Computer Music - October 2013

EXCLUSIVE SPIRAL CM DOWNLOADS PLUGIN

800 SAMPLES

October 2013 / CM195

The

guide to

Master the new features, become a power user and discover why this is the world’s favourite DAW

PLUS! LOGIC PRO X REVIEW + VIDEOS

BASEMENT JAXX In-depth interview

DESIGN FX WITH PLUGINS FREE & OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE OM UNIT IN-STUDIO VIDEO

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intro / computer music <

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welcome

DAW fever has gripped us of late, resulting in this particularly host-centric issue of Computer Music. FL Studio 11 dominates our cover – fitting, considering that it is very possibly the most widely used music production software on the planet. It’s about ripe, then, for the full “ guide” treatment, with 11 tutorials (each with video, natch) and 11 tips and tricks spread across many pages of juicy advice. Flip to p32 to get going! It’d take something pretty special to steal FL Studio 11’s thunder, then, but the unexpected release of Logic Pro X is just that. This unheralded refresh of Apple’s languishing DAW popped up just in time for a review and seven hands-on videos, all starting on p88. Finally, amidst the mayhem in the DAW marketplace is the solid Pro Tools 11 – our review’s on p92. In other news, we welcome new Features Editor Joe Rossitter. Following a gruelling process to assess both his aptitude for making wibbly wobbly synth noises and general fanatacism for drum ’n’ bass music, we’re pleased to say that he aced our tests, ably filling the curiously shaped hole left behind by his predecessor, longserving crewman Tim Cant.

HOW TO USE DOWNLOAD

Wherever you see this icon, there’s downloadable content such as videos, software, samples and tutorial files. See the Contents on the next page for how to download via our Vault. Tutorials featuring this icon make use of our own Plugins.

TUTORIAL

FILES

This icon means there are extra files to help you follow a tutorial feature.

There’s extra video content wherever you see this icon.

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WorldMags.net ISSUE 195 OCTOBER 2013

contents

COVER FEATURE

Producer masterclass 49 OM UNIT

The pigeonhole-dodging producer’s in-studio techniques revealed on video

Tutorial 76

FOCUS: FX DESIGN

Craft killer risers, booms, whooshes and more using only our Plugins

Tutorial

Get to the core of FL Studio 11’s new features with our massive guide, starting on p32

Tutorials 16

QUICK GUIDE: XFADELOOPERCM

68

A TO Z OF COMPUTER MUSIC: H

70

THE EASY GUIDE

72

OFF THE DIAL

74

SOUND ESSENTIALS

55 DAW TO DAW

Discover how to transport projects from one DAW to another and have them arrive intact

Tutorial

Interview

61

82

FREEDOM FIGHTERS

Grassroots guide to open source music software

Reviews

Essentials

88

APPLE LOGIC PRO X

22

INBOX

92

AVID PRO TOOLS 11

24

NEWS

96

XILS-LAB V+

28

BURNING QUESTION

98

HEAVYOCITY AEON

110

NEXT ISSUE

100

SINEVIBES CLUSTER

111

SUBSCRIBE

PLUS 18 MORE PRODUCTS REVIEWED!

113

BACK ISSUES

4 / COMPUTER MUSIC / October 2013

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114

BASEMENT JAXX

Simon Ratcliffe discusses the essence of the Jaxx sound and the new album

OUTRO: GUY J

9000

WorldMags.net This issue’s exclusive free content from Computer Music

download PHOTOSOUNDER SPIRAL CM Make musical sense of harmonics with this issue’s fantastic free plugin for PC/Mac, p8

Tutorial videos 25 high-quality videos to guide you through our tutorials. Wherever you see the below icon, there’s a video version to watch

SAMPLES Over 900 analogue synthesiser samples make up this feast of multisamples and loops, p10

Tutorial files

CM Plugins

A folder full of audio examples, synth patches and project files to help you follow our tutorials

Our exclusive collection of free plugins for Mac and PC. See what’s available on p12

DOWNLOAD Our fantastic software, samples, videos* and tutorial files are now available to download! To get access, head to vault.computermusic.co.uk on your PC or Mac’s web browser. You’ll be asked to register and answer a few simple questions to prove that you’ve got the mag. You’ll then be given access to our content! You can sign in any time to register new issues and download more content. Om Unit takes us through the making of his track Dark Sunrise in our video masterclass on p49

* The Producer Masterclass video is not currently available as a download, though a solution to this is being worked on. Apple Newsstand readers can still watch the video via built-in internet streaming Ð just hit the Play Video button on the page.

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October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 5

video

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This issue’s videos all in one place! Download them on your PC/Mac at vault.computermusic.co.uk The

LOGIC PRO X HANDS-ON

guide to

FL STUDIO 11 This popular DAW’s new features are ripe and ready for the pickin’ Read the full article on p32

3 Making an effects chain in Patcher

6 Re-mapping notes with VFX Key Mapper

9 An aggressive bass synth using GMS

DOWNLOAD

1 Making a modern kickdrum in Bassdrum

2 Custom control layouts in Control Surface

4 Using the Effector performance multi-effect

5

7 Multicolour sequencing with VFX Colour Mapper

10 Audio re-timing with Newtone’s Warp Editor

Our fantastic software, samples, videos and tutorial files are now available to download! To get access to this content, go to vault.computermusic.co.uk on your PC or Mac’s web browser. You’ll be asked to register and answer a few

6 / COMPUTER MUSIC / October 2013

Get up to speed with the great new features with our first-look videos, available for download via the Vault!

Using Newtone’s Vibrato Editor

8 Send visual feedback to a MIDI controller

11 Playing a track with Performance Mode

simple questions to prove that you’ve got the mag. You’ll then be given access to our content! You can sign in any time to register new issues and download more content. For more info, see our Vault FAQ: bit.ly/cmvaultfaq

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1

The new interface

2

Track Stacks

3

Smart Controls

4

Drummer and Drum Kit Designer

5

New Plugins

6

Flex Pitch

7

Groove Tracks

Read the full review on p88

video

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Producer masterclass

SPIRAL CM

This issue’s free plugin lets you visualise your sounds to get a new perspective on music production Read the full article on p8

EASY GUIDE: SYNCOPATION Stop programming boring drum beats and melodic lines! Dave Clews shows you how to enrich your rhythms Making more interesting rhythms with syncopation

Read the full article on p70

OM UNIT Watch how the track Dark Sunrise with its vocal by Tamara Blessa was crafted in Cubase Read the full article on p49

FOCUS: FX DESIGN Inject your tracks with booms, whooshes and risers using only our free plugins

DOWNLOAD

Read the full article on p76

1 Creating a sawtooth rise effect with Dune CM

2 A clever bubbling rise using Curve2 CM

3 A big room white noise sweep using Plugins

4 A breakdown sine boom using Synthmaster CM

5 A resonant alien FM downsweep from Aalto CM

Our fantastic software, samples, videos* and tutorial files are now available to download! To get access to this content, go to vault.computermusic.co.uk on your PC or Mac’s web browser. You’ll be asked to register and answer a few

simple questions to prove that you’ve got * Please note that the Producer the mag. You’ll then be given access to Masterclass video is not available as our content! You can sign in any time to a download via our Vault register new issues and download more content. For more info, see our Vault FAQ: bit.ly/cmvaultfaq

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October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 7

> download / photosounder spiral cm

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>Exclusive full software

Photosounder

Spiral CM

DOWNLOAD Get the plugin, video and tutorial files on PC/Mac at vault.computermusic.co.uk

This month’s exclusive giveaway is a powerful harmonic visualisation tool that gives insight into the melodic content of your synth parts and samples This month’s exclusive giveaway is a brilliant analysis tool crafted by the boffins over at Photosounder. We’re big fans of their innovative Spline EQ (9/10, 180) and their flagship spectral sound design tool Photosounder, so we’re really excited to bring you their latest creation: Spiral CM. This minimalist yet informative VST/AU plugin for Mac and PC gives you the ability to analyse the harmonic content of any incoming audio signal via a colourful GUI that maps the frequency response onto a spiral that wraps around at

every octave. This offers a fresh and musical alternative to more traditional frequency analysis methods. Spiral CM’s circular interface is divided into 12 segments, with each dividing line representing a note on the Western musical scale. Lower harmonics will appear towards the centre of the sphere as a wide, red response, while higher pitches move towards the outside as a thin, green response. Most sounds and tones are made up from a multitude of harmonics above their fundamental

frequency, and Spiral CM shows you how the harmonic content of sounds relates to musical notes. So why is this useful? Well, by analysing the harmonic relationships of chords, you can see why certain combinations of notes seem so “strong”; and being able to visualise an audio signal’s melodic and harmonic content will assist in composition and mixing. It’s also extremely useful when studying chords or samples for figuring out what notes and harmonics are sounding within a dense passage.

NOTE LABELS The positions of harmonics are plotted around the circular GUI by note pitch

If you find Spiral CM useful (which you will!), you’ll be pleased to hear that Photosounder are on the cusp of releasing Spiral, a full commercial edition with more features. Spiral is normally $99, but CM readers can get $30 off by using the code cmmagoffer when ordering via the URL below. The same code can also be used to get a discount on Photosounder! There’s $10 off a non-commercial license or $50 off a full commercial license. These offers are valid until December 31st 2013. www.photosounder.com/spiral

LOWER HARMONIC DISPLAY Lower harmonics are redder, thicker and positioned more centrally in the GUI

UPPER HARMONICS Higher harmonics are thinner, more lightly coloured and further away from the centre

NOTE/FREQUENCY READOUT Hover the mouse pointer over the GUI and the note and frequency position below it is shown here 8 / COMPUTER MUSIC / October 2013

VISUALISATION Increase or decrease the main display’s intensity to focus on particular harmonics

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photosounder spiral cm / download <

WorldMags.net > Step by step

Getting started with Photosounder Spiral CM

TUTORIAL

FILES

1

4

7

Begin by opening the Photosounder Spiral CM folder on the vault – inside you’ll find separate PC and Mac folders. If you’re on PC, copy the .dll file to your VST plugins folder; on Mac, copy the .component file to Library/Audio/Plugins/Components and/or the .vst file to Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST.

Play up and down your MIDI keyboard and watch Spiral CM’s circular interface. You can see how your simple sine waves are plotted by position and colour. Each octave has its own colour – for example, the note C1 is red, C3 is orange, and C6 is green. Hover the mouse pointer over Spiral CM’s GUI to view precise note and frequency values.

Now switch Osc 1 from saw to pulse, and observe the change when you play. A saw wave contains all harmonics, while a pulse only contains the oddnumbered ones, the difference between which can be seen here. Turn down Spiral CM’s Visualisation parameter to lower the colour intensity and home in on the most dominant harmonics.

2

5

8

Spiral CM should now be available as an insert effect in your host DAW or audio editor – we’re using Ableton Live. Open DuneCM on a new MIDI track, then insert Spiral CM after it.

