Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2021 i Future Music

WELCOME Digital love It’s interesting how trends work in electronic music. I remember almost exactly 10 years ago, getting my hands on a Korg Monotribe for the first time, and the excitement that came with having a genuine analogue instrument priced at a mass market level. Obviously in the years that followed, affordable analogue blew up – if you want VCOs on a budget there are countless directions you could go. Now here we are in 2021, and the synths that are exciting us most (on the whole) are those that break away from the analogue orthodoxy and embrace the power of DSP. Casein-point, this issue’s cover star and lead review – Korg’s Modwave – which joins the excellent Wavestate and Opsix amongst our list of must-try digital synths. That’s…

FILTER Music Erica Synths and Sonic Potions have cooked up the LXR-02 Digital drum synth combines subtractive and FM sounds, plus a host of sequencing tricks Sonic Potions and Erica Synths are set to release the LXR-02 drum machine, a complex standalone drum synth with a powerful integrated sequencer, which is an evolution of the former company’s original LXR. There are six digital drum voices. Three are multi-purpose, and there’s also a dedicated subtractive clap/ snare voice, an FM percussion voice, and a hi-hat voice. Each can be shaped using modulatable parameters for the oscillator, amp envelope, frequency modulation, transient generator, filter and variable waveform assignable LFO. This gives you plenty of scope to design your rhythmic sounds, but the beating heart of the LXR-02 is the sequencer. This offers…

Pro Tools now has M1 Mac support, and lets you create bigger projects than ever > Avid have released Pro Tools 2021.6, a summer update for the DAW that brings the Hybrid Engine to HDX systems, adds support for M1 Macs and offers more I/O, tracks and voices. The Hybrid Engine was launched alongside the Pro Tools | Carbon audio interface, and has now been brought to Pro Tools HDX systems. It’s designed to let you switch between native and DSP processing on a track-by-track basis, giving you a best-of-both worlds approach and the ability to run bigger sessions more smoothly. In fact, Pro Tools | Ultimate now supports 2,048 voices and audio tracks at all sample rates, from 128 to 28kHz. That’s five times more than the previous version.…

KV331 Audio bring full fat SynthMaster 2, one of the best VST plugin synths, to the iPad > Having previously brought their SynthMaster One and SynthMaster Player plugins to iOS, KV331 Audio have now ported the full-on SynthMaster 2, the developer’s flagship instrument, to the iPad. Widely acclaimed as one of the best VST plugin synths you can buy, this iOS version is the first to be developed using KV331’s new cross-platform UI framework, and runs both standalone and as AUv3 plugin. As in the desktop version, the oscillators can operate in four modes: Basic, Additive, Wavetable and Vector. There are also modulators, which can be added to other oscillators or modulate other oscillators’ or modulators’ phases. Other features include wave file import, filters, a comprehensive modulation section, an arp/sequencer…

The ultimate guide to digital synthesis What is additive synthesis? Unlike subtractive synthesis – ie, that found on most analogue synths, where you start with a harmonically rich waveform and remove frequencies using filters – additive synthesis builds from the ground up. It uses Fast Fourier Transform theory, which says that any audio signal, no matter how complex, can break down to a series of sine waves; you can recreate any waveform with the right combo of sine ‘building blocks’. Pile up sine waves (ie, harmonics) at related harmonic integers at different amplitudes, and you get familiar waveforms. For example, start with a simple 100Hz sine as the fundamental frequency, then stack up more sine waves at odd-integer harmonic intervals from the fundamental (ie, one at 300Hz, another at 500Hz)…

The ultimate guide to digital synthesis What is granular synthesis? Like wavetable synthesis, granular has samples at its heart. Granular synthesis is, broadly, the opposite of wavetable synthesis though – where a wavetable synth builds on the capabilities of a sampler by stacking multiple waveforms and morphing between them, granular synthesis breaks a sample into pieces, creating additional scope from a sampled sound by dividing it, not multiplying. It uses the same principle used to power the timestretching capabilities found in most DAWs by looping miniscule elements of an audio file, known as grains, allowing each to be sustained without altering the pitch. What granular and wavetable synthesis have in common though is that both come to life with a little modulation and variation. In the case of granular synthesis,…

