Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2018 i Future Music

Steinberg collaborate with Rupert Neve on new UR-RT USB audio interfaces Steinberg’s new USB 2.0 audio interfaces are very much a team effort. They include transformer circuitry from Rupert Neve Designs and the engineering expertise of Yamaha. There are two models in the range: the UR-RT2 and UR-RT4. The former offers four inputs and two outputs, while the latter gives you six inputs and four outputs. Both come with DSP-powered effects for zero-latency monitoring, along with D-PRE preamps from Yamaha. The Rupert Neve transformers, meanwhile, are designed to add character with a whiff of natural compression and saturation. Available in June, the UR-RT2 for 399 Euro, the UR-RT4 for 649 Euro.…

Nord introduce the Piano 4 The Nord Piano 4 looks like another evolutionary update for Clavia’s acclaimed stage piano, offering expanded polyphony, a premium Triple Sensor keybed and the company’s Virtual Hammer Action Technology. Other highlights include seamless transitions when changing sounds or programs while you’re playing, dedicated piano filters and split point crossfades. The sample section, meanwhile, now has 512MB of memory, which is double what you got in the Nord Piano 3. This remains a live-focused keyboard; as well as the piano and sample synth sections, you also get a comprehensive suite of tweakable effects. It’s scheduled for release in the summer, with pricing still to be confirmed.…

The Ballistic Brothers London Hooligan Soul Junior Boy’s Own, 1995 Words by Roy Spencer © Naki/Redferns Your old man’s reggae collection. Away games in crisp new duds. Fresh wax from Honest Jon’s. It’s the mid-’90s, and The Ballistic Brothers (and one sister) are in State 51 studios in Bermondsey, reflecting on the times, and pouring it all into their debut long player, London Hooligan Soul. Part snapshot of the city right now. Part pooling of their collective musical school days – the album mixes up vintage ska, cutting-edge drum ‘n’ bass, hip-hop sampling, and loved-up vibes, effortlessly. “It was like a stream of consciousness,” says Ashley Beedle, who along with Rocky, Diesel, Dave Hill, engineer Marc Woolford, and keyboard wizardette, Uschi Classen, made up the family band. “It was all…

Grouper Grid of Points Kranky For her 11th studio album as Grouper, Liz Harris delivers a typically beautiful and emotive record with Grid of Points. Her first LP since 2014’s heart breaking Ruins, Grid of Points is very much a stripped back affair that that is built on the elegant fusion of Harris’ skeletal piano phrasing and rich bursts of her distinctive vocal harmonies. This delicateness is what gives the entire record a stark and vulnerable fragility, which pours out with emotion and tenderness. Intimate, dreamy and haunting, the misty atmosphere moves with an organic, drifting aesthetic. Like all Grouper records, this one feels intensely intimate. Harris seems to possess an unparalleled ability to transfer emotions directly to the listener, so direct and raw is her approach. Her bare use…

Jungle and drum & bass programming From 160bpm jungle vibes to 175+bpm neurofunk, modern DnB presents many variables. Let’s get low and deconstruct a half-dozen ways to do it In comparison with many drum-machine-driven electronic styles, ’90s jungle is synonymous with sliced and resequenced breakbeats sampled from funk records. Quite often, one or more breakbeats can be sequenced in tandem to create polyrhythmic effects. Jungle’s evolution into drum & bass saw BPMs rise to around 170, and those breakbeat polyrhythms reduced to the essence of DnB: the two-step beat, whereby the second kick in a bar is pushed later in time to the eighth-note before the second snare, giving the groove a signature ‘stepping’ quality. The two-step beat is the quintessential DnB drum pattern, but other variations of this are…

Programming hip-hop, trap and grime beats Ranging anywhere from 80-140bpm, both US and UK urban beats feature unique rhythmic tropes. Let’s look at a few… ‘Golden era’ ’90s hip-hop had funk breakbeats and drum hits sampled from vinyl and replayed via an Akai MPC sampler/sequencer, giving a crusty groove based on that signature kick-snare interplay. Many DAWs offer MPC groove templates to emulate its classic timing. Try one and tweak it to your track. Hip-hop producer J Dilla popularised the employment of triplet-style swing. Create lazy, ‘drunken’ beats by quantising elements to a 16th triplet grid, or simply lay down eighth-notes and slide them off the grid manually, as we’re doing here in Geist2. Sampled breaks are less common in modern hip-hop, where the Southern US/ Atlanta trap aesthetic now…

