Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2021 i Future Music

WELCOME Different drum Inspired by this month’s cover feature, I’ve ended up going down something of a rabbit hole of percussion synthesis. In fact, to be more specific I’ve become borderline obsessed with misusing synths – trying to use drum synths to create melodies and basslines, and using melodically-minded instruments to churn out drum hits. Why? That’s a good question, that I don’t really have an answer for. But it does get to the heart of what I love about making music with hardware – the process of really getting to grips with a specific machine, learning its capabilities and limitations and seeing how far you can push it. I’ve also spent far too long working out how to recreate the opening drum groove to Sexual Healing by ear, before…

LIKE IT? TRY THESE… Steve Bug Never Ending Winding Roads Steve’s lockdown LP tackles themes of isolation that should resonate with everyone climbing the walls out there. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Ludic Loops, Locked Away In My Head, Upon Mountains Mr Scruff Keep It Unreal Bug’s album closer, Cheesy Krust, has a whiff of ‘Scruffian’ downbeat kookiness to it. See if you agree. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Spandex Man, Blackpool Roll, Fish DJ Assault Straight Up Detroit Shit Vol 4 Detroit electro is cited as a big influence on Steve’s track, Spray. For a crash course in that flavour, hit up this OG DJ’s megamix. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Aux 88 – Direct Drive, Freak Nasty – Down Low, DJ Assault – Madatcha The Rub Hip-Hop History…

Feature Battle of the beatmakers There’s never been a better time to dive into hardware beat-making. This issue, we put eight of the finest drum machines and percussion synths head-to-head to crown the king of the beat The evolution of hardware drum machines has played a vital role in shaping electronic music as we know it today. They’ve provided the literal pulse of numerous genres, forming the robotic beats behind Kraftwerk’s early electronic pop experiments, driving the synthesised funk of classic house and techno, and providing the bass-heavy kicks and metallic hi-hat trills that define the sound of modern rap. Various styles of drum machine have come in and out of fashion over the years. The earliest designs were simplistic and limited, often designed to replace a real drummer in…

In The Studio With Clark The production process behind Chris Clark’s entry into soundtrack has increasingly filtered into his solo work. Danny Turner discusses the making of his ambitious new album Playground in a Lake © Eva Vermandel For the first 15 years or so of his career, electronic purist Chris Clark enveloped himself in tech, driving the experimental needle on IDM releases like Clarence Park (2001), Body Riddle (2006) and the pounding techno album Turning Dragon (2008). Yet Clark has become increasingly drawn to the world of scoring, most recently the TV mini-series The Last Panthers and psychological horror flick Daniel Isn’t Real. Having widened his parameters, new working processes have bled into solo albums such as Kiri Variations (2019) and his latest long player Playground in a Lake.…

Making Kaeya’s musical elements in Cubase Gavin creates throwback rave vibes with some contemporary plugins and processing techniques 01 > The main stab sound in Kaeya comes from Loopmasters’ Khords ROMpler plugin, specifically the ‘Pike’ preset. The filter Cutoff and Resonance parameters are automated to gradually increase the sound’s intensity over the course of the track, dropping back down again at the start of each section. 02 > The vocals are a sample that was originally at house tempo which are already close to the Rage Mix of Kaeya’s 127BPM tempo. “For the DnB mix and 155BPM mix I had to do a lot of timestretching,” Gavin notes. Gavin boosts the mid-range and top of the vocal with EQ, and slathers them with delay. 03 >…

Reviews | Ableton Live 11 Suite Ableton Live 11 Suite £539 The immensely popular DAW enters its eleventh chapter with an array of new features. Tim Cant goes Live CONTACT WHO: Ableton WEB: ableton.com KEY FEATURES Comping and track linking, MIDI Polyphonic Expression, audio tempo following for live performance, new randomisation features, enhanced macro controls, beefed-up follow action functionality, more instruments and effects, enhanced CPU performance monitoring, MIDI scale modes Ableton has a long-held tradition of incrementally improving its software rather than radically altering it. Live 11, in that vein, features a large number of changes and improvements. These can be broadly split into three categories: enhanced tracking capabilities, new tools that will be primarily useful in a live performance context, and upgrades to Live’s existing sound generation, processing and sequencing…

