Innholdsfortegnelse for Autumn 2021 i Future Music

WELCOME If it ain’t broke… In a nutshell, this issue’s cover feature is all about doing things wrong. We’re showing you how to take your quality audio recordings, pristine samples and top-of-the-line softsynths and make them sound just a little more… broken. Whether that’s digitally degrading sounds through bitcrushing, or roughing things up with lo-fi gear, we’re here to help you lower the quality of your tracks. Of course, there’s a little more to it than that, really. Distortion may have started life as a side-effect of misusing equipment, but it’s now firmly established as a vital effect in the toolkits of musicians of all tribes. Similarly, there are plenty of excellent examples out there of how a little lo-fi grit or the odd ‘malfunction’ can add much needed character…

Filter | The Future Of Music Steinberg’s new plugin bundle looks like an Absolute bargain Steinberg have updated their Absolute bundle, a chunky music software collection that contains the company’s best plugin synths and workstations. Now toting 28 instruments, Absolute 5 contains more than 130GB of content, and offers more than 7,500 presets. New members of the Absolute family include Backbone, Steinberg’s drum resynthesiser plugin; Amped Elektra, which offers vintage keys; Electric Bass; and expansions for Padshop 2, Retrologue 2 and Groove Agent 5 (all of which are included in the bundle). Of course, Absolute 5 also contains all the instruments from its predecessor – the likes of HALion 6, HALion Sonic 3, The Grand 3 and many more. The instruments in Absolute 5 run on PC and Mac in…

Get creative with | Ableton Live Generate new musical ideas in Ableton Live How to create a morphing effect for your synth sounds It’s a known fact that when it comes to programming synth sounds, modulation is one of the factors that makes a huge difference. Even more so in electronic music where there is a risk of writing static loops instead of interesting dynamic tracks. For this tutorial we want to try to take things a step further along, not only modulating the different parameters, but morphing between presets in order to create some controlled randomness. Using Live 11’s Macro Variations, combined with a free Max4Live device Smooth Automator (download from maxforlive.com) and Follow Actions, we will create an ever-evolving synth sound. Below, we’re using a Wavetable preset from…

In the studio with Martin Fisher “For this album we had a little writing room in Out Of The Blue Studios in Ancoats in Manchester, that Rob Gretton [New Order’s manager/Rob’s Records/the Pleasure label] established. I did a lot of tracks and demos there, before Martin Desai, the other half of J-Walk, established his commercial studio [Codebreaker] where we did most of it. “Rob gave me New Order’s Akai S900, and it was running through an Atari 1040ST computer. I had 11 seconds memory. “The studio had an Akai S2000 XL – that was the main sampler. Then we had a [Roland] JV-1080, that we used for orchestral sounds – so, xylophones, glockenspiels, strings. Then the Juno-60, Casio MT-40, a Korg MS-20, and an SH-101, but I could never get…

Sonic Destruction | Feature 6 EXTREME SOUND DESIGN IDEAS Stack your distortions 1 As highlighted earlier in this feature, distortion comes in a variety of styles that can have vastly different effects on a sound. Not only should you explore different distortion approaches, but don’t feel limited to using just one. Chaining different distortion plugins can be a unique way to change the tone of a sound – try pairing digital crushing and analogue drive, for instance. Then modulate parameters of each effect to see how the combination can change over time. Processed reverbs 2 Since reverb is designed to replicate a ‘space’ in which for sounds to sit, it naturally makes sense to have it as one of the last effects in a chain. However, applying creative processors after…

Feature | Sonic Destruction What’s all the noise? Some of the less creative tasks we put up with are about cleanup, avoiding unwanted noise and artefacts. However lo-fi, trip-hop, chillwave, techno and similar genres often relish a bit of noise. It can add some mojo as well as working quite effectively at glueing the whole track together. But where is the best place to add this magic dust? Although there is no real right answer, our choice is always on the master output in one way or another. This could be via bouncing the full track to a tape deck or reel to reel, using a vinyl emulation or using a synth or modular rig to create a noise track. Plugins make it easy and much of the work is…

Feature | Sonic Destruction MODULAR DOWNSAMPLING 1 Here we’re using Mutable Instruments’ Beads module as a hardware downsampler for our drum track. Beads does many things and is mostly seen as a granular module but it has built-in downsampling, where the algorithms emulate varying levels of warmth, named accordingly. 2 For this we bounce our drum track and connect our interface’s output to the modular system, using the Expert Sleepers ES-9 to get the audio into Beads. For this we’re using both of Beads’ inputs to retain the stereo image, as well as the stereo outs. 3 Being a granular module, most of the controls are to be ignored. In fact, we zero out all of the knobs except for the mix knob, which is cranked up to maximum. We…