The ultimate guide to digital synthesis The hybrid approach Although, in this feature, we’ve been discussing different synthesis types as distinct from one another, in reality it’s rare to find a digital synth in 2021 that doesn’t blend multiple approaches to some extent. In the plugin sphere, modern ‘power synths’ tend to offer a variety of engine types as standard. Look at Arturia Pigments, Kilohearts Phase Plant, Apple Alchemy, UVI Falcon or Spectrasonics Omnisphere, to name but a few; all are capable of using at least two or three of the different techniques highlighted in this feature, and allow users to combine and blend approaches for even more sonic variety. In hardware too, even instruments that focus primarily on one type of synthesis, such as the Digitone, Opsix or Wavestate,…

RETROSPECTIVE Dancehall We investigate how Jamaica’s dancehall became an important part of modern pop and hip-hop © Matthew Wakem / Alamy Stock Photo Since the 1960s, Jamaican music has consistently punched above its weight on a global scale. From ska to reggae, dub and beyond, the Caribbean island nation with a population of less than three million people has influenced the world. Much like the evolution of dub from reggae, dancehall began as an offshoot of the dominant roots reggae sound of the late 1960s and early ’70s. As the name suggests, its origins lay firmly in the dance halls of Jamaica, where reggae evolved into a more party-focussed style that emphasised upbeat musical backings for ‘deejays’ (vocalists) to perform over. On the Jamaican musical spectrum, you could say that…

WORLD IN MOTION Modwave is equipped with a 64-step sequencer labelled ‘Motion Sequencing 2.0’. In a nutshell, this provides individual sequencing lanes for pitch, timing and recorded movements of up to four parameters. As a result, it can be used either like a simple step sequence – by recording patterns live or inputting them offline – or as a more complex polyrhythmic generator, where parameters and timings change independently of sequenced notes. You can set loops and repeats for each lane too, and apply probabilities. There’s a further ‘shape’ lane to the sequencer too, which can sequence envelope-like contours for each step, to then be applied to other sequencer lanes. Like much of Modwave’s design, it has a lot of potential to explore, but can be used more instantaneously too.…

COMPS, NO COMPROMISES While audio comping is nothing new, it’s nicely implemented with a few unique touches that suit Bitwig’s workflow. Comping lives within each clip, meaning it works the same in clip launcher and timeline views, and comped edits can be dragged between the two. The tools and workflow are neatly designed – each audio take is colour coded, and various shortcuts make it easy to select, adjust and move audio events. One nice touch is the Fold To Takes function, an easy way to slice a longer take into equally-sized takes for editing. For editing long hardware jams, this is very handy.…

SOUNDS & SAMPLES UVI – Quadra €149 Most FM reviews for UVI soundware focus on their ever-expanding range of instruments aimed at capturing rare or classic hardware. However, UVI cover a lot of ground - the latest of their products that defies categorisation is Quadra, or ’Quadra – Muted and Harmonics’ to give its full title. As always this comes as an instrument library in their free UVI Workstation software (in standalone and plugin versions) or as an expansion to the Falcon 2 hybrid synth. Quadra, as the name suggests, is based around a 4-part sound engine, and UVI’s description of it as a ‘multi-instrument and sequence designer’ neatly sums up its focus. Each layer is assigned a sound from a comprehensive list of acoustic, electric and synthetic sources –…

Enter the Abyss with Tracktion’s colourful new ‘visual’ synth > There’s always been a strong relationship between sound and colour – music is often described as dark or bright, for example – and now Tracktion Software are offering a very literal exploration of this in the form of the Abyss synth plugin. Offering a workflow that “focuses on the ‘art’ rather than ‘numbers’,” this gives you many of the features you’d associate with standard synths – a filter, envelopes, LFOs and effects, for example – but enables you to build patches using more than 2000 ‘sound colours’. Sounds are created by placing your chosen tints or shades on a central tone gradient, and you get an “arbitrary modulation” system with 13 sources and 23 destinations. More than 130 presets are…