Producer’s Guide To | Software Modular Virtual modular systems Softube’s Modular is the newest of the trio. Six Doepfer modules are included, all of which are designed to look and work exactly like their hardware counterparts—and the VCO modules certainly do their name justice. Additionally, there are a host of Softube’s own utility modules, the Heartbeat Drum synth modules, Softube’s new TSAR and TSAR-1 Reverbs, and more modules set to be included. Last year saw the addition of an officially licensed 4ms Spectral Multiband Resonator and Pingable Envelope Generator, as well as the Buchla 259e oscillator, which also was given its blessing by Buchla’s current design team. Step-by-step patching tutorials are included, as well as a set of performance knobs that allow you to freely assign them to any control…

MODULAR MONTHLY Making random musical again… The Eloquencer is random, but let’s see how musical it can be Winter Modular came into the Eurorack scene last year when they announced their debut module, the Eloquencer, at the Superbooth event in Berlin. The module looked packed with musical features and outputs. Its eight CV outputs and gate outputs make it a perfect module for controlling lots of voices, drum tracks and/or more complex modulation, across a small or large system. The module is also built around the concept of chance – but with lots of control over how those random functions operate. You can decide when and where randomness will take place and how that randomness will affect your sequences. So even for those rigid random haters out there, maybe just…

Filters explored A VA synth’s timbre lives or dies by its filter. Let’s go deeper… The main way to shape oscillator timbre is by removing frequency content via the filter. Like the classic analogue synths many emulations are based on, filter circuit models’ timbres vary by instrument, and massively impact sound. Measured in dBs/octave, a filter’s slope value refers to steepness of attenuation, a big factor in character. Moog-style filters (generally 24dB/oct) are aggressive and weighty – perfect for bass – and can be overdriven for more beef. Roland-style filters, meanwhile, are often 18dB/oct, and more smooth and ‘rubbery’. Then there’s the Korg MS-20’s dual filters – a 6dB/oct high-pass and 12dB/oct low-pass – which impart a delicious ‘howling’ when resonance is cranked. Keytracking Apply a low-pass filter to a…

Apple Logic Pro X 10.4 Apple Logic Pro X 10.4 £199 The new update offers better audio file management, new plugins and plenty more. Jono Buchanan investigates Perhaps the most significant addition within Apple’s free Logic Pro X 10.4 update is Smart Tempo, which builds on the ‘elastic audio’ qualities provided by Flex Time. Now, a number of Tempo Modes are offered which let you work with audio in new ways. For starters, you can make audio recordings freely, with no click, and Logic will detect the tempo and build a map from it. Suppose you then want to build your track around this ‘free time’ section but want to import an audio file with a different tempo. A quick switch of mode will allow this to be integrated ‘in…

LIKE IT? TRY THESE… The Ballistic Brothers Rude System The second and final album from The Brothers sees them get darker in tone and sharper in production. A must ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Tuning Up, Soul Catcher, Marching On Various Artists Studio One Presents Tribute To Peckings Be like the Ballistics and show your respects to the Pecks with a comp paying dues to a legendary reggae figure, and crew inspiration ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Ting-A-Ling, Meditation, Last Call Black Science Orchestra Walter’s Room Beedle’s other project at the time only birthed this one album. Wicked acid jazz and house business throughout, though ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Start The Dancer, A Hot Family Day, Save Us (The Jam) The Balistic Brothers Vs The Eccentric Afro’s Volume 1…

Bombino Deran Partisan Records Deran is the new upbeat album from Tuareg guitar master, Bombino. Translating as “Best Wishes” the album is brimming with positivity, talking about bringing hope to the world at a time where there is so much trouble and pain. Sang entirely in Bombino’s native Tamasheq language, the record sees him centre his sound around Africa more than on previous albums. Deep, grumbling bass, soaring guitars, complex rhythms and dusty desert grooves combine to create a soundscape that is as intoxicating as it is fast-paced. Encompassing blues, rock, funk, reggae and traditional African rhythms, Deran is a frenetic explosion of distinctive sounds that surge up from the belly with drive and momentum. Focused, breathless and confident, this album delivers his clearest message yet. Just as Bombino manages…