FM | YOUTUBE THE TRACK Leading producers go in-depth on the sounds, ideas and techniques behind their latest releases MORE UNMISSABLE VIDEO TRAINING FROM FUTURE MUSIC Discover our line-up of exclusive YouTube goodness. Head online for all this and more! James Hurr, Love Together The producer known for his club credentials gives an insight into his studio tricks DON’T MISS: Rhode & Brown, Wave 200 The Munich duo take a trip back to Italo disco days Simon Doty, The Beacon The Canadian prog-house master talks sampling and house piano riffs BEC, Trusting the Mystery Rebecca Godfrey unveils her winning techno formula Joal, Eighty Four The hardware-loving producer recreates his typical workflow steinberg Studio Sessions Top producers show you the world of Steinberg in our monthly video series DON’T MISS: We’re back…

Producer’s Guide To | Akai MPC Controller mode: access hidden functionality You’ll want to get deeper with this way of using the MPC when you’re ready to do your final mixdown 01 > One of the best things about this version of the MPC lineup is that it can function both in standalone and controller mode. The MPC 2 application and plugin will mirror whatever it is you’re doing on the screen of the MPC, but there are a few advantages of working in Controller Mode. 02 > First of all, you’re not limited to the built-in effects and instruments on the MPC. All of your AU and VST instruments will also work and can be integrated into your project. However, make sure to note that when you open up…

FM | GEAR GUIDE AFFORDABLE SYNTHS NEW ENTRY Modal SKULPTsynth SE £169 Full Review: FM375 The SE update is largely cosmetic, but the price drop is welcome, and this remains a handy, powerful virtual analogue instrument. 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! Arturia MicroFreak £279 Review: FM345 If you’re looking to go beyond regular analogue synths and expand your sonic palette with an affordable creative tool, MicroFreak should be top of your ‘must try’ list. 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! Modal…

Essential Tools For Music Making | Gear Guide AFFORDABLE MONITORS Kali Audio LP-6 £147 These two-way speakers from relative newcomers Kali Audio offer exceptional sound quality at a very reasonable price. An excellent home studio option. M-Audio BX3 & BX4 from £85 Full Review: FM369 Compact and convenient, M-Audio’s new BX monitors expand the appeal of the range and do so at an incredible price. Adam Audio T5V £133 Full Review: FM335 The T5V delivers plenty of clarity, decent imaging and volume from a pretty compact footprint. A tidy package, all at a good price point. KRK Rokit G4 from £133 Full Review: FM348 With punchy delivery and an abundance of EQ options, these are the best Rokits yet, offering power at an accessible price. Yamaha HS5 £155 High-quality, accurate…

Talking Shop Rudosa Mark Bradbury, best known under the stage name Rudosa, makes thunderous techno that’s been championed by some of the genre’s most notable DJs, popping up in sets from Richie Hawtin, Maceo Plex and Amelie Lens, among others. We sat down with the producer and DJ to discuss synths, Sankeys and studio spaces. When did you start making music, and how did you first get started? “I first started making music from home on GarageBand using my Mac laptop and Apple loops, before getting Logic Pro X soon after. The sound was annoying my family, who I lived with at the time. I had been clubbing at Sankeys a lot, and knew they had some empty rooms above the club, so enquired with the owner. Luckily he gave…

Feature | Sonic Destruction Keeping it lo-fi As with so much in music, the term lo-fi means different things to different people, but no matter what angle you take, there’s crossover, of expression as well as terminology and techniques. For most, lo-fi will elicit thoughts of slower tempo beats, retro voicings and, in many cases, less space in the mix. Whether it’s casually arpeggiated or loosely strummed guitar chords, velvety Rhodes tones, or’80s synth pads, they will most likely occupy a wider frequency range, adding to the lushness of the end result. That doesn’t, however, mean that they aren’t ‘produced’; just that the goal isn’t the same as a modern pop song. Over the next few pages, we’ll take a look at some of the core sounds, tools and techniques…

THREE OF THE BEST Abbey Road Vinyl £36 A wonderfully detailed, accurate-sounding vinyl emulation for getting some analogue goodness into your music, fast and easily. Cableguys ShaperBox 2 £99 Shaperbox 2 can be used for so many projects and effects. It’s a fantastic tool, versatile and intuitive and it ships with a great preset library to get you started. T-Rex Replicator £399 If you don’t want to use vintage gear or plugins, then the Replicator is a wonderful tape-based echo machine, with all the mojo you could ever need.…