Revelator io24: a USB interface for live streaming, podcasting and recording > It’s a sign of the times that PreSonus has now seen fit to create a USB-C audio interface designed not only for recording, but also live streaming and podcasting. The Revelator io24 offers two XMAX-L mic preamps, along with instrument and line inputs, but that’s not really the story here. The feature that will appeal to live streamers and podcasters is the loopback one – two dedicated stereo loopback channels let you mix the audio from two different applications in with both of the io24’s input channels, ready for streaming and/or recording simultaneously. You’ve also got built-in DSP – there are dedicated presets for guitar and voice, along with effects that enable you to emulate the likes of…

Get creative with | Ableton Live Generate new musical ideas in Ableton Live PROBLEM: Creating new ideas for chords and melodies can be challenging. How do I find new ideas when I’m stuck for inspiration? Sometimes we sit down to make music and ideas immediately start flowing. Other times... nothing. Inspiration can be fickle, especially when it comes to creating new chords and melodies. How can we use Ableton Live 11 to help us come up with new ideas? One way is to use the new Note Chance feature to generate ideas based on a set of input notes and rhythms. We’ll use Live 11’s new Scale feature to create a Clip that’s in a chosen key, then fill that Clip with a random selection of notes. Then, by setting…

ESSENTIAL ADDITIVE SYNTHS Unlike FM or wavetable synthesis, additive synths haven’t yet had much of a resurgence in the hardware realm (although we think it’s about time Kawai’s ’80s classics got a revival). There are plenty of great additive plugins out-there though. In terms of dedicated additive instruments, Native Instruments’ Razor – designed by Berlin producer Errorsmith – is a longtime favourite. Arturia’s Pigments has recently gained a powerful additive engine for version 3 too. What’s more, lots of common software synths have easily-overlooked additive capabilities. Logic’s Alchemy, Ableton Operator and Xfer Serum all have additive engines onboard, so you may well have an additive synthesiser in your arsenal without even realising it!…

THREE GREAT FM SYNTHS Once seen as a relic of ’80s synth design, FM is back in fashion for both hardware and software This setup we’ve described above is essentially that of Yamaha’s DX7 – probably the best known FM synth of all time, and the one that brought the concept to mass market attention. Its 6-operator, 32 algorithm design is essentially the blueprint used as the core of most FM synths today. Modern hardware and software often builds on these ideas though. Common enhancements include the ability to add more operators, change the operator waveshape or even – as in the case of things like Korg Opsix or Kilohearts Phase Plant – use alternative forms of modulation synthesis such as ring mod, phase distortion or wavefolding. The DX7 was…

WHEN TO USE IT… Granular synthesis is one of the most overtly digital approaches out there. In that sense, it excels at the creation of complex, otherworldly sounds that are a world away from the fuzzy warmth of analogue As a sample-focussed approach, granular synthesis is heavily influenced by the source sound used. Most dedicated granular synths will come stocked with an appropriate library of source sounds, but we’d highly recommend exploring your own collection. Vocal samples are a staple source for granular experimentation. Try loading up an acapella (or short recording of your own voice) and experiment with creating droning, choir-like pads. Alternatively, as is a common approach in the modular realm, try using a granular tool to resample and deconstruct another instrument, such as a classic analogue synth…

THREE GREAT WAVETABLE SYNTHS Wavetable synths are now everywhere, in hardware and plugin form For much of the past two decades, the wavetable synth sphere has been dominated by two all-conquering plugins – first Native Instruments Massive, then Xfer Records Serum. Both are a little past their prime now. Massive has been superseded by a follow up, Massive X, while countless imitators and rivals have built on the ideas popularised in Serum in recent years, often offering a more modern look and workflow to boot. There’s still something to be said for these modern classics though. While the interfaces look a little dated, both Massive and Serum are still more than capable of creating a huge range of cutting edge sounds. Serum in particular still boasts a number of features…

Getting started with Guitar Rig Pro 6 1 Load Guitar Rig 6 onto an audio track in your DAW. At the top, choose either left, right or stereo as your input, and check your gain. There’s a Gate that can eliminate any noise below a threshold you set. The output level is shown to the right, alongside a Limiter. 2 Select an input source in the menu on the left of the display – we’re using a guitar – and browse through the Curated presets to hear a selection of sounds. Presets can be filtered by genre, character, effect type and more. 3 Let’s build our own virtual rig. Switch to the Components menu and click Amplifiers. We’ll build a basic amp/cab setup using Chicago, a mid-’50s combo amp, new…

