOTION: DRAWING IN THE CHANGES Each of the three parts can be edited over time simply by drawing in changes. Here, all three will rise to the end of the cycle, and that cycle length can also be edited.

2

dramatic sound shaping truly present and correct, and you’ll find yourself drawn into it and making changes – as you really should do. The Hits section, too, is a bit of a success story. I’m not sure about some of the categorisaton, as to me they all add a lot of impact, but you can combine and tweak away to get some great results. Stings, too, is an area where you can get some fine detail and incidental hits and elements for any genre, not just film music. Adventurous dance musicians, for example, could take Gravity and incoporate a lot of the elements here into deep and sparse house tracks. Only the Riser section didn’t really excite me as much as the rest. This isn’t really a fault of the section itself, more of a tiredeness of the riser effect – it’s been overused a little, but that’s just my opinion!

Alternatives There are stacks of libraries to help you score just about anything, so – as always – check out sample collections from the big sample companies such as Loopmasters, Samplephonics et al. Of the instruments and collections I’ve looked at of late, Orbit springs to mind as a film scoring tool that very much offers a fantastical set of sounds with hands-on creativity. It’s a bit more about the ambience and textures, as opposed to the hits and rises, but the two do complement each other well. Surprisingly in some ways, Zero-G’s Haunted Ground (reviewed in this issue) also springs to mind, as it has some terrifying moments – which Gravity also excels at. See the review on p90 for more.

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GRAVITY: PUNISH & TWIST Two massive controls allow you to sweep through a bunch of parameters with one big dial.

3

MOTION: CHAINING Edit each of the parts and save up to eight versions. Chain them together for maximum effect over time. Here, I have chained together eight parts.

3

I have only one other cricitism, and that is that the controls look a bit lacklustre and can get lost against the background. It’s a shame they couldn’t be more colourful or textured like the massive controls for Punish and Twist. That aside – and it’s a small gripe – Gravity is a superb collection, made even better by the extra control. You might have to invest more money, but put the time in and, with Gravity on your side, you could be streets ahead of – or (sorry) above – the competition. MT

MT Verdict + Amazing collection of sounds + Pads especially brilliant + Incredible recordings + Great array of hits + Design sections very handy + Hands-on control takes it above most other collections - While the risers are good, they do by their nature get a bit samey - Relatively expensive – could be a bonus, as only the serious will buy Gravity is a great library in its own right, but there are enough hands-on features to take the sounds into new dimensions. It’s both inspirational and creative. Be the sheep dog!

9/10

MAGAZINE

01/07/2015 15:58

MT Reviews Novation MoroderNova

I feel…

NOVATION

Choice

MoroderNova

9/10 9 9/ 10

Only 500 of these will ever exist, so does it really matter what Andy Jones thinks of Novation’s latest synth? It would have his name on it if Giorgio hadn’t got there first, though… Details Price £319.99 Web novationmusic.com Contact T: +44 1494 462246 E: sales@focusrite. com

Key Features ● 256 presets, plus a bank of 30 Giorgio sounds ● Wavetable synth with 14 waveforms, 36 wavetables and 12-band vocoder, plus 14 filter types ● Up to 18 voices of polyphony ● 20 modulation slots ● 5 simultaneous effects; 12 arp types ● Audio in and 2x out, plus mic ● Only 500 going on sale ● New livery, plus Giorgio logo ● USB bus powered ● Size (mm): 560x 250x75 ● Weight (kg): 2.5

68 | August 2015

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ompared to the guitar market, the world of hi-tech studio gear is sadly lacking in signature models. This is because some people – not me, by the way – think synths are not as sexy as guitars. Nor are there as many big names to endorse them (although I will come up with a few ‘great’ ideas at the end of this review). That looks set to change with the Novation MoroderNova. This limited edition MiniNova might not actually be signed by Giorgio Moroder, but it does have a new Moroder-inspired livery, his trademark moustache and specs logo, and comes packed with sounds that backed his iconic recordings. We reviewed the original MiniNova a couple of years back and were impressed: “MiniNova is a great little synth, portable and flexible enough to be used in a variety of studio or live performance situations.” And while the original may be a couple of years old, the new model refines it and gives it more of an identity than the original, as we shall see… So, you get 256 presets, some proper hands-on controls including a massive frequency knob, and four smaller rotaries to dial through six very obvious sets of parameters – from oscillator to FX. Never has performance control over a sound been so easy. With such obvious real-time tweaking, you know

where this synth is going. It’s small, but designed to give a huge sound and – if we’re honest – a huge dance sound. But adding Moroder’s name to it instantly seals the deal, and almost defines its place in the market. He is one of the godfathers of dance music – ask any of today’s top producers and they will tell you that I Feel Love is an iconic dance tune (and if they don’t, they are lying). So, packed into those 256 sounds are categories for house, dubstep, R&B and D&B. For the most part, these are great; some are a little dated of course (this is dance, darling, some are so last Wednesday), but the real-time controls liven up and update many of them, so don’t worry too much. Besides, it’s the extras you want to read about… Before those, I must touch on the vocoder – there’s a gooseneck mic included – as we were a little dismissive of it first-time round, saying the effect was a little outdated. But now I’d argue that the vocoder section of the MoroderNova is more relevant than ever. Giorgio might not be known so much for vocoders as sweeping bass, but the effect is certainly part of the wider Moroder future world of big sounds, big love and big melodies, inhabited by protégés Daft Punk, Sparks, Kylie et al, so arguably sits here better than on the original. I bet Moroder has robot servants, too…

But of course the big selling point of the MoroderNova – aside from its unique design – is the dedicated bank of 30 Giorgio presets crafted by the Novation programmers to reflect some of his finest pop moments. Predictably, they open with that sound (called I Feel Bass) and cover the big sounds from obvious gems including excellent basses and leads from Sparks’ Beat The Clock and Berlin’s Take My Breath Away. But it’s not just the obvious hooks; you also get percussive effects from I Feel Love, and surprising inclusions from Blondie’s Call Me, plus bass sounds from some of Moroder’s themes such as Midnight Express, and just about everything from Flashdance. As an exercise in summing up someone’s career in sonics, it ticks all the boxes. So MoroderNova is surprisingly successful, and with the Giorgio extras it gels the original synth more, refining its point. It’s fun; it’s compact; it’s garish, colourful, loud and high-energy – camp even – and so it very much sits in the jet-setting world of an international synth icon. As we go to press, it seems that advance order numbers are astonishing, so you might not be able to get a MoroderNova even if you’ve read this far. But if you can, do! It sounds great, looks great and as a unique piece of synth gear, it’s a great investment. Finally, in being so successful, maybe the MoroderNova might open up the doors to more signature synths? So Novation, Roland, Yamaha, Korg et al, are you listening? How’s about a MiniNuman? MoroderOakey? MiniNoJarre? MiniNOMD? Rick WakeMIni? I could go on… so I will… SupernovA-ha? DeVocoda? MinEnova? A Flock Of SeaS80s? OK, I’m stretching it now… MT

MT Verdict + Superb hands-on control + Highly portable + Big sound for a small synth + Kitsch… in a great way. + Giorgio Moroder! + Highly collectable… - … if you can get one - Small keys Come on, what’s not to like (apart from the fact that you will be hard pressed getting one)? It looks cool, sounds cool, is cool and your mates won’t have one. If you can get one, how much do you want for it?

9/10

MAGAZINE

02/07/2015 12:14

distributed by Audio-Technica

MT Reviews JamHub Tracker MT16

JAMHUB

Innovation

Tracker MT16 MT has already looked at the JamHub GreenRoom – a great device for silent rehearsals. JamHub has come through yet again with a very fitting accompaniment, as Alex Moboraki discovers… Details Price £329 Web www.scvdistribution. co.uk Email sales@ scvdistribution.co.uk

J

amHub’s Greenroom picked up our innovation plaudits when we looked at it a few months ago. It’s essentially a hub into which an entire band can plug both instruments and headphones to rehearse in relative silence. An easy concept, but one delivered slickly and easily, and a great piece of tech for any band. Now we have its latest add-on: the JamHub Tracker MT16… It’s a Wi-Fi-enabled recorder that can capture up to 16 channels of audio at up to 24 bits/96kHz, so as your band rehearses in silence on the outside, this will capture all that is played on the inside; but it’s not just for rehearsing – as we’ll see, it makes for a very good recorder in its own right.

Smaller on the inside Key Features ● Record up to 16 channels simultaneously ● Wi-Fi-enabled ● 16 GB SD card + USB & Ethernet port ● 24/96 audio in .WAV or .MP3 ● Connect Cable/ Breakout Cable port ● 8 mono inputs ● Headphone/ Aux out

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The unit itself is compact and lightweight, managing to fit all of its impressive recording features into a device that boasts dimensions smaller than three stacked CD cases. Its front face is flush and succinct, with a single backlit LCD display, six status LEDs and four navigation buttons. The minimalistic approach to the Tracker MT16’s user interface proves to be very responsive and user-friendly. An Ethernet connection, 5V DC power port and JamHub connect port are located on the top, two stereo ¼-inch inputs, USB and SD card ports

for storage are on the right, and six monophonic ¼-inch inputs on the left. There’s also a 3.5mm headphone port on the bottom to enable the playback of unmixed, armed channels and individual track playback after recordings – very useful for ensuring a healthy signal and/or checking the accuracy of a performance. There are three audio patching options, depending on your recording requirements. For those looking to capture creativity during rehearsals, and already in possession of a JamHub Studio, the Tracker MT16 is the perfect addition to your band’s setup. Able to be plugged directly into any JamHub Studio via a single JamHub Connect Cable (included), the Tracker MT16 will record up to seven stereo sections whilst retaining each of the JamHub’s personal monitor mixes. Another way to patch audio into the Tracker MT16 is by connecting the six mono and two stereo built-in inputs to the inserts on a mixing desk via ¼-inch TRS (stereo) cables. You can also use ¼-inch TS (mono) cables; however, in order to do so you will have to connect them by applying the half insert technique on both the mixing desk and the Tracker MT16. If, for example, you’re looking to record a fully mic’d live performance and eight channels just isn’t enough, you might want to consider purchasing

the JamHub Breakout Cable (sold separately) to take full advantage of the Tracker MT16, with a single Connect Cable jack on one end and 16 ¼-inch TRS jacks on the other, ready to be plugged into a mixing desk’s inserts. Shipped with a 16GB class 10 SD RAM Card, the unit is ready to record. However, for those looking to record using all of the Tracker MT16’s channels whilst at its maximum sample rate of 96kHz, a USB drive will be required. Depending on your requirements, you might want to make a few changes in Settings before hitting record. The sample rate can be adjusted to 44.1, 48 or 96kHz; the audio format can be saved as either WAV or mp3 and the record mode can be set to either Split or Combined. Split mode encodes each of the channels you record separately on to your SD card or USB drive. However, this process is done immediately after recording and takes a considerable amount of time, making it tricky to record another take straight away. You can ‘combine’ the recordings into a .BND file, which JamHub claims you can split later using BND Split Utility – a free piece of software which you can download from the Tracker MT16 support section on the website. At the time of review, JamHub’s collaboration platform, BandLab is just starting to gather momentum, with the Tracker MT16 able to transfer audio files via Ethernet or Wi-Fi. It’s a promising future, but even if you want to just concentrate on your band and ignore this option, there is much to admire with Tracker MT16. The technology JamHub has packed in to such a portable and affordable device is impressive, and with additional file sharing features the Tracker MT16 will become a great addition to any band or engineer’s setup. MT

MT Verdict + Delivers on recording 16 tracks + Small, compact and lightweight + Compatible with all JamHub Silent Rehearsal Studios + Supports up to 64GB SD cards - Long encoding and some BND file splitting anomalies - No internal battery Packs all of the technology necessary to enable portable 16-channel recordings at sample rates of up to 96kHz in a small, compact and lightweight device.

8/10

MAGAZINE

26/06/2015 12:50

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Image Line FL Studio 12 Reviews MT

For PC & Mac

IMAGE LINE

Choice

FL Studio 12 Details Price Fruity Edition $99 Producer Edition $199 Signature Bundle $299 Contact Via website Web www.image-line.com System requirements 2GHz Pentium 4 Windows XP SP3 or higher 1GB RAM

Key features ● Audio and MIDI recording, editing and sequencing ● Multiple instruments and effects ● Scalable interface ● Multitouch support ● Dockable sections ● Customisable Playlist ● Controller linking ● Run whole app as a VST ● ReWire ● Video effect visualisation ● Lifetime free updates

9/10 9 9/ 10

Multitouch has mostly been the preserve of tablet users, until now. Hollin Jones gets his hands on the all-new FL Studio 12…

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L Studio is one of the world’s most-downloaded DAWs and has, over the last decade or so, matured into a highly capable music production environment. It’s still a Windows-only system, although there is credible talk of a Mac version in the very late stages of development. As it stands, you’ll need a recent version of Windows and a moderately powered PC as a baseline, or something a little more serious to run heavier projects. To briefly recap, FL Studio started life at the more entry-level end of the market, but now all save the most basic version of the software can handle full audio tracking, editing and arrangement – in addition to the MIDI sequencing and programming that it’s had all along. There are three versions, with the Producer and Signature bundles sharing pretty much the same core functionality, just with differing sets of plug-ins. There’s the option to buy a complete bundle of the app, plus all of Image Line’s extra instruments and effects – though this adds considerably to the price, and since it is, of course, compatible with VST plug-ins you may already have your own

collection to work with. Despite some significant GUI developments, the workflow remains familiar to existing users, with instruments triggered by step sequencers or generators and audio and MIDI sequenced in the Playlist. As well as ReWire support, the

a greater purpose. The interface can now be scaled up massively without looking blocky or blurry. Image Line says that 4, 5 or even 8K monitors can be used with pin-sharp fidelity. The preferences now let you control interface scaling, and while even 4K monitors might still be relatively rare, this is definitely a foundation that’s been laid for a future in which they will be more common. Related to the vectorisation of the interface is the second major change, the implementation of multitouch support across the application. You can pop FL Studio 12 into regular or touch modes, depending on how you’re using it, and it’s particularly useful when you come to mixing. The new scalable mixer

Despite some significant GUI developments, the workflow remains familiar to users whole application can, remarkably, be hosted as a VST plug-in inside a different DAW. There’s much more to it than that, of course, but those are the fundamentals.