MPE? YEAH YOU KNOW ME! Live now features support for MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) for more nuanced control over compatible instruments. MPE makes it possible to pitchbend individual notes, plus there are now individual Slide and Pressure parameters for use as modulation sources with discrete values for each note. MPE also features release velocity, which works much like the familiar ‘attack’ velocity, but applied to the end of notes. MPE can be used without a compatible hardware controller, and can be programmed directly into the new Expressions tab next to the Notes and Envelopes tabs in the MIDI clip editor. It also makes polyphonic aftertouch available on Live’s Push devices.…

Reviews | Focusrite FAST Series plugins Focusrite FAST Series plugins From £5.99/month Focusrite meets Sonible for these new ‘smart’ mixing tools. Si Truss takes a spin… CONTACT WHO: Focusrite WEB: collective.focusrite.com KEY FEATURES PLUGINS: FAST Equaliser, FAST Compressor, FAST Reveal. PRICING: Each plugin is available individually on a rent-to-own model. £5.99 per month for 15 months UK interface dons Focusrite first announced their partnership with Austrian plugin developer Sonible back in 2019, and last summer released a co-branded freebie in the form of auto-EQ plugin Balancer. We’re now seeing the true fruits of the collaboration with the launch of Focusrite’s new software hub, The Collective, and a trio of Sonible-powered FAST plugins. The three plugins inaugurating the range are FAST Equaliser, FAST Compressor and FAST Reveal. As with Balancer last year,…

Reviews | Akai MPC 2.9 Air Drumsynth Akai MPC 2.9 Air Drumsynth Free The ever-expanding MPC range now comes with a native drum synth. Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman gets tapping… CONTACT WHO: Akai WEB: akaipro.com KEY FEATURES Single drum synth plugins include modelled kick, snare, clap, hi-hat, crash, ride, tom and percussion. All plugins also available across the pads as one multi-plugin. Dedicated effects include delay, diffuser and reverb send effects. Other shaping effects include transient shaper, compressor and distortion. Dedicated Drumsynth mixer also included Hats off to Akai for releasing this as a free update Akai’s MPC software is now a hugely powerful ecosystem, working both as standalone software in its own right and also powering the hardware MPC range including the One, Live/ Live II, X (and Force). Since its…

IN THE ARCHIVE – UPDATED! FM’s Sample Archive gives you over 18GB of carefully-curated, royalty-free sounds to use in your music. Here’s what’s inside... AMBIENT SOUNDS PT.1 > ’90s Ambient (562 samples) > Ambient Dawn (490 samples) AMBIENT SOUNDS PT.2 > Majestic Bells & Mallets (444 samples) > Spring Reverb & Tape Delay (533 samples) ATMOSPHERES & BACKGROUNDS > Atmospheric Beds (369 samples) > Noise, Crackle & Hiss (512 samples) > Sounds of the City (371 samples) CLASSIC SYNTHS PT.1 > Analogue Polys (625 samples) > SH Collection (500 samples) CLASSIC SYNTHS PT.2 > Analogue Poly Chord Hits (342 samples) > Classic Synths: ’80s, ’90s, ’00s (678 samples) > Hardware Arps (511 samples) CREATIVE DRUMS > Cyborg Beats (514 samples) > Lo-Fi Sampling (555 samples) > Obscure Drum Machines (517…

TRUST YOUR EARS! “Especially in the beginning it’s so important to create a unique sound, rather than ‘going pro’. All you need is in a laptop nowadays, and even by using plugins ‘the wrong way’, you can get to the most amazing results. Everything is allowed. A good example is my vocal sound – I didn’t really know how to use a compressor when I started, so in my vocal chain I put a really long reverb before a compressor that reduced around 20dB. That’s obviously not the right way to do it, but it made the reverb only come up whenever I stopped singing, and the result was a really washy and dreamy vocal sound.” Use a lot of different reverbs “Try adding a couple of interesting, weirder reverbs.…

Know your beatmakers Our competing drum machines use a variety of sound engines. But what’s the difference? The real answer here is sound engines – ie the approach each uses to create audio. Broadly these can be divided into a few categories – analogue, sample and FM. Drum machines often combine several of these approaches, using samples for some sounds and analogue synthesis for others or, as with the Analog Rytm, letting users layer them together. What’s the benefits to each? Let’s see...…