Running other instruments through Guitar Rig 1 You can use Guitar Rig to beef up a softsynth sound. Try placing a Dirt distortion on the rig with the Drive knobs cranked but the Mix down low. Then widen it out with a Choral and add a Large Hall RC 24 reverb on top. 2 There’s only one curated preset suggested with piano as the input source: Suitcase Piano, a cheap-sounding lo-fi effect. Use Guitar Rig’s reverbs to change the room setting of your piano and add choruses and Ensemble to easily turn electric. 3 Guitar Rig has plenty of options for bass guitar, especially as a tone shaper. Put a Pro Filter with a HiCut preset selected, a Solid EQ on Rock Bass setting and a VC 160 compressor with…

Retrospective Three classic dancehall riddims Real Rock 1 Arguably the first reggae riddim to cross over into early dancehall, Real Rock was a 1967 instrumental by Sound Dimension whose simple Hammond organ melody and loping groove were adapted by hundreds of other artists, from Augustus Pablo to The Clash to Bounty Killer. Diwali 2 Characterised by its distinctive syncopated clapping pattern, the Diwali riddim was one of the most recognisable sounds of pop music in 2002, spawning hits including Sean Paul’s Get Busy, Wayne Wonder’s No Letting Go, Rihanna’s Pon De Replay and Lumidee’s Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh). Originally produced by Steven ‘Lenky’ Marsden, some of the most famous tracks performed over the riddim were compiled on Greensleeves Rhythm Album #27, part of the London-based label’s long-running…

TESTBENCH FabFilter Timeless 3 > The innovating Dutch plugin developers are back with another upgrade to one of their range, and this time it’s the out-of-favour Timeless delay that gets to go up a version number. Version 2 of Timeless was something of a hit back at the time of its first release, but, alas, its knob-heavy interface has been starting to make it look and feel a little bit dated as the years have gone on. Timeless 3 completely re-imagines the concept, putting the easy Delay (time) control front and centre, with its outer ring determining the delay time difference between the left and right channels, should you want it to. Meanwhile, a nearby Cross slider determines the extent to which each channel should feed back into itself or…

| Essential Tools For Music Making GEAR GUIDE AFFORDABLE SYNTHS Novation Circuit Tracks £360 Full Review: FM369 With two digital polysynths, four tracks of sampling and – new for this version – a pair of external sequencing tracks, there’s a lot of power here for the price. Korg Wavestate £699 Review: FM353 The price is pushing what we’d usually call ‘affordable’ but with 64 stereo voices and a multi-timbral sound engine you get a lot for your money here. And it sounds great too! Korg Minilogue XD £565 Review: FM341 The four biggest Prologue features (Multi-Engine, user oscillator/effect import, filter-drive and stereo-effects) in an affordable form. Instabuy! Arturia MicroFreak £279 Review: FM345 If you’re looking to go beyond regular analogue synths and expand your sonic palette with an affordable creative…

Steinberg’s SpectraLayers 8 audio editor promises ‘AI processing with a human touch’ > Steinberg have taken the wraps off version 8 of SpectraLayers, the company’s deep audio editing software. With its visual interface, SpectraLayers is designed to let you ‘see inside’ your sounds and carry out a variety of music production, post-production, sound design and audio restoration tasks. Version 8 introduces a second-generation AI processing engine that enables the implementation of new processes and improvements to existing ones. There’s AI-powered Reverb Reduction, too, which attenuates and reduces room resonances. Other new features include EQ and Ambience Match. EQ Match lets you make a selection on the spectral graph and apply the EQ profile across several layers, while Ambience Match lets you specify room tone or background textures on the spectrograph…

Traktor Pro 3.5: new integration for your DJing needs > It’s update time for Native Instruments’ Traktor Pro, with version 3.5 integrating Beatport and Beatsource LINK into the venerable DJ software and adding support for Pioneer DJ’s CDJ-3000s. Users can now explore the complete Beatport and Beatsource catalogues and find their favourite artists, labels or curated playlists. Search results can be sorted by release date or genre, and you can play back full-length streams from either catalogue. You can add cue points, loops or comments to any track, and apply all Traktor FX to them. Currently-playing tracks are cached – a nice safety net if you’re working with an unstable internet connection – and subscribers to the LINK Pro and Pro+ plans will soon be able to access an Offline…