In with the new The first major change is evident at a glance. The interface has been reworked and rewritten to be made vector-based. This means that graphics are simpler, flatter and cleaner, which looks better in and of itself but also has

is highly flexible and can be resized easily to cope with fingers, which are generally too large for faders designed to be moved only with the mouse. The difference between touch and multitouch is important, too: using one fader at once is OK but using several, especially when automating, is far better. In practice, multitouch here works really well, especially on a larger screen. While it’s true that many music PCs don’t have multitouch screens as standard, adding a second monitor with MAGAZINE August 2015

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MT Reviews Image Line FL Studio 12

this capability can be relatively cheap, and it may become a more common feature in future. Splitting off the mixer to a second – perhaps multitouch – screen is now easier, thanks to the new dockable window system. Every part of the interface can be undocked and arranged, or docked with resizable borders. The whole application looks and feels cleaner, slicker and more user-friendly. This also extends to individual window sections, such as inspectors or editors, where the various contextual menus have been cleaned up, flattened and simplified. In truth, this has been a long time coming: one of the issues with FL Studio as it gained more and more functionality was its over-reliance on tiny icons and endless clicks. The need to slim things down to make them touch-compatible has also had the benefit of making controls generally easier to work with.

plug-in wrapper. You get a great selection of plug-ins with FL Studio, especially the Producer or Signature bundles, and some of these have had a makeover to bring them up to date with the new vector interface of version 12. These include 3xOSC, Edison, Formula Controller, Envelope Controller, Keyboard Controller and Peak Controller. Image Line promises more native plug-in updates are coming, and for now you’ll find that the Fruity Send can also send to any mixer track. The bundled plug-ins are good and err on the side of electronic music, owing to the application’s history as an EDM tool, though there’s some ‘real’ stuff, too. Even in the Signature version, there are still some of the company’s instruments that aren’t included – though, as noted earlier, you can add these individually if you like, or buy the total bundle. In version 12, the entry-level app gains automation clips,

Alternatives There aren’t too many major DAWs that are single-platform, and most will run on Windows. SONAR is PC-only and perhaps a more conventional DAW in many ways, with a ton of bundled content, though it also has a slightly controversial membership pricing model, which is worth reading up on first. For immediacy of composition, you might also look at Ableton Live, the standard version costing €349, and coming complete with three instruments, 27 effects and 11GB of content.

The new scalability will be a bonus for anyone investing in higher-resolution monitors There’s more… With so much work having gone into revamping the core interface of the software, you’d forgive Image Line for not having had much time to do other stuff, but you’ll find a fair amount of tweaks and changes elsewhere as well. There’s multiple drag and drop of audio files into the Playlist from the Windows file browser, and new category tabs and delete options from the browser that lives on the left of the main screen. Step sequences, the bedrock of MIDI programming in FL Studio, are now interchangeable with piano rolls, and the pattern menu has moved from the channel rack to the toolbar menu. The Piano Roll now also has time markers for labeling and looping. The channel rack now hosts the Channel Options menu, and channel settings have been integrated into the

while Producer gets Sytrus and Maximus; with Signature adding Harmless, Newtone, Gross Beat and Pitcher. The two main versions have audio pitch and time stretching as well. Another new feature is that the installation and management of third-party VST plug-ins has been cleaned up, which is always useful.

Wait, it’s free? Image Line has a generous and fairly unusual policy of providing lifetime free updates for the version that you have bought, and this applies here, too. So if you bought a previous version of Producer you will be able to update to 12 Producer for free and get all the extra stuff. Upgrade pricing applies too, of course, if you want to move up a version, with various prices available depending on the age and level of your current version. A free demo version is available as well. A giant iPad If you have a touchscreen on your PC, or attached to it, you can put FL Studio 12 into Touch mode and it works almost like a giant iPad. Of particular interest is the mixer, where multitouch means you can perform complex actions on a mix with several fingers, bringing groups of faders up or down at the same time.

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Since the upgrade is free for existing Image Line FL users, it’s hard to see why you wouldn’t install it and get the benefit of the new features. The whole application feels more modern and easier to navigate. The mixer, in particular, looks and feels so much more up to date than it was before, meaning that using it is a great deal more appealing. The new scalability will be a bonus for anyone investing in higher-resolution monitors, which are getting cheaper all the time, and multitouch is certainly interesting. Even if your system doesn’t have a touchscreen, you may find that the lure of controlling FL Studio 12 in a very hands-on way persuades you to add a capable monitor, which can be relatively affordable. You’ll need a recent version of Windows for this, of course. FL Studio has a large user base, and it seems likely that this new version will serve only to grow it further. A capable, affordable and now very modernfeeling DAW. MT

MT Verdict + New look is excellent + Workflow is streamlined and improved + Multitouch works well + Good bundled plug-ins + New configurable mixer is great + Some updated plug-ins + Still competitively priced + Update policy is generous + Paves the way for multitouch desktop DAWs + Clearer preferences and setup + Fully-functional demo - No Mac version, though one looks likely - Perhaps you don’t have a touch screen yet - “All plug-ins” bundle adds a lot to the price An important and forward-looking revamp of the interface that cleans up workflow significantly and unlocks the potential of this powerful DAW.

9/10

MAGAZINE

23/06/2015 11:46

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Audio Technica AT5045 Reviews MT

Choice

9/10 9 9/ 10 AUDIO TECHNICA

AT5045

All is not what it seems with the AT5045. It may look like a pencil microphone, but it’s actually a side fire condenser with a large rectangular capsule. Huw Price reviews…

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he AT5045’s electret capsule is similar to the rectangular capsule used (as an array of four) in Audio Technica’s flagship AT5040. Measuring approximately 32mm by 14mm, the surface area works out around 450mm². This compares with 490mm² for a circular capsule with a 25mm diameter – at best. The narrow dimensions allow the capsule and onboard discrete electronics to be squeezed into the 25mm diameter body, along with an output transformer. The internals are mounted on a board that is suspended within the body. This internal shock mounting decouples the capsule from the microphone body to minimise transferred noise.

In suspense The kit includes an AT8481 isolation clamp, an AT8165 windscreen and a

Details Price £1,299 (£2,399 pair) Contact 0113 277 1441 Web www.audio-technica. com

Key Features ● Pattern: cardioid ● Frequency response: 20–20,000Hz ● Open circuit sensitivity: 35 dB (17.7 mV) re 1V at 1 Pa ● Impedance: 100 ohms ● Maximum input SPL: 149 dB SPL, 1 kHz at 1% T.H.D. ● Noise: 8 dB SPL ● Dynamic Range (typical): 141 dB, 1 kHz at Max SPL ● Signal-to-noise ratio: 86dB, 1 kHz at 1Pa ● Weight: 197g (7.0 oz) ● Dimensions: 177mm long, 25mm diameter ● Discrete components ● Transformercoupled output ● Internal shock mounting ● Custom hardshell carrying case

protective carrying case. The shockmount is an engineering triumph. It clicks open to receive the mic, then clicks shut to hold it. A small lever on the top locks the mechanism to prevent it opening by accident, and isolation is provided by eight rubber grommets that grip the body and presumably dampen resonances. They also spin, making it easy to twist the AT5045 in its mount for precise alignment. Since this kit was supplied as a matched pair, we aligned the capsules side by side and made a simultaneous recording on identical mic preamps. On playback, we flipped the polarity of one channel, levelled the volumes and were able to achieve almost total silence. So when Audio Technica says ‘matched pair’ it really means it. On acoustic instruments, the AT5045 impresses immediately with its wide-open and natural sound. Transients are captured with speed and accuracy to create a highly detailed rendering of the instrument, aided – perhaps – by a wide and fairly gentle presence lift. The midrange sounds commendably clean and uncoloured and, overall, we would describe the AT5045’s tone as essentially neutral, but with slightly enhanced brightness.

Match making Next, we arranged our two AT5045s as a coincident pair and were pretty blown away by the results. On acoustic guitar, the presence lift is judged to perfection. It’s exactly the amount many of us would routinely add to this particular instrument, for solo performance as well as cutting through mixes. The test recordings had a stunning sense of realism and the imaging was rock-solid. Any concerns the upper mids might become too strident up-close were quickly dispelled, along with those we may have had about the absence of a bass roll-off switch. The tone certainly thickens up, and the low mids fill out, but it’s far removed from the kind of proximity effect you might associate with typical large-bodied condensers. This does mean that the AT5045 won’t fatten up thin-sounding vocalists with beefed-up mids, and the warming influence of harmonic distortion. Off-axis response remains consistent with the on-axis sound, however the

Alternatives As you might expect, rectangular microphone capsules are quite rare. Besides Audio Technica, the only other companies that specialise in this type of capsule are Pearl and Milab. The Pearl ELM-C (£1,164) has a fixed cardioid pattern and FET electronics. Alternatively, the cardioid Pearl Priority (£600) has a 5K boost, much like the AT5045. Milab’s DC-96B (£1,019) and transformerless DC-96C (£1,019) are both slim fixed cardioid condensers that have rectangular capsules.

rear pickup encroaches quite high into the frequency range, so it’s only truly cardioid in the upper-mids and treble.

Go anywhere The AT5045 is one of those forgiving microphones that almost does the job for you. It’s relatively unfussy about placement, and has the ability to make things sound even nicer than they really are. It excels on acoustic instruments and vocals, combining the detail and realism you might associate with the best small capsule condensers with the larger-than-life presence of a large capsule condenser. The small body also allows the AT5045 to get into places where there’s no space for a large capsule model. We could certainly envisage using this on snare drums, given the impressively high SPL handling. At the other extreme, the sensitivity is relatively high and the noise floor is so low that recording quiet acoustic sources would also be feasible. The AT5045 is not exactly cheap, but if we had a pair they would undoubtedly be amongst a handful of our go-to microphones. MT

MT Verdict + Realistic and natural sound + Extremely detailed + Subtly flattering + Very low noise + High SPL handling + Decent carry case + Stunning looks and build quality - Doesn’t beef-up thin sounds - Not the tightest cardioid pattern - Bass-focused rather than fat An outstanding all-round instrument recording microphone that demonstrates how Audio Technica is now making some of the world’s finest microphones.

9/10


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MT Reviews Best Service Era II Medieval Legends

BEST SERVICE

ERA II Medieval Legends Eduardo Tarilonte is the busiest man in the worlds of sound design and fantasy; and when these worlds collide, the results are majestic and glorious. Andy Jones takes delivery of his latest title to discover, well, a new era…

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couple of weeks back, Era II arrived in the MusicTech offices with some drama. Perhaps I should have expected it given the collection’s themes of high fantasy, dragons and princesses. And given the man behind it – MT favourite Eduardo Tarilonte, the man who spawned such wondrous collections as Shevannia, Cantus and Altus – maybe I should have even expected it to be delivered by arrow, perhaps with orcs involved somewhere down the line. But a limited edition certificate, poster and money pouch certainly piqued my interest. No money in the pouch, sadly, just a mysterious chess piece –a King since you ask – which turned out to be a 32GB USB stick with the software on it. Whether you get this drama (and chess piece) is uncertain, but you will get its all-important contents, and luckily the collection easily matches the drama of its delivery…

The dawning of the age Installation is straightforward. If you are lucky, it’s by way of your chess piece or by download. You can even, rather quaintly, opt for a boxed DVD version. It’s a 20.9GB collection, one of the

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Details Price €259 Tel +49 (0) 89 45228920 Web www.bestservice.de

Choice

9/10 9 9/ 10 biggest around and especially hefty for an Eduardo collection, but there’s a lot in it. Before we get into that, though, it’s worth mentioning the new Best Service player that Era II comes with, as it’s certainly the first time I’ve come across

you’ll find parameters such as levels for Wood or Pluck Noise, and these vary for each instrument you load. There’s also, usefully, an Info sub menu, where you get details about the instrument you have loaded and what is available

If you think it’s just lute strumming then think again (although that’s there too)

Key features ● 20.9GB library ● 10 flutes, 8 reed, 3 brass, 9 bowed strings, 4 war horns, 13 plucked strings, 3 keyboards, 20 percussive instruments, 1 singing voice ● AU, VST, Mac, PC, standalone

it. It is, as you might expect, a shell from which to run Era and other BS titles, and the engine appears as an instrument within your DAW, like any other plug-in. You then load in Era’s presets within it – as you would with Kontakt, either stepping through using the up and down arrows or loading new options in via a browser on the right-hand side of the screen. You can use the Quick Edit menu as your main instrument area, as it has the Era ‘front panel’ and a few of the main dials and sliders (for volume, effects ADSR and more). Here, you can also access a Controls sub menu, where

sample-wise – chords, legatos and so on – mapped across the keyboard. It’s a useful section and when you explore it, the scale and detail of what is in the collection quickly becomes apparent.

A lot And there really is an astonishing amount going on, research-wise, instrument-wise and sonics-wise. It’s a collection of early folklore instrumentation, with all sorts of obscure examples from around the world. So if you think it comprises some clichéd lute strumming, then think again – Eduardo and his team have left

MAGAZINE

26/06/2015 12:48

Best Service Era II Medieval Legends Reviews MT

Era ii: main screen Within the Best Service Player, use the Quick Edit menu to play the main parameters of Era.

era ii: controls Access more of each instruments’ parameters within the Controls sub menu. Here, four are working.

era ii: info Useful background detail on your chosen instrument in the Info sub menu, plus key mapping.

best service engine: THE BROWSER The new BS Engine, here showing the Browser and loading the same Era II 2 Holed Flute sound as above.

best service engine: Pro edit The Pro Edit menu allows access to more parameters, including, in this case, LFOs.

best service engine: mixer and more You can also go deeper within the engine to access main parameters or mixer routing options.

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no medieval stone unturned (although that lute is thankfully included, too). Instrument-wise, there are Brass, Key, Wind, String, Voice and Percussion categories, but comparisons to a traditional orchestra end there. This is about boisterous gents singing about rum in a tavern while a fidule plays in the background; or bagpipes and war horns sounding while armies gather. It’s Eduardo, it’s fantasy, it’s taking some ancient but very real instruments – gothic harp anyone? – and putting them into a new fantastical context. And, typically, there’s a set of soundscapes that acts as a full stop to the collection – almost a throwaway folder, but to my mind full of some of the best combinations of sounds in the collection; and as ever I want more! Finally, quality-wise, as it’s Eduardo, you know that each instrument is recorded superbly – and we love the

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recording detail supplied (a Neumann U87 before you ask) – and mapped correctly (not too extremely), with lovely variations in playing style also easily available across different keys. So it’s a thoroughly astonishing collection – a museum of ancient instrumentation and a fantastic resource. At the very least, it’s a record of times and instruments gone by, but for today’s producer it’s a wealth of history to tap in to and slightly left-of-centre instrumentation to make your compositions stand out from the rest. And in that sense, it scores higher than other Tarilonte collections simply because you can apply it to so many more genres, as it’s less specific. So it’s a worthy update to Era, but those who opted for the original should check the Best Service website, as they will own a lot of it; although we think, on balance, the €99 update cost is well

Alternatives It would be very easy – and somewhat lazy – of me to say that if you want something fantastical, stick with Eduardo, as he really is the ‘go to’ man when it comes to these collections. Still my favourite has to be Shevannia: The Voice Of Elves, but in reality it’s not comparable with Era II in terms of content, concentrating as it does on voices and atmospheres. You can read more about the differences in these collections – some subtle, some not so – in my individual reviews at MusicTech.net. I also wonder if there will be some kind of ‘best of Eduardo’ out at some point, or is that really just some kind of high fantasy?

