Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2017 i Future Music

Filter Talking Shop: 2016’s best tips In each edition of Talking Shop, we pick a producer’s brain to discover their top studio advice and creative tips. For our final issue of the year, we’ve collated a selection of 2016’s most useful tips and ideas These Hidden Hands The Berlin duo on giving your ideas time “After working on music for lengthy periods it’s often hard to make objective judgements and so emotionally detaching yourself from your ideas or ‘finished’ work is perhaps the most important thing you can do. I prefer to purposely forget about the track and sometimes that means not listening to a ‘finished idea’ for two weeks. “Listening back after the break can mean suddenly that ‘crazy top line’ really is just crazy and doesn’t work or…

LIKE IT? TRY THESE… UNKLE Never, Never, Land Dubfire was good friends with UNKLE main man, James Lavelle, at the time and says this album influenced the mood of George Is On . ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Back And Forth, Panic Attack, Inside Planet Funk The lllogical Consequence Pop and Rock meets Dance music. A dope album from guys very much on that Deep Dish tip. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Everyday, Stop Me, Dusk Bauhaus In The Flat Field Dubfire was really feeling the sound of the 4AD record label. So, here’s one of its best act’s best albums. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Double Dare, Nerves, A God In An Alcove Morel Queen Of The Highway George Is On features plenty of…

AUDIO INTERFACES CATEGORY WINNER 2016 Antelope Zen Tour While the Zen Tour might appear expensive for a device of its size, this is not your standard compact interface. There’s a surprisingly extensive amount of connectivity onboard, including both Thunderbolt and USB, along with ADAT for expanding its capabilities. It’s the built-in DSP that really sets Zen Tour apart though, offering built-in, latency-free emulations of a broad selection of classic amps, mics and effects, which make this a dream for recording and re-amping on the go. Focusrite Clarett 4Pre This year has seen Focusrite continue creating reliably excellent interfaces. The Clarett 4Pre is their mid-range Thunderbolt-equipped unit, offering a quartet of their highly-regarded mic pres. Build quality is top-notch, the unit is capable of exceedingly low-latency recording, and the metallic red…

MONITORS & HEADPHONES TOP VALUE 2016 Fluid FPX7 For a solid pair of mid-sized monitors at a very reasonable price, the FPX7s come up trumps. With Acoustic Space and HF Trim controls, they’re flexible and easily tweaked to suit a variety of spaces. While the power and frequency balance may not be quite up there with more expensive models of a similar size, the stereo imaging is excellent and at just over £700 a pair, these offer a reliable and reasonable monitoring solution. TOP VALUE 2016 Pioneer DJ HRM-7 If you’re in search of a mid-priced, quality set of studio ‘phones then Pioneer’s HRM-7s are a solid choice. They’re comfortable for long sessions in the studio and offer impressive clarity and response across the frequency range. Transients are punchy and…

Big Preset? Strip It Out! Stripping a preset of the elements it doesn’t need will often lead to a better (and more individual) version of it What makes you select a preset as starting point for inclusion in your track? Most of us turn to the starting points of dedicated sound designers at some stage in our creative process and, while we’ll often tweak the sounds we select, we’re nevertheless usually picking a sound which has made us sit up and take notice. The difficulty is that often this has proved to be the case because the chosen sound is already awash with more than one sonic layer, lengthy release times in its amplifier stage as well as (potentially) multiple onboard effects. In other words, it’s already a gargantuan sound,…

DOs & DON’Ts Of wresting back production control DO: > Watch out for low octaves in recorded parts. Are you a skilled piano player? Good – keep practising! But be careful that you don’t automatically double the bass notes you play down the octave. Sometimes that extra bass weight can be great but sometimes it unnecessarily adds mix clutter. DON’T: > Only mix on headphones. Pan positions can feel extreme on headphones in a way they don’t on speakers, while making decisions about what’s over-complicating a mix isn’t always clear through cans either. DO: > Tweak auto-panners to have sounds jump from right to left and back again, missing out the middle ground. Even sounds which momentarily pass through the middle can add unneeded ‘central mix’ distraction. DON’T: > Be…

Full, Chamber And Quartet String Sizes With string parts, one size doesn’t always fit all. Before turning, by default, to a full symphonic sound, might a more intimate ensemble work better? Do you need a ‘full’ string section in your track or could something smaller and more intimate provide an ear-catching sound? Strings are associated with being rich and lush but only because we tend to think of using the full complement of players from violins, through violas, to cellos and double basses. String quartets (one each of violin 1, violin 2, viola and cello), as well as Chamber sized string orchestras are available. There’s no fixed number in a Chamber string section but around 18 players (3-6 first violins, 3-6 seconds, 2-4 violas, 2-4 cellos and 1-2 basses, for…