Velocity 101 What is velocity and how do you program it? Let’s discuss velocity – how loud an individual note is. Reducing the velocity of less-emphasised notes adds dynamics into your groove, just as a human drummer will strike the main elements of the kit much harder than less important ones, and at a slightly different force each time. Program all your drum machine notes at maximum velocity, then, and your groove will sound machine-gun-like… which may be what you want! Many classic drum machines only let the user program one of two predetermined loudness levels – either accented (ie, louder) notes, and regular-level notes – whereas others offered no loudness variation whatsoever; so if you’re emulating the programming style of a classic groovebox, find out how said instrument dealt…

Polyrhythms explored Want to break out of the 4/4 mould? Here are some ideas on how… On the last few pages, we’ve stuck to the most basic rhythm type: the 4/4 meter, ie, four beats per bar. After all, that’s what most western electronic beats are based on. Yet more unorthodox drum patterns can be achieved by mixing and matching rhythmic structures within the same groove. For most electronic genres, you’ll probably want to anchor the main downbeats and hits (kick and snare, usually) on a 4/4 grid. After that, ancillary percussion such as hi-hats can play a different time signature (6/8, for example) over the top of that foundation, and those parts will cycle interestingly over the top. In practice, you don’t have to become a scholar – all…

In The Studio With | Jon Hopkins Jon Hopkins Classically trained pianist and producer Jon Hopkins has one of the most respected résumés in electronic music. Danny Turner locates the sound design craftsman in his studio to discuss his fifth album, Singularity © Kevin Lake Having collaborated with the likes of Brian Eno, Coldplay, David Holmes and Imogen Heap, award-winning producer Jon Hopkins has been one of electronic music’s leading sound designers over the past two decades, producing a stream of complex, interconnected releases. Often shunning clinical digital processes in favour of analogue hardware, Hopkins has an uncanny ability to capture the essence of his conceptual themes through a meditative approach and insatiable appetite for experimentation. From beautifully-realised debut albumOpalescentin 2001, through to organic, techno-embodied albums such asInsidesandImmunity, Hopkins now…

Processing audio Here we use Blocks to process a ready-made drum loop… While setting up a patch to produce sounds is going to be the starting point for many, the flexibility of modular synths extends to processing sounds from other sources as well. These could be coming directly from another channel in your DAW, an external audio source that is being played in real time, or even an oscillator from a real hardware modular synthesiser. The advantage of taking the time to create a modular-based effects routing, as opposed to relying on one of the many plugins you are already familiar with, centres around increased control. Let’s use Blocks as an example to process a ready-made drum loop, allowing the volume of each hit to dictate the depth of effect.…

Software Modular | Producer’s Guide To Audio-rate modulation with Modular V Let’s use audio-rate modulation to totally change the sonic character of a simple polysynth patch 01 > Open up an instance of Modular V3, and navigate to Template and select ‘2 Osc Poly.’ You’ll see that all of the modules are visible, even if they aren’t being used. Cables fade away as your mouse hovers over them. Audio inputs glow green when a new patch cable is created, while modulation inputs glow red. The window can also be resized by navigating to the menu in the top-left corner. 02 > Right-click on a modulation jack to select the source, with the list including a wealth of options, from the envelopes, LFO or the sequencer. Clicking on a modulation input…

Tutorial | Modular Monthly Adding random elements with the Eloquencer Eloquent by name, eloquent by nature? Let’s see how fluent and flowing our sequences can be 01 > Let’s get started by building a basic sequence. Press one of the A-H buttons to select a track then press gate and use the 16-step buttons to add notes into the pattern. Press CV then hold a step and use the encoder to change its pitch. 02 > With pitch and gate information, let’s look to use randomisation to expand our musical ideas. Press the gate button again to go into the probability section and, holding a step, adjust the encoder to change the probability of a gate firing on that step. 03 > We can add randomness to the pitch values…