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worth it. And those new to the Era world? Well on the strength of Era II, it really is time to take a visit. MT Note: As we go to press, we hear the Limited Edition collection of Era II has sold out, and that it contained extra soundscapes and two voices: Bard and Heroica. While this is a shame, these extras might become available in 12 months’ time.

MT Verdict + Fantastic-sounding instruments + Some great left-field inclusions + All well recorded + Additional playing styles and variations very useful + It’s a sonic museum! + It’s Eduardo! - Era I owners should check the extras before deciding to update - The limited edition has sold out Era II could be seen as a great collection for instrument completists, but it’s been put together in such a way that we can all discover some amazing new sounds and textures, and apply them to many different styles of production

9/10

magazine August 2015

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MT Reviews Telefunken Elektroakustik THP-29

Alternatives Get the AKG K812s if you want the ultimate set of headphones. They are as good as great studio monitors, but do cost £1,100. And at the risk of sounding like a stuck record, the AT-M range of headphones never fails to impress – the M70s are our current favourites. The Audezes I mention below are also incredibly flat for the cash, but perhaps a bit too harsh for long sessions.

TELEFUNKEN ELEKTROAKUSTIK

THP-29

Great sound, great comfort, and for not much cash. What’s not to like about the new THP-29s? asks Andy Jones. The ‘k’, OK? Details Kit THP-29 Manufacturer Telefunken Elektroakustik Price £129.60 Distributor Unity Audio Contact Tel: 01799 520786 Web www.telefunkenelektroakustik.com

Key Features ● Dynamic closed back headphones ● Driver size: 40mm ● Frequency res: 20Hz to 20kHz ● Sensitivity: 114dB at 1 KHz ● ‘Eco friendly’ isolation ● 2.75m cable and 3.5mm to 1/4inch adaptor ● Weight: 326g

80 | August 2015

MT149.REV Telefunken.indd 80

I

can’t begin to explain how words such as ‘Elektroakustik’ are getting us into trouble here at MusicTech. Not only does the second half of Telefunken’s name cause havoc with spell checkers, but the European adoption of ‘k’ rather than ‘c’ (thanks mostly to Native Instruments) is starting to become such a norm here at the magazine that we’ve started using it when we shouldn’t (a thousand apologies, Sonokinetic). Anyway, it’s also an important point because the ‘Elektroakustik’ bit means that this Telefunken (formerly Telefunken USA) is the division of Telefunken allowed to license several audio products with the Telefunken name. And I mention this only as there has been some debate on our Facebook page about the two. They are both part of Telefunken, but different divisions. With that cleared up (or kleared up), it’s time to check out the company’s new headphones…

Natural sound The THP-29s certainly caused a stir when we announced them a few months back, as they have a distinctive design – very much in a retro kind of 50s Jetsons cool way; the kind of phones you’d imagine the controller of the Cybermen, or the nuclear-sheltered inhabitants from the Fallout video games to wear…

Anyway, they’re distinct and very comfortable, possibly the comfiest headphones I’ve tried over the last year – not too heavy, but they feel very solid when worn. The plastic band is a little ‘love it or hate it’ – I’d have preferred the material to have been a different colour or material, but these are relatively cheap for pro headphones, so savings had to be made somewhere down the line. Maybe a more expensive future model will satisfy that need. The phones employ what is rather laudably called ‘Eco friendly natural’ isolation, which effectively means they attempt to be good enough to block out external noise without requiring a Boselike active noise cancelling process. No battery is required, hence the Eco friendly tag. And, as a Bose owner, I’m happy with that claim if a) it works, and b) the ear pieces last longer than the shockingly bad ones on my last Bose set, which have now disintegrated (admittedly after excessive use).

Funktional? I won’t be able to test point b during this short-term review, but I can vouch for pretty good results on the noise cancelling front, something I often measure partly by typing the review of the phones I am testing – I can’t hear the tapping that much at all, even with no music playing. While music plays, the

enclosure is more pronounced. I wouldn’t, then, wear these while walking near traffic – they do the job of shutting you off from the world well! I wouldn’t say it’s as good as the ‘Bose effect’, but it’s among the best of the passive phones I’ve tried. The sound of the THP-29s is also a big plus. They’re not totally flat, which makes for a more pleasurable listen than the (more expensive) Audeze EL-8s I tested a couple of months back; but where those were harshly unforgiving, these are more immersive – thanks to that isolation. And put next to my standard ATH-M70Xs, I have to say I’d find it difficult to recommend one over the other. Again, I’d say the sound from these just wins, as they’re so immersive, while the ATs might lead you to places in a mix that the Telefunkens don’t.

Conclusion Given the THP-29’s price, I have no difficulty in recommending them. Sure, I have reservations about the plastic band – but its flexibility probably helps the isolation; some users may not agree with me about the Art Deco design; but if I’m wearing them, they’re comfortable and – more importantly – they sound great, then they’re winners to my ears. For the cash, then, there’s little to beat them. Plastik Fantastik. MT

MT Verdict + Great sound + And price + Good noise-cancelling + Incredibly comfortable + Good for long mixing sessions + I love the design… - … but you may not (they’re a bit ‘Marmite’ in that respect) - I’d prefer a different white finish - Need more accuracy for high-level studio tasks, such as mastering Ideally, like monitors, you need two pairs of phones for mixing: one for comfort and long sessions and one for accuracy. There are few headphones that do the first job better than these for the cash.

8/10

MAGAZINE

26/06/2015 14:55

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Impact Soundworks Pearl Concert Grand Reviews MT

IMPACT SOUNDWORKS

For PC & Mac

Pearl Concert Grand

Four channels

There’s a lot of competition in the sampled piano arena, but can Impact Soundworks’ latest do the business? Hollin Jones finds out…

I

n the grand scheme of things, pianos are one of the instruments that have been pretty much nailed when it comes to emulation in software. Modern computers can easily deal with multi-gigabyte, multi-sampled and velocity layered pianos. It’s also the case, though, that most DAWs don’t come with an amazing sampled piano. A good one, perhaps, but rarely one the equal of a dedicated, third-party model.

Details Price $119 Distributor Impact Soundworks Contact Via website Web www. impactsoundworks. com System requirements Kontakt Player 12GB disk space (16-bit) 27GB disk space (24-bit) 4GB RAM/8GB RAM

A grand idea The Pearl Concert Grand from Impact Soundworks is a sampled version of a Yamaha C7 recorded with four mic perspectives and with a stylistic range covering everything from classical through to jazz, pop and rock. It runs in NI’s Kontakt or in the free Kontakt Player app, so you don’t have to shell out anything extra just to be able to load your instrument. Kontakt Player is among the most efficient and easy to use of these kinds of containers, and runs happily on Mac and PC systems. The download itself comes as a

multi-part RAR archive, and you can choose to download either the 16-bit version – which uses 12GB of space, the 24-bit version (27GB), or both. You’ll need 4GB of RAM to use up to two simultaneous mic positions, or 8GB to load all mic positions at once, and a hard drive of decent speed. Once authorised, it’s easy to add the library and call up a piano. They’re all basically recordings of the same piano, but processed differently for a different feel, which can vary anywhere from a subtle to a big difference.

Key Features ● 16- or 24-bit download ● Over 14,000 samples ● Four mic positions ● 8 velocity layers per note ● Pedal and key noises ● Light patch versions ● Effects rack ● Velocity settings

The interface itself is really straightforward and the four mic positions are shown as four channel strips, each one of which can be turned on or off and have its level set. Each one also has width and offset controls and optional EQ and compression stages to further balance the sound. Above this section is a volume and transposition section, as well as a menu that lets you access different piano setups, stored as presets. As well as the channel effects, there’s a master effect section, and the instrument includes a virtual rack of processors that further expand the sonic possibilities and let you mangle the sound for more unusual results, if that’s to your taste. There’s a compressor, tape saturation module, transient designer, EQ and reverb module, each with controls that help to achieve more special effects than the other effect section allows. Hit the Settings icon and more tweaks can be made to the way the instrument behaves. There’s a velocity section with multiple configurable curves and presets, as well as volume and brightness controls, a key noise amount dial and a pedal noise knob so you can add more mechanical sound to the signal, or indeed remove it. Under this is a Tuning section where the piano can be manually re-tuned, and there’s a Key dial for quick transposition as well. An ADSR section lets you make more decisions about sound shaping. The piano is really quite stunning to play, thanks in part to the 14,000 samples that make up the sound, the eight dynamic velocity layers per note and the ability to tailor mechanical noises as well. The “full-fat” patches use a fair amount of resources, though

nothing that a well-spec’d modern computer can’t handle. There are also “light” patches provided that sacrifice sheer depth of sample layers for a RAM saving of up to 85%. These still sound really good, and for less nuanced playing, say in pop or rock, are perfectly good. If you’re playing classical or jazz, you might want to go for the bigger patches to ensure you capture every subtle detail, but you do have the choice. Of course, a beautifully sampled piano does reward a skilled player, and the audio demos on the website show what clarity and emotion can be achieved by someone who really knows their way up and down the keys. However, even if your ivory-tinkling abilities are more intermediate, the advantages of using a properly recorded grand should be fairly audible in your projects just the same.

Big impact The interface is simple, but provides all the tools you need to tweak and shape the piano sound, and the ability to blend up to four different mic positions means adding intimacy or room ambience is easy. The inclusion of an effects rack is a nice touch, as is the ability to control mechanical key and pedal sounds. NI’s individual piano instruments are broadly comparable in price, though this model has a sound and an interface of its own. If you’re serious about using great-quality piano sounds in your music, be it scoring, pop, jazz or anything else, this is well worth a look. MT

MT Verdict + Gorgeous-sounding piano + Simple to use + Blend up to four mic positions + Capable of subtlety and nuance + Good effects selection + Reasonably priced + Light patches can save RAM in a pinch - A lot of competition, especially from NI - 24-bit version uses a fair amount of disk space An excellent, crisp and playable virtual piano instrument capable of everything from subtle jazz to pounding rock.

8/10


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23/06/2015 12:12

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Tracktion Master Mix Reviews MT

At the top are two six-band parametric EQs, one located before the dynamics stage and one after it. Again these can be shown and hidden and any of the six bands manually set or switched on and off for each EQ processor. Low and high pass bands are also available as is EQ shelving, though it’s not possible to set Q values for the EQ points. Tweaking the EQ curve of a master is crucial and helps you to bring out nuances or rein in any errant frequencies and here it’s friendly to use, though variable Q would be nice.

Value

TRACKTION

€£$

Master Mix Getting the most out of your tracks doesn’t have to mean spending the earth. Hollin Jones gets loud with Tracktion’s Master Mix…

T

racktion is one of the more affordable DAWs on the market but still offers a great feature set for those that want to record and edit audio and MIDI. The developer has launched the Marketplace, an online store through which you can buy plug-ins and other content and it also sells some of its own add-ons in this way. Master Mix is a mastering plug-in that comes in standard 32 and 64-bit VST and AU formats for Mac and PC as applicable. As you might hope, the plug-in approach means that it will work not just in Tracktion but in any DAW that supports those formats. There’s no requirement to have Tracktion already: you can use it in Logic, Live, Cubase or whatever you like.

Details Price $59 Contact Via website Web www.tracktion.com System requirements Mac OS X 10.7.5 or higher Windows XP or higher 2GB RAM VST or AU host

things like working with presets and visual feedback are generally easier. Having a dedicated mastering plug-in, then, makes for a smoother process. In case anyone isn’t yet convinced of the absolute necessity of mastering their tracks, mastering is the reason your mixdowns sound a bit weedy or unbalanced next to commercial tracks. After mixing is done, mastering adds weight, sweetening and power to a mix and is the last step of the production process. As such it’s well worth getting a good tool to do it with. Once you have downloaded the plug-in you will need to copy the components to the relevant folders on your computer and then on first loading, register online. You will most probably want to strap the plug-in across the master outputs of your DAW or wave editor – anything that can play the signal through Master Mix in real time. Graphically it’s quite straightforward, in contrast to something like Izotope’s Ozone 6 which is costlier and more advanced but also a little more daunting for the uninitiated.

Simple approach

Master it Oddly, even the more expensive DAWs on the market often do not come with a dedicated mastering plug-in. They will certainly have the components required to build a mastering chain and this is always possible, but dedicated mastering in a single plug-in seems to almost always be left to third party developers. Of course a plug-in chain with limiter, compressor and EQ isn’t a massive amount of work to set up, but having everything in one place means

Loud and proud

Key Features ● Three dynamics processors ● Two separate 6-band parametric EQs ● Dynamics contour edit screen ● Noise gate ● Soft clip limiter ● VST and AU, 32 or 64-bit

Here, everything you need is in a single window. There are three dynamics processors, forming a multi-band compressor/expander. Each has its own set of controls and user-configurable crossover points that can be dragged with the mouse. If this gets a little crowded you can turn various elements on and off to make it clearer what’s going on. The three bands have editable controls along the base of the window as well, making it easy to see the knee settings of each one and to solo or mute it for more precise control. A soft clip limiter and gate are also provided, with simple controls.

There are of course some presets to get you up and running and these cover everything from jazz through rock, dance and other stylistic descriptions. As ever with mastering presets the one whose name matches your track might not actually sound all that great, but a couple of others are sure to. So just loading up a couple of mixes and applying a preset then making the many tweaks invariably necessary to suit a particular track, it was easy to add plenty of weight and sweetening while preventing clipping. Having everything on one screen is refreshingly useful, especially if you’re used to the multi-section seriousness of some other mastering suites. Granted, it means less functionality overall, but much of that may be stuff that intermediate producers won’t miss. Master Mix is a very affordable way to master your tracks in any VST or AU-capable software. Though lacking the bells and whistles of costlier alternatives it has virtually all the core stuff you need and won’t blind you with science. There are a couple of things it would be nice to see – Q points, maybe a stereo widener – but you can achieve some great results nonetheless. MT

MT Verdict + Attractively priced + Use in any VST or AU host + Clean, simple design + Easy to use + Solid core of features for mastering + Get a great, punchy sound + Good graphical editing features - Q points on the EQs would be nice - A stereo widener too An uncomplicated but effective mastering plug-in that will definitely add a more professional sound without costing big bucks.

8/10


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Secret Base Design Music IO Reviews MT

For PC & Mac that allows you to send audio and MIDI back and forth between your Mac (Windows support is coming) and your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. It does all this using your standard USB charging cable, so no extra hardware is required.