Other wave shapes consist of multiple frequencies that combine to form the sounds they generate – you can think of them as multiple sine waves playing at once. Switch DuneCM’s Osc 1 to the saw wave, play C1 again and note the difference – lots more colours! The fundamental pitch is still present as the central red band, but many more harmonics can now also be seen.

We can also use Spiral CM to analyse a sample’s tonal and harmonic content. Import ExampleChordLoop.wav and load Spiral CM as an insert effect. We can # see that the loop comprises th notes A , F # and C – very handy for picking apart chords in order to get other parts in tune with them, or just see what notes they contain.

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6

9

To demonstrate Spiral CM’s graphical display, we’re going to use a basic sine wave, as it generates only a fundamental frequency with no upper harmonics. Select Bank B in DuneCM to reset it to the Init patch, then change Osc 1’s waveform to the sine wave.

At C1, the saw wave’s third harmonic can be seen at the note G, and its fourth harmonic at E (as shown by the note labels around the edge of the circle). These notes, C E G, form a major triad, which goes some way towards explaining why basic major chords sound so musically ‘correct’ and satisfying.

Let’s try a more complex example: taking a layered pad sample and recreating its bottom layer with DuneCM. Using one Spiral CM on the sample and another on our own sound, we compare the two, enabling us to suss out the chord’s notes and imitate the filter and unison settings of the lower octaves. Check out the video tutorial to see how we did it!

October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 9

> download / samples

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Samples

Modular Madness This month we’ve donned our lab coats and tangled ourselves up in dusty patch cables to bring you 900 of the craziest modular synth samples around There was once a time before computers and keyboards ruled the Earth. Long-haired, thick-spectacled, white-coated creatures with endless beards and patch cables for fingers lived deep underground, peering up at high walls covered in unfathomable chests of all shapes and sizes. Amidst their grunting, they spent their time patching together boxes of flashing lights, crusty faders and derelict dials, all just to coax a handful of noises and beeps out of ancient devices we know only as ‘modular synthesisers’. We’ve now evolved into a DAW-, soft synthand MIDI keyboard-wielding race of ultraadvanced beings, but the strange soundcreating rituals practiced by our audio ancestors are still upheld by a minority of descendents of those modular neanderthals of a bygone age. They shun ready-patched synths and convenient computers in search of the weirdest and wackiest routings, craziest cablings and the most modular manifestations known to man. This month we’ve brought you a truckload of these old-school sonic ramblings in the form of some mad modular synth multisamples and loops in WAV and Alchemy Player CM formats.

create perfect looping tones – a tricky task for some of the more complex waveforms.” A dishevelled, squinting Robbie continues, “The loops were then made using these very multisamples, loaded into Camel Audio Alchemy, balanced, panned and shaped through enveloped filters and ADSRs. The output from Alchemy was then sent through an Eventide ModFactor pedal with a Yamaha SPX1000 effects unit, as well as a set of pedals into the two Moogerfoogers (Lowpass filter and Ring Mod) and the Boss DE-200 digital delay.’’ Patch yourself in to Robbie’s feed on Twitter – @CyclickBob – and help ease his rehabilitation into today’s soft synth-obsessed world.

The modular maestro

Always eager to please – and often taking things way too far in the process – Robbie Stamp of Cyclick has now had his lab coat surgically removed by trained professionals after four weeks of cabling cramps and patching pains. Thankfully, he’s finally able to utter some muffled sentences of explanation through mouthfuls of dust and frazzled beard. “The original oscillations came from three main sources,” he drones, recalling, “the Jen SX-1000 monosynth with its Triangle, Square and PWM oscillations, a Moogerfooger’s lowpass filter with its resonance on full to produce a sine wave, and the carrier from its ring modulator. The Moogerfoogers were often run through each other and connected by CV to form different control chains, tuned for each note using a standard chromatic guitar tuner. “A chain of pedals was set up after the source oscillations and three or four combinations were recorded to build up a number of multisamples at once. Each note was edited so that it produced a perfect oscillating loop. – with more complex waves, it can be painstaking getting the endpoint to exactly match the start of the loop for a seamless, click-free tone. “Multiple chains of analogue pedals were then set up to give each sample its flavour, and the recordings were painstakingly edited to 10 / COMPUTER MUSIC / October 2013

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DOWNLOAD Get hold of these exclusive samples and more at vault.computermusic.co.uk

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> download /

plugins

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PLUGINS

INSTRUMENTS

Our exclusive collection of instruments and efects is included with every issue of Computer Music – it’s all you need to make great music now! The Plugins collection is a suite of complete, limitation-free instrument and effects plugins. It’s an incredible resource, boasting 30+ pro-quality plugins that you won’t find anywhere else, all for PC and Mac, in VST and AU formats. All of the included software is created exclusively for us by respected commercial developers such as LinPlug, Sugar Bytes, Ohm Force, Audio Damage, u-he, Vengeance-Sound, FabFilter and Synapse Audio.

FEATURED PLUGIN Madrona Labs Aalto CM

This stupendous monosynth from Madrona Labs sports an unusual oscillator with FM capabilities, a weird and wonderful waveguide delay section, filter, gate, intuitively patchable modulation, on-board reverb, step sequencing, and most importantly, a fabulous analogue sound. Whether you’re tired of standard virtual analogue synths or just on the neverending quest for fresh new tones, Aalto CM and its funky features demand your attention. www.madronalabs.com

12 / COMPUTER MUSIC / October 2013

AudioRealism ADM CM

Camel Audio Alchemy Player CM

An old-schoolstyle drum machine with step sequencer, ADM CM offers an emulation of Roland’s legendary TR-606 drum machine and banks of custom CM samples covering a variety of genres. It’s an essential source of beats for all styles of electronic music! Check out the full ADM if you want more – it also includes TR-808 and TR-909 sounds! www.audiorealism.se

Based on the amazing synth/sampler Alchemy, the cutdown Alchemy Player CM is a powerful beast in its own right – it gives you a vast sonic palette, from drum kits and basses to lush pads, huge soundscapes and more. It has 200 awesome patches from the full version, and another 50 can be had by registering on Camel Audio’s site. Many of our sample collections also include compatible patches in SFZ format. www.camelaudio.com

BigTick RhinoCM

Expert Sleepers XFadeLooperCM

Stampede your tunes with this fabulous featurepacked FM synth! It’s capable of everything from chunky bass tones to lush electric piano patches and complex ambient textures. Key features include large, flexible envelopes, a mod matrix, macro controls and built-in effects. If that’s not enough for you, check out the full Rhino at Big Tick’s site. www.bigtickaudio.com

Breathe life into your samples with this creative crossfade-looping sampler that can turn tiny tones into smooth, long-lasting timbres! Based on the commercial Crossfade Loop Synth, its other key features include the novel hard sync mode that’s sure to delight sound designers, blendable multimode filter, creative modulation options, saturation and flexible looping. www.expert-sleepers.co.uk

KV331 Audio SynthMaster CM

LinPlug AlphaCM

This custombuilt synth from KV331 Audio is based on the astounding SynthMaster 2.5. It features dual wavescanning oscillators, a multimode filter, customisable waveshaping distortion, FM/AM, powerful modulation sources, a modulation matrix, and even built-in effects in the form of delay, chorus and reverb. www.kv331audio.com

A Plugins veteran, this subtractive synth from legendary developers LinPlug has been with us for many years now but is still able to hold its own. Key features include dual oscillators, each with two blendable waveforms; a modulation matrix; slick chorus effect; tons of carefully designed patches; and glide with polyphonic operation. Its big brother is LinPlug’s commercial Alpha synth. www.linplug.com

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plugins / download <

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DOWNLOAD Get these instruments on your PC or Mac right now at vault.computermusic.co.uk

Loomer Cumulus

XILS-lab PolyKB II CM

LinPlug CM-505

Cableguys Curve 2 CM

If a lack of inspiration has got your head stuck in the clouds, Cumulus will bring you back to Earth! Its granular sampler functionality enables you to break samples into tiny components called grains and then reconstruct them to form new and interesting sounds, while the Scenes function transforms Cumulus into an awesome beat slicer and sequencer. www.loomer.co.uk

XILS-lab made a real name for themselves with their beautiful emulations of classic analogue synths, and PolyKB II is one of their finest efforts, resurrecting the sound of the ultra-rare PolyKobol synthesiser. PolyKB II CM is a ready-to-play variant that gives you a massive bank of mix-ready sounds with assignable knobs for the main parameters. For gorgeous analogue tones in a hurry, look no further. www.xils-lab.com

Analogue drum synthesis is made easy with this brilliant beatbox from LinPlug, proving that you don’t need a PhD in synthesis or an insane modular synth setup to get slick-sounding synthetic rhythms. With 12 different sounds at your disposal, and built-in distortion and bitcrushing to add character, CM-505 is perfect whenever you need electro flare, or for mixing with more conventional drums. www.linplug.com

V2 of Cableguys’ already-amazing design-your-own waveforms synth sees the addition of plenty of new features. Oscillator 1 can now mix two waveforms, while oscillator 2 has its own discrete waveform. There’s now a phat 16-voice Unison mode, four Macro knobs, and improved envelopes. And the new colour scheme looks better than ever! www.cableguys.de

Synapse Audio Dune CM

Rob Papen RG-Muted CM

Set sail for new sound design horizons with this very special edition of Synapse Audio’s awesome hybrid synth! It offers virtual analogue and wavetable oscillators, per-voice modulation, a 12-slot mod matrix, tons of presets, and best of all, an unbelievable sound! The full commercial Dune also features built-in effects, twice as many modulation slots, and even more presets. www.synapse-audio.com

This amazing instrument comes from the virtual instrument king himself: Rob Papen! With it, you can create realistic funky guitar grooves via the onboard sequencer, and there are tons of effects and modulation options too. It’s based on Papen’s RG rhythm guitar plugin, and comes with pretty much all the same features, but only the muted guitar sounds. www.robpapen.com

u-he ZebraCM

Synapse Audio Plucked String

Perhaps the most popular plugin we’ve ever given away, this is a completely original instrument created for us by the DSP geniuses at u-he. It’s based on elements from u-he’s uber-synth Zebra, but is a much easier beast to tame. With its superprogrammable step LFOs, swish on-board effects and superb sound quality, you won’t want to be without this one in your plugins folder. www.u-he.com

This is a specialised instrument for creating plucked string sounds entirely using synthesis – no samples here! Features include a stereo mode that mimics guitar double-tracking by playing dual detuned voices, a threevoice mode for extra phatness, and five selectable modes: Noise, String, Gourmet, Nylon and Acoustic. It’s plucking brilliant! www.synapse-audio.com

As well as sounding fantastic, Dune CM allows you to target individual voices for modulation, which can result in some truly huge sounds

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October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 13