Tell us about the Kawai NS-20A… “The current crown jewel of my studio, and almost as old as I am, which is nice as it looks like it’s in great shape. It holds in tune rather well and is mellower than most pianos in its price range. I actually prefer Kawai to Yamaha as their action pedals are really smooth. I keep it apart most of the time to get even more volume and dynamics.” Rode NT4 “It’s a very versatile microphone – ideal for sound/field recordings and super sensitive, although I use it for vocals as well. The only trouble is you need to aim your vocals directly at the centre or it will favour one channel over the other. Nothing I do is simple.”…

In The Studio With Francesco Tristano Barcelona-based Francesco Tristano is one of a few Classical musicians to successfully establish themselves as a DJ/producer. Danny Turner meets an extraordinary talent who coaxed Detroit Techno legend Derrick May back into the studio to work on new material As a Classical pianist, Francesco Tristano always felt there was a missing link between the Classical and Electronic realms. While studying at Juilliard School of performing arts, he became inspired by the sound of Daft Punk’s Around The World and stepped into New York’s crazed ’90s club culture. The resulting osmosis was the groundbreaking Not For Piano (2007), which saw Tristano compose piano versions of Detroit Techno classics including Derrick May’s Strings Of Life. Following a chance encounter with Carl Craig at a DJ set…

DSI OB-6 and Prophet-6 Modules DSI OB-6 £2,133 and Prophet-6 Modules £2,041 First came the keyboards, now desktop versions of the P6 and OB-6 are here! Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman checks them out… Few other current synths can touch the Prophet-6’s upfront, clear-cut yet earthy sound I first reviewed the Prophet-6 keyboard back in September 2015 and was impressed enough to go out and buy one myself, despite owning lots of other classic and modern polys. Since then, I’ve employed it on numerous productions where its high-quality sound has really come into its own. I’ve been using it for general polysynth duties such as warm pads and ’80s-style brass poly sounds (which it excels at due to its very upfront and punchy character, with plenty of high-mid presence and high-end sizzle),…

Reviews M-Audio CTRL49 £329 M-Audio’s latest keyboard controller incorporates virtual instrument and plug-in editing. Jon Musgrave takes control VIP not only hosts VST instruments but also the VST effects you apply The new CTRL49 from M-Audio pushes the keyboard controller further by adding virtual instrument control to the mix. So, what you effectively have is part MIDI keyboard and controller, part DAW controller and part virtual instrument controller. It comprises a 49-key semi-weighted synth action keyboard with pitchbend and modulation, coupled with a top panel featuring four main sections. On the left are nine faders and 11 coloured backlit fader buttons that use Mackie Control/HUI protocol for DAW control. On the right are eight rotary encoders, eight backlit switches and eight pressure and velocity sensitive backlit pads (with four pad…

Reviews KOMA Elektronik Poltergeist €849 Koma are back with a Eurorack Quadraphonic Audio Panner module. Will it get Bruce Aisher’s head in a spin? Koma are returning to Eurorack with the Poltergeist, a knob and socket laden 28HP unit featuring the familiar black and white Koma livery. Centre stage is taken by four large metal pots – each surrounded by four LEDs, a clue to the surround-capabilities of the unit. The fact that it is labelled an ‘Analog Quadraphonic Audio Mixer/Panner/ VCA’ indicates that Koma intend this as more than a single-purpose device. Poltergeist can be switched to work as a simpler stereo-only processing device, but we’ll be exploring it from a quadraphonic perspective. Clearly the first requirement is a suitable monitoring environment, and anyone set up for 5.1 can…

Rockschool PART 4: LET’S GET DYNAMIC! Rockschool course tutors Hannah V and Sam Vasanth take us through their graded Production Syllabus Welcome back to our fourth instalment of production tips and techniques! We are slowly progressing up the Rockschool grades, so our topics will become more detailed as we proceed. At Grade 4, Rockschool prepares the learner to use higher-level mix functions and techniques for punchy and clean mixes. Today we will be tackling dynamic range editors and will present some of our favourite Waves tools. ‘Dynamic Range’ refers to the ratio of the quietest and loudest parts of a song. There’s usually a vast difference to the intro and the outro chorus of a song; intros are usually sparse and outro choruses are usually the most sonically dense sections…