Your serve

Value

€£$ Innovation

SECRET BASE DESIGN

Music IO

Choice

9/10 9 9/ 10

The mobile and desktop music worlds have been frustratingly disconnected for too long. Hollin Jones discovers all that is about to change with Music IO…

F

or all the ways in which iOS has become a very capable and competent platform for making music with the many advanced apps and processors that now exist on it, there’s still a gulf between the mobile and desktop worlds when it comes to continuity of workflow. Put simply, meshing the two platforms together for music is fiddly at best, involving either swapping project files via the cloud or iTunes’ file sharing section, or essentially sampling audio from one device to another. Neither is particularly satisfactory in 2015. Enter Music IO, a simple but potentially revolutionary new concept that aims to address this problem. Not everyone wants to buy an iPad dock: as good as they are, it’s extra expense and you probably already own an audio and MIDI interface for your computer anyway. Music IO is a three-part system

Details Price £7.99 Contact Via website Web www. musicioapp.com System requirements iOS 7 Mac OS X 10.7

Key Features ● VST and AU plug-ins ● Stream four channels of 32-bit stereo audio in both directions ● Link iOS and OS X ● Bi-directional MIDI ● Uses Inter-App Audio ● BridgeClock MIDI sync ● Configurable latency and monitoring

The first part of the system is a lightweight server app that runs on your Mac and acts as a gateway for the two devices to communicate. There are also special VST and AU plug-ins (one of each format) that are inserted into audio tracks in your DAW to enable the flow of audio back and forth. On the iOS device, an app uses Inter-App Audio, CoreAudio and CoreMIDI to act as a hub for compatible instruments, DAWs and effects processors. The idea is that everything becomes linked, so you can play your iOS synth from a MIDI keyboard attached to your Mac and record the audio straight back into the Mac at the same time. Alternatively, you can send an audio track out from your Mac’s DAW to be processed by a guitar module on your iPad and, again, record it back to the Mac. This all happens down a single Lightning or 30-pin Dock connector cable. The potential uses of such a system are clear to see. You’ve been able to incorporate external music hardware into a DAW fairly easily for some years, but iOS devices’ limited native port offerings have always meant buying a special adaptor or iOS-compatible interface – until now. In practice, it works very well. Your IAA-compatible apps appear inside the iOS app, and you can load up to four instruments per instance of the plug-in. Sound is transmitted in 32-bit stereo back and forth, and tapping on an app on the iPad will open it and enable you to use its controls, while sound continues to be transmitted in the background.

In practice To record in your DAW, you need to insert the plug-in onto an audio track then set its output to a group or bus channel. Then, you create a second audio track with its input set to that group or bus, and the plug-in funnels sound from the input of one channel out to the other. This is ever so slightly long-winded – it would be ideal to be able to do it on a single track – but it’s far from being a deal breaker. You

manage monitoring using the Mac server app and, also, latency compensation both here and in the iOS app. I found it was possible to achieve latency so low it was basically non-existent, although it felt like this was related, to an extent, to the specific iOS app in use. Some apps exhibited a little more latency and some a little less, though none were particularly problematic. Music IO also sends MIDI back and forth, and once connected, the iOS device appears as a source and destination to your system. This is even easier than audio since MIDI just flows between the two and, as noted, you can use your Mac and any hardware connected to it to trigger the iOS instruments, so no extra interfaces are required. Again, latency is extremely low, which is not surprising since MIDI needs far less bandwidth than audio to stream across a connection. Music IO is a clever solution to a problem in the music technology world: how to literally bring your iOS instruments and effects into your desktop DAW setup. This, it manages commendably and without any extra cables or accessories. There are a few elements that could be smoother and more refined, but development seems to be constant and the list of upcoming features on the website – connecting multiple iOS devices, sample rate conversion – suggests great things ahead for this software. If you’re looking for a way to unify your iOS and OS X music platforms, this is the best solution around. MT

MT Verdict + Really works + Requires no extra hardware + Affordable + Integrate iOS and OS X better than ever before + Enables use of iPad/iPhone as a second computer + Very low latency is possible - No Windows version yet - Latency can be at the mercy of the apps you use - A few minor workflow rough edges A deceptively simple way to link iOS and OS X for audio and MIDI and unlock the full creative potential of your iPad.

9/10


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MT Reviews Rupert Neve Designs RNDI

Alternatives The ability to handle speaker-level signals puts the RNDI in a class of its own. But if you’re looking for a DI to place in front of the amp, there are plenty to choose from. Radial has a huge variety of DI models – the JDV is probably the closest competitor to the RNDI, featuring all class-A circuitry. The JDV also comes with a built-in pad, polarity switch, ground lift, highand low-pass filters, level signals and a variable impedance drag control.

Choice

RUPERT NEVE DESIGNS

RNDI

Can Rupert Neve transform the humble DI box? Mike Hillier plugs into the RNDI…

I

t’s quite easy to get excited about a new preamp, EQ or compressor, but a new DI? These boxes are usually ignored, considered nothing more than a necessary utilitarian device, like a cable, or patchbay. In some sense, this is true; a DI needs only to provide impedance matching and conversion from an unbalanced to a balanced signal. There’s no magic to it, so why look for anything in a DI other than this – and perhaps a build quality that suggests it won’t fall apart the first time it’s put on stage? The answer is not all DI boxes are made equally. And while most utilise little more than a transformer to do the work, the choice of transformer can have a huge effect on the signal. Active circuitry is another alternative, but brings problems that can limit the frequency response and dynamic range and introduce distortion. The RNDI is an active DI, employing a custom-wound transformer alongside a Class A discrete FET amplifier. It’s run with phantom power from whichever mic preamp you choose. Unlike many DI boxes, the RNDI does not have any options to pad the input for loud signal

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Details Price £239 Contact Sonic Distribution 0845 500 2500 Web www.rupertneve.com

Key features ● 1/4-inch instrument input ● 1/4-inch instrument Thru output ● XLR mic-level output ● Phantom powered ● Instrument/ Speaker modes

9/10 9 9/ 10

sources. However, it is capable of handling signals up to +21.5dBu, which should be plenty of headroom for even the loudest of line level signals. In fact, RND says the RNDI can be used to re-preamp signals by running the output of your interface to the RNDI and back into any preamp. In Speaker mode, the RNDI can be placed after the power amp stage of your amp and before the speaker, converting these power amp signals down to mic levels. The manual boasts that the RNDI can handle the output of a 1000-watt power amp, with signal levels up to +41.5dBu. It’s worth noting, though, that while the RNDI can handle these signal levels, it’s not a load box itself, and that amplifiers – particularly valve ones – must still be connected to a speaker (or a load box) using the Thru output on the RNDI, or you risk damaging the output transformers.

In the wild We first used the RNDI as a simple input stage for a bass, running straight into our CAPI VP28 preamp. It can be a nice trick with these preamps to drive the inputs hot, especially on dry DI signals, then turn down the output. However, to get an idea of the quality of the RNDI we left the input at a conservative level. With everything kept clean, the tonality of the bass rang through. Even with the bass volume turned up and the player hammering out loud, plucked notes there was no

sign of the signal breaking up. The RNDI added little to nothing to the signal, but importantly took nothing away either. The low-end of the bass was full and round, while the highs sounded neutral. Next, we took the RNDI to a gig by a singer-songwriter playing acoustic guitar through the DI and straight into the PA. The RNDI has a rugged steel chassis, so there was no worrying that we’d end up having to explain why we’d sent back a shattered box after the singer inevitably stood on it. The bigger worry was getting it back, so clean and clear was the guitar tone – a Martin acoustic with Fishman pickups. There was almost no need for EQ. Finally, we put the RNDI between a Marshall JCM800 head and a 4x12 cabinet, in Speaker mode. The recorded signal captured much of the detail of the amp distortion without having to mic up the room and worry about bleed from other instruments, but it was very bright, lacking the filtering from the 4x12 cabinet. Adding a convolution reverb to the signal, with an impulse taken from a guitar cabinet, helped to sit the tone back in the mix, and gave it a more natural tonality. It also enabled us to experiment with different cabinets without having to change anything over. Clients won’t pick your studio over another because of your choice of DI, but you have to have one. And the RNDI is a great choice, not only for the extra option of using it in Speaker mode, but because of the clean, clear qualities it has, behaving as an almost invisible part of the signal chain. MT

MT Verdict + Solid build quality + Crystal-clear signal + Instrument and Speaker modes - No pad - No polarity switch - No ground lift The RNDI is an exceptional DI box, and the addition of a Speaker mode makes it a very useful tool, both in the studio and on stage.

9/10

MAGAZINE

23/06/2015 12:31

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05/02/2015 16:32

MT Reviews Zero-G Haunted Ground

Alternatives Of course, sample companies such as Loopmasters supply all sorts of sound effects and atmospheres but tend to go for more musical or genre-led collections, although Samplephonics does have ethereal guitar collections and a sci-fi one on sale that might offer something sinister. Better still, you could have a lot of fun searching for some of the original vinyl recordings of some of those old scratchy BBC sound-effect libraries I mention in the text and have pictured here (it was Vol.13 for the record). Rather less fun – and a whole lot more sound effects – can be had by buying the originals on a hard drive from companies such as www. sound-ideas.com for around $600 (for everything!), or more simply from iTunes for around £2.50 a download. So take your pick, but always check under the bed before you part with your cash…

zero-G

Haunted Ground

Need creepy effects and atmospheres for your game or film soundtracks? Or are you a producer carving out terror in dark musical genres? Andy Jones opens his laptop under the sheets…

I

do like a good old creepy, abandoned place. Perhaps it’s an unhealthy fascination with post-apocalyptic movies, or perhaps I’ve been tempted by too much Facebook ‘see the creepiest photos of abandoned places on earth’ click bait. Haunted Ground is inspired by the character of such places, and sound designer Adam Pietruszko took a year to come up with a collection designed to ‘give insight into the afterlife of these seemingly dead and quiet buildings’, and to imagine ‘the ghosts of workers and inhabitants roam the rooms, halls, corridors and attics, longing for the life that had been taken away from their homes. The machines, furnaces and tools remember their duties, but their shift is over’. Creepy stuff, then…

Details Title Haunted Ground Manufacturer Zero-G Price £55.95 Distributor Time+Space Contact +44(0)1837 55200 Web www.timespace.com

Creating the creep Haunted Ground reminds me a little of a collection of BBC sound effects that I had on vinyl when I was a kid, one put together by Beeb boffins recording things such as knives cutting through cabbages to simulate decapitation (really!). Pietruszko’s methods are somewhat more up to date, in that he uses a few choice studio items that he is refreshingly happy to divulge, including ‘using a semi-modular analogue synth setup – a Moog Little

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Key Features ● 1.665GB download ● 652 Acidized Wav files; 652 AIFF Apple Loops; 751 Kontakt Insts; 751 EXS24 Insts; 751 HALion Insts; 751 NN-XT Instruments

Phatty Tribute Edition with CV Out Mod, a collection of Moog Moogerfooger analogue effects and a WMD Geiger Counter digital wave-shaping distortion unit. No vegetables, then, were killed in the recording of this collection… The results are spread across four categories: Entities and Spirits, Exploration Echoes, Forgotten Atmosphere and Forsaken Technologies, and while you could probably argue over which goes where until the (very probably decapitated) cows come home, it’s nice to see an attempt to categorise a collection that could be so difficult to label. And, on the whole, it’s a very successful collection. Sure, synth fans will ‘know’ that a little LFO wobble here and there can easily create similar effects, and will ‘see’ how he did it, but Adam has also employed sufficient – but not overpowering – effects to take everything beyond its constituent parts to the other side of eerie. Highlights include some of the Entities, which offer a sound reminiscent of the blast of noise the aliens made in the (not actually that bad) remake of War Of The Worlds. Not quite as terrifying, but well worth a blast at your neighbours at 3am*. The collection excels with these drone types, and also echoey physical effects – stuff hitting other stuff, things being dragged, other items incorporating

lift shafts – that kind of industrial noise, only in a far creepier context. You could use some of the sounds – particularly in the Exploration Echoes folder – as incidental effects across many other genres of music (deep house tracks are often made by great incidental flourishes, and there are many on offer here), and in the Forsaken Technologies folder there are even musical ideas that you could use to underpin tunes – with basslines especially. But that would be slightly missing the main point, though, as this is full of warped atmosphere to be used as soundscapes rather than melodies. And in that sense, you might find it a little samey with some of the sub-categories over flabby (I don’t really need to buy so many Electrical Fault sounds when I have a studio full of loose plugs that give me the same sound). Nor is it a collection to turn to if you have very specific needs. Indeed, you get the impression that you need to listen to it and then do the music, rather than the other way around, to make the most of it. But that, at the very least, makes it an inspirational place to start all manner of dark work… MT * Blasting neighbours with ghostly noises at 3am is not encouraged by MusicTech nor Anthem Publishing.

MT Verdict + Very high-quality recordings + Good variety of formats + Descriptive categories work (on the whole) + Can be used as inspiration + Will work well with additional effects added + Some are genuinely scary - Very specific - Some sub-categories have rather too many only slight variations - Not easy to find specifics, as titles can be vague Specific frights may be hard to find, but the haunts are here, plus a ghoul lot more. That’s the spirit, etc

7/10

magazine

23/06/2015 12:33

“If you’d rather spend time working on your tracks instead of browsing through technical manuals, Mixcraft Pro Studio 7 is the perfect blend of simplicity and sophistication.” — BedroomProducersBlog.com

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MT Reviews AIAIAI TMA-2 Modular

Alternatives As we said last month, the headphone market is getting incredibly competitive, especially at this price point. You should try our standards, the Audio Technica ATH-M70Xs, still probably my buy for the cash. Then there are the AKG K812s – probably the flattest phones you can get, but they cost £1,100. Consider these for mastering and mixing applications – and if you are rich.

AIAIAI

TMA-2 Modular

AIAIAI makes some of the best headphones around, and now you can make them too. Andy Jones constructs and avoids the puns… Details Kit TMA-2 Modular Manufacturer Aiaiai Price £various see text Manufacturer AiAIAI Contact +45 35 34 63 54 Web http://aiaiai.dk

Key Features ● 360 combinations ● Choose four components to make your own ● Choose by genre, or preset (or simply go for the Studio ones, as we would) ● Specs obviously vary, so see website for further info

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IAIAI is a Danish company fast becoming known for ground-breaking headphones that both look and sound fantastic. I first looked at its Young Guru TMA-1 Studio headphones last year, a set with the Grammywinning producer’s name on them (he who has worked with Kanye, Jay Z and Drake). I’m not that fussed about a big name endorsing anything, to be honest, but they are great headphones: “clear, true, honest and great for mix monitoring, and even the odd mastering job,” were my words at the time. Guru has his name (not literally you understand) on one of the preset versions within the new TMA-2 Modular system, but that’s not the big sell. What is news is that you can customise your set for not only how you use them, but the music you listen to as well… There are 360 combinations, of which AIAIAI says: “For music professionals, this means the opportunity to adapt and tailor the system to a creative context, from studio production or audio editing, to DJing or listening on the move.” After which, it somewhat dramatically concludes: “It means the subtle dissolution of categories – the freedom to be yourself”, before going on to suggest a whole range of categories from which to select your phones.