> download /

plugins

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PLUGINS Blue Cat Audio FreqAnalyst CM Get a grip on the frequency spectrum with this pro-quality, feature-packed spectral analyser, based on Blue Cat’s full FreqAnalyst. With a wide range of parameters for adjusting the way the frequency graph responds, you can easily create a custom view that works for you, then save it for later recall. You can even save curves for comparison, and undo/ redo any adjustments you make. www.bluecataudio.com

EFFECTS

KResearch KR-Reverb CM Edition

KR-Reverb CM is based on KResearch’s existing KR-Reverb but improves on it with a handy pre-delay and a damping control that provides the user with previously unachievable levels of control over the effect’s tonality. Thankfully light on CPU usage, it’s a must for anyone looking for an easy-touse yet flexible reverb effect, and it can handle everything from tiny rooms to epic plates. www.kresearch.com

FEATURED PLUGIN eaReckon CM-COMP 87

This slick-sounding compressor plugin joins its equalisin’ stablemate CM-EQUA 87 in the Plugins barn. As well as having a superbly punchy compression characteristic and the expected controls, CM-COMP 87 has a Dry/Wet control that makes parallel compression a doddle and a handy Limiter switch to keep the level of the output signal from exceeding 0dB. www.eareckon.com

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DDMF CM EQ Pack

Kuassa Amplifikation CM

The DDMF CM EQ pack includes a pair of superb equaliser plugins. IIEQ Pro CM is a 6-band EQ with a choice of 19 filter types including Butterworth filters, and series or parallel routing. LP10 CM is a mastering EQ with the ability to smoothly adjust the phase response, up to and including linear phase. Both are based on DDMF’s commercial EQ plugins. www.ddmf.eu

From down ’n’ dirty distortion to clean, folk-friendly tones, this guitar amp plugin boasts authentic sounds that you can make your own. It comes courtesy of amp-emulation wizards Kuassa, and it offers two cabs, two mics and two channels. Of the latter, Clean is chimey and warm, making it ideal for country, soul, funk, classic rock or blues, while Lead delivers rich and fluid rock overdrive. www.kuassa.com

KResearch KR-Delay CM Edition

LiquidSonics Reverberate CM

KR-Delay CM is a totally original effect created for us by the audio boffins at KResearch. It’s a powerful stereo delay with a comprehensive array of options, including linkable delay lines, a ping-pong setting, clear visual feedback, multimode filters and syncable delay/pre-delay times. Like its sister plugin KR-Reverb, it’s a highly CPU-efficient beast, making it a great go-to plugin for all of your feedback delay needs. www.kresearch.com

Manipulate your sonic space and set your tracks apart with this top-notch convolution reverb! It’s based on the excellent commercial Reverberate plugin, and it comes with a selection of beautiful, high-fidelity presets. The included impulse responses offer all manner of room, hall and cathedral reverbs, and there are some far-out experimental sounds to be had too. www.liquidsonics.com

MeldaProduction MHarmonizer CM

Sugar Bytes Artillery2 CM Edition

Conjure up lush harmonies from just one part with our exclusive harmoniser plug-in, based on MeldaProdution’s mental MMultiBandHarmonizer! For the uninitiated, a harmoniser lets you create harmonies artificially from a monophonic vocal or instrumental line. It can, of course, also be used on other material to interesting effect, so don’t hold back from experimenting. www.meldaproduction.com

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This is a special version of Sugar Bytes’ powerful Artillery2 effects sequencer that includes six of the best effects from the parent version’s arsenal of 28. Effects include amplitude modulation, an 8-stage phaser, resonant filter delay, low-pass filter, a Beat Repeat-style effect, and more. The real headline feature is that all these effects can be triggered from MIDI keys! www.sugar-bytes.de

plugins / download <

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DOWNLOAD Get all of these effects on your PC or Mac right now at vault.computermusic.co.uk

Ohm Force Ohmygod!

eaReackon CM-EQUA87

Subsonics Labs Wolfram CM

Cableguys Waveshaper CM

A stalwart plugin, this one has been with us seemingly forever, but being from such a highly regarded developer as Ohm Force, it’s easily a match for modern plugins – that’s if you can find one that offers anything remotely like Ohmygod!’s insane mash-up of a resonant comb filter, distortion unit, LFO, and yet more filtering. And things get really freaky when you start feeding it MIDI… www.ohmforce.com

A great equaliser is an essential part of any producer’s arsenal, and this one makes it easy to dial in a great sound, time after time. It offers a lowcut filter, three bands of bell-shaped EQ with switchable high/low shelves, a spectral analyser (so you can see what effect your EQ is having), built-in EQ tips to help you shape sounds, an output limiter, and more. It’s based on eaReckon’s sweet PR-EQUA 87. www.eareckon.com

A shiny and easy-touse multieffects monster from Swedish newcomers Subsonic Labs, Wolfram CM provides you with pitchshifting, distortion, phase-shifting, panning, delay and filter effects, all backed up with flexible modulation routing capabilities to bring your sounds shimmering to life.To find out more about Wolfram, visit Subsonic Labs’ website. www.subsoniclabs.com

This downand-dirty waveshaper plugin uses a graphical editor to add a non-linear distortion effect to an audio signal. Tease out a timid fuzz from a gentle curve or eke out grittier harmonics by drawing in something spikier. With input and output waveforms superimposable via the oscilloscope, you can see exactly how your artistic expressions influence what WaveShaper CM does to the sound. www.cableguys.de

Vengeance Sound Philta CM

Hornet Fat-FET

Sonimus Satson CM

Based on Vengeance Sound’s awesome Philta XL, Philta CM has the same slick highand low-pass filters, complete with four different slopes and width and resonance controls, plus a handy link function and the ability to swap between band-pass and notch modes. Philta CM will delight you with its flexibility and ease of use, whether you use it as a mixing tool or for wild FX. www.vengeance-sound.com

Offering VCA, FET and optical compression emulations, this phat, analogue-modeled compressor is based on the classic UREI (aka Universal Audio) 1176LN Peak Limiter hardware compressor/limiter. Like the original, it’s capable of ultra-fast attack times as low as 0.02 miliseconds, but unlike the real thing, its ratio and threshold controls are fully flexible. A wonderful modern take on a brilliant piece of vintage kit. www.hor-net.com

A seemingly innocuous plugin that offers nothing more than gentle saturation and low-/high-pass filtering, Satson CM is a true secret weapon for anyone who wants to get the best mixes possible. Based on Sonimus’ full Satson package (which also emulates a mixing buss), it emulates the subtle warming and gentle filter slopes of a classic hardware mixing console – slap it on every track in your mix and dial in that sweet analogue sound! dsp.sonimus.com

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS What is Plugins? Is it just freeware? No, and neither are the plugins limited or ‘crippled’. It’s a set of virtual instruments and effects created by some of the best developers in the business just for us – you won’t find this set of plugins anywhere else!

Where do I get Plugins? As a download from our Vault (see p5) or on the DVD with the print edition. How do I install Plugins? Find installation instructions for each plugin in the How To Install file in the CM Plugins folder

What do I need to use Plugins? A PC or Mac and a music program (aka DAW) to host them (ie, ‘plug in’ to). You need a DAW that can host VST or AU plugins, such as Ableton Live, Garageband (Mac), Reaper, FL Studio (PC), Cubase, Logic (Mac) or Sonar (PC).

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Which of the plugins are 64-bit? Around half of them have 64-bit versions. For those that don’t, try a 32-bit bridge (eg, jBridge, or the one in your DAW). See our full format list at bit.ly/cmplugins. Still got questions? See the full FAQ at bit.ly/cmpluginsfaq

October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 15

>

plugins quick guide / xfadeloopercm

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PLUGINS

QUICK GUIDE

XFadeLooperCM Based upon the excellent commercial Crossfade Loop Synth, Expert Sleepers’ XFadeLooperCM is a 32-note polyphonic sampling virtual instrument for PC and Mac that lets you twist, mangle, manipulate and transform your samples beyond all recognition thanks to its combination of traditional sampling and unique synthesis-style functions. On the surface, XFadeLooperCM is a regular sampler, allowing you to load in your own WAV or AIFF files and play them back at different pitches. There’s also an amp envelope, a multimode filter, a pitch control and a saturator.

So far, so standard. Taking things much further are XFadeLooperCM’s flexible implementation of playback direction, looping, fading and synthesis functions. Your audio can be looped, played alternately forwards and backwards, and seamlessly faded in combination with the distinctive hard sync and detuning functions. A short sound can be moulded, looped and distorted into a completely new form. If XFadeLooperCM has got you hooked, be sure to check out the rest of Expert Sleepers’ range of plugins and hardware control solutions.

1>WAVEFORM

5>FILTER ENVELOPE

16 / COMPUTER MUSIC / October 2013

TECH INFO

PC: 32-/64-bit VST instrument Mac: 32-/64-bit AU/VST instrument Get the full Crossfade Loop Synth and more mindbending plugins at www.expertsleepers.com

7>HARD SYNC

8>SATURATION 3>AMPLITUDE

DOWNLOAD Get XFadeLooperCM and more Plugins on your PC/Mac at vault.computermusic.co.uk

4>FILTER

2>LOAD SAMPLE

6>SAMPLE 9>MISC/OSC/LEVELS

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1>WAVEFORM

2>LOAD SAMPLE

To load a waveform, click the Load Sample button to browse for a 16- or 24-bit mono/stereo file. The PC version loads only WAV files whereas the Mac version will load AIFF files too. Use Prev and Next to flick through other audio files in the same folder. XFadeLooperCM can utilise the OSC communication protocol, and its OSC Base Port number can be set from the Prefs dialog. Here we can also toggle Constant Redraw of graphics and a Floating Tooltip to display parameter values when hovering over a knob. Information on the host’s BPM and Time Signature is given along with the Loop Time (inclusive of crossfading), both in seconds and in bars/beats.

3>AMPLITUDE As with the majority of synths and samplers, XFadeLooperCM allows control over the amplitude response of its output, allowing you to shape your sample’s volume over time. Traditional Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release parameters can be adjusted to taste via the upper four (purple and red) knobs. The lower three (gold) knobs determine whether the curve of the A, D and R stages are linear, logarithmic or in between. This detailed level of control can be observed and monitored on the envelope’s graphical display in real time, allowing you to dial in the exact volume response you want.

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QU Plu GU IC gin ID K s E

This window provides a graphical representation of your loaded audio’s waveform with its sampling frequency and length displayed along the strip at the top. Four brightly coloured marker points can be seen over the wave display: these can be dragged and placed across the wave, and each relates to a corresponding sample playback/looping event. The yellow loop point is the Sample Offset marker, which is the point from which the sample starts playback when a key is pressed. The green Loop Start marker sets a point on the waveform from which it will loop if the key is held, and the red Loop End marker defines the end of the looped portion. Note that when the Loop Mode is set to Reverse (See 6), these start and end points will effectively swap places as the sample will be playing backwards. The blue Crossfade marker defines the crossfade or overlap amount at the beginning and end of the loop. Moving it to the right will create a longer crossfade and prevent clicks and pops, especially over shorter loop durations.