FM | PRODUCER’S GUIDE Exploring Akai MPC Leo Maymind takes a detailed look at an iconic groovebox whose influence helped shape modern hip-hop and much more besides Akai MPCs have been a mainstay in so many genres, it’s difficult to keep count. Though the MPC has shifted shapes over the years, the iconic four-by-four grid is still recognisable a mile away. The MPC line lost a lot of folks when they switched over to a controller-based platform in 2014 with the launch of MPC Touch, but thankfully they redeemed themselves in 2017 with the release of the brand new MPC Live hardware, an updated version of their iconic beat machine that, unlike the previous Touch version, was capable of working both in standalone form and as a controller with the…

Interview | Jean-Michel Jarre Jean-Michel Jarre The pioneering musician who introduced generations to futuristic sounds the first time around is at it again. He joins Matt Mullen to talk experiments in VR gigging, spatial audio and more… Jean-Michel Jarre likely needs no introduction to Future Music readers. As one of the most prolific and successful composers to work in electronic music, it’s no exaggeration to say that he’s played a pivotal role in the development of the genre over the course of the past five decades. Aside from his recorded work, it’s Jarre’s magnificent, record-breaking live performances that stand out as landmark moments in his career, which have seen him bring millions of spectators together in the same place, while developing innovative sequencers and imaginative instruments specifically for use on-stage.…

FM | ROUNDUP TOP SYNTHS FOR 2021[PART 1] We take a look at some of the best synth plugins released in the past 12 months FM | MUST HAVE! Tone2 Warlock £55 Warlock is probably the most surprising out of this whole lineup. Being so budget-friendly, you wouldn’t expect too much from this unassuming synth, but load it up and it packs a punch – it’s that upfront, dazzling Tone2 sound that EDMers can’t get enough of. The 84 oscillator types, mono and stereo hypersaw function and 38 (drastically) different filter types all add to its character and make for a synth that’s fat, rich and wide – not to mention the two built-in FX slots, arpeggiator, 20 LFO types and 2,140 presets. While Warlock isn’t going to win any…

FM | SOUNDS & SAMPLES UVI – 8-Bit Synth €99 For a significant number of people their first experience of real-time electronic sound generation would have been the onboard audio generator of a games console or home computer. In the earliest systems, this might have gone little further than a short blip or beep, but even in the early 1980s manufacturers and composers were beginning to explore the technical and creative options available for more extensive sound design and music creation. On the hardware side this led to the now-famous SID chip (a self-contained programmable 3-oscillator analogue synth). Composer/programmers looking to make the most of monophonic sound generators employed fast arpeggiation of notes and other frequency and amplitude tricks to give the impression of a more expansive sound engine. With…

Essential Tools For Music Making | Gear Guide SEMI-MODULAR SYNTHS Moog Matriarch £1,979 Full Review: FM355 The Matriarch is very inspiring. It’s well built, has the classic Moog Modular sound and is complex yet intuitive. A future classic! Korg Volca Modular £190 Review: FM342 A West Coast synth in a compact package. It may be fiddly, but give in to its experimental ethos and it’s endless fun. Pittsburgh Modular Microvolt 3900 $629 Review: FM341 Wears its influences on its sleeve, but still has its own unique style. Dreadbox Erebus 3 €499 Review: FM355 The Erebus V3 is a powerful, well-specified and flexible synth, capable of both conventional and more experimental tones. Dreadbox NYX 2 €539 Review: FM352 Dual filters and some great routing, modulation and patching possibilities make this more…

DIGITAL POLYSYNTHS Korg Modwave £699 Full Review: FM373 | Modwave is far from the only wavetable game in town, but it sets itself apart with unique tools and a few added gimmicks. ASM Hydrasynth £1,299 Review FM360 An impressive first release from a new brand. Hydrasynth looks and sounds great, invites exploration, is built to last and is hugely expressive. What’s not to like? Korg Wavestate £699 Review FM353 Wavestate walks the line perfectly between paying tribute to a’90s classic and offering cutting-edge tools. A fantastic update to a much-loved synth line. Waldorf Quantum £3,500 Review: FM336 A stunning piece of hybrid synth design – setting a new benchmark for features, interface and sonics. It’s expensive, but a synth that you’ll find inspiring for many years. Korg Opsix £699 Review:…

Gear Guide | Essential Tools For Music Making STANDALONE MUSIC MAKERS Akai MPC One £599 Full Review: FM358 | The cheapest MPC in the range was already impressive, but recent updates add new tools and make it easier to expand the limited I/O Polyend Tracker £449 Full Review: FM357 Less esoteric than it first appears, this is a well-designed sampler that’s both fun and inspiring. Worth a look whether you’re experienced with trackers or not. Akai MPC Live II £1,040 Full Review: FM358 A truly go-anywhere production experience – and now better equipped than ever. The Live II remains the high point of the current MPC range. Roland MC-707 $999 Review: FM349 It lags behind some rivals on the sampling front, but on the whole the 707 is a powerful…