It’s easy for me to sound a little sarcastic at this point, as this could all be seen as a marketing ploy. You can, for example, choose phones not on how they sound but by who uses them (there are 20 preferred configurations on the AIAIAI website from a pool of testers that includes the XX’s producer Rodaidh McDonald, Ed Banger Records and Bonobo. Prices range from €145-€260 depending on the spec you choose). If you know your stuff, you can choose the individual components to make up a set. So you choose a speaker unit (four types, €65-€100); a headband (three types, €30-€60); an ear pad (five types, €25-€50); and a cable (six types, €25-€40). You could, then, spend around €250 on a set. To help guide users’ choices, AIAIAI also offers a ‘configurator’ to explore the system. You can also choose phones by the genre you’ll mainly listen to (10 genre selections, prices from €145).

By which time… …you might be thinking ‘too much choice!’ so, thank god, there are also four simple preset models: the DJ (€200), All Round (€145), Young Guru (€260), and Studio (€225), of which we have the latter two in the MusicTech testing suite. The phones come in kits including the four components mentioned above in neat bags, although there is no case,

which is disappointing – pouches can be ordered online. They are easy to put together (make sure you put the red plug in the red socket). We lined up the Studio ones next to our reference Audio Technica M70s, and the Studios were almost up there with them, offering a rounded, spacious listen. They were arguably more comfortable, given the padding on the ear pieces. There was little of the pronounced bottom end that you’d find in cheaper phones, only the mid range seemed very slightly harsher when compared to the ATs. The Young Gurus were of similar components, and therefore sound, but boasted a slightly cooler (but less flexible) red cable and more robust material for the ear pads. For the extra €35, we’d say ‘don’t bother’, unless you are a fan of Young Guru or the colour red. Which makes our conclusion that much easier…

You know the score You don’t need me to tell you not to choose a set of headphones based on who uses them; nor to not limit your mixing by choosing a genre-based set. In fact, I’d go as far as to say you should ignore all of that bluster and either choose a set based on your own knowledge or, better still, just go for the Studio ones (unless you really want a red cable). If anything, all that hot air detracts from the fact that these are glorious headphones, so studio users, ignore all of that and go for the ones with ‘Studio’ written on them. MT

MT Verdict + Studio phones have great sound + Great design + Very comfortable fit + Good for long mix sessions + You build them yourself + Attractive design - No case As much as we like the concept of building and choosing your own components to construct your headphones, for studio use that concept gets in the way of what is a great set of phones. Just go ‘Studio’ and you’ll be fine…

8/10

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23/06/2015 11:13

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21/04/2015 08:29

Siren Audio Generative and Feedback Reviews MT

before you start you will need to give the manual a pretty thorough read: the quick start manual at the very least, and preferably the main manual as well. These aren’t really ‘pick up and play’ tools, you’ll need to invest some time in learning how they work even if you’re quite experienced with music technology. This is often the case with applications that have been built in Max/MSP, as they can be pretty esoteric and experimental.

My generation

SIREN AUDIO

Generative and Feedback Sometimes you want to make your own unique soundscapes. Hollin Jones unwraps the unusual – and very affordable – Generative and Feedback from Siren Audio

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ax/MSP is something that not all musicians have heard of, but those who have studied synthesis almost certainly will have. It’s an environment for building software instruments and effects, and it’s been around for quite a few years, gaining functionality as time has passed. Unlike coding applications from scratch, Max/ MSP provides a bunch of audio-specific building blocks to help a developer get started, though it’s still no joke actually making something that works. Play around with it for a little while and you’ll quickly start to appreciate the difficulty of building your own software. Generative and Feedback are two processors from independent developer Siren Audio. Built in Max, they run on Mac or PC and are standalone applications, not plug-ins. Authorisation is done via a challenge and response system, and you need to email a code off to get an unlock key back. Once that’s done, the apps are fully functional. It’s worth noting that

Details Price Feedback 2 £25 Generative 2 £30 Both bundled together £50 Contact Via website Web www.sirenaudio. co.uk System requirements Windows XP or higher Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher 4GB RAM Java installation

Key Features ● Granular synthesis ● Onboard effects ● Randomisers ● Record output ● Create drones, loops and textures ● Load your own files ● Fine-grained control of audio processing ● Live input

Let’s begin with Generative. This is designed to transform sound from a file or an external input into evolving soundscapes by using granular synthesis. The idea is that synthesis parameters constantly change, as do playback position, volume and panning. You can load a sample or specify any audio input on your system to get sound into the processor. Each granular device must have a number of segments that get used as destinations for its playhead or playback position. Once a sample is inside the instrument, it is analysed and the results are used to drive the granular synthesis engine. There are a number of controls inside the main area of the application’s window, and some are contextual, changing based on what you select. Truthfully, you have to wrap your head around what the app is actually trying to do before you can start to properly navigate around. Filters are available at different stages in the signal path and there are aux channels and effects, too, such as delay, distortion and reverb. Contrast in the interface could be a little stronger, as sometimes buttons don’t initially seem to be buttons: it’s all a bit dark. When you do get a sound running and being processed, the results are suitably experimental and ambient. These kinds of sounds are increasingly popular, not just for installations but also soundtracks for movies and TV, as composers look to go beyond regular synth sounds and create entirely new soundscapes and textures. Generative can certainly do that, though you’ll benefit from being willing to delve into its deeper workings.

Good feedback? Feedback 2 is a different beast and takes audio from a file or external input and sends it to 20 different delays, each

with its own delay time, time variation and gain settings. The idea is that the compressed output of these delays is fed back into the delay line, the result being the possibility of creating infinite feedback. As such, it’s designed to be good for creating layered sounds, drones, loops and textures. This is not dissimilar to Generative, though the way it’s achieved is not the same. In addition to the delays, there are other effects, including compression, filtering, reverb and distortion, and the output of the app can be recorded to a file in fairly flexible ways, letting you choose which parts of the signal chain get recorded. Again, it’s a little complex to look at, though the layout is easier to trace signal through than is the case in Generative. Its results are very experimental and great for building textures, drones and loops.

Sound of the Siren These are two powerful audio processors that will be of great appeal to those with a keen interest in synthesis and sound design. They’re not for beginners, and it’s true that turning sound into more complex sound is a feature available elsewhere, such as in Izotope’s Iris synth. That being said, these are significantly more affordable and similarly powerful, provided you’re willing to get into the nuts and bolts of how they work. Demo versions are available that, although feature-limited, will give you an idea of what they’re all about. At such affordable prices, dipping a toe into the water isn’t all that much of a gamble. MT

MT Verdict + Great for textures and experimental sounds + Ideal for soundtrack work + Makes unique sounds + Very affordable + Teaches you about signal processing + Compatible with older OSes - Quite a learning curve - Interfaces could be a little clearer - Requires investing some time to get the best results Unusual, but powerful signal processors with tons of in-depth control for those willing to take advantage of them.

8/10


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MT Reviews Digitech Polara Reverb

Digitech

Polara Reverb With Lexicon algorithms up its sleeve, the DigiTech Polara functions equally well in the studio as on the road, says Marcus Leadley… Details Price £109 Contact Sound Technology Tel: 01462 480000 Web www.digitech.com

Key features ● 7 Lexicon reverbs (room, plate, reverse, modulated, halo, hall, spring) ● True bypass ● compact design ● solid contruction ● Included StompLock

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espite the prevalence of great plug-ins, stand-alone software solutions and the availability of cost-effective rack-style effects, stompboxes are as popular as ever. The rugged format is ideal for live performance, and with so many options on the market there’s scope for creating signature sounds by combining individual units. Pedals have always found their way into the home studio, and many of today’s high-quality stereo units can function quite happily in the mix as well as a track-laying environment. This Polara reverb is one such beast. At the price, it’s a very practical and portable way of adding a group of seven Lexicon algorithms to your sonic toolkit. The Polara has a solid, chunky feel to it. I cannot say I particularly like the Art Nouveau/post-rave graphic – principally because it makes the control legends extremely difficult to read. The mode selector rotary offers familiar room, plate, reverse, hall and spring settings. In addition, we have modulation and halo, which are essentially special effects that come into their own if you want to create moody, spacey vibes. There’s a reverb level control and parameter adjusters for liveliness and decay, and an additional mini-toggle switch labeled tails. In the off position, the reverb decay will end abruptly when you tread on the stomp switch; with tails on, the decay fades out in a more naturalistic way. The Polara can be used as both a mono and stereo input/output device, so you can connect it in line with other stereo pedals or output to two amps or a mixer – or potentially add it as an insert effect. While this is a 9V unit, it doesn’t take a battery, and the relevant Harman power supply is recommended

– but not included as part of the package. Something that is included, however, is the clever little StompLock: a rubber moulding that slips over the controls, so your carefully set parameters won’t become the victim of

or part. Tonal nuance is limited to the high-frequency response, as controlled by the liveleness control. This seems most useful as a subtractive tool to knock back the reverb character of brighter parts, where its addition can

It’s a practical and portable way of adding seven Lexicon algorithms to your sonic toolkit a misplaced boot or gigbag malfunction. It’s a simple, but very practical, solution.

In use The Polara is a rugged, portable multi-function tool that will find uses in more situations than you might expect. The reverb algorithms sound very good, and there is enough control over the basic parameters to enable you to tune the effect for the needs of the situation

start to sound harsh. Any guitar player with a fondness for analogue amp-style reverb is sure to find the basic spring setting very convincing. It can add flexibility, or in some cases restore access to vintage performance vibes you might have let go with the sale of a classic amp. This setting can be used to create a sort of wet, overloaded surf guitar or rockabilly sound. A subtler version is excellent for vintage organ

magazine

29/06/2015 15:03

Digitech Polara Reverb Reviews MT

In use tip Running the Polara reverb into a stereo delay may sound like the wrong way round to do things, but you can create quite surprising effects if you let go of the idea that reverb is the space in which everything happens and use the reverb as part of the sound source. Pedals are quite good for this, as you’re not too concerned about output fidelity and physical knobs are useful for tweaking things on the fly. This technique works best with staccato sounds such as drum hits or with repetitive, uncluttered sequenced parts, so that the reverb decay setting can be quite precisely controlled to fill in the voids that exist in an otherwise dry mix.

Tiny Thunder Audio

parts. Plate can add a smooth, slightly unnatural sheen that will have you thinking of 60s/70s production aesthetics. This works well with most instruments, and the sound quality is such that it can be used on vocals and drums quite effectively. Room and hall are general ‘go-to’ algorithms if you’re looking to create believable live room sounds that can help to bring the basic character of an amp modelling solution to life. For anyone with an earlier-generation digital reverb pedal, the Polara will feel like it’s in a totally different class. At the same time, as good as these Lexicon algorithms are, nothing at this price

point is going to deliver the acoustical nuance that results from an actual encounter between sound and physical space. The modulation setting delivers a big presence that needs to be carefully restrained if it is to be useful. Higher liveliness settings accentuate the chorus dynamic. Used as a mono effect on a particular lead guitar part, it can sit in a mix effectively. Used as a stereo effect with a high level setting, it dominates the entire soundstage – which, depending on your perspective, may be a good or bad thing. Halo is probably more useful if you’re looking to create lush, dense atmospheres, as you can add more to the basic character without the up-front modulation effect interfering with the basic sound of the part or mix. It’s still very spacey, but it’s Alternatives There are plenty of high-quality reverb pedals to choose from and competition is stiff around this price point. TC Electronic’s Hall Of Fame (£105) is a similar proposition: a stereo input/output device offering spring, plate, hall and room reverbs. TC has a reputation for producing excellent-sounding effects, so it’s really a question of listening and deciding what works for you. If you’re looking for a tried and tested design and a reputation for rugged reliability, the Boss RV-5 (£105) is an obvious contender. It offers eight reverb modes and stereo connectivity. Finally, if it’s the Lexicon vibe that you’re after, and you have a little more cash to invest, the Lexicon MX200 is a well-priced flexible rack unit (£249), which offers loads of sounds and plenty of editability.

actually a more subtle effect. Reverse mode is fun and more of a potentially creative tool, as the effect is so pronounced. The dry signal is eliminated, so the impact on parts and sounds is quite extreme. MT

MT Verdict + An effective mono/stereo reverb solution in pedal format + Excellent sound quality + Easy integration into a pedalboard - Not ideal if you need a deeper level of control and editability - No MIDI implementation DigiTech’s Polara reverb is a solidly built unit, offering a good range of Lexicon reverbs that sound very good indeed. The pedal’s extremely robust and for the price you get a wide range of parameter controls. As a stereo input/output device, it can be used with the full range of contemporary instruments and, if necessary, the sound quality is such that it can be used as a live desk reverb or in a home studio setup as an insert device to augment your plug-ins.

8/10

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29/06/2015 15:03

MT Reviews Korg iM1

Excellence

10/10 KORG

iM1 The release of Korg’s classic 1980s digital synth for iOS has Andy Jones re-opening a three-decade old wound. Can he gain ‘closure’ and actually tell us if it’s any good? We doubt it… Details Kit iM1 Manufacturer Korg Price £14.99 Distributor Korg UK/App store Contact Tel: +44-190-8304600 Web www.korg.co.uk/ iTunes Requires iOS 8 or later

Key Features ● Runs on: iPad Gen3/4, Air 1/2, mini 1/2/3 ● Polyphony: 2 to 64 notes, depending on iPad (Air 2 = 64) ● Modes: Combo plus 8-part multi ● Sounds: up to 3,300 with expansion cards (450 without) ● Performance: via MIDI keyboard, touch Kaoss and keyboard

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’m actually shaking a little bit while writing this. Just a tiny bit. I’m reviewing Korg’s iM1 – the ‘M1 synth for the iPad’ – and have hit ‘that’ Universe preset. Suddenly, I’m instantly transported back to my music technology college 25 years ago, to the midst of a ‘frankly rather ridiculous, but still bugs me more than I care to admit’

ask – just over a tenth of the student grant I spent on it).