October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 17

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4>FILTER XFadeLooperCM houses a powerful multimode resonant filter that can blend filter types. The Type knob is set to Thru at its default minimum (0.000) and maximum (4.000) states, meaning that no filter is active. Setting the Type knob to 1.000 gives a Low-pass filter; setting it to 2.000 a Band-pass; and 3.000 a High-pass filter. Positions between any two of these values will blend the adjacent types of filter together. The Cutoff parameter sets the frequency at which the filter is acting, and the Q is the degree to which frequencies around that point will be emphasised. Use the EnvAmount dial to set how much (positive or negative) effect the Filter Envelope will have on the Cutoff. To get the filter moving, look no further than the LFO section on the right. Here, Shape selects one of four LFO waveshapes (Sine, Triangle, Saw and Square) which can also be Inverted. The Speed parameter sets the LFO’s rate in Hz, and the Amount knob determines how much the LFO affects the cutoff. Delay is the time taken before the LFO kicks in once a note is played. If the Retrigger parameter is set to On, XFadeLooperCM’s LFO cycles will reset when a new note is pressed. The LFO is polyphonic by default, meaning that each new incoming MIDI note will trigger its own LFO. Using the Mono parameter, one LFO can be made to modulate all notes.

POWER TIP

>True colours You don’t have to be a mastermind to figure out XFadeLooperCM’s interface. Blue knobs represent frequencies, setting LFO speeds and the filter’s cutoff; purple knobs represent time lengths for envelopes, delays and fades; grey knobs are on/ off switches; and orange ones control generic values.

5>FILTER ENVELOPE The Filter Envelope’s controls are pretty much identical to the Amplitude Envelope (see 3), with the upper knobs controlling each parameter’s amount and the lower gold knobs used to shape each stage of the envelope. However, the Filter Envelope also contains an Infinite Release option: when the Release is turned fully clockwise to 5.000, the envelope will stop at the sustain level and never decay to zero, even after a note is released.

6>SAMPLE This section controls how XFadeLooperCM will play back samples. The Root knob defines at which MIDI note number the sample will play back at its original pitch. The Fine control adjusts the sample’s pitch in cents. You can play back the sample as a oneshot (looping disabled) by switching O/Shot on, and a short fade-out can then be applied with the Fade knob. The three adjacent gold dials control sample looping modes. The Loop knob gives a choice between three basic loop modes:

18 / COMPUTER MUSIC / October 2013

Forwards (loop plays from beginning to end), Reverse (loop plays from end to beginning) and Alternate (loop switches between Forward and Reverse whenever the loop endpoint is hit). XFade selects between Equal Gain and Equal Power crossfade curves. Equal Gain mode is better when fading a sound of consistent volume and similar content; Equal Power mode attempts to counteract inconsistent material. Finally the PPM (Play Position Memory) dial controls from where a sample plays for

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the second time – Global restarts the sample at the position it last reached regardless of what note is played, Per Note stores the playback position of each note, Same Note will only store the stop position for one note at a time, and Different Note will store the position if different notes are played but reset for the same note. The Pitch LFO applies modulation to the sample’s pitch, controlled in depth by the Amount knob. This section’s controls are otherwise identical to the Filter LFO’s.

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s in E ug ID Pl GU

K IC QU

7>HARD SYNC The Hard Sync function turns XFadeLooperCM into a powerful wavetable synthesiser of sorts. In traditional ‘hard syncing’ synthesis, a ‘slave’ oscillator’s phase is reset every time the ‘master’ oscillator completes a cycle, creating a highly distinctive timbre when the slave’s frequency is offset from that of the master. XFadeLooperCM mimics this by shortening the sample’s loop length to repeat the audio at a defined frequency applied by the Sync dial. A value of 1 provides a single tone at the desired frequency, and increasing this will introduce more complex harmonic content into the signal. The blue Crossfade marker will still have an effect during Hard Sync mode – higher fade values will apply a more softening outcome. It is worth noting that, if the Sync parameter is active, a sample will play back from its Start Offset marker first before looping from the Loop Start marker’s position. This way, a sound’s initial portion can be played back before Hard Sync’s looping is activated later along the waveform. To activate Hard Sync immediately, place the Start Offset marker after the Loop Start marker, and its looping effect will start as soon as a note is played. Detune modulates the sample’s playback pitch whilst still maintaining the consistent synced pitch’s frequency. This will introduce a beating timbre to the sound that can be modulated via the Detune’s own LFO, which can oscillate the detune frequency by up to an octave. The Sync Detune LFO’s parameters are identical to the filter’s LFO (see section 4), except for Amount, which defines the amount of sync detune modulation that will be applied by the LFO.

8>SATURATION When set to On via the On/Off switch, XFadeLooperCM’s Saturation algorithm is activated. Hard-routed before the filter in the signal path, this section allows the introduction of a wide range of overdrive and distortion effects via the Amount parameter, which boosts the signal in the circuit, greatly increasing its tendency to saturate. The saturation’s Shape parameter alters the waveshaping type and effect, giving control over the severity of the distortion introduced. 0.000 creates a basic hard-clipping algorithm, and 1.000 a soft-clipping effect. Beyond that are increasing extremities of harsh waveshaping. This parameter can be gradually blended between these various types to provide the most suitable saturation characteristics for your source sample.

9>MISC/OSC/LEVELS

This section houses several key parameters that affect performance playback. Setting the key of your sample via the Calib dial will ensure the output’s Loop Time readout is accurate. The range of MIDI pitchbend control, from between 0 to 12 semitones, can be adjusted to taste using the BendRng knob. In the OSC section, the OSC Port parameter will add its set amount on to the OSC base port number (defined in the Preferences panel), meaning that the instrument’s port number can be quickly changed in relation to another OSC device.

The Levels section houses XFadeLooperCM’s master Volume knob, used to adjust the instrument’s overall volume output. The addition of gain-increasing characteristics such as Hard Sync or Saturation may push the output level too high, so use this to back off the output to a reasonable level and prevent clipping. Application of the RefTone parameter will introduce a pure synth tone when you play MIDI notes. This tone can be used as a reference to match your sample’s pitch, or can be blended with your sample for more creative purposes such as layering.

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October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 19

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> reader emails

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Send us your letters and technical queries! Email us at [email protected]

Message of the month As an avid producer and reader, I ravage each month’s DVD content like a starving predator prowling for plugins, loops and patches. This is in addition to the dozens of plugins and libraries I’ve bought elsewhere and the Komplete 9 Ultimate suite I bought just recently. I think most of us have too much “stuff”. Most of us no longer know what the best sound in our collection is for one purpose or another; we just go with what’s familiar or what we stumble upon first. I would submit, therefore, that the problem of navigating a bloated soundware and plugin collection merits an article. How do big name

producers organise their tools? How do they, upon acquiring a new library, decide which parts to keep? How do they decide when to throw something out? Yev Bronshteyn This is a very real issue, Yev, and one that the team battles with daily as our hard drives fill up with the latest plugin releases and soundware bonanzas. Re the article, you’re in luck: we’ve got one next month about organising your sample collection, and we’re plotting further workflow-related pieces. LdC

The writer of our Message of the Month will receive FabFilter’s fabulous Creative Bundle suite of plugins for Mac and PC, worth £279!

www.fabfilter.com

Easy does it

Dave Clews offers some easy rhythmic refreshment on p70

The

poll

We asked our Facebook fans: Is CD a dead format? Have you burnt a CD-R recently?

I just wanted to say how much I’m enjoying your Easy Guide to music theory now that you’ve made it bigger and added videos and more pictures! It was always an important part of your mag to me because music theory is an area I want to have a better grasp of, but I used to find it hard to follow and it was like reading a textbook at times. The new style with Dave Clews and his videos is much easier for me, and I feel like I’m understanding more now. Can I make a suggestion? So far you’ve had topics like pentatonic scales and harmonising, but what about things like time signatures, musical timing, etc? Or is the idea that you focus only on notes and keys now? Paul Townall

B: 18%

A: 82%

A No, CD is not dead B Yes, CD is dead!

22 / COMPUTER MUSIC / October 2013

Our refreshed Easy Guide has been going down a storm! We’ve had a load of positive feedback about it, and we’re really pleased with the new look/feel. And regarding your suggestion, we are certainly going to be looking at the rhythmic aspects of music theory too – check out this issue’s instalment for a primer on syncopation! LdC

Especially for you

I’d just like to say thank you for issue 192 of Computer Music. As a self-taught electronic musician, I’ve picked up a lot of knowledge from reading your magazine, but it felt like you’d produced this issue just for me. The cover feature Modulation is something I’ve been struggling with recently and when I realised the VIP Series sample pack was

Pieter Limberger

Bob Abooey

“Cheap, lightweight, reliable and crystal clear sound. CDs are still the king of music media as far as I’m concerned.”

“I only burn discs when people who are out of touch with technology request it.”

Christian Psyfonic “Last weekend I burned my DJ set on CDs for a psytrance festival.”

Nicole Philips “Last night! Far better quality!”

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Lee Walker “I burn CDs to listen to my music as reference on other systems.”

André Paixão “Burning ten right now.”

Ivan Bruna “I can’t remember…”

WorldMags.net ISSUE 195 OCTOBER 2013 Future Publishing Ltd. 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, BA1 2BW Tel: 01225 442244 Fax: 01225 732275 Email: [email protected] Web: www.computermusic.co.uk EDITORIAL Editor: Lee du-Caine, [email protected] Art Editor: Mark White, [email protected] Features Editor: Joe Rossitter, [email protected] Production Editor: James Russell, [email protected]

We’ve got EQ and compression from eaReckon in our Plugins suite, to be placed in the order of your choosing

CONTRIBUTORS Alex Williams, Alex Hayes, Ben Rogerson, Dave Clews, Danny Scott, David Newman, Jon Musgrave, Ronan Macdonald, Scot Solida, rachMiel, Caity Foster, Tim Cant, Tim Oliver Illustration: Jake Photography: Rex Features, Kevin Nixon Group Senior Editor: Julie Taylor Senior Art Editor: Rodney Dive Creative Director: Robin Abbott Editorial Director: Jim Douglas ADVERTISING Ad Director: Clare Coleman-Straw, [email protected] Ad Sales Manager: Lara Jaggon, [email protected] Senior Sales Executive: Leon Stephens, [email protected] MARKETING Group Marketing Manager: Lyndsey Mayhew, [email protected] Marketing Executive: Sarah Jackson, [email protected] CIRCULATION Trade Marketing Manager: Matt Cooper, [email protected] PRINT & PRODUCTION Production Controller: Frances Twentyman, [email protected] Production Manager: Mark Constance, [email protected]

from a group I’ve followed since their Producer Masterclass in , C.R.S.T, along with the fact that this issue’s Masterclass was with Shadow Child – another of my favourite producers – I couldn’t wait to get it home. Luckily I had my laptop with me so I watched the video on the train on the way back. Matthew McGuinness While we aim to please with each and every issue, it sounds like 192 was indeed tailor-made for you! Glad to hear you got so much out of it. LdC