FILTER Could Sequential’s Take 5 synth be the affordable Prophet of your dreams? Analogue meets digital in Dave Smith’s new Prophet-5-inspired poly Sequential’s recently rebooted Prophet-5 is nothing short of a triumph – marrying authentic vintage analogue with powerful modulation and a subtly modernised design. It also costs the best part of £3,000 though, putting it out of reach of all but the most affluent music makers. Enter Sequential’s new instrument, Take 5 – a hybrid analogue/digital poly that aims to bring the lauded Prophet sound to the masses. Like its pricier inspiration, Take 5 is a five-voice synth featuring two VCOs and one sub oscillator per-voice. These oscillators are equipped with hard sync as well as basic one-knob FM. On the filter front, Take 5 packs the 4-pole resonant…

Feature | Sonic Destruction What is a ‘glitch’? Technically speaking, a ‘glitch’ is defined as an error or malfunction, but in a music making context we tend to use it to refer to any effect that sounds malfunction-like, even when the effects are usually very purposeful and deliberate. While there are numerous plugins out there specifically designed to glitch up your audio, a ‘glitch’ isn’t necessarily a single effect. Rather, what we refer to as ‘glitch’ effects tend to use a variety of different processes, such as audio repeats or looping, gating, pitch manipulation and randomisation – most often combining several of these techniques. In a musical context ‘glitch’ is often associated with artists like IDM linchpins Autechre or Aphex Twin, the ‘big room’ dubstep of Skrillex, trance icon BT…

Sonic Destruction | Feature ADD VINYL EFFECTS VIDEO ON FILESILO 1 We will be using the Abbey Road vinyl plugin for this but you could use others, such as iZotope’s vinyl plugin. You can add this to any track but here we would suggest using the output to effect the song as a whole and ideally put it after any compression for a more subtle result. 2 The plugin will run without the track playing, helping us to identify what’s created by the vinyl. We start by choosing the hardware, going for a lacquer, DJ turntable and MM cartridge, giving the right kind of crackle. Set noise, crackle and clicks amount with the rotary controls. Check the results. You want ‘vibe’ but nothing that overwhelms the audio. 3 Wow and…

Sonic Destruction | Feature GIVING AN ELECTRIC PIANO MOJO 1 For this track we wanted some chilled vintage-sounding electric piano but wanted to shape the sound ourselves, so used a dry-sounding Rhodes plugin, with no effects on it, instead using Cable Guys ShaperBox 2 to define our end result. 2 With the plugin active the first thing to do is add a tremolo effect. We click on the VolumeShaper to add it to the effects chain. You can either draw the waveshape, or choose from a preset. A sawtooth does the job well, with the timing set to 16ths, with the LFO mode set to beat, so it stays synced with the tempo. 3 This simple setup actually sounds pretty good but is quite strong. The options here are to…

In and out of the box Most of the techniques you see here are based in the box, using your DAW and/or plugins to get the results wanted. But many people have a stash, of some size or another, of outboard gear. While you can use an emulation to get a great sound, easily, there’s nothing quite like capturing the real thing. If you have a record player, pop the needle to the end of any disc and record the noise you get. Or send an instrument track to an outboard tape delay. The other benefit to doing it this way is that it massively reduces the strain on your computer, so if you’re working on an older laptop, or you’re finding there’s some lag, especially when working on a…

Tutara Peak | The Track Tutara Peak’s top 5 creative tips Harvey shares five fantastic tips to give you a creative boost Making unpredictable sounds 1 “One thing I’ve been having a lot of fun with is using sounds where you’re not sure what they’re going to sound like. For example, taking a melody, reversing it, delaying it, and then automating the left and right delay times separately. Then bounce it to audio, reverse it, and see what crazy stuff you get. You can never tell what it’s going to sound like until you’ve done it!” Ambient textures with pitchshifting 2 “I’m a big fan of PaulStretch, the timestretching algorithm which you can now get in plugin form. I’ll play a chord progression, put some reverb on it, and bounce…

Producer’s Guide To | Akai MPC 10 ways to get more out of your MPC hardware These tips and shortcuts will have you flying around your MPC, expert and novice alike Maximum connections 1 One of the most significant changes in the 2.10 OS update from Akai that was recently released is the ability to use an external audio interface instead of the built-in I/O on your MPC. This is especially impactful for MPC One owners, who previously were left with just a single stereo out (if they were using Standalone mode; more on Controller mode later). Now with OS 2.10, any Linux Class Compliant audio device that runs at 44.1k will work with the MPC. To change the audio device, go to Preferences by hitting the Menu button twice…