QUICK TIPS 1 Analogue-style drum sounds are easy to synthesise with VAs. To create a kick, set up a tight envelope (min attack, short-med decay, min sustain and medium release), then use this to modulate a sine or triangle’s pitch. For a snare, pitch that same sound up, then mix in splashy white noise. Use tight-decaying noise for closed hi-hats. 2 Similarly, if your bass or lead needs more attack, use a very tight envelope to modulate pitch for a punchy bump at the start of each note. Also, try using a tight envelope to modulate a noise oscillator’s amplitude to blend a tiny fizzy click on the nose of each note. 3 Create classic sci-fi effects with an LFO, to wobble pitch and cutoff simultaneously. For trippiness, automate the…

Interview | Current Value Current Value The neuro master teaches us how to transcend to another level, and talks through the literal ups, downs, ins and outs of his new live show. James Russell finds out first-hand how he does it, and more importantly, how he does so much of it © Wosniak From his Berlin and Warsaw bases, Tim Eliot has won plaudits from drum & bass insiders and neuro VIPs. Whether dabbling in modular with pal Dean Rodell as Machine Code or taking it on the road with his latest audio/visual project, Eliot has always been one to push the boundaries, and after 20 years in the game, that’s a lot of pushing! “Nothing would bore me more than going back to what people expected me to be…

Moog Model D for iOS Moog Model D for iOS $14.99 The quintessential analogue synth gets an official iOS recreation. Si Truss takes it for a test drive… The Minimoog Model D is probably the most recognisable synth of all time. Design-wise, its wood-panelled case and three-oscillator architecture make it the quintessential example of a vintage subtractive synthesiser. Sonically too, its meaty bass and piercing leads provided some of the most memorable synth lines of the ’70s and ’80s. Its ubiquity means that it’s also one of the most commonly emulated synths: most producers probably already have some form of Minimoog-inspired plugin in their arsenal, whether it’s NI’s Monark, Arturia’s Mini V, u-he Diva or some other virtual Model D. Now Moog add an official offering to this pantheon. It…

Modal CRAFTrhythm Modal CRAFTrhythm £95 Modal offer up a compact sample-based drum machine that you build yourself. Si Truss pieces it together… The CraftRhythm is a compact digital drum machine from Bristol-based Modal electronics. It follows on from the company’s CraftSynth, which arrived back in 2016. Like its predecessor, the Rhythm comes in the form of a flat-packed, snap-together kit that, once assembled, forms a small, lightweight instrument shaped a bit like a miniature mixing desk. Assembly is easy – simply slide the parts together and use the supplied connectors to join the electronic components together. The connectors are what hold the Rhythm together. They feel sturdy enough once installed, but since there are considerably more connections to make along the left hand side than the right, the completed instrument…

ARTURIA AND MIDI CONTROL Arturia have come up with a very simple and elegant way to MIDI-control their plugs from a controller, and the filters are no exception. You simply click on the MIDI icon on the far right of the toolbar and then all assignable controls are coloured purple. Then it is a simple matter of clicking on the required knob or button, and either moving a knob or clicking a switch on your controller, and it’s assigned. For continuous controls, there are an extra set of parameters you can adjust which come in the form of a minimum/maximum slider. Leave them at 0% and 100% if you want to adjust them over their full range or set a defined range. This is an excellent way of building up…

SEQUENCING THE FILTERS Each filter has a different method for modulating, sequencing and re-triggering. The M-12 has three envelope generators, each a mix of envelope, 16-point step sequencer and LFO, and can be looped or triggered/ re-triggered by incoming audio. The SEM has a 16-step gate sequencer with separate channels for Envelope and LFO, ie, you can define when the envelope triggers, independently of re-setting the LFO phase. You then assign envelope and LFO to parameters and get anything from a simple note on envelope and LFO trigger to a complex step sequence. The Mini-Filter has the simplest sequencing option with an eight-step sequencer. Each step is either off (at 0) or continuously variable in the positive or negative and then there are continuous controllers for Filter Cutoff, Emphasis and…

THERE ARE NO RULES! “How boring would music be, or food, fashion, movies, art, anything if everything goes by the same rules? There are hundreds of great tutorials and books to read up on production or writing music. The most valuable advice I believe, is to encourage everyone to free their minds, because then the beat will follow. “I once was engaged in a production of an album by a well known DJ in Berlin. Since he spins records in clubs worldwide he constantly showed me the Top Ten Beatport Tracks and wanted this and that to be incorporated into his music because it obviously sells and works. I tried really hard but it just did not work. Saying that, I have styled myself after many musical styles over the…