CHRIS’S ESSENTIAL GEAR Avalon AD2055 EQ “I don’t think I’ve ever used the bass on it. I sometimes filter stuff with a high notch going directly in with a mic input, like a posh wah wah pedal for people who should really know better.” TLA Ivory 5013 EQ “Sounds amazing on the Cat. I think I made Winter Linn with that combo.” Sennheiser MKH 8070 long shotgun mic “I like pointing this out the window and recording people. I have Ableton automating through different intervals and formants so they sound high on acid, then layer up the recordings and use them on my albums – barely audible but captured nevertheless.” Roland RE-501 Chorus Echo Moog Moogerfooger MF-108M Cluster Flux Zoom Studio 1201 Reverb and Effects “I’ve had this since Clarence…

Eurorack and modular | Reviews ALM Busy Circuits Akemie’s Taiko £265 > ALM have a number of modules in their catalogue that have become must-have items for Eurorack enthusiasts. Pamela’s New Workout and Squid Salmple are two such modules but the ethos of great sound, intuitive design and fun carry through to many others in the range too. Akemie’s Castle is a big hit for fans of FM synthesis, so why not look at Akemie’s Taiko? Taiko is an FM drum voice that fulfills that function with aplomb but it’s a whole lot more, as we’ll find out… The module itself is standard ALM fare, with crisp, clean graphics that make reading the logical labels easy, even in dim lighting. I’m a fan of the high contrast black and white…

Reviews | Aston Microphones Element Aston Element £159 Marketed as “the people’s mic”, Aston say their latest mic has undergone exhaustive public testing. But what does reviewer Rob Redman think? CONTACT WHO: Aston Microphones WEB: astonmics.com KEY FEATURES Cardioid pattern, Magnetic clip on pop shield and shockmount, Phantom power needed The Element can hold its own against popular options like Shure’s SM7B I’ll start this review with the conclusion that the Element is a total success, that easily outperforms microphones that cost double and even triple the price. There, I’ve said it. There will be mic elitists out there who doubt the capabilities of such an accessible tool and while they are correct that a high end valve mic may produce slightly more pleasing results, the differences will be obvious to…

Reviews | Output Frontier Output Frontier £1,259 Audio company Output have shifted their attention to studio monitors. Jon Musgrave explores their new Frontier CONTACT WHO: Output WEB: output.com KEY FEATURES FREQ RESPONSE: 45Hz to 25kHz CROSSOVER FREQ: 3kHz AMP POWER:100W (LF) + 100W (HF) INPUT IMPEDANCE: 20K Ohms INPUT SENSITIVITY: 87dB @ 1m @ -15dBv POWER: 265W max DRIVERS: Bespoke coaxial aluminium Output’s eclectic product line includes plugin effects, plugin instruments, studio furniture, and with their latest addition, monitors. However, rather than develop these entirely themselves they’ve teamed up with premium monitor company Barefoot Sound. The result, Frontier, is a professional level monitor with a more modest price tag, and is designed to fit perfectly into the Output ecosystem. Much like other Output products, it’s also sold and shipped to you…

Filter | The Future Of Music FM| FILTER Novation’s Circuit Tracks: the best value hardware on the market? The excellent Circuit groovebox gets an update, packing in a hell of a lot of power for the price Since its launch in 2015, Novation’s synth-and-sample groovebox, Circuit, has grown from an already impressive compact instrument into one of the most versatile devices about. When it first arrived it was already powerful, with two digital polysynths and a four-track sampled drum machine onboard, but subsequent firmware updates have doubled down on the flexibility and then some, adding user sample-upload, a full desktop editor for the synths and advanced sequencing tools like micro-timing. Now Novation have launched Circuit Tracks which – despite the new name – is essentially a straight sequel to the…

CLASSIC ALBUM Words by Roy Spencer Steve Bug The Other Day © Robert Schlesinger Poker Flat Recordings, 2000 Steve Bugg’s third album, was definitely a tale of two cities. Work began in Hamburg, where he was living at the time, before he took the plunge and relocated to the dark lights of Berlin. “Tracks like Loverboy and Soulin’ Deep were done before the move,” he says. “They have more of that deep house Hamburg kinda vibe. But, when I got to Berlin, I got more into being techy and minimal and much more experimental.” Digging deep into the underground scenes of the German capital, Bug’s music started to soak up a new kind of atmosphere. “Before, I was making this classic, soulful and jazzy stuff,” he says. “Hamburg was clean,…