FM | RETROSPECTIVE Noise With roots as far back as 1913, noise is the genre that’s also a state of mind © Hulton Archive/Getty Images This month’s genre is also a technique, a style and a radical artistic philosophy. We never promised you that genres were simple. Unlike most genres, the name ‘noise’ alone probably conjures a good mental image of what we’re talking about. The name has retrospectively been applied to more than half a century’s worth of experimental music which was known by different names at the time, but the common threads are exactly what you’re probably thinking: distortion, non-musical sounds, atonality and dissonance. Let’s start with Italian Futurist artist Luigi Russolo’s 1913 manifesto L’Arte dei Rumori (‘The Art of Noises’), which posited that the modern human ear…

FM | REVIEWS Erica Synths and Sonic Potions LXR-02 £499 Rob Redman braces himself for another resurrected blast from the past CONTACT WHO: Erica Synths and Sonic Potions WEB: ericasynths.lv KEY FEATURES 6-voice digital drum machine with onboard effects, stackable transient generators The LXR-02 is the product of a collaboration between Erica Synths and the creator of the original LXR, Julian Schmidt, also known as Sonic Potions. The original LXR was a do-it-yourself machine that, despite sharing many similarities with this new version, never quite achieved the mainstream drum machine status it hoped for. That said, it had a lot of love and was a fine machine for the more practically minded musician. Physically, the second iteration has a similar layout and workflow but offers some well deserved extras. The build…

Reviews | 1010 Music Bitbox mk2 1010 Music Bitbox mk2 £549 Rob Redman finds out whether this updated sampler box of tricks contains any more surprises CONTACT WHO: 1010 music WEB: 1010music.com KEY FEATURES I/O: Up to 24 sample polyphony, Event trigger from CV, touchscreen or MIDI, Stereo Eurorack level sampling (up to 4 hours), Alternate firmwares for effects or wavetable synthesis The mk2 version of 1010 Music’s Bitbox is much like its predecessor, with a 3.5” touchscreen dominating the 26 fascia, below which are 16 trigger inputs, audio inputs and stereo outputs, as well as a type A and B-compatible TRS MIDI port and Micro SD card. To the sides of the screen are buttons for navigation and parameter setting, allowing users the choice of knobs, touch or CV control…

FM | TESTBENCH Algonaut Atlas Now at version 2, Algonaut’s Atlas plugin was an early pioneer in ‘intelligent drum machine’ technology. The original would analyse drum sounds in an OS folder you pointed it to, splay them out on a ‘map’ based on the type of drum – claps, kicks, hats, percs, each on its own ‘continent’ – and place similar-sounding hits within each other’s vicinity. Need a kick that’s a little different to the one you’re using? Check out the ones right next to it in the map! Need something completely different? Browse graphically based on each drum’s sonic qualities, without diving through folders of sounds on your hard drive. Atlas 2 sports the same idea, but goes even further. You can choose a more ‘zoomed out’ view of…

Gear Guide | Essential Tools For Music Making DAWS Bitwig Studio 4 $399 Full Review: FM373 On the whole this is the least essential update of Bitwig Studio so far, but the DAW remains one of our favourite pieces of music making software. Steinberg Cubase Pro 11 £499 Review: FM366 The latest annual update to Steinberg’s much-loved DAW improves sampling, refines a number of Pro features and adds a selection of fun creative tools. Tracktion Waveform Pro from $119 Review: FM345 Waveform is now friendlier, contains more creative tools and brings workflow ideas you’ll have missed from other DAWs. Universal Audio LUNA free UA might not want to call LUNA a DAW, but let’s be honest… Even in its version one form, this is a slick and stylish recording environment…

HARDWARE SEQUENCERS Korg SQ-64 £269 Full Review: FM367 | An intuitive, nostalgic and very musical bit of gear and one that should stand the test of time. Now, where did we park the Trans-Am? Arturia KeyStep Pro £319 Full Review: FM359 For melodic sequencing duties and flexible hardware control, this is one of the best keyboard devices around. Novation SL MkIII from £540 Full Review: FM338 Well-designed and versatile. For those who work with both hardware and software, this may be the best studio centrepiece on the market. Pioneer DJ Toraiz Squid £467 Review: FM351 Pioneer DJ’s Squid opens the door to a world of bespoke sequencing, with features like Groove Bend and speed modulation putting a new spin on your sequencing moves. Arturia BeatStep Pro £196 Review: FM296 The…