Talking Shop Scalping “We’d love a Waterphone… they create these horrible but beautiful screeches” Scalping| Bristol’s Scalping sit at the exciting cross section between rock, electronic music and avant-garde art. Combining distorted guitars, mangled synths and driving beats, the band have caught the attention of UK tastemakers with their raw sound and engaging A/V live shows. We caught up with them to talk studios and the creative process behind Flood, their recent EP for Houndstooth. When did you start making music? “Three of us have known each other since secondary school where we were in different rock/punk bands that would play together locally, ripping off various combinations of Deftones, Foals, And So I Watch You From Afar and Metz. We bonded over an obsession with guitar pedals and making weird noises.…

In the studio with Nicholas Millhiser “Early on we used an MPC for drums. A Prophet-5 was used throughout the single I Know, I Hear. A Yamaha CS60 for bass and big swells in Do It Again. The most used synth was the Roland Paraphonic 505 – which was often used with a custom Gavilan Rayna Russom-designed ‘Sound Strobe’. But, the Juno 106 was used quite a lot, as was my Synthesizers.com modular synth. “All of the vocals, except Say My Name, were recorded on a Neumann TLM193, which was Alex’s main vocal microphone, and our main snare drum mic, throughout. “Everything done at home was recorded with a Universal Audio 610 preamp and DBX160s. 162s and 165s were used very heavily – vocals and drums mainly, but also guitars and…

WHEN TO USE IT… The USP of additive synthesis is that it can do a whole variety of things, but it specialises in dissonant drones, bell sounds and airy pads If your synth has a partials editor, start by experimenting with how different arrangements sound. Randomly scattered ‘spikes’ of partials will create dissonant chime sounds. Creating ‘waves’ of partials that rise and fall across the spectrum will generate formant or vocal-like sounds. Try modulating the amplitude (level) of partials as a method for creating interesting pads. Some synths, such as Arturia Pigments or NI’s Razor, simplify the additive creation process with tools that can arrange and modulate the distribution of partials without the need to edit everything from scratch yourself. Let’s see this in action… Arturia Pigments 3’s new Harmonic…

The ultimate guide to digital synthesis The basics of FM Let’s run through the basic elements of FM sound generation. We’ll use Tracktion’s dedicated FM plugin F.’em! But these principles are shared by any FM synth, including free DX7 emulation Dexed 01 > FM synth oscs are called ‘operators’: a simple sound generator with tuning controls and amp envelope. Operators can be carriers, routed to the output, or modulators, routed to modulate a carrier, so we hear its effect on the carrier, not the operator itself. Operators can also be routed to the output and a carrier at once. 02 > Routing of operators is handled either by an ‘algorithm’ – a preset selection of routing configurations – or a matrix, which let users assign routings freely. Try a single…

The ultimate guide to digital synthesis Modulating wavetables Morphing and modulating wavetable oscillators is key to adding movement and variety to sounds. Let’s see how a few different synths approach this… 01 > Ableton Wavetable is a fairly straightforward example. It has both LFOs and ADSR envelopes, either of which can be routed to wavetable position in the mod matrix. Here the envelopes can function in looped mode though, allowing them to act like custom LFOs. 02 > Xfer Serum’s breakpoint LFOs are based on the LFOTool volume-shaping effect. Select a traditional LFO shape from the presets, or add/remove breakpoints and bend the curves to dial in complex modulation shapes. 03 > U-He Hive 2 is a particularly user-friendly wavetable synth. Its automated modes will scan through or loop frames…