Chain letter

I’m slowly learning about mixing, and I have a few questions that I’m hoping you can clear up. Are you supposed to put compression first or EQ? And where do reverbs go in the chain? Help me ! Sam Peyton There are no strict rules for the order of effects, and you can certainly get creative here if you wish, as the order in which they’re placed will almost always give different sonic results. For EQ vs compression, if you put the EQ first, the compressor will react to the

EQ’ed signal. So if you use the EQ to cut the bass of a drum loop, the compressor will then react to the mid and treble frequencies, ignoring the heavy thump of the kick drum. But if you swap them round and place the compressor first, it will react to the drum loop’s bass frequencies too, which will give obvious, pumping compression. And after that comes the EQ, which will cut away the bass. So now the compressor is reacting to frequencies that aren’t heard by the listener, which may or may not be what you want! Ultimately, it’s up to you, though I would say that EQ before compression is the most common and logical setup. Reverb before compression will compress the reverb tail too; reverb after compression will give a cleaner, uncompressed ’verb. It comes down to taste and what you’re aiming for. LdC

To the point Logic Pro X guide?

review? Please?! F Corbury

Review on page 88! Hands-on videos in the Vault! And a big ol’ Guide to Logic Pro X next month?! You got it. LdC

Selector We’ve been listening to

You’ve been listening to

Taake, Scott Brown, DJ Quatro, Elliott Smith, Van Morrison, Carlos Santana, Kraftwerk, Eight Rounds Rapid, Ennio Morricone, Mosca, Shadow Child, Disclosure, Tom Staar, Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim

Bonobo, Tru Skool, Disclosure, Amenra, Shadow Child, Etta James, Xasthur, Drumsound & Bassline Smith, Laurie Anderson, Boards of Canada, Jay-Z, Cardiacs, Burzum, Bear//Face, Coldplay, Bat for Lashes, Tim Hecker, Dino Sabatini

LICENSING Head of International Licensing: Regina Erak, [email protected] Tel: + 44 (0)1225 732359 If you would like to purchase the images featured in this publication, please visit www.futuremediastore.com or email [email protected] FUTURE PUBLISHING LIMITED Head of Music: Rob Last, [email protected] MD Sport, Auto & Music: Andy Rice, [email protected] UK Chief Executive: Mark Wood SUBSCRIPTIONS Phone our UK hotline on: 0844 848 2852 Overseas: (+44) (0) 1604 251 045 Subscribe online at: www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk NEXT ISSUE ON SALE: 11 September Printed in the UK by William Gibbons on behalf of Future. Distributed in the UK by Seymour Distribution Ltd, 2 East Poultry Avenue, London, EC1A 9PT. Tel: 0207 429 4000

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www.futureplc.com © Future Publishing Limited 2013. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. The registered office of Future Publishing Limited is at Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW. All information contained in this magazine is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. Readers are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this magazine. If you submit unsolicited material to us, you automatically grant Future a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in all editions of the magazine, including licensed editions worldwide and in any physical or digital format throughout the world. Any material you submit is sent at your risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents or subcontractors shall be liable for loss or damage.

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> news

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NEW RELEASES COMMENT INDUSTRY HAPPENINGS

Vengeance-Sound Phalanx The sample giant adds another string to its plugin bow with a comprehensive, fully-loaded sampler Vengeance-Sound have released their eagerly awaited Phalanx “drum and synth sampler”, and our first impressions are very favourable indeed. Although you can of course sample anything you like with it, the “drum and synth” specification describes Phalanx’s padbased design. Each of its 16 pads (it’s clearly built with pad controllers in mind) can load two samples (6000 are included), which can be crossfaded, and the list of things you can then do to them is extensive. There are 12 filter types onboard, plus 17 effects and the ability to load any VPS effects plugins you might have installed. As well as 32 LFOs (two per pad), four envelopes (one of them loopable), plus an arpeggiator and 4-band parametric EQ on each pad, samples can be looped and even manipulated vinyl-style with the Scratch Simulator. Samples are loaded via drag and drop, and a built-in librarian keeps everything in order. Phalanx is out now for Mac and PC, priced £172, and we’ll be reviewing it next issue.

www.vengeance-sound.com

Sony Sound Forge Pro 11 and SpectraLayers Pro 2

Sound Forge Pro 11 (PC) not only sees various improvements to Sony’s high-end audio recorder/editor, but also seamless integration with their SpectraLayers 2 (Mac/PC) spectral editor. This takes the form of “Send to…” options in each that directly shuttle files or selections within files between them. Beyond that, SFP11 benefits from a new “modeless” recording environment, a waveform overview, input buss effects, a dockable

Phalanx looks like a killer drum/synth sampler – we’ll find out how it handles on the battlefield soon

chain interface, the inclusion of iZotope’s Nectar Elements plugin and more. SL 2 gets one-click noise removal, a new Shape tool, “Spectral moulding”, better pitchshifting and more. Both are available now for $400 each.

www.sonycreativesoftware.com

New UAD software

Version 7.1 of Universal Audio’s UAD software sees improved routing for the Apollo audio interface mixer and a few new plugins. The Pultec Passive EQ Collection ($299) includes recreations of the EQP-1A, MEQ-5, HLF-3C, all improving dramatically on the versions of the same already in the UAD catalogue, while the Millennia NSEQ-2 EQ ($299) brings that revered parametric to life in software.

www.uaudio.com

AudioSpillage DrumSpillage 2 plugin

Sound Forge Pro’s 11th incarnation sees handy integration with SpectraLayers

24 / COMPUTER MUSIC / October 2013

AudioSpillage’s Mac-only drum synth has been upgraded with a new GUI, four LFOs per pad and significant improvements to its 13 algorithms. It’s out this summer for £75,

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v2 expands DrumSpillage’s synthesis capabilities

but you can preorder at a 25% discount.

www.audiospillage.com

Sugar Bytes WOW2

The follow-up to Sugar Bytes’ superb WOW filter plugin for PC and Mac boasts 21 filter types, three analogue-modeling overdrives, four digital distortions, modulation options galore (inc. step sequencer and wobble generator) and a funky new interface. Get it now for €99 or wait for our review first.

www.sugar-bytes.de

news <

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Klanghelm IVGI

Native Instruments furnish us with a slimmeddown Kontrol to work with both PC/Mac and iOS

NI Traktor Kontrol Z1

The latest DJ controller from Native Instruments is an ultra-compact 2-channel mixer and 24-bit audio interface for Traktor DJ Pro 2 on PC and Mac, and Traktor DJ on iPhone and iPad. Features include a cueing/ monitoring section, individual channel faders and a crossfader, and dedicated EQ controls. It’s been designed to sit nicely alongside NI’s Traktor Kontrols X1 and F1. €199 makes it yours, and we’ll be reviewing it in a future issue of .

www.native-instruments.com

Special: Epic FX

Bursting with tutorials on everything from filtering manoeuvres, white noise FX and vocal cut-ups to fake breaks, complextro riffs and much more, Special 61: Epic FX will have your tunes sounding bigger, badder and more polished than ever. It also includes download links to a series of videos that bring the tutorials to life on-screen, all the files you need to follow

the walkthroughs, and over 500MB of inspirational samples from Sample Magic. Special 61: Epic FX is available now in shops and at the URL below, via Apple Newsstand and on Zinio.

www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk

Klanghelm DC8C v2

This updated compressor plugin for Mac and PC is designed to deliver pristine transparency, but with the option to dial in two saturation models should you want a bit of colouration. It packs an impressive feature list and is out now for €20.

www.klanghelm.com

Ignite Amps TPA-1

Another free cross-platform ‘drive’ plugin, this time an emulation of a guitar power amp. Ignite make actual guitar hardware, and this expertise has been put to great use across their range of excellent free guitar-oriented plugins, TPA-1 being no exception. Another must for axe nuts! www.igniteamps.com

Soundware news v2 updates DC8C’s interface and functionality

Humanoid Sound Systems Enzyme

The next generation of their Scanned Synth Pro, HSS’s Enzyme improves on its stablemate with multiple scanners, sample import, a new effects rack, hybrid Scanned/ FM synthesis and a bright, clear new interface. It’s described as “coming soon” at a price yet to be announced. We were certainly intrigued by the scanned synthesis concept in our review of SSP some years ago, so we look forward to checking this one out.

www.humanoidsoundsystems.com

OverTone DSP Vintage Mastering Bundle

Feed your tracks some delightful ear candy with Special 61 and the huge tutorials therein

We gave this one a brief mention in last issue’s news story about Klanghelm’s upcoming payware SDRR plugin, but we felt its free ‘little brother’ IVGI deserved its own 15 minutes of fame. It’s simple enough: a PC/Mac saturation/ overdrive plugin with adjustable asymmetric distortion amount, a frequency response control, tweakable stereo crosstalk, 4x oversampling and more. Best of all, it sounds excellent, and it’s flexible enough to be equally adept at adding low-end roundess or top-end sheen. Roll on SDRR! www.klanghelm.com

OverTone DSP have brought two of their Mac/PC plugins together in a £25 Bundle, saving £10 on the price of the two bought individually. The pair in question are the FC70 and PTC-2A, emulations of the Fairchild 670 limiter and Pultec EQP-1A EQ respectively.

www.overtonedsp.co.uk

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Quantum Loops’ Complextro Hits comprises over 500 hits and synth presets for electro house and dubstep production. It’s out now for £15. www.loopmasters.com From the studio of dubstep producer Eleven8 comes Samplephonics’ Sub_ Culture, a 1.2GB collection of loops and one-shots for producers of “dark electronic music”. It’s yours for £40. www.samplephonics.com ILIO’s Ascension is a “risers and swells” preset pack for Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere. 204 patches are in the clip, in 2-, 4-, 8and 16-bar versions. It’s £16. www.timespace.com Chillwave Guitars is a collection of 284 dreamy guitar loops for use in chilled and ambient productions. The guitars include a Fender Thin-Line Tele and a 1970s Ovation acoustic. £15. www.samplemagic.com October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 25

> news

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Get with the programmers We talk to the CEO and developer of a software company with its finger firmly on the pulse Tell us a bit about the company’s background. Who works there, and what were you doing before kiloHearts? PS “When we started out in 2011 there was two of us, Per Svanberg and Anders Stenberg, both developers from a computer game background. We had done a lot of simulation work, some in the audio area. Since we love music and had dabbled with it ourselves before, we started doing what became kHs ONE. In 2013, a third guy, Per Salbark, joined forces with us, bringing UI and graphics expertise to the table.”

kiloHearts

Your first product was a synth, ONE. Why not start small with an effect or two before releasing a synth? PS “Honestly, we didn’t really have a grand plan at that point. We knew we both liked developing audio stuff and we had a couple of months in between other projects, so we thought it would be great fun to roll up our sleeves and do something fairly big from the start. We got the synth done surprisingly quickly, but we underestimated the amount of auxiliary work like building a website with a sales backend, advertising and so on. It’s fun to have done the whole thing from scratch, though. Expect more synths in the future.”