ALBUM OF THE MONTH DJ Koze Knock Knock Pampa Records Stefan Kozalla – aka DJ Koze – is one of techno’s most innovative artists. With Knock Knock, the wonderfully capricious German releases his first album in five years and it’s perhaps his most otherworldly and unique yet. Everything he does on the record arrives in a form you just don’t expect. Sounds you think you know are morphed and distorted, genres are fused together and arrangements are wild and beautifully unpredictable. Like 2013’s Amygdala, Knock Knock has a kaleidoscopic aesthetic, exploring disparate avenues with both a sense of adventure and fun. That is what sets this album part – its ability to be off-kilter, but at the same time, a euphoric experience. Koze’s idiosyncratic style sees him explore disco, soul,…

RECOMMENDED Jon Hopkins Singularity Domino © Steve Gullick Five years on from his hugely impressive, much-loved album, Immunity, British producer Jon Hopkins returns with his magnificent follow-up, Singularity. The record has a diverse, expansive soundscape that explores wide-ranging influences with confidence. Channelling the producer’s experiences of meditation and trance states, Singularity is one entire journey that ebbs and flows, while locked into a cosmic aesthetic that allows strong emotions to cascade throughout. From rugged techno to melodic instrumentation and onto transcendent choral music, spaced-out ambient and industrial sounds, Singularity feels like an exploration of worlds not yet discovered. Densely layered with grainy textures, crackling, white noise and reverb, the album has a drifting quality, even when floor-shaking beats are crunching through its spine. Warm, lilting synths, stretched-out pads and emotive…

Programming four-to-the-floor flavours Each subgenre of house and techno adheres to different drum programming rules. Here’s how to lay down six different 4/4 grooves A solid house beat is fairly basic: a bass drum on every beat of the bar, a clap on beats 2 and 4, and an open-hi-hat on the offbeat between each kick. Stick mainly to an electronic palette – drum machine TR-808 and TR-909 sounds are the norm. Jackin’, NY-style house retains this minimalist style of programming, but ghost-snare hits are sparsely dropped on even 16th-notes. Displacing these later will disrupt the solid kick-clap-hat foundation to emphasise the swung groove for the dancefloor. Funkier house styles are slower (around 120bpm), with even more swing. To emphasise this, sprinkle the kick-clap-hat core with plenty more ghost snares,…

QUICK TIPS > As a general rule, the ‘lighter’ or timbrally thinner your snare or clap is, the more ‘skip’ and groove will be injected into your beat. Contrast a smashy, bashy dancefoor DnB snare against a jungle-style groove driven by a tinny snare, and you’ll get what we mean. > Come up with interesting ‘startstop’ hi-hat grooves by filling up all the 16th-notes within a bar, then removing some of those notes until you find an interesting rhythmic pattern that interplays nicely with the rest of the music you have. > To give your beat supreme groove from the start, focus on laying down your main kick and snare – throw in interesting ghost skips that can then be built upon by the hi-hat. Or, start with a hat…

FIVE TIPS FOR DISPLACING AND HUMANISING PROGRAMMED DRUMS Moving drum hits slightly off the grid can greatly humanise electronic beats. Here are half a dozen ways to go off the grid and advance your sequenced drums beyond the basics All about timing (values) 1 Although it’s a shortcut, you can always test timing values by using your DAW’s track delay to push or pull an entire drum part earlier or later in time, providing your drum sounds are split across separate tracks. This can give you an instant indicator of how your groove will respond to particular elements being shifted. Flam-boyance 2 Turn off your quantise grid, duplicate one of your main notes, then place a very short, low-velocity copy of that note just before the main hit, so it…

THE TRACK Riton & Kah-Lo Fake ID Riton Time, 2017 © Joe Branston Riton, AKA Henry Smithson, is what one might describe as a purveyor of ‘proper’ house music – his pedigree includes releases on renowned labels including Grand Central and Ed Banger – but despite keeping true to his classic roots he’s managed to score a number of crossover hits with tracks such as Rinse & RepeatandMoneywith Nigerian vocalist Kah-Lo.FMtook a trip to Riton’s North London studio to find out how Henry created the pair’s latest collab Fake ID, and learn more about his unique approach to production. What inspired Fake ID? “Watching the movie Superbad! That gave us the idea for the lyrics, so we just decided to make a fun track about going out drinking and what…