Akai launch L Series bluetooth controllers Akai have announced new wireless versions of their compact controllers, the LPK25 and LPD8. The eight-pad LPD8 features the same six UI buttons and eight assignable slim-design pots as before, alongside a newly-added Full Level button function, which will ensure that all pads will deliver equal velocity. The LPK25’s features largely stay the same but with the addition of a Sustain pedal input. Both controllers have a new chassis and updated design. While the LPD8 is said to be a particularly suitable partner for the iMPC Pro app, both are compatible with iOS, Mac and PC over USB or Bluetooth. Both controllers ship in December priced at £70 each.…

ALBUM REVIEWS © Cathrin Queins ALBUM OF THE MONTH Anthony Child Electronic Recordings From Maui Jungle Vol.2 Editions Mego UK Techno pioneer Anthony Child, better known as Surgeon, returns to Editions Mego for the second volume of his highly innovative Electronic Recordings From Maui Jungle. Once again exploring the more ambient and experimental tip of his palette, Child delivers an intimate record that interweaves his love of modular synths with natural sounds and a meditative aesthetic. Minimalist and experimental in tone, the LP is drenched in a calm and laidback vibe, owed in no small part to Child’s ability to stay organic while wildly spontaneous. His compositions remain raw and exposed, slowly unravelling layers of chiming synth lines, syncopated rhythms, melodic drones and sparkling arpeggios into the surrounding field recordings.…

DRUM MACHINES & SAMPLERS CATEGORY WINNER 2016 Arturia DrumBrute With the DrumBrute, Arturia have taken the fun and flexible approach to hardware sequencing they developed through the BeatStep range and applied it to a quality analogue drum synth. With per-channel swing and randomness, along with polyrhythmic step-sequencing, the DrumBrute is a great tool for creative groove building. Its real triumph, however, is that all this comes with a sub-£400 price tag. Pioneer DJ Toraiz SP-16 When we reviewed Pioneer DJ’s standalone sampler it felt in need of a few firmware tweaks but had a great core workflow. A recent update has refined things, bringing deeper MIDI sync, more effects and an LFO, and there’s more to come in 2017 – all of which bring it within touching distance of its…

EURORACK CATEGORY WINNER 2016 Mutable Instruments Rings Mutable’s excellent physical modelling resonator module Rings offers a truly unique functionality and sound palette. At its most basic level, it’s a polyphonic voice capable of creating gorgeous, shimmering and metallic synthesis tones. With a ton of sonic flexibility, including semi-hidden FM synthesis, chord and organ-like functionality, it offers fantastic bang for your buck. This is a highly musical, deep yet approachable module unlike anything else out there. A Studio Electronics Tonestar 2600 The Tonestar 2600 is a full ARP 2600-inspired synth voice, combining oscillator, VCF and envelope sections. It’s well-built and packed with vintage character thanks to the excellent filter. It has a sound and flexibility beyond emulation. Music Thing Modular Turing Machine MkII The original version of the open source, DIY…

Stripping Back FX Treatments To Gain Mix Space It’s not only instrument parts which benefit from thinning out; often, effects treatments sound better when space is created within them We start with a relatively minimal track. Effects-wise, there are separate auxiliary delays on the bass and percussion stab, a lengthy reverb on the ‘Lost In The Fog’ pad and a wandering auto-pan treatment on the bounced Geist loop. Conversely, we want more air in the pad’s reverb, so that it ‘floats above’ the mix. So, we open UVI’s Sparkverb and decrease Lo Decay and then move the Crossover frequency between Low and Hi up to 400Hz. We then boost the Wet balance. Now the reverb is thinner but shinier. We start with the Geist loop. The Auto-pan movement is wandering…

In The Studio With FaltyDL Six albums in, Drew Lustman (aka FaltyDL) is still a producer working with broken studio gear and driven by creative experimentation. Danny Turner locates the producer in his Brooklyn home studio to talk gear, blueberry hills and feeding his creativity © Daniel Byrne Brooklyn-based producer Drew Lustman’s career in music production hit all the right notes when his debut FaltyDL album, Love Is A Liability, got signed to Planet Mu. Within a couple of years, he’d signed for Ninja Tune, who put their campaign strategy behind his third album Hardcourage. At that point, Lustman’s career trajectory seemed to be on a one way ticket to the top as support slots materialised for James Blake and Radiohead. A huge Squarepusher fan, he almost “had a stroke”…

MODULAR MONTHLY DATA has never looked so good The Mordax DATA is way more than an oscilloscope so let’s dig in! Mordax launched with a storm of excitement with their module DATA and we think the hype was massively deserved. Watching wavetables move by, oscillators syncing, frequency modulation and all your slow complex random modulation is beautiful… But DATA is so much more. Here’s a quick run down: 1) comprehensive four-channel fully-featured oscilloscope 2) precise tuner 3) voltage monitor and source 4) dual waveform generator 5) dual clock source and clock divider/ multiplier 6) spectral analyzer (single-FFT) and 7) spectrograph (multi-FFT). You may think, “jack of all trades, master of none,” but we assure you it isn’t. Each one of those seven things is fully-featured, precise, and importantly fast and…