Per Svanberg

What inspired you to make your phase-rotation effect Disperser? Do you think “phase” is misunderstood by a lot of producers? PS “Our sales pitch for it says ‘Have you ever wanted to rotate the phases of your signal to create frequency sweeps? Funny, neither had we…’ and that’s actually very true. Electronic producer Datassette came to us with the idea, and we hacked together a quick prototype and were amazed by the effects it had. Phase is definitely poorly understood and we have a hard time wrapping our own heads around it sometimes. Disperser itself was really confusing to use until we added the group delay graph in the frequency window. That graph made everything click into place.” kiloHearts is a relatively new company, but you’ve already made a real impact. What lessons have you learnt? PS “Something we didn’t expect when we started out was the amount of work involved that is not actually developing plugins, and this is something we’re still learning. Building a user base takes time even if you’ve got a good product, so it’s a good idea to have secondary sources of income to fall back on when starting up.”

“Building a user base takes time even if you’ve got a good product”

What’s coming next from kiloHearts? And outside of kiloHearts, which developers and products are you watching? PS “We are working on a whole new suite of effect plugins with a more modular approach, which we are very excited about. The first big plugin to take advantage of this system is a really neat multiband processor. We also have plans for a subtractive/FM/wavetable hybrid synth, but that’s further down the line. In general, we’re more interested to see what’s happening on the electronic music scene and what the actual musicians are up to. Still we are very curious to see what’s happening over at Bitwig. And of course, we have to give a shout out to our neighbours Softube.

A set of four “audio restoration and noise reduction” plugins for Mac and PC, Acon’s Restoration Suite comprises DeNoize, DeHum, DeClick and DeClip. This corrective quartet holds little in the way of surprises, fulfilling tasks such as doing away with broadband noise, mains and motor hum, vinyl/digital clicks and crackles, and analogue or digital clipping respectively. The demos on the website certainly sound impressive (but don’t they always?), seemingly supporting the developer’s claims of “advanced algorithms”, “transient detection” and “temporal smoothing” as key features. Restoration Suite can be yours now – right now! – for $100.

www.acondigital.com

Accusonus Drumatom

Proving that there’s no music production niche that can’t be filled by software, Drumatom is a “drum leakage suppression tool for Mac.” Employing the scientificsounding Blind Source Separation techniques to reduce mic leakage without having an ill effect on the main signal, it appears to be a standalone application rather than a plugin, which would make sense given the necessarily multichannel nature of the material it deals with. It’s due out in September at a price yet to be confirmed.

www.accusonus.com

HoRNet TrackShaper

The affordable new releases continue to pour forth from HoRNet’s nest, the latest being TrackShaper – a “mix by magic” plugin for PC and Mac. Based on the developer’s ChannelStrip Mk2 technology, this three-knob wonder features a series of instrument-specific algorithms that call on dynamically sensitive behind-the-curtain EQ and compression characteristics to improve the source signal with minimum user input. It almost sounds too good to be true, particularly at its €15 asking price. We’ll be reviewing it in a future issue.

www.hornetplugins.com

SPC Plugins Freek

Oil painting it ain’t, but SPC’s new frequency shifter plugin, Freek, certainly looks to have all bases covered when it comes to its particular signal processing vocation. Offering stereo barberpole phasing with up to 32 stages, its stereo shifting can be applied channelindependently or phase-locked, while its two LFOs feature 96 waveforms, including sequenced patterns, random modulations, envelope following and more. Freek is out now for Mac or PC, and it’ll set you back $39.

www.spcplugins.com

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Acon Digital Restoration Suite

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WorldMags.net Trackers & Demoscene

nu desine AlphaSphere

AlphaSphere is an unusual MIDI instrument/ controller designed to “increase the level of expression available to electronic musicians”. To that end, it comprises a spherical array of 48 pressure-sensitive elasticated pads that connect to a host computer via USB and send out MIDI data, editable via a dedicated application (AlphaLive for PC, Mac and Linux), which also has sampling/sequencing functionality

We step back from tracker hunting this month and do some listening It’s time to sit back and take a peek at some essential sources for the best in demoscene music. One of the finer ways to digest tracker tunes is to avail yourself of the many demoscene internet radio stations – here are a few we think shine the brightest. The most popular by far is Nectarine Radio, which boasts a huge community, user-voted playlists and a song and composer database along with individual song ratings. Nectarine also holds song

If HOFA’s new convolution reverb sounds anywhere near as good as it looks, users will be in for a treat

and can convert MIDI input to OSC. The limited edition AlphaSphere elite costs £1000 and can be preordered now.

www.alphasphere.com

HOFA IQ-Reverb

Alphasphere is aimed at performance, but we’re not sure how we’d feel stroking a pair of them on stage…

A convolution reverb designed to give the same level of parameter control you’d expect from an algorithmic reverb, IQ-Reverb centres on a rather sexy 3D graphical interface that visualises parameter changes. IR lengths are easily adjustable, reverb times can be set independently for three discrete frequency ranges, and the reverb tail can be shaped using the onboard LFO and gate modules. IQ-Reverb looks to be of particular interest to sound designers, but we’ll reveal all in our upcoming review. It’s available now for Mac and PC, priced €150.

“One of the finer ways to digest tracker tunes is to avail yourself of the many demoscene radio stations”

www.hofa-plugins.de

Ins & outs GURNING FOR GLORY Inspired by the air guitar scene, electronic music legend Vince Clarke recently ran a ‘synth gurning’ competition. Entrants were asked to video themselves making a synth sound using just their mouth – Vince shows us how it’s done at bit.ly/15Q7s1U.

DOUG ENGELBART R.I.P. The man who spent years thinking about how humans can improve their interaction with computers is best known for inventing the mouse. It’s a testament to its genius that, decades after its inception, it’s still the preferred input method for many of us.

NEXT-GEN NEXUS Google has fired the latest shot in the tablet wars by launching the Nexus 7 2. Could this be the catalyst for the company to sort the Android latency issue out, enabling developers to create decent music-making apps for it? We can but hope…

ILLOGICAL? Everyone’s been celebrating the arrival of Logic Pro X, but we’re still ever-so-slightly uneasy about the complete absence of an upgrade path from previous versions. Yes, it represents good value for money, but how about giving long-term users some kind of break?

CAN’T BEAT THE REEL THING First we had Record Store Day, a celebration of vinyl, and now Cassette Store Day is almost upon us. Why not dig out your collection of ferric and chrome beauties on 7 September and reminisce?

IT’S ALL KICKING OFF We can definitely see the benefit of crowd-funding platforms such as Kickstarter, but we sometimes long for the days when companies would just design a product, make it and then release it to the public. Can’t we be customers rather than investors once in a while?

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competitions, house forums and even has a list of users to chat with live online. Listen to the stream at scenemusic.net. For your old-school needs, try Kohina, a rather more understated, old-school demoscene radio site which streams a selection of handpicked 8-bit and 16-bit-era tunes: kohina.com. Lastly is SceneSat Radio, another handpicked archive broadcasting hosted radio shows as well as streaming playlist rotations, and with a built-in IRC client on the website for live chat, it also has a vibrant community: scenesat.com. DEMO OF THE MONTH Summer of 64 by Offence Bearing more resemblance to Pink Floyd’s Summer of ’68 than Bryan Adam’s Summer of ’69, this eclectic and hypnotic melange of dancing girls, isometric staircases and breathtaking vistas earned this C64 production second place in the Oldschool Demo Competition at the recent Solskogen demo party in Norway. For us, though Summer of 64 is a winner. bit.ly/15t40d5.

Summer of 64 by Offence fits into a meagre 23KB

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                                                                           "946 66)9$' 9"*;!" $6 9"9 9"6 6?69(6 5 6 95)6+5)9 ) ;)*95;6$ Step by step

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WorldMags.net 11. Readying a track for use with Performance Mode

Performance Mode gets expanded controller support in FL 11, so now we’ll show you how to get a track ready for use with it. We’ve included a project in the Tutorial Files folder for you to follow along with. Open PerfModeTut.zip (FL Studio can open Zipped Loop (project) files as projects) and take a look at the Playlist to see how the track is arranged.

We continue laying out patterns (only placing one instance of each) in a logical order. We place the lead (Pattern 5) next on Track 4, but we have several melodies that we want to trigger our lead sound with, and they’re of varying length. We put Patterns 6 to 11 end to end along Track 5 – they extend beyond the length of a single numbered pad marker.

We finish our placing of patterns by placing Auto Clip, an automation clip that creates a pumping sidechain compression style effect on our bass and chords, on Track 8. We place pattern 12 on Track 6 and our tambourine loop (from the Newtone tutorial on p43) on Track 7 to finish our layout.

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Click the Tools menu and select Macros»Prepare for Performance Mode. A prompt tells you the project will be tweaked for live performance – click OK. You’ll see the look of the track change, with a blank area appearing to the left of the denoted Start point. This is where we’ll arrange our “playable” clips.

Although our clips above Track 5 also extend beyond the length of one pad, this isn’t a problem as they are the only clips on this row. For Track 5 this is a problem, as we need the patterns to be next to each other on our controller’s pad row. If your controller is on and has lit feedback of where triggerable clips are, take a look at it. There are unlit gaps between our triggerable clips. This wasted space isn’t ideal.

It’s unclear which tracks represent which instruments, so we name and colour Tracks 1-7 by right-clicking their names and selecting Rename/Color.... We name them appropriately and pick distinct colours to clearly differentiate them. For Track 5, we also right-click and select Performance settings»One shot, so that these parts play once rather than loop when triggered.

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We need to arrange the clips in a triggerable layout, so we start by pasting Pattern 2, the drum pattern, into Track 1 under Pad #1 at the top. If you’re using a compatible pad controller (we’re using a Novation Launchpad S), the placement of clips corresponds to the pads on your controller. We put our chords (Pattern 1) first in the Track 2 row, and our bassline first in Track 3.

In our project we can address this by right clicking the Pad #2 marker at the top and selecting Delete. We do this for Pads #4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16. If your controller is lit, look again and it should now display the triggerable clips as sequential pads. Note: these refer to the numbers the pad markers have as their default numbering, as markers will be renumbered as they are deleted.

We now delete everything past the [ Start marker except Auto Clip #3 envelope, a filter sweep for our chords that we want to play at the start without us triggering it. Now we can trigger the clips using the pads or by clicking them with the mouse – see us playing the song live in the Tutorial Videos folder. Follow this same process with your own tracks to get them ready for performance!

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RIGHT-CLICK DATA ENTRY You can now enter precise parameter values into many FL Studio plugins by simply rightclicking on the knob, slider or other control you’re editing and selecting Type in value. Extremely handy in situations where the smallest change can make a big difference.