ALBUM REVIEWS Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & the London Symphony Orchestra Promises Luaka Bop An unexpected collaboration between visionary artists is always an exciting thing, but when those artists are London dance music trailblazer, Floating Points, legendary spiritual jazz saxophonist, Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra, you know you’ll be taken to some wonderful, mysterious places. Promises, their single 46-minute track does not disappoint. Considering that it was in the making for over five years and that Floating Points once played Pharoah’s Harvest Time album in its entirety during a set in Berlin’s Berghain, it’s perhaps not as unexpected as I first made out. A beautiful, slowly evolving and emotive piece that draws on electronic, jazz and classical music without ever landing firmly on either. The record has a…

THE TRACK Nookie Kaeya (Rage Mix) Metalheadz, 2021 VIDEO ON FILESILO A true stalwart of UK dance music, Gavin Cheung’s discography as Nookie, Cloud 9, and many other pseudonyms includes rave anthems such as Gonna Be Alright (Remix), Give A Little Love and Shining In Da Darkness, releases on the cream of foundational DnB labels such as Moving Shadow, Reinforced and Good Looking, and collaborations with talents as diverse as Larry Heard, Robbie Craig and Ray Keith. Most recently he’s remixed Goldie’s Inner City Life under his techno nom de plume Binary State, and released Kaeya on Metalheadz, a track with three versions representing contemporary DnB, ‘golden age’ mid-’90s atmospheric DnB, and ’91 era hardcore. The latter is named the Rage Mix, after Fabio and Grooverider’s seminal club night. We…

THE PRODUCER’S GUIDE TO… Building a studio desk The desk is the heart of any studio, so make it your own with this guide from musician, producer, guitar builder and beard grower Rob Redman If there was one thing that has been high on many people’s minds this past year, it’s the state of our home working environments. Even if you don’t work from home for your day job, having a space to follow your passions has, by necessity, become a much coveted thing, reaping rewards for those lucky enough to have one. With that in mind, maybe now is the time to turn your attention to your musical working area, redesigning an existing space and workflow, or starting one for the first time. Many people make do with a…

THE ALTERNATIVES Bitwig Studio €379 Live’s closest rival is a DAW with a similar interface, plus powerful audio and modulation routing capabilities. It also includes The Grid, a supremely powerful modular environment for creating your own effects, instruments and more. bitwig.com Cubase Pro 11 £499 The original MPE DAW, this has been around since the late ’80s yet remains on the cutting edge of music production. For advanced MIDI and audio editing it’s hard to beat, though it doesn’t offer the performance capabilities of Live. steinberg.net Logic Pro X £200 Only available for Mac and its workflow isn’t as streamlined as Live’s, but it does offer features ideal for live performers. apple.com…

Reviews | M-Audio BX series M-Audio BX3 and BX4 from £85 Need some compact monitors for your set up? Jon Musgrave sizes up two new offerings from M-Audio CONTACT WHO: M-Audio WEB: m-audio.com KEY FEATURES BX3: 3.5” Kevlar LF, 1” silk dome HF, 120-Watt total peak power FREQUENCY RESPONSE: 80Hz–22kHz DIMENSIONS: 140 x 145 x 208mm BX4: 4.5” Kevlar LF, 1” silk dome HF, 120-Watt total peak power FREQUENCY RESPONSE: 69Hz – 22kHz DIMENSIONS: 156 x 175 x 225mm PRICING: BX3 £85, BX4 £100 M-Audio’s long established BX powered monitor range is aimed at project and home users, and the latest designs are their most compact yet. Built around 3.5” (BX3) and 4.5” (BX4) Kevlar LF drivers and the same 1” silk dome tweeter, the BX3 and BX4 have identical features…

Reviews | CME WIDI Master CME WIDI Master $59 Fancy wireless operation between your old MIDI gear? Jon Musgrave pairs up with this new wireless MIDI system CONTACT WHO: CME WEB: cme-pro.com KEY FEATURES TECHNOLOGY: Bluetooth 4 or 5, MIDI over Bluetooth LE compliant CONNECTOR UNITS: Main and Sub both with 5-pin DIN MIDI plugs LATENCY: minimum 3ms RANGE: maximum 20m POWER CONSUMPTION: 3mW DIMENSIONS: Main – 21 x 49 x 21mm Sub – 18 x 24 x 18mm, WEIGHT: Main – 12g, Sub – 11g The WIDI Master is a new MIDI-over-Bluetooth-wireless system from CME and one of three different wireless MIDI systems they’ve been developing. Designed for hooking up devices with traditional 5-pin DIN MIDI connections, WIDI Master can communicate directly with Bluetooth LE-equipped devices such as smartphones, tablets,…