REVIEWS Roland Boutique VP-03 Vocoder £329 The original VP-330 is a vintage classic! Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman examines its modern day successor in Boutique format The vocoder is topped off by a lush-sounding ensemble effect that acts like a magic sweetening button! The VP-330 Vocoder Plus (Roland’s original vocoder keyboard from 1979) became popular with many major artists back in the day including Vangelis and 10cc. Today it’s very sought-after but hard to find secondhand. Wisely, Roland have now modelled the VP-330’s sound and features using their acclaimed ACB technology (Analog Circuit Behaviour), adding it to their Boutique range. Let’s see how it fairs! The VP-03 comes in the same solid case as the other models in the Boutique range and is priced at £329. The case is all metal and…

FILTER Modal unveil £79 synth kit Modal Electronics have produced some powerful and expensive synths, but their latest project is a small and affordable one… Or should we say your project, because the CRAFTsynth is something that you need to build yourself. This is a monophonic eight-knob instrument that we’re told can be put together without the need to solder in less than ten minutes. There are two oscillators per voice, though the unison/spread mode enables you to split each oscillator into four separate detunable sub oscillators, effectively giving you eight (got that?). There’s also an LFO with six destinations, a resonant low-pass filter and delay and distortion effects. The instrument can be played from a five-note touch panel, though the CRAFTsynth can also send and receive MIDI over USB.…

Classic Album Track by track with Dubfire “Over the years Deep Dish became a mainstream act. We’re not sure how that happened” “I’m a big fan of really uplifting or melancholic melody and layering… I play guitar as well, so I loved layering them endlessly to create a Phil Spector ‘wall of sound’. I was listening to a lot of Alternative music, Shoegaze Rock and 4AD stuff. I loved how they got the pretty chorus sounds with the heavy reverbs and delays. I was trying to bring that into Dance music. Dreams is a classic example of that layering; and No Stopping For Nicotine, where it builds and builds to a massive crescendo.” No Stopping For Nicotine “This was me really trying to take the musical style that we were…

SYNTHS DRUM MACHINES CONTROLLERS EFFECTS PLUG-INS MONITORS GEAR OF THE YEAR 2016 As winter sets in and the end of 2016 rises into view, it’s time once again for FM’s end-of-year guide to the best synths, effects and studio gear from the past 12 months. From multi-faceted monster synths to pocket-sized noise makers; from cutting-edge plug-ins to retro rack gear; we’ve reconnected with all the gear that’s hit our test bench this year to bring you a definitive guide to the most exciting, innovative and best value gear you need in your studio for 2017. READERS’ CHOICE 2016 While you’ll find FM’s own Gear Of The Year picks over the following pages, we’ve once again been asking your opinion on the year’s…

OUTBOARD & EFFECTS CATEGORY WINNER 2016 Thermionic Culture The Swift Based around a ’50s EMI valve design with hints of the Pultec MEQ, The Swift is everything you want from a studio effect unit – it’s built like a tank, features a flexible array of front panel controls and, most importantly, sounds incredible. This two-channel EQ adds genuine warmth and depth to sounds while preserving the integrity of the original source. The addition of Presence and Air, meanwhile, can really make sounds pop in the mix. At £2,700, it’s not cheap, but hearing it in action there’s no doubt that every penny is accounted for in terms of quality. EDITOR’S CHOICE 2016 Elektron Analog Heat Elektron’s first effects processor combines eight excellent varieties of analogue distortion, a two-band EQ and…

In The Studio With Max Cooper Purveyor of the finest cerebral electronica, Max Cooper returns to the fray with immersive and beautiful new album, Emergence. Hamish Mackintosh meets him in his studio © George Fairbairn Max Cooper isn’t your average DJ/producer. The music that he creates (along with the concepts behind it) glitch and crackle with lofty ambitions to go further into the nature of things. As with sublime debut album, Human, Cooper’s new offering, Emergence, uses electronic music to explore the human condition not to mention stimulate the senses. A long-time explorer of the possibilities of audio-visual systems, Emergence began life as a series of collaborations with visual artists, which Cooper then furnished the music for – and what music! Max Cooper’s musical world is a joyous blend of…