The new Type in value option in many FL Studio plugins enables you to enter precise parameter settings

have had their starts cut off but still otherwise remain will play from their new start points. To enable this, head to Options and, under Project general settings, enable Play truncated notes in clips.

WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK Amongst its many other talents, Newtone can convert audio to MIDI. Whether you want to capture a sampled riff as MIDI, or hum or whistle a melody as a starting point for a project, all you have to do is drag your imported or recorded audio into Newtone and click the Send to Piano Roll button at the top of the interface.

COME TOGETHER If you have two sequential MIDI notes on the same Piano Roll note lane that you want to merge into one, rather than deleting the second and extending the first, you can now just click and hold the end of the first note, invoking the Resize cursor, and the second (provided it neighbours the first) will merge into it, creating one continuous note.

LOCK AND LOAD When moving notes in the Piano Roll or clips in the Playlist, it’s all too easy to drag them up or down accidentally when you only mean to move them left or right, and vice versa. FL Studio 11 introduces a handy feature to get around this: hold Ctrl while dragging to restrict movement to the vertical plane, or Shift to enable horizontal movement only.

QUICK PICKS Using FL Studio’s Plugin Picker couldn’t be easier, and doing so will speed up your whole creative process. Click the mousewheel in a blank area of the interface to open it and view your plugins collection. You can then drag the plugin of your choice to its destination, replacing an existing one if necessary, or just double-click to open a new instance of it. What’s more, as of version 11, you can begin typing a plugin’s name in the Plugin Picker to highlight it.

FREEWHEELING Improve your workflow in the Piano Roll by changing tools via the mousewheel. Rightclick and scroll the wheel in a blank area of

Drag an audio clip into Newtone and hit Send to Piano Roll to convert it to a MIDI part – genius!

the Piano Roll to cycle between tools without having to move to the top bar. Particularly useful for quickly switching from the brush to the cut tool and back, for example.

KEEP ON ROLLING The FL 11 mousewheel action doesn’t end there! Rolling it while clicking and holding a note adjusts that note’s velocity, while holding Ctrl, hovering over a channel and rolling the wheel cycles through the assigned mixer tracks.

PLAY TRUNCATED NOTES It can often be a good idea to make variations on the hook of a track, and a handy addition in FL Studio 11 that can help with this is the ability to play truncated notes. What this means is that if you use the cut tool to cut out a section of a clip in the Playlist (to insert a new short section, for example), notes that

Far more than the poor relative of the Plugin Picker, the Project Picker can be an invaluable compositional tool

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BRUSH MONOPOLY Missing the old behaviour of the brush tool since it changed to placing notes monophonically? Hold Shift while using it to return to its old behaviour, which is more akin to the draw tool. However, a handy feature of the brush’s new behaviour is that you can mute notes with it by right-clicking above or below them in the Piano Roll. The notes will mute and turn grey until you right-click again. Ideal for trying out chord variations.

CHOPPING AND CHANGING If your chords are not simple blocks of notes all starting and ending at once, but rather overlapping notes of varying durations, you can convert them to the former with the new Chop Chord tool (added to both the Strum and Articulate tools in the Piano Roll menu). It creates ‘full’ chords by chopping any sustained notes wherever a new note starts.

PLENTY TO PICK FROM As well as the Plugin Picker, FL studio features the less well-known Project Picker, which can be a lifesaver when arranging complex projects. Right-click the name of the current clip source at the top of the Playlist view to open it. The Project Picker gives a clear layout of all the patterns in your project from which to choose. Hovering the mouse pointer over them will preview them.

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WorldMags.net Producer Masterclass

OM UNIT

We take you into Om Unit’s studio to find out how he creates his futuristic fusion of hip-hop, dubstep, DnB and techno.

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> make music now / producer masterclass

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Jim Coles has been wowing electronic music fans of all kinds since his debut as Om Unit in 2010, with releases on labels as diverse as All City, Civil Music, Exit and Metalheadz. We caught up with Jim in his London studio to find out about his eclectic influences and how he makes his mesmerising beats. “I was listening to a lot of dance stuff in the early 90s,” Jim begins. “I discovered hardcore and jungle, and I initially started out making jungle using trackers: Scream Tracker and then FastTracker after that. So all through the 90s, I was just making jungle tunes for myself – bedroom-style on a knackered old PC, and I was too scared to share them with the world! “I started DJing and buying records; in the late 90s, when I was at university, I DJed jungle, garage and all sorts, hard house and techno, then I got into turntablism as well. I got into battle DJing, and in the early 2000s, my DJ crew were in the DMC world finals. Then I moved on to producing instrumental hip-hop and stuff like that. I did three albums under the name 2tall and was performing live on stage using turntables and effects pedals and stuff like that.” Eventually, Jim made the switch from trackers to full-on DAWs. “I got more seriously into producing in the mid-to-late 2000s when I started using Cubase SX2.

“I really started to pull everything together and try and create my own sound and my own style” I just gradually learned stuff: watching tutorials, messing around, trying different plugins… It was quite a long process. “The Om Unit project started in 2010, so that was like a rebirth, a new start, and that’s where I really started to pull everything together and try and create my own sound and my own style using proper software

Selected kit list HARDWARE PC running Windows XP Steinberg Cubase 5 RME Multiface Access Virus B Yamaha TG33 Roland Alpha Juno 1

SOFTWARE Kjaerhus MPL-1 Pro Lexicon PCM Native Reverb reFX Nexus PSP MixSaturator Softube Spring Reverb Waves, FF and NI Plugins

and everything, incorporating DnB-style production, a lot of synth work and finding my own kind of groove.” So which elements of DnB does Om Unit draw on? “Just approaching it in that kind of way: sub bass, beats, bashy sounds… Also incorporating dubstep as well: dub techniques, spatial effects and stuff. I’m into certain 80s bands like Gang of Four, and I recently discovered Dead Can Dance. 80s engineering had much more use of space and effects and gear. Where the 70s was more about recording, the 80s was more about processing. Interesting things like what Brian Eno was doing with his ambient stuff, and weird disco and all sorts.” Jim also got a step up from attending the Red Bull Music Academy. “I applied in 2010, didn’t get in, so I applied again in 2011 and managed to get a place. I went to Madrid, stayed there for two weeks and attended all these great lectures. We had people like Erykah Badu, Young Guru (Jay-Z’s main

Video masterclass Jim shows us how he made the deep and deadly vocal hip-hop track Dark Sunrise with vocal by Tamara Blessa in Cubase.

Don’t miss… 07:48 Mono-ing bass frequencies 28:24 Helping synths sit in the mix with

mid/side processing

37:40 Working with vocals recorded in different sessions 52:05 Using Waves CLA Vocals to add bite and presence

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guy), Paul Riser, the guy who wrote the string arrangements for Motown, MF Doom and the feller [Gareth Jones] that used to mix Depeche Mode and did John Foxx’s The Garden. It was an amazing experience; we had 30-or-so people from countries around the world all coming together to experience it, learn together and collaborate.” Finally, Jim lets us in on the meaning of the Om Unit name. “Om is a Sanskrit word. It’s a philosophical kind of thing, it means ‘the point at which energy becomes matter’. I like to think of it as ‘potential becomes reality’. So it’s really about manifestation, creativity, bringing things into being. ‘Unit’ is a single thing or person, so it’s creativity channelled through one person.” In this exclusive tutorial, Jim shows us how he created the sinister vocal track Dark Sunrise in Cubase. Make sure you watch the video for more detail on the techniques used, plus loads of extra tips and tricks!

producer masterclass / make music now <

WorldMags.net > Step by step

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Producing Dark Sunrise (feat. Tamara Blessa) in Cubase

The track’s drums are composed using samples played back via Native Instruments’ Battery. These include regular drum sounds and other elements used to add texture and rhythm such as the noise of a spraycan being shaken. The MIDI timing varies to give the beat a loose, organic groove.

The track’s sub bass is supplied by the Adrenaline patch from Kontakt’s Factory Content library. This is a really straightforward, slightly saturated sine tone with a little chorus on it. The envelope attack and release times are kept low so that the track’s highly rhythmic bass groove sounds good and tight.

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Another part of the rhythm section is a hi-hat shuffle taken from a breakbeat. FabFilter’s Pro-Q is used to cut any low rumble, smooth out the top end and tame an excessively prominent frequency in the 7kHz region. A Waves API-550B is put in the chain after this to boost the hats’ tops.

The mid part of the bass is a bounced audio track created using LennarDigital’s Sylenth1. This was created with a detuned saw oscillator, a tight amplitude envelope and some chorus to achieve a big, full-frequency sound. This element is brought in with a high-pass filter sweep, and it plays loudly before the sub bass kicks in on the drop.

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A layer of percussion is added courtesy of Cubase’s Groove Agent ONE instrument, which is packed with stock percussion sounds. Jim uses this to add “salt and pepper” to the beat in the form of some thin synthetic snares and hats. These add character to the weighty, more organic drums already in place.

Tone2’s Gladiator and a hardware Access Virus B synth are used to provide other futuristic tones, and reFX’s Nexus is called in to deliver an almost harplike synth pluck, a product of the synth’s SY Cosmic Dreamer preset. Nexus is run through Bootsy’s freeware Rescue to cut the mid signal and boost the sides. This results in a slightly wider sound.

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To get the right feel on Tamara Blessa’s vocals, Jim adds Waves’ DeEsser with a sidechain filter frequency of about 6kHz to slightly tame some of the higher, sibilant frequencies. An EQ rolls off any unwanted low-frequency rumble, and after that, a Waves CLA-3A dynamics processor is applied. This is set to Compressor mode to give the vocal a more consistent level.

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For the perfect send buss effect for the vocal, Jim uses Waves’ Doubler to widen the sound, a Lexicon Hall reverb effect to add ambience, FabFilter’s Pro-Q to roll off the lows below 1kHz and the highs above 5kHz, and finally he delays the signal with the freeware Bionic Delay.

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If you’ve enjoyed seeing how Dark Sunrise was made, you can get the full track as part of the Aeolian EP (bit.ly/KqoTAs), and download the Kromestar remix for free (bit.ly/11UVcLL). Follow Om Unit and keep up to date on news, gigs and music releases via: Website: omunit.com Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/omunit Twitter: @om_unit Facebook: facebook.com/omunit

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GIVE YOUR TRACKS MAXIMUM IMPACT WITH THE MANUAL ON DESIGNING BOLD, BRILLIANT FX

GET IT NOW!