The ‘bloody M1’ No, even I can’t deny the impact that the Korg M1 synth (‘workstation’ if I must) had on, well, everything. Alongside the Roland D-50 and Yamaha DX7, it bolstered its Japanese makers’

Loads of big-padded, fake acoustic stuff; loads of ‘LA’; loads of old brass; loads of unsubtle late 80s sh*t; loads of money! argument over which company made the first synth workstation. Was it Roland, with the D-20 – the synth I owned? Or was it Korg’s M1 – my friend Jon’s keyboard? Whoever won that particular geek-ument is lost in the mists of time (it was me) – but it’s now largely immaterial. One of said keyboards went on to sell gazillions, becoming the synth of the late 80s and early 90s, appearing in the TOTP rig every week and basically soundtracking an entire generation. The other ended up in the second-hand pages of a magazine. (I got £150 for it, if you must

coffers during the transition from analogue to digital synthesis and it certainly defined an era in music, although I actually happen to think that the era in question wasn’t all that good. Dreadful even. From about 1984 to 1989 the world of pop music went, for want of a better expression, ‘totally tits up’, and the M1 and its ilk were largely responsible (alongside Stock Aitken And Waterman). Luckily, then, Korg’s designers – and let’s give them a bloody big pat on the back, as they’re on a bit of a roll at the moment – have opted to produce the

M1 in all of its glory (and inglory, if that is a word), plus a lot more besides. Load it up and you get six sound packs included, plus options to increase these (just like adding cards to the original); and a very neat touch is that when I booted up Korg’s excellent Gadget, it gave me the option to load in iM1 to join the brilliant range of synths and drum machines in that app. Great stuff so far…

The Universe and everything So, to the presets, and I have to say that they easily transformed me into my 21-year old, rather stupid self. They are there, although the rather bland original front panel of the synth is not (thankfully) as present as you’ll find on Korg’s ‘analogue’ iOS ports. Instead, you get parameters to play with and instant hands-on control, something the original never had – unless you squinted through menu after menu. You get 100 sounds in each of the first three ‘banks’ (M1, M1EX and Memory), plus 50 each in Synth1, Drums1 and Orchestra1. Optional expansion cards available include M1 Card Pack (16 titles) and T1 Card Pack (11 titles), each just £3.99, which I’ll be reviewing next month in MusicTech. Of the ones supplied, for anyone who is in any way ‘M1-orientated’, it’s

MAGAZINE

26/06/2015 12:52

Korg iM1 Reviews MT

the wondrous and aggravating journey you will have expected. On one hand, you get those amazing Combinations (great walls of sound or Splits to play entire keyboard parts) and presets like the aforementioned Universe (so good it appeared on every Gary Numan album during his ‘fallow’ period). But then, in what seems like random preset ordering, you end up with a corny sax preset straight out of a low-rent 1980s porn film… This means you get, then, what you damn well should: an M1 – pianos aplenty; loads of digital; loads of big (shoulder) pads; loads of fake acoustics; loads of ‘LA’; loads of old brass; loads of big, in your face unsubtle late 80s sh*t; loads of money! So, if you want ethereal walls of atmosphere that launched a thousand Enyas you’ve come to the right place [mmm, a thousand Enyas – Ed]. But this is the M1, so you’ve also come to the Alternatives A real Korg M1 and a couple of Kaoss pads. Oh and some expansion cards. Or get yourself a Roland D-20. I know someone who can do you a really good deal.

right place for a big dollop of Black Forest Gateaux. But you knew that. That’s why you’ve read this far. As I said, the M1 was infuriating. It was second to none when it came to creating atmosphere, but it was also the synth that overdid the digital thing so much that it arguably (and I am stretching history just a little here) ended up kick-starting dance music as people rebelled against it. (I’m not still thinking about that three-decade argument at all, you understand).

expand its palette by thousands of sounds that came out long after the original. In fact, all I can say is top marks Korg, it’s a souped up M1 even I can’t argue with. And all I can now say to Roland is ‘Your turn?’ MT

MT Verdict + Great sound + Great price + Easier to use than the original + Fantastic new additions add lots of real-time options + Some brilliant presets + it’s an M1

And… calm

- It’s an M1 - Some terrible presets. As there should be… - It wasn’t the first original synth workstation (well someone had to say it)

Well that review was ‘a journey’ if ever there was one. And a very bitter version of me would conclude that the M1 wasn’t as good as everyone said, and that this app deserves to go the way of the D-20. But with the extras Korg has added, I simply can’t make that argument. There’s the fact that you can effectively use it as a multitimbral sound module in your studio set-up; the fact that you get the Kaoss pads to give you extra control; the fact that you get true control over the sounds and extra parameters that we all wanted at the time; and finally the fact that you can

It’s an M1 but, like the cars around at the time of the original, Korg has added not just go-faster stripes but a new engine, new stereo, new reflective paint and a blonde sitting in the passenger seat with more peroxide than the whole of 1989. A page 3 stunner of a synth.

10/10

LTC-1 Manufacturer DSRT Sound Price Free Contact Via website Web dsrtsound.com/ltc-1

T

here’s no shortage of Ableton Live controller apps around, but most tend to focus on clip launching. LTC-1 is a free template for the Lemur iPad app, that is designed to focus more on mixing and transport controls. You’ll need the Lemur app to run it, and that costs £19, so it’s debatable whether you would buy it just to run this free app, but if you already have it or are planning to get it anyway, it’s a no-brainer. There’s a companion Max for Live module that you have to load into the master track in Live, and once this is done you can connect the Lemur app to Live wirelessly by entering port settings. Communication is bi-directional and uses the OSC protocol. The idea is that you save this as a template project, then every time you load it, the two devices will be connected. The template itself is fairly straightforward to use and gives you

controls for volume, pan, sends 1-4, track enable, solo and arm for up to 16 tracks in Live. There are two views, so you can choose between a detailed single track view or a multitrack mixer, and you get full transport controls for both session and arrangement views. There are also controls for quantize and tempo, and buttons for adding, deleting and duplicating tracks. In practice, it all seems to work well – and using OSC means that changes you make in Live are updated in real-time in the app. It’s a free template and does its job well, though the cost of the Lemur app needed to run it is a consideration. Once you get past that, it’s a simple but useful way to mix and control Live from a playback rather than cliplaunching perspective. MT

Key features ● Control playback and mixing in Live ● Max for Live device ● Lemur iPad template ● OSC bidirectional communication ● Two views

MT Verdict A useful and free Live control template – provided you already have the Lemur app…

8/10


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MT Mini Reviews

ELA M80 Manufacturer Telefunken USA Price £229 Contact Unity Audio Tel: 01799 520786 Web www.telefunken-elektroakustik.com

T

he M80 arrived in a sizeable cardboard tube designed to look like it contained fireworks. Inside there was a zip up pouch containing a stand clip and an unusually smart hand held dynamic microphone complete with rubbery black finish for good grip and low reflectivity, a nickel plated capsule grille and arguably the most iconic badge logo in the microphone world. Several decades after its introduction the venerable Shure SM58 is still the live vocal microphone all others are pitted against. The M80 is intended to present an alternative to the SM58’s “midrange-laden” tone. We are also promised “condenser-like” performance with the rugged attributes of a traditional dynamic. To achieve this Telefunken USA has developed a low mass capsule with a

Key features ● Cardioid moving coil capsule ● AMI/TABFunkenwerk output transformer ● Output impedance 200 Ohms ● Frequency response 30Hz – 18KHz ● Dimensions – 48mm x 184mm ● Weight 371.39g

super thin diaphragm. The capsule assembly is designed to reduce proximity effect, thereby allowing vocals more low-end clarity and airy top end. Inside there’s also a custom wound transformer from the highly regarded US manufacturer, AMI/TABFunkenwerk. As you would expect the pickup pattern is cardioid and the quoted frequency response extends from 30Hz up to 18KHz. The M80 measures 48mm by 184mm and weighs in at just over 370g. As well as vocal applications, the M80 is also recommended for snare drum and electric guitars – in the studio as well as on stage. The frequency response is anything but flat and this is reflected in the

Fischer Viola Manufacturer Embertone Price $125 Contact via website Web www.embertone.com

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usician’s humour can be cruel sometimes and viola jokes are commonplace in many a band room. They are said to have originated as far back as the early 1700s when, after being appointed head of an Italian orchestra, a young violinist was such a bad timekeeper that he was demoted to playing the viola. Back then the violas were mostly assigned filler parts. Today, of course, they are an integral part of the symphony orchestra. There are many fine soloists around now, too, like Christopher Fischer, the violist performing on Embertone’s new virtual instrument, the Fischer Viola. Embertone’s other string instruments, the Blakus Cello and Friedlander Violin are renowned, not only for their immediate playability, but also for being highly configurable. It was no surprise, then, to discover that their new viola, based on similar principles,

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Choice

proved very expressive to play. This is largely due to the extensive sampling of the legato transitions at two dynamic levels, one whispery quiet, the other somewhat louder. It’s a heavy CPU feature, though, but can be switched off for normal sustained playing. The other three articulations are staccato, pizzicato and tremolo, each extensively configurable and controllable. For example the staccato length can be altered with CC control as you play. Clever scripting also provides up to eight players in ensemble mode with options to humanize, randomize, alter their intonation and pan each one. Dynamics, slurs, bow position, portamento and vibrato, all can be CC controlled and keyswitches can be

9/10 9 9/ 10 Key features ● Dual layer legato transitions (soft/ louder) ● True legato bow change/slurs/ slides ● Phase-aligned dynamic morphing Bow positioning between bridge and fingerboard ● Controllable vibrato ● 8-player ensemble mode ● Dynamic/flexible keyswitches

sound. The M80’s upper mid and treble lift is pronounced and certainly reminiscent of some small capsule condensers. Fortunately feedback resistance is impressive and handling noise is low. At a short-ish distance the midrange and low mids sound somewhat lacking in body, but the engineered frequency response makes sense when the M80 is addressed as intended – up close and personal. The tone fills out nicely, without becoming boomy or losing intelligibility. MT

MT Verdict The M80 comes with enhanced detail and attenuated problem frequencies straight out of the box. It even has a preset HPF at around 250Hz. The SM58 is ubiquitous for a reason. It works really well on PA systems that are equalized for its sonic signature. In contrast the M80 would be more effective with flat response PA systems and vocalists who sing up close – perhaps to backing tracks rather than a band. The M80 is not ‘better’ per se, but what it is is a genuine high quality alternative.

8/10

customized. For iPad and Android tablet owners an app is available for advanced Fischer control and a special template is included in the documentation folder. Embertone highly recommend its use if possible. That said, we didn’t, and everything worked amazingly well with a conventional keyboard and modwheel. We can’t fault the Fischer Violin in any way really except perhaps for its rather dark interface (a woody imitation viola) and peering at small red text on a black background, isn’t exactly conducive to a fast workflow. However, it scores heavily where things matter most: tone, musicality and an abundance of highly configurable controls. Looking for a virtual solo viola? You won’t go wrong with this one. MT

MT Verdict The Fischer viola is a very expressive instrument to play from the off and, at the same time, highly controllable. The option to have up to eight individual players is very useful for blending with other library sections. Highly recommended.

9/10

MAGAZINE

29/06/2015 14:58

Mini Reviews MT

Bombstrikes Presents Bass Funk

Mainroom Techno Production in Live

Manufacturer Loopmasters

by Paul Maddox

Price £29.95

Publisher Producertech

Contact [email protected]

Price £29.99

Web www.loopmasters.com

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his is a heavy-weight collection of breaks, glitch and bass funk samples created by producers from the hugely successful Bombstrikes label. There are patches spread across a range of punchy drum hits, whooping zaps and fx, bass, guitars and subs, plus some excellent female vocal adlibs. You’ll also find 202 loops including party breaks, 808 glitch, and tearing bass and lead lines, alongside heavily processed and chunky live funk bass, guitar and drums. Some of the loops are a tad over processed, but this is countered by the excellent live break loops. Overall it has fun and well programmed patterns, and a fair amount of variety. MT

Key features

Contact via website

● Bass funk, midtempo breaks, and glitch samples ● 726MB of 24-bit Audio, Acid WAV, Apple Loops, Live Pack, ReFill, REX2 ● 64 Sampler patches for Kontakt, HALion, EXS24, Kong, NN-XT & SFZ ● 202 loops & 310 one-shots ● Written and produced by artists on the Bombstrikes label

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MT Verdict A punchy collection of well programmed riffs, and simple but chunky beats, backed up by some excellent live instrument loops and vocal adlibs.

8/10

aul Maddox takes a journey into the hypnotic world of mainroom techno in this tutorial. It is divided into 11 modules and totals over 2 hours, with all the relevant Live project files, plus 150MB of bonus samples from Loopmasters. Maddox starts off by laying down the beats before adding textures and atmosphere, and processing the entire drum group. Later he looks at creating modular synth arps using M4L devices and macros, and chord stabs and pads to fill out the track. It isn’t a complete track walkthrough but Maddox covers the main elements in a concise manner, and has plenty of top programming tips. MT

Key features ● Mainroom techno sound design in Live 9 ● Over 2 hours of video ● 11 modules ● Written and presented by Paul Maddox ● 150MB of free Loopmasters samples plus accompanying Live project

MT Verdict A concise tutorial on crafting mainroom techno sounds with some excellent sound design tips that make good use of Live’s built-in tools and devices.

9/10

Balearic Disco Author Loopmasters Price £34.95

Manufacturer Loopmasters


Price £29.95



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L

9/10 9 9/ 10

Web www.live-courses.com

Classic 90s House Vol2

oopmasters has teamed up with UK producer Audio Jacker for another collection of soulful, jackin’ 90s house. There’s a hefty 1.3GB, spread across 12 folders of loops, 8 construction kits, and a bunch of one-shots with 33 accompanying sampler patches. The production here has a gentle simplicity, with reverb on most loops and hits, but when each element is combined it forms a well-balanced, cohesive mix. There are chunky live bass loops, some satisfying piano and Rhodes chord progressions, and a useful folder featuring a single funk guitar riff in different keys. Despite a fair amount of repetition and simplicity in some, there are plenty of useful riffs for any house producer to get stuck in to. MT

Choice

Key features ● Over 1.3GB worth of 24-bit, classic 90s house audio at 122bpm ● Available in Acid WAV, Apple Loops, REX2, Live Pack and ReFill formats ● Inspired by Roger Sanchez, Todd Terry & Erick Morillo ● 98 hits with 33 sampler patches ● Written and produced by Audio Jacker

MT Verdict Repetition of riffs aside, this is a well written pack with some excellent chord progressions and clean production that could be used as a good starting point to your tracks.

8/10

his pack contains a large collection of 80s synth pop and Italo disco inspired loops, with a mixture of vintage synths and real instruments, recorded to tape through an all analogue signal path. It has 9 folders of chunky acoustic drums; spaced out guitars processed through vintage pedals; nostalgic synths, pads and keys; and bulky analogue bass patterns. The percussion and live elements give the drums an organic energy, and the lush synth loops are all well programmed and processed. We’d have liked some presented in a playable instrument format, and found some drum and music loops to be a little too full. However, everything here is well written, and the shear number of loops means you’re sure to find some great hooks. MT

Key features ● Over 1.3GB worth of 24-bit, 80s synth pop audio ● Available in Acid WAV + REX2 and Apple Loops + REX2 formats ● Features vintage synths and real instruments ● 100 to 120bpm, A, C & G minor ● Inspired by Aeroplane, Todd Terje, Lindstrom and more

MT Verdict Although there are no instruments and some of the loops are a little too full, the majority of this massive, analogue sounding library is packed with hooks and retro charm.