PRODUCER’S GUIDE Software Modular Pandora’s box is open wider than ever. If you’ve ever wanted to get into the world of modular synthesis but have been prevented by real-world obstacles like money, tight studio quarters, or lack of knowledge, these days the barrier is lower than ever due to a growing number of in-the-box options that give you the same flexibility and malleability of a real modular. And even if you’re an experienced Eurorack user, there are still a few advantages to expanding your system inside your CPU. While we took a look at the near-infinite patching possibilities of Native Instruments’ updated Reaktor 6, and with it, the new Blocks Modules, back in 2015, this month we’ll be looking at how Blocks compares with two other pieces of kit that…

SPEAK EASY Learn the language CV Understanding the language of modular is essential to getting the most out of all these modules, both in the analogue world and its digital counterpart. In the world of hardware, control voltage (or CV) is simply a varying voltage amount, typically based on which key on a keyboard is pressed down (ie pitch). CV can also come from an envelope or an LFO. GATE Gate refers to the timing of an on/off switch, usually from a square wave. This timing interval can be sent to (or received from) sequencers, envelopes, or anything else inside your modular that can be sent clock information. Gate combined with CV specifies at what pitch and for how long a note should sound out.…

In The Studio With | Jack Patterson Jack Patterson Chart-topping, classically-infused electronic act Clean Bandit’s singles have racked up billions of views online. Danny Turner met up with the band’s resident production guru, Jack Patterson, to find out the winning formula © Will Ireland Initially a quartet, formed at the University of Cambridge and now comprising brothers Jack and Luke Patterson and vocalist Grace Chatto, Clean Bandit have become one of the biggest-selling electronic pop bands on the planet. Released in 2012, their debut single A+E scraped the top 100, before the trio cracked the top 20 with Mozart’s House the following year. Marrying orchestral elements with elegant pop melodies and dancefloorfriendly beats, the band’s fourth single, the Grammy Award-winning Rather Be (featuring Jess Glynne), was a global worldwide smash,…

TOOLKIT Virtual Analogue Brush up on your synthesis skills with our guide to software virtual analogue synthesis It’s easy to forget about the humble origins of synthetic sound generation. The old-fashioned subtractive method is the sound designer’s staple; the foundation of all synthesis that has defined how we interact with electronic instruments to this day. Early analogue synths used a method called subtractive synthesis, and digital instruments (hardware or software) that digitally emulate this approach are referred to as virtual analogue (or VA) synths. It’s the perfect place for a novice to start, as even the more advanced synths generally adhere to this basic tone-into-filter topology in some way. With a fairly restricted number of sound-generating and -shaping features, a typical VA synth only offers a limited palette of sounds…

FM CHOICE Six virtual analogue synths to add to your studio arsenal u-he Diva | £141 The daddy of VA softsynths, Diva’s mix-and-match oscillator/s and filter/s can be switched between Moog, Juno, Jupiter and Korg options. It’s number 1 for a reason, folks. LennarDigital Sylenth1 | €139 DJ Carnage’s favourite VA software synth hasn’t changed for years, but it’s still as popular as it’s ever been thanks to its flexible detuning options, meaty filter and ease of use. Synapse Audio The Legend | €99 Like other iconic Minimoog-modelled softsynths such as NI’s Monark and Arturia’s Mini-V, this bundles Bob’s classic sound with modern features like extra polyphony and unison. Korg ARP Odyssey | $100 The most recent addition to Korg’s classic virtual replica range, their ARP Odyssey clone has all…

THE ALTERNATIVES DSI Tempest £1755 Another ridiculously powerful machine, housing a six-voice DCO polysynth paired with a powerful Roger Linn sequencing engine. Very hands on and makes great drum/ synth sounds. www.davesmithinstruments.com Akai MPC-X £1849 This touchscreen sampler has 16 Q-link dials for real-time tweaking and can record audio tracks directly. It also samples in stereo and triggers clips (Ableton-style). Includes/pairs with Akai’s MPC. www.akaipro.com Roland TR-8S £609 The upgrade’s here, with individual analogue outputs, user sample upload, improved ACB engine, motion recording, per-pattern variations and more. www.roland.com…