YOUTUBE MORE UNMISSABLE VIDEO TRAINING FROM FUTURE MUSIC Discover our line-up of exclusive YouTube goodness. Head online for all this and more! THE TRACK Leading producers go in-depth on the sounds, ideas and techniques behind their latest releases BEC, Trusting the Mystery Rebecca Godfrey unveils the formula for wooing techno’s foremost tastemakers DON’T MISS: Simon Doty, The Beacon The Canadian prog-house master talks sampling and house piano riffs Joal, Eighty Four The hardware-loving producer recreates his typical workflow Document One, Hands Up Joe Froud and Matt King show us how they made this ‘filthy’ DnB number Nookie, Kaeya (Rage Mix) Gavin Cheung breaks down his latest slice of vocal-driven DnB Top producers show you the world of Steinberg in our monthly video series DON’T MISS: We’re back…

Producer’s Guide To Guitar Rig’s new effects rundown As mentioned, Guitar Rig 6 is a multieffects processor. Along with traditional guitar-focused components there are a wealth of studio effects to shape and characterise your sound. The 54 original effects from Guitar Rig 5 have all remained, including Tape Echo, Spring Reverb and PsycheDelay, plus classic stompboxes, filters and a host of intriguing new effects. Some new effects are technically only new to Guitar Rig, and you may recognise them from elsewhere in Native Instruments’ armoury. A set of compressors from the Komplete package has been added, the VC 160, VC 2A and VC 76, which are based on classic hardware models. There’s further vintage hardware emulation with the RC 24 and RC 48 reverbs. Raum, NI’s high fidelity utility reverb…

Producer’s Guide To Preset reset Even if you’re a staunch original, using presets can be a good way of looking at rack configurations you might not have considered. A lot of the presets in Guitar Rig 6 are cleverly put together, making use of LFOs, step sequencers, split signal chains and more. Taking a look under the hood of a preset can show you how the professionals put their sounds together, and inspire you creatively to build your own chains using similar techniques. In the browser, selecting the Input Source type shows presets that work with your instrument. Guitar Rig presets work best on guitars, so, as you’d expect, the range of options greatly drops with other input sources. There are 611 curated presets available for guitar, 96 for bass,…

Japanese Breakfast Japanese Breakfast Moving beyond the grief-stricken narrative woven into Michelle Zauner’s past Japanese Breakfast records, new album Jubilee strikes a more celebratory tone. Danny Turner speaks to Zauner about her artistic growth Japanese Breakfast singer/ songwriter Michelle Zauner has much to celebrate. Recently topping the New York Times Best Seller list with her memoir Crying in H Mart, completing her third Japanese Breakfast album, Jubilee, and the soundtrack to the open world exploration video game, Sable, all three projects showcase her rapidly ascending talent. While Zauner’s lyrical observations defined the pain and suffering of losing her mother to cancer in 2014, her reputation for writing devastatingly catchy songs blotted with thorny narratives has grown from album to album. With Zauner focused on stretching her songwriting capabilities to the…

Reviews Korg Modwave £699 Korg’s latest digital revival is a wavetable synth loosely inspired by the DW-8000. Si Truss rides the wave CONTACT WHO: Korg WEB: korg.com KEY FEATURES Dual-layer, 32-voice digital wavetable/sample synth. Feature 3-octave keyboard, Kaoss Physics modulator, Motion Sequencing 2.0 sequencer, arpeggiator and digital effects Modwave is the third of Korg’s recent line of digital synths, kicked off in early 2020 with Wavestate and expanded a few months later by Opsix. The Modwave follows a similar blueprint to those two; again, an all-digital instrument that wears its DSP-power on its sleeve. All three synths present a modernised take on some of the synthesis concepts pioneered in the ’80s and ’90s. With the Wavestate, that involved updating the wave sequencing synthesis of Korg’s own Wavestation, while Opsix expanded on…

Roundup EXCITERS Thrill yourself silly with these toasty signal warmers – but which is the most exciting? Waves Vitamin $249 Easily the most flexible and configurable exciter on this list, Vitamin is a workhorse plugin that can perform precise enhancements. There are five distinct bands that can be manually divided across the spectrum using the crossover controls. Each has an independent gain control (0 to +48) and a stereo width control (0x to 2x) which works well for widening or narrowing sounds. The overall balance between clean and enhanced signals can be changed via the Direct and Enhancement Master settings, while an additional punch control seems to exaggerate the enhancement effect with compression. Vitamin’s ability to manipulate harmonics across the spectrum and stereo field make it a go-to for full…