8/10


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02/07/2015 16:02

Six of the best Buyer’s Guide MT

Six of the best Hardware

Software

Mobile Tech

Accessories

Welcome to the MT Buyer’s Guide where we round up some of the best products reviewed in recent months here at MusicTech. This month, one of the most important elements in your signal chain, the mic preamp…

Details Price £2,749 Contact AMS/Neve 01282 457011 Web www.ams-neve. com

BEST Transparancy

LEV Solutions Integrity 2

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h Integrity 2 is one of a small number of pre amps that has been designed from the ground up, making no claims to emulate equipment from the past, and MT reviewer John Pickford admired this refreshing approach. “The unit thrives on being devoid of obvious character, preferring to be faithful to the character of the microphones used with it.” He went on to conclude: “the quality of

sound is excellent, with plenty of gain and a vanishingly low noise floor. It is a thoroughly modern and original design that does not rely on vintage credentials, focusing on precise amplification that remains faithful to the source material. Those who desire controls or want a rose-tinted sound presentation should look elsewhere, but if transparency and truth are important to you, go for it.”

BEST It’s a 1073! Details Price £1,499 Contact KMR Audio Tel: 020 8445 2446 Web www.levsolutions. com

Neve 1073 DPX

T Thermionic Culture The Rooster 2

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lso featuring an EQ, Rooster 2 is an update of Thermionic’s award-winning Rooster preamp. MT reviewer John Pickford said: “this is a first-rate tracking device that, with the delicious EQ and Attitude, can breathe life into the dullest sounds. It is a superb sounding preamplifier with a rock ’n’ roll heart.” He then concluded that: “nothing compares to a top-quality valve preamp, especially when recording digitally, and the Rooster 2 is up there with the very best.”

BEST Tones

Details Price £1,845 + VAT Contact Thermionic Culture 01279 414770 Web www. thermionicculture. com

he original 1073 has been the mic pre of choice for engineers across the globe for four decades, and has inspired countless other designs. Indeed Neve itself has produced several variations, this being the latest and incorporating the company’s legendary three-band equaliser. Reviewer John Pickford said: “Other boutique designs that major on transparency might like to think of themselves as the Rolls Royce of microphone pres, but this one is the Aston Martin – the one that we all really want to own. The 1073 DPX is a world-class product, built to last and provide years of sterling service. Imitations do not come with pride of ownership.”


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MT Buyer’s Guide Six of the best

BEST Beatles

Chandler TG2-500

C

handler is the only hardware company that has any kind of license to rebuild or re-engineer any of the classic hardware that was a part of EMI’s suite of studios in the 60s and 70s – including, of course, the mighty Abbey Road. (Check out MT146 for more.) The TG2-500 then, you won’t be surprised to hear, is based on the TG12428 preamp featured in EMI’s TG series of consoles that were used to record many classic albums, such as The Beatles’ Abbey

Road (1969) and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). Reviewer John Pickford said when reviewing it back in MT139: “The TG2-500 is a lovely sounding microphone pre-amplifier with a bright, full-range sound. It’s a no-nonsense unit that gets on with its job of amplifying microphones and line-level sources without the addition of tone controls, filters or metering. The refined 1970s Abbey Road Studio sound is unmistakable – solid-state has never sounded better.”

Details Price £659 Contact 01799 520786 Web www.chandlerlimited.com

BEST Flexibility

RND 511

W

e reviewed the RND511 alongside the 517 but found it to be ever so slightly more flexible. Reviewer Mike Hillier said: “Both are great preamps, easily worthy of finding

themselves in the best studios in the world. Were we to equip a studio with just these preamps – not a terrible proposition – we’d prefer to have a bank of 511s. It’s an incredible sounding preamp, a worthy addition to any rig.”

Details Price £520 Contact Sonic Distribution, 0845 500 2 500 Web www.rupertneve.com

“The Abbey Road sound is unmistakeable. Solid state has never sounded better” BEST Vintage

Great River MP-500NV

G

reat River doesn’t claim to clone any particular preamp, but has worked-up a design with a distinctive vintage sound of much-loved consoles. And it’s clear there’s a touch of Neve 1073 here, albeit with top-drawer components to bring that classic 70s vibe into the 21st century. John Pickford said: “It certainly lives up to its vintage credentials with a full-range, expansive sound that

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doesn’t stifle the signal in a way that the inputs of budget analogue mixers can. Rather, it seems to enhance the basic character of microphones with a nature that is very appealing. Anyone looking to inject some proper old-school mojo into their recordings should audition one,” and concluded: “the preamp has a euphonic nature that flatters most sources in a similar way to the legendary Neve 1073s. It is highly recommended.”

Details Price £838 Contact Unity Audio, 01799 520786 Web www.greweb.com

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26/06/2015 12:43

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02/07/2015 16:00

MT Feature A bluffer’s guide to microphones

MT Feature Music Technology

A BLUFFER’S GUIDE TO MICROPHONES Microphones are at the very heart of studio recording. Join us as we explore the different types and how to get the best out of them…

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s a producer, you could theoretically go through your entire career without once needing to look at a microphone. We would strongly advise against it, but it’s certainly possible. If you don’t plan on using vocals in your music, then you need never worry about them. Thing is, mics are fun. Aside from the fact that knowing about them broadens your musical knowledge and makes you a better producer and engineer, they are actually highly rewarding to use. Mics are the divas of the production game – finicky, demanding and complicated, with a million different moods. But figure out how to get them working for you, and they can steal the whole show. In this guide, we’ll look at how mics work, and how to turn them into the headliners on your production marquis.

Powered by

Inner workings In a lot of ways, a microphone is just a speaker in reverse. While the speaker puts out sound, a microphone takes it in, using reasonably similar parts and principles to perform a different function. You can, if you have the scientific knowledge and the tools – and a rather large amount of free time – turn a speaker into a microphone. We’re not going to go into that here. What we’re going to do is talk about how a microphone works, and the way to do that is to talk about the most common type: the dynamic mic. Inside each microphone, behind the grille, is a diaphragm. This is usually just a piece of thin material, and it vibrates when sound waves hit it. Attached to this diaphragm is a coil of metal wire attached to a magnet. As the diaphragm moves

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MAGAZINE

26/06/2015 12:44

A bluffer’s guide to microphones Feature MT

the coil, the coil itself is moving through a magnetic field. This helps to convert the acoustic energy (the sound waves in the air) into electrical energy. Suddenly, your amplifier can understand what’s coming into your microphone – which, if you think about it, is a pretty neat trick. Dynamic mics are a bit like punk-rock singers. They can take and dish out a lot of punishment. These are the mics you traditionally use to record loud sounds – kick drums, heavy guitars and percussion. They are very common in live performances, where they can take a lot of audio energy without cracking. The downside? Dynamic mics tend to have a little less range than other types, which is hardly surprising given that they’re the workhorses of the microphone world. But you will encounter other types of microphones as your audio career progresses. One of the most common types, beyond dynamic mics, are condenser microphones, and they’re quite different to their hardier brethren. Condensers use two plates – one moving, one static – placed very close together. These plates react to acoustic energy by storing charge in a capacitor. Compared to the rockstar dynamic mics, these are the highly-strung vocalists with the crystal-clear voices. They require care, delicate handling, and a lot of love. But if you treat them right, they will blow your mind with the quality they put out. Unlike a dynamic mic, a condenser is much more sensitive, preserving the tone and timbre of anything that comes through it. They are extremely popular as vocal mics in studio environments for this reason. Another type of mic you’ll need to know about is the ribbon microphone. These are the Tuvaluan throat singers of mics: highly specialised units that can pull off things you wouldn’t believe, and which other mics would struggle to replicate. A ribbon mic has a diaphragm suspended between two magnets, and it reacts to the velocity of particles in the air – this is in contrast to the other two types, which respond to pressure from sound waves. They are very, very good, almost without exception. So, to sum up: dynamic mics are like Patti Smith bellowing in your ear, condensers are Adele singing a love ballad, and ribbon mics are a Tuvaluan throat singer whispering sweet nothings in your ear. Got that?

Compared to rockstar dynamic mics, condensers are the highly-strung vocalists

The set-up So you’ve got a mic. There are a few things you need to know to make it work. We’re going to assume that you want to set up a mic in a studio environment, as doing it live is an entirely different proposition. You need a mic stand. This is relatively straightforward to understand; it’s simply a piece of equipment that allows you to put the mic in a particular position and hold it there. But you can’t just attach the mic to the mic stand and hope for the best. You need a shock mount. This piece of equipment essentially suspends the microphone in a web of flexible cables, protecting it from any vibrations. The more sensitive the microphone, the more vibrations it will pick up; and if you don’t have it mounted in a shock mount it will register every single footfall in the studio and every bump against the mic stand. Most studio microphones, barring the really cheap ones, come with their own tailored shock mounts. If you are using a condenser microphone (and the chances are you will be, if you’re recording vocals) then you need to think about phantom power. This sounds like a strange concept, but it’s quite easy to understand. Condenser microphones require an external power supply to operate. This is usually 48 volts, and is almost always supplied by the amp or interface that you plug the

Tech terms PHANTOM POWER: a 48-volt signal required for condenser microphones to operate, usually supplied by the interface or amp.

●

PICKUP PATTERN: The area around a microphone where sound is picked up. More expensive microphones will allow you to change this.

●

● DYNAMIC: A type of microphone suitable for louder recording, often used in live situations and for recording instruments. Very common.

CONDENSER: A microphone that is highly sensitive. Not suitable for recording drums, but absolutely brilliant at vocals. Can be very expensive.

●



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MT Feature A bluffer’s guide to microphones

microphone into. In most modern equipment, it’s a case of simply plugging the microphone in and flicking a switch on the interface. All being well, this will activate the microphone, making it ready for recording. Then you need to worry about pickup pattern, which is where it really gets interesting. Essentially, a pickup pattern refers to the area around the microphone where sound will be most easily picked up. The more expensive a microphone is, the more likely it will be that you are able to adjust this area – either focusing or widening it. There are a few types of pickup pattern that you’ll need to know. The first, and most common, is a cardioid pickup pattern. Appropriately for something with a slightly anatomical name, this refers to a pickup pattern in the shape of a kidney. If you think about that shape, and then picture the microphone nestled into the concave part of it, then

nail this down is to experiment, and to get a feel for what different mics do in different situations.

Deep pockets

The Shure SM58 - arguably the most popular microphone on the planet (Below left) The Neumann Solution D. Got £8,000? Buy one of these

Every engineer has a list of mics they must try before they die, such as the Neumann Solution D it’s easy to work out where the sound will be picked up: to the front and sides of the mic. Usually, cardioid microphones have quite a wide pickup range, meaning they will often pick up sounds coming from the rear of the microphone. A supercardioid pattern, on the other hand, focuses this shape, eliminating the pickup at the rear. There are two more shapes worth knowing. Omnidirectional pickup patterns allow the microphone to record absolutely everything around it. Meanwhile, bidirectional patterns (popularly known as figure eight patterns, for reasons that are about to become abundantly clear) pick up sound from the front and rear of the microphone, but not from the sides. If you ever see a pickup pattern selector on a microphone, you should be able to identify the types of pattern by those four distinct shapes: a kidney, a smaller kidney, a circle, and a figure eight. And while we’re talking about mic controls, you may also notice a high-pass filter (HPF) switch on some models. This changes the EQ settings of the mic so it doesn’t pick up low-frequency sounds – it’s useful for obtaining a clearer vocal recording. As for where to place the mics, and what distance to record at… that’s a topic that could easily take up this entire magazine. It depends on the instruments, the room and what’s being played. The only way to really

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You can, if you want, pick up a microphone for less than a hundred quid that will do almost anything you ask it to. Good microphones such as the Samson CO1 Condenser, are both cheap and functional. Many will allow you to bypass the audio interface entirely and plug directly into a USB port – a very welcome development among those who need to travel light, or who do only casual recording. As you start getting into microphones, you’ll start recognising many of the most common models, such as the Shure SM58, a dynamic microphone used so widely that its profile has become one of the most recognisable shapes in the audio industry. And by the way, you cannot break those mics. Seriously. We’ve tried. [Don’t – Ed] At the other end of the spectrum are microphones that cost thousands and thousands of pounds. These are the top-of-the-line condenser and ribbon microphones, which come in velvet-lined wooden boxes and ship with their own dedicated power supply. The reason they cost so much is because of the quality and character they offer. Every audio engineer has a preferred microphone or set of microphones, and it’s very common for studios to have what is known as a mic locker with dozens of different models that can be used in any situation. But every engineer also has a bucket list of mics that they must try before they die, such as the Neumann Solution D, which costs more than a car. The point of telling you this? Once you get involved in the world of mics, it’s very hard not to start lusting after the really big fish. And if you stick with your audio career, you may even end up getting to use some of them. MT This feature is Meet the Rode NT1-A, which endorsed by is a fantastic condenser mic SSR, which suitable for studio use has been providing professional education training in the audio engineering industry for over 30 years. With campuses in London, Manchester, Jakarta and Singapore, SSR has gained a healthy reputation within the music industry for producing well-trained, professional graduates across the globe.

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26/06/2015 12:44

LOGIC PRO X 2015

On sale now £8.99 with free DVD. Digital version £5.99. Available at WHSmith (UK), Barnes & Noble (USA) and all good bookstores in Australia, Canada, and throughout Europe. Or order online at www.musictech.net/tag/focus

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01/07/2015 11:04

MT Show off your studio

Show off your studio Admit it, you just want to be in this one don’t you? It’s another set of MusicTech reader studios to swoon over. And we want to see yours too, so get in touch at the usual addresses…

Making sure your Stormtroopers’ stereo positioning is correct – an essential studio technique

Talla 3 Interviewee: Tommy Jansson Contact: [email protected] Web: www.facebook.com/talla3production and www.talla3.com Key components? Custom-built PC with RME RayDAT card; 3x 24-bit converters; Yamaha HS8w; signal processors; Roland JX-1, JX-3P, MKS-100; Korg P1, M3R; Casio CZ-101; Quasimidi Quasar; Alesis Vortex; Keytar; Eurodesk MX8000; Rode NT2-A; a bunch of screens and other stuff not being used. Which DAW and why? Cubase Pro 8. I started with an Amiga and a tracker program in the old days, which was really fun, but got interested in Cubase when on the Atari ST and just loved it! Been using it ever since, and there are always new features to be discovered.

How do you use your studio? It is quite small, so can’t handle whole bands. Mostly, I work with my own electronic projects: Talla3 and One Human Machine. I do everything: playing, recording, mixing and mastering. It would be great to be able to work in the studio full-time – maybe some day. I’m using a digital distribution company for my releases, so they can be found on major online stores – just saying… I’m also producing my daughter’s first song. It’s for fun, but we will release it and it’s a great opportunity to spend some time together. I also invite singers and musicians for co-projects and remix for artists.

Favourite gear? The FMD Electronics VOC-10 vocoder module. I use it a lot and it’s also the only one there is. I know that, as I built it 20 years ago with pieces of schematics from the early 70s, but with modern low-noise components. The idea was to build a limited amount of 20, but I ran out of money when I finished the first. I fell in love with it and kept it!

What annoys you about it? The limited space is frustrating. I wanted to have more angled rack units on the studio desk, but had to build the desk so it would fit in that room. I don’t like crawling down under the desk, and to reach the cables. Otherwise, it took me about eight months to build and I’m really proud. One push of a button on the remote powers it up.