AKG C636 microphone AKG C636 £399 Can AKG’s C636 condenser vocal mic live up to the title ‘Master Reference’ it carries? Robbie Stamp finds out As a condenser mic, the C636 is inherently more complex than its dynamic siblings, a complexity that comes at a cost in both R&D and production. Issues with feedback rejection and handling noise have to be balanced against tradeoffs in sound quality. Behind the simple black exterior and lightness in hand, the C636 boasts serious design chops to give it the ‘Master Reference’ moniker, but is it deserved? In short, yes. The sound is clear and full, far more linear and ‘real’ than its dynamic mic counterparts. The high frequency range is present and well defined, without the harsh hype and phase-shift peakiness that some…

Adam Audio S2V Adam S2V Monitors £3,072 per pair Adam can usually do no wrong but can this premium monitor justify its price tag? Jon Musgrave hooks ’em up The S Series is Adam’s flagship monitor range and it’s recently received a major overhaul. For review I have the S2V, and this is the smallest in the range. It’s built around a newly developed 7” woofer with Adam’s latest S-ART ribbon handling tweeter duties. Onboard amplification is a combination of Class D (woofer) and Class A/B (tweeter) and the crossover, volume, time delay and EQ settings are handled by onboard DSP, accessed via a menu driven OLED on the back. Here you’ll also find an analogue input via XLR, a pair of AES3 digital connectors (you can daisy chain two…

Reviews | Arturia 3 You’ll Actually Use plugins Arturia 3 You’ll Actually Use plugins from €199 Two packs of emulations touching on some the most sought-after equipment on the planet. Stuart Bruce digs in rturia have a A well-earned rep for making incredibly accurate emulations of classic analogue and digital synths using their TAE (True Analogue Emulation) technology. With their 3 Filters You’ll Actually Use pack, they’ve taken already-proven filter sets from three of their V collection synths and turned them into plugins so you can use them on any sound. With 3 Preamps You’ll Actually Use, they’ve used that technology to emulate three classic mic pres and their associated EQs. The 3 Preamps package is based on the Neve 1073, the Trident A range and the Telefunken V76. Each…

THE ALTERNATIVES Waves Console emulations From $199 Excellent-sounding plugs which, like the 3 Filters, emulate the mic pre and EQ of some classic consoles, the Helios, the transistor EMI TG12345 and the Neve 1073 www.waves.com UAD Moog Multimode Filter £189 A powerful emulation of several Moog filters in one, with a great step sequencer. Covers a wide range of moog filters and has dual LFOs; plus, the step sequencer has separate channels for Filter Cutoff, Resonance, Drive and Volume www.uaudio.com Slate Digital Virtual Preamp collection $149 Like the original Neve 1073 and the Telefunken V76, these emulations are big and warm and they both go “hot” in a very satisfying way www.slatedigital.com…

SOUNDS & SAMPLES UVI Augmented Piano €149 Just over a year on from their IRCAM Prepared Piano, UVI introduce Augmented Piano, a 1909 Pleyel tweaked with a range of preparations and alternate playing styles. Unlike its forebear however – and except for one pre-mapped configuration – Augmented Piano features only one or two preparations (spanning the whole keyboard) for each preset. Presets are divided into groups determined by the preparation they employ. This usually includes a default setting and a range of more elaborate variants. There are 24 preparations in total, including a very playable Normal version. The others span customisations to the hammers and how the strings are set in motion, alongside mutes and various interrupters to the normal mechanics of the piano. Mixed preparations allow you to combine…

ADVICE What is zero-latency monitoring? > If you’ve ever experienced a slight delay between triggering a sound in your DAW and hearing it come out of your speakers or headphones, you’ve encountered latency. As computers have got more powerful over the years it’s become less of a problem – you can now play virtual instruments with pretty much no delay, for example – but there are times when it can still be an issue. The most common example is when you’re trying to overdub a live instrument or vocal recording on top of one or more tracks that you’ve already recorded. Typically, you’ll be wearing headphones when you do this and listening back to a DAW mix of your existing tracks and the new recording, but if there’s any kind…