Managing Kick And Bass Relationships The relationship between kick and bass is crucial in all genres of music. Sidechained compression can usefully prioritise one sound over the other EQ and volume balance controls are extremely useful when you’re trying to form an effective working relationship between kick and bass parts and, as we’ll see in the final six-step walkthrough in this tutorial, changing bass patterns to avoid clashing notes can be so too. However, if you want your kick and bass parts to play at the same time, another technique is available to prioritise one part over the other at crucial moments. Here we use a sidechain trigger signal to achieve this, using a ‘ghost’ of the kick drum. You can use the kick signal directly but often it works…

Weeding Out A Bloated Mix Even the most basic mixes can suffer from being overloaded and devoid of space. Here, we’re tending to a production suffering from these symptoms This track might only have six parts playing but already it’s sounding confused, repetitive and overly full. The kick and bass, in particular, are drowning under the weight of insistent synth hooks, while the pad is fighting for space too. Let’s look at the kick and bass relationship. Beat 1 and beat 4 of each bar cause both kick and bass to play at the same time. In the bass part, we shift the first note a 16th-note late and the one on beat 4 a 16th note early. Let’s start with the synth hooks. We select the first part to…

SEQUENCER AND CHORD MEMORY The VP-03 offers up some handy advantages over the original VP-330. Firstly, there’s a 16 pattern (writeable), 16-step sequencer which can be sync’d to external MIDI clock. The sequencer patterns can be backed up to a computer and the sequencer itself features shuffle, polyphonic recording per-step (up to six notes), editable note length, gate time, scale and step-order. Also audio recording from the mic can be recorded into any step along with internal sounds, so you can use your voice (or audio from other sources) to trigger the vocoder and then record and play it back. Further, the VP-03 features a ‘chord memory’ function. When the ‘memory’ button is lit, you can use the 16 sequencer step buttons to select different memorised chords which can then…

DSI OB-6 and Prophet-6 Modules The OB-6 and Prophet-6 Modules: in the studio and on stage They’re built by the same company, share the same chassis/basic form factor, include the same effects and even sound pretty similar at certain settings. But what makes them stand apart from each other and which is the one for you? Here’s the lowdown… Dave Smith Instruments OB-6 module On stage THE GOOD: As the OB-6M features the same sound engine and features as the keyboard but in a more compact form, you can have the same killer sonic power/ sturdiness with more portability. THE NOT-SO-GOOD: As it’s a desktop only unit (and wider than a normal rack), you can’t add it to your stage rack – it needs to be placed on a flat…

Reviews Bastl Instruments Kastle €79 Czech brand Bastl serve up a truly pocket-sized, fully-patchable FM synth. Si Truss becomes king of the Kastle… The Kastle is noisy and gritty, specialising in a pleasingly dirty sort of digital synthesis Czech brand Bastl have been subject to some well-deserved hype in recent years, having carved out an esoteric niche within the European tech sphere with their hand-made, open source instruments, wood-panelled Eurorack systems and wildly-inventive trade show booths. Their latest creation, Kastle, is a digital, semi-modular synth housed in a tiny chassis barely larger than the trio of AA batteries used to power it. Kastle is based around a pair of Attiny 85 chips, one used for sound creation and one for modulation. It’s currently only available as a pre-built synth, but…

Pain-free set-up advice I often get upper arm/back/neck pain when playing two keyboards on a two-tier stand… It’s of paramount importance to position yourself so that when playing your keyboards, you’re not sitting too low and reaching up to the keyboards which is ultimately going to put strain on your neck, shoulders and arms, particularly if you’re playing in this position for a long time. Similarly, if you’re standing, don’t have your keyboards too low or too high as you’ll again experience discomfort. Posture and correct height of your rig in relation to your body/seat is all-important. Here are some examples… Here the player is sitting too low and too far away from their keyboards. This will result in pain in the shoulders, upper arms and neck areas from over-stretching…

YOUTUBE MORE UNMISSABLE VIDEO FEATURES FROM FUTURE MUSIC Meet our line-up of exclusive YouTube goodness. Head online for all this and more! Top producers go in-depth on the sounds, ideas and techniques behind their latest releases. Swindle, Connecta feat. Ricardo China We meet up with the UK producer in his studio to watch him break down the creation of his Brazilian-inspired, horn-driven track. DON’T MISS: Jonas Blue, Perfect Strangers We head to London to watch Jonas Blue break down the sounds and ideas behind his massive crossover Tropical House hit. NZCA Lines, Two Hearts Synth Pop outfit NZCA Lines invite us into their studio to break down the gloriously catchy single, Two Hearts. Dr Meaker, Dirt & Soul Bristol-based producer Clive Meaker shows us how he…