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Dream gear? A mind extractor connected to my setup that could read my thoughts, as I sometimes have the perfect arrangement in my head, everything in place, and the frustration of not being able to get it out because I can’t find or make that specific sound. But a Mini Moog will do just fine, thank you for asking. Any advice? Stop what you are doing immediately! Use your brain and think! What is the purpose of the studio? What are you trying to achieve? If you don’t know, then go to bed and restart the next day. It’s important to let things take time. I can only answer this in this way after building this particular home studio. It is my sixth or seventh home studio setup, and my main focus this time was not to just build a recording studio, but rather a clean place for inspiration, where new ideas are brought to life. I can sit here doing nothing, just watching waterfalls on the big screen and chilling on the couch until inspiration hits me.

MAGAZINE

26/06/2015 12:40

Show off your studio MT

Sain Code

LTL Records Interviewee: Bobbi Styles

Interviewee: Lucas Paez

Contact: [email protected]

Contact: [email protected]

Sain’s set-up:

Nice can of Fanta…

It’s the sarcastic humour you are paying for…

Key components in your studio? Mac Pro; Logic Pro; Waves Mastering; JJP Analog; SSL4000 Bundle; Spectrasonics Omnisphere; NI Komplete 9 and Maschine 2; DSP-Quatro; BFD 2; too many sample libraries. Hardware: Dynaudio M2s; Apogee Digital Symphony; Avalon VT-737SM; UA LA-610 MKll; SSL Nucleus; NI Maschine 2; various analogue synths; JD-8000; Korg Triton; M-Audio AIR & Axiom 49 keyboards; PreSonus Monitor Station; and several electric guitars/ basses and classic mics. Which DAW do you use and why? I started on Cubase on an Atari 520 STF way back when, but since switching to Logic (2.5) many years ago it’s been my DAW of choice and now it’s Logic Pro X 10.1. I love the work flow and creative ease of use – the best solution for the way I work. I have Pro Tools if a client asks, but have not used it for two years. Favourite piece of gear? A tough one: My Dynaudio M2s. They’ve gone into every studio I’ve built or used in the last decade or more and I’ve relied on their amazing honesty of sound for over 15 years. Perfect or room for improvement? There’s an argument going on between Logic, M-Audio and the SSL Nucleus over who’s the main controller… How do you use your studio? I use my studio mainly for LTL Records and other labels artists, but I do work woth other artists and bands

not on any label, too, but the studio is not a hire-by-the-day studio. It’s an artist/label project studio, either for my productions of others on other labels. Saying that, I do find that I am mixing for bands and artists from around the world most of the time now. What is you dream piece of gear? Excuse me while I take 10 years to decide. Either an SSL Duality or Neve Genesys, either one 64-channel, primarily for their quality, and also for their DAW compatibility. Next on your shopping list? An SSL Sigma – I really want to have an SSL analogue summing box – and also Neve’s 5059 summing box. That way I can switch between the two classic-sounding analogue busses within my work flow One piece of advice? Get good speakers/monitors, one decent pre/ comp box and treat your space with whatever you can to kill bad audio reflections. Good speakers are essential, but a bad setup or bad room can kill any chance of a good mix. Don’t chase the loudness, gain stage correctly and go for mix quality not loudness. Also, stop watching the clock! Don’t write your song in the studio while paying for a studio by the hour. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse before you go into the studio. The studio services are free, it’s my sarcastic British humour you’re paying for… No, your girlfriend, her pics or videos are not acceptable currency.

Main studio components? Nothing fancy. I have a huge PC computer; a couple of controllers (Akai MPK49, Akai APC40 MkII, Roland A-30, 88); Beyerdynamic Custom One Pro as headset; Yamaha HS50M as flat monitoring; LG as hi-fi monitoring; two AOC 12360 LED (24”); and M-Audio FW 410/TCE Studio Konnekt 2. Which DAW and why? I use FL Studio 12 (and have used FL since v9), as I love almost everything about it: the simplicity, speed, sound, visuals, killer features and more. I’m also getting used to Pro Tools for better results, as I’m finding FL a little unstable sometimes. What is your favourite gear? My two monitors, so I can switch between ‘full listening’ or just monitoring. When they work at the same time, it is just awesome. How do you use the studio? I use it for working professionally on my own projects, but I actually started it all for fun. I’m studying to be a sound technician, training in a private school, which obviously helps a lot. Next buy? Definitely a Komplete controller or high-end plug-in suite. What is your dream piece of studio kit? A Nord Lead is like my dream car. I would also love to have a live room to start working with singers and band musicians. Do you have any advice for running a studio? Just to try to keep it simple. You don’t need tons of equipment to make good music, or create a good mix of your music. MAGAZINE August 2015

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MT Next month

What’s in

Issue 150 On sale 21 August

THE MUSICTECH ISSUE 150 SPECIAL!

Amazing DVD giveaways, tips, best ever gear recommendations and much more, as we celebrate a special MusicTech milestone… What’s all the fuss about?

EURORACKS AND MODULAR SYNTHESIS Commercial Director Simon Lewis [email protected]

MUSIC TECH MAGAZINE www.musictech.net Anthem Publishing Ltd Suite 6 Piccadilly House London Road Bath BA1 6PL Tel +44 (0) 1225 489984 Senior Editor Andy Jones [email protected] Art Editor Debra Barber [email protected] Production Editor Gary Walker [email protected] Digital Editor Andy Price [email protected] Multimedia Editor Alex Holmes [email protected] Business Dev. Manager Di Marsh [email protected] Marketing Assistant Verity Travers [email protected] The Experts (see p3) Rob Boffard, Mark Cousins, Keith Gemmell, Andy Price, Mike Hillier, Hollin Jones, Marcus Leadley, John Pickford, Huw Price, Martin Delaney Cover Image iStockphoto

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Managing Director Jon Bickley [email protected] Creative Director Jenny Cook [email protected] Subscriptions & Back Issues Tel 0844 844 0398 (UK) Tel +44 (0)1795 592849 (overseas) Price (12 issues) £64.95 UK basic annual rate Printed by Polestar UK Print Limited +44 (0)1582 678900 Distributed by Marketforce (UK) Ltd, The Blue Fin Building 110 Southwark Street London SE1 0SU Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3300 Licensing enquiries Jon Bickley +44 (0) 1225 489984 [email protected]

How to…

RECORD KICKS! paid at Plattsburgh, NY and at additional mailing Offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Music Tech Magazine c/o International Media Services, 3330 Pacific Avenue, Suite 500, Virginia Beach, VA 23451-2983

All content copyright Anthem Publishing Ltd 2015, all rights reserved. While we make every effort to ensure that the factual content of MusicTech Magazine is correct we cannot take any responsibility nor be held accountable for any factual errors printed. Please make every effort to check quoted prices and product specifications with manufacturers prior to purchase. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or resold without the prior consent of Anthem Publishing Ltd. MusicTech Magazine recognises all copyrights contained within this issue. Where possible we acknowledge the copyright holder.

TEXTING MUSICTECH TERMS AND CONDITIONS By entering MusicTech competitions you are agreeing to receive details of future promotions from Anthem Publishing Limited and related third parties. If you do not want to receive this information please text ‘NO INFO’ at the end of your message. Texts will be charged at the specified price plus one message at your standard network tariff rate.

Music Tech Magazine, ISSN number 1479-4187, is published monthly (12 times per year) by Anthem Publishing c/o USACAN Media Dist. Srv. Corp.at 26 Power Dam Way Suite S1-S3, Plattsburgh, NY 12901 for US$129.99 per year. Periodicals Postage

26/06/2015 14:52

FIRST WITH REVIEWS FIRST WITH NEWS HAVE YOU CLICKED? Powered by

Magazine

www.musictech.net MT .net ad.indd 1

01/07/2015 11:06

MT Your Disc

DVD149 4GB+ PC&Mac

YourDVD

Welcome to DVD149! Enjoy some summer vibes with our exclusive packs of electric piano instruments and deep tropical house kits. There are also top tips on mixing, Ableton Live, Maschine and Logic, plus plenty of demos, software, promo videos and this month’s workshop files...

MULTISAMPLES//ROYALTY FREE & EXCLUSIVE

Size 690MB Format 24-bit/44.1kHz WAV, NN-XT, Kontakt Our main pack this month comes courtesy of our friends at PinkNoise Studio and includes nine multisampled, amped up electric piano instruments so you can add some vintage fuzz to your tracks. A Yamaha DX synth was used to make the different electric piano sounds, each of which was recorded off as a clean version, plus two lightly driven versions that were processed through a Line6 podXT fx unit. All samples are presented in 24bit/44.1 kHz quality, and to add extra detail and playability, each instrument was recorded with three velocity levels and then laid out in Kontakt and NN-XT. Web www.pinknoisestudio.com

//AMPED ELECTRIC PIANOS SAMPLE LOOPS//ROYALTY-FREE & EXCLUSIVE

//DEEP TROPICAL HOUSE KITS

Size 667MB Format 24-bit/44.1kHz WAV, MIDI, Massive The good people at Equinox Sounds have provided an exclusive nostalgia-filled pack to get you in the mood for the summer. You’ll find five deep and chilled tropical house construction kits packed with 80s style synth riffs and inspired by artists such as Tensnake and Kygo. Each kit is provided with bpm and key information and presented with a full mix and its component parts, with extra MIDI files for all the melodic parts so you can try you’re own instruments. Tempos range from 100 to 128 bpm, and as an added bonus, you’ll also find 20 bass, lead, pad and pluck patches for Native Instrument’s Massive. Web www.equinoxsounds.com

//SOFTWARE SOFTWARE

DEMO//SOFTWARE U-HE HIVE (WINDOWS, MAC OSX)

The latest synth masterpiece from u-he is a flexible, modern digital instrument with a low CPU hit. Features include 3 synth engine characters, 16x unison per oscillator, 7 built-in FX and much more. www.u-he.com

DEMO//SOFTWARE

AUDIFIED U73B (WINDOWS, MAC OSX) Based on a unique compressor that was often used for mastering between 1960 and 1980, U73b emulates an all-tube vari-mu compressor with adjustable release, with instant characterful results. www.shop.audified.com

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VIDEO FEATURE//23MINS

//TECHNO IN LIVE

Size 208MB Format MP4 Techno lovers are in for a treat, with two videos of tips from Producertech in Live and Maschine, plus some DnB drum processing tips in Logic Pro. Producer Paul Maddox takes a look at crafting rhythmic textures and atmospheres in Ableton Live by chopping up some TV noise, and Rob Jones adds in some top percussion details and reverb effects to a techno beat using NI’s Maschine. There are also some excellent DnB drum buss fattening tips from Reso taken from the brand new In The Studio With Reso course. You’ll also find trailers with more details on each of the three courses. Web www.producertech.com

DEMO//SOFTWARE

NORA 2 (WINDOWS, MAC OSX) Nora 2 is a powerful pattern-based arpeggiator and phrase sequencer with DAW technology, which has been designed for creating solo melodies, rhythmic basslines, or stabs. www.squareheads.com

FULL//SOFTWARE VST4FREE CHERRY SNARE (WINDOWS, MAC OSX) A deeply sampled, custom Ebenor Percussion snare drum instrument recorded with five microphones and presented with a flexible mixer featuring punch, sustain, release and pan controls. www.vst4free.com

FULL//SOFTWARE FULL BUCKET MUSIC KERN (WINDOWS, MAC OSX) A 32-voice polyphonic synth instrument with two alternative user panels, which has been streamlined and designed to run with modern MIDI keyboard controllers such as the Novation Impulse. www.fullbucket.de

MAGAZINE

30/06/2015 08:56

Your Disc MT

SAMPLE LOOPS//ROYALTY-FREE

Size 316MB Format 24-bit/44.1kHz WAV We’ve got another bumper crop of cuttingedge samples from the Loopmasters crew for you to slice and dice into you productions. First up, to accompany the reviews there’s dreamy synths, pads and drums taken from Balearic Disco, and heavy electronic and live breaks and synths from Bombstrikes Presents Bass Funk. Next up, you’ll find evocative guitars, piano and drums from Cinematic Indie Rock, and dark, glitched-out beats and ambiences from Dark Atmospherics. Finally, there are dubbed out synth riffs and drum loops taken from Dubstep Onslaught 2, and more uplifting organs, keys and pianos from Classic 90s House Vol 2. Web www.loopmasters.com

//BALEARIC DISCO, INDIE ROCK, AND MORE

VIDEO TUTORIALS//64 MINS

//MIXING & MASTERING WITH STEMS

Size 723MB Format MP4 Point Blank’s mixing instructor Justin Lyndley (Bloc Party, Amon Tobin, INXS) takes a look at the techniques involved in mixing down a hip hop track using just bounced down stems. The video is presented in Logic X, but is transferable to other DAWs and Lyndley also uses a range of plug-ins by Waves and UAD. We’ve also got two Ableton Live tutorials that show an exclusive Relative EQ technique, and how to route Live’s browser preview back into an audio track. Be sure to copy all the videos to your HD for best playback. Web www.pointblanklondon.com

VIDEO FEATURE//30 MINS

//LOOP+

Size 390MB Format MOV This month’s videos from Loop+ include James Wiltshire from The Freemasons, talking about the affects of stack limiting on multiple channels. Next up, Producertech’s Rob Jones shows us round the Looperator plugin from Sugar Bytes, and producer Multiplier presents a great tutorial on using velocity sensitive envelopes in Massive to add organic performance control to your patches. Finally, we’ve got 2 short Ableton QuickTips on beat transients and removing reverb tails from drums, and how to add production notes with MIDI info clips. Web www.loopmasters.com/loopplus/

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NEW

Never get overloaded.

C314

PROFESSIONAL MULTI-PATTERN CONDENSER MICROPHONE › Four selectable polar patterns › Lowest self noise › Overload detection LED › Computer-matched diaphragms › Integrated capsule suspension › 20 dB attenuation pad and bass-cut filter Meet the C314, the latest sibling from one of the industry’s most widely used studio and stage microphone families. Designed for enthusiasts and professionals alike, the C314 has advanced features that help artists fine-tune their signature sound. Using the same one-inch dual diaphragm capsule as the C414 XLS, musicians, engineers and producers can have the confidence that their audience will experience every subtle nuance as it was intended.

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AKG ACOUSTICS GMBH LAXENBURGER STRASSE 254, 1230 VIENNA, AUSTRIA AKG ACOUSTICS, U.S. 8500 BALBOA BOULEVARD, NORTHRIDGE, CA 91329, U.S.A. © 2015 HARMAN International Industries, Incorporated. All rights reserved. AKG is a trademark of AKG Acoustics GmbH, registered in the United States and/or other countries. Features, specifications and appearance are subject to change without notice. www.akg.com

DESIGNED AND ENGINEERED IN VIENNA, AUSTRIA DISTRIBUTED IN THE UK AND EIRE BY SOUND TECHNOLOGY LTD 01462 480000 | www.soundtech.co.uk

Music Tech August 2015

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