On sale NOW! Computer Music Special 61: EPIC FX Print edition: selected WH Smith, Chapters and independent newsagents or

WorldMags.net iPad/iPhone Newsstand: www.computermusic.co.uk/cmsdigital Zinio digital edition: gb.zinio.com

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Transferring projects between different workstations can be fraught with obstacles. We examine some basic yet proven techniques for effective DAW-to-DAW delivery Making music on computers is by nature something of a solitary pursuit – being able to create a track from start to finish all ‘in the box’ makes it the perfect pastime for individual artists and bedroom producers. However hard you try to stay ‘solo’, though, you’re likely to reach a point where you get involved in a collaboration of some sort, be it with another artist, producer or engineer. At the most basic level, this is likely to involve sending your track over to an engineer to be mixed or mastered, in which case you’ll need to get your project into a state where it can be opened by the person at the other end with everything in the correct place. Although DAWs all do essentially the same kind of job, when you

consider that each person’s system is highly personalised, each with a unique collection of virtual instruments and effects plugins, the potential pitfalls start to become apparent. Then there’s the plugin formats themselves to bear in mind; Pro Tools uses AAX, TDM or RTAS plugins depending on the age of the system, for example, while Cubase relies on VST technology for its effects processors and virtual instruments. Meanwhile, Logic uses the Audio Units format, and Live can use both VST and Audio Units. And Reason uses its own Rack Extensions format, of course. This fundamental incompatibility is one of the main factors that can make collaboration on computer music projects complicated.

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Sadly, there is currently no magic solution to convert projects from one system to another – DAW capabilities vary so enormously that a complete conversion between every session format is impossible. Whichever method you choose, there’s always going to have to be a certain amount of preparation and patience involved in order to get a satisfactory result. In this guide, we’ll to examine how best to prepare your tracks for export, both to someone with the same DAW and to a colleague with a completely different system. Whether it’s a Logic project being mixed in Pro Tools, or a Live session needing to be opened in Cubase, we’ll open the DAW (ahem) on the best ways to get the most hassle-free transfers and predictable results. October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 55

> make music now / daw to daw

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1. Transferring a MIDI file from Logic to Cubase

In this Logic project, the first two tracks are audio and the rest of the project is MIDI. We begin by merging each track’s regions into one long region using Logic’s Join function. Without this step, each MIDI region will likely be placed on an individual track when you import the exported file into another DAW.

MIDI file types While each DAW saves its project files in its own proprietary format that can only be loaded back into the same DAW, one type of file that can be imported universally into practically all DAWs is the good old Standard MIDI File. Also known as SMF or MID files, these contain all the MIDI instructions for note pitches, timings, durations, velocity, and MIDI CCs. MIDI files can’t reference audio, but they’re still a useful way of getting the actual nuts and bolts of a MIDIbased project from one system to another, provided that the recipient has the same (or suitable) virtual instruments to reproduce the parts correctly. Standard MIDI Files come in two basic varieties: Type 1 files and Type 0 files. In a Type 0 file, everything is merged onto a single track, but in a Type 1 file, individual parts are saved on different tracks within the sequence. For this reason, Type 1 files are much more widely used for transferring multitrack MIDI projects (if you do need to use Type 0, you’d best export a separate MIDI file for each part). Because MIDI files are made up simply of streams of numbers rather than the huge amounts of data that audio files contain, the average size of a MIDI file is extremely small, making them very easy to distribute.

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After merging the regions on each track, select all the regions using Cmd-A, then shift-click the two audio drum tracks to remove them from the selection. We choose File » Export » Selection as MIDI File, and after choosing a name and a save location for the file, hit the Save button.

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Here we’ve opened our saved file in Cubase using File » Import » MIDI File. The resulting MIDI tracks contain all the data in all the right places, but these now need to be converted into Instrument tracks. In Cubase we do this by moving each MIDI region onto an instrument track loaded with a suitable instrument.

2. Handling instrument and effects presets

The recipient of your MIDI file is also going to require the preset settings used by the instruments playing the parts. If your project uses standard factory presets, the recipient should already have these on their system. You can provide the preset names by naming the regions with the preset name before exporting the project as a MIDI file.

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Many virtual instruments (such as Massive, shown above) have their own system for saving and loading presets. In this case, if you’ve edited the preset or made one from scratch, you can save it using the instrument’s Save As button. You can then grab the preset file from its saved location and include it in the folder with the project when you send it.

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If a plugin doesn’t have its own preset management buttons, your DAW’s may suffice. Sonimus Satson CM has no preset management system of its own, so saving and loading of settings is achieved from the plugin window’s header in Logic. This way usually saves in the DAW’s plugin format, eg, VST or AU, which may not be compatible with the destination DAW.

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If you’re using a sampler, most have an export function allowing you to save the instrument (ie, patch) and its samples to a separate folder. On the receiving end, you’ll either need a conversion utility (such as Chicken Systems’ Translator) to get them into the desired format, or a software sampler that reads your sampler’s particular file type. For example, Steinberg’s HALion is able to read EXS24 files, and Live can import Kontakt patches. Beware that the results are not always perfectly accurate, however.

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WorldMags.net Same DAW, different system For transferring projects to the same DAW on a different computer, each program has its own method. There’s usually a feature that rounds up all the project’s assets (audio files, sampler presets, plugin settings and suchlike) and moves them to a new folder. This means that all the component parts of the track are in one place ready for easy transfer to a different system. Possible scenarios where this might be a desirable thing to do include transferring a tune that you wrote on your laptop over onto the desktop computer in your studio for mixing, or collaborating with somebody in a different location who uses the same DAW as you. As we said, many DAWs have a

> Step by step

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feature to help here. Logic has the ‘Save A Copy As...’ feature, enabling you to save a copy of the project file complete with all associated audio files, sampler instruments and samples, Ultrabeat samples, Space Designer impulse responses and even movie files to a new folder on your hard drive. Cubase has a similar ‘Back up Project’ menu option, while Ableton Live offers the ‘Collect All and Save’ feature for this kind of situation. When transferring projects in this way, though, even between two computers that you own, it’s not always a given that the two systems will have the same plugins installed. Even if they do, they might be different versions of the

same software, which can cause problems such as plugin settings not restoring correctly or at all. The

usual precaution here is to provide all tracks as bounced/frozen audio too, just in case.

Cubase’s ‘Back up Project’ function gathers all your project’s files into one place

3. Collect All and Save in Live 9

The first step is to freeze all the virtual instrument tracks in the project to render them as audio files. Right-click on each MIDI track and select Freeze Track from the popup menu. Do this for all MIDI tracks, just in case the recipient may not have the particular synth that you’ve used for any one track.

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If you’re not bothered about the recipient being able to edit the tracks’ settings further, you can simplify things thus: with the frozen track(s) still selected, right-click on one of them and choose the Flatten option – this converts the track into an audio file, replacing the MIDI data. Unlike the Freeze option, flattening has to be done one track at a time, but it doesn’t take long.

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Next step is to make sure that all the audio files and any samples that we’re using in the track get transferred across so that the project will play smoothly on the other side with no bits missing. To do this, select File » Collect All and Save.

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>Freeze or flatten If you just freeze MIDI tracks rather than flattening them (ie, skipping step 2), the recipient can unfreeze the track and work with it as normal, assuming they have the required plugins. If they haven’t got the plugins, they can flatten the track themselves and work with it as audio. This works because the ‘Freeze files’ are also included in the Collect All and Save process.

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In the dialog box, specify the type of files to be collected. Err on the side of caution by setting all the boxes to ‘Yes’. This will round up all the required files that are being used in the current project, be they from your User Library, from your Factory packs, from other projects or from anywhere else on your system.

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The rendered audio files are saved into a folder called Samples that resides in the folder for the current Live set. Browse to the main project folder, which contains both the ALS project file and the Samples folder. Compress the project folder using your computer’s file compression utility, and it’s now ready to transfer to another system.

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Making stems As long as you’re happy with all the MIDI parts in your project and the sounds they’re triggering, the most failsafe way to transfer a project to a different DAW (be it on the same system or on the other side of the world) is to render every individual track as an audio file from bar 1, beat 1 of your project. This way, whatever platform your collaborator is running, they can import the files into a new project in their own DAW (at the specified tempo, if needed) and everything should line up and sound as it should. This is still the preferred method for preparing tracks to be mixed in other locations on other platforms – it’s pretty foolproof as long as you prepare the files (also known as ‘stems’) properly. The only downside is that, depending on the source system, it can be pretty time consuming, especially if your project involves the use of external equipment

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such as hardware synths or outboard effects processors. In this case, the only option is to bounce the stems of these tracks one at a time in real time. If your project is totally software-based, though, you can almost certainly use the offline bounce/render facility that nearly all of today’s DAWs provide. This speeds up the process by

“If you’re sending a project to be mixed, you might want to remove all effects”

rendering the stems without actually playing back the audio, allowing the computer to rumble through the number crunching as fast as it is able. Before you begin creating your stems, though, you need to weigh up the convenience of fewer stems versus the amount of control you have over individual tracks after the transfer. If you’re sending a project off to be mixed, you might want to remove all effects so that the mix engineer can add their own. Each stem can be a bounce of just a single track, or you can group similar tracks together if you’re happy with the relative levels between them. The more grouping like this you do, the fewer stems you’ll end up with, but the recipient will have less precise control over the overall mix as they won’t be able to change the balance between the tracks in each subgroup.

4. Creating stems in Logic Pro X

The following technique should get the job done whatever system you and your collaborator are using – we’re using Logic Pro X in this example. Firstly, when deciding how to group your tracks, it helps to use colours to denote each subgroup. Here we’ve used purple for acoustic drums, light blue for percussion, red for FX, etc.

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Solo your first track or group of tracks. Disable any unwanted plugins including any mastering plugins inserted across the stereo output, but leave any that make up a permanent part of the sound. For example, this compressed reverb channel is part and parcel of the main drum sound, so we’re soloing this one to include it in the drum bounce.

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Ideally, the bounce range should encompass the length of the song. This is often set with the Left and Right locators or the cycle region. Make sure the end marker is a few bars beyond the last event in the track – enough to capture any reverb or cymbal tails without writing large chunks of silence onto the end of the file. For all stems, though, leave the start marker right at the beginning of the track.

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Select File » Export » Bounce Project or Section. Choose a file format (we’re going for WAV files), bit depth (24-bit is the norm) and check that the start and end points are correct. Set the other options as shown above, then click Bounce. Select a destination folder and enter a suitable name for the bounced file, then click Bounce again.

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Now work your way through the rest of the project using the same settings to bounce each track (or group of tracks) to the same destination folder each time. When all the stems are bounced, add the project’s tempo in BPM to the folder’s filename and use your computer’s file compression utility to compress the folder. You’re ready to make the transfer!

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Version 9 of Logic added the ‘Export All Tracks as Audio Files’ menu command that renders all tracks in a project as audio files at the click of a button, which is a pretty nifty timesaver, but only useful if you want an individual file of every track. This isn’t always the most desirable option as the size of the resulting folder for a large project containing many tracks can be enormous, but if you’re in a hurry to stem out your tracks, it can be a lifesaver.

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5. Sharing a project using Dropbox

So, you’ve got a huge Zip file full of WAVs – how best to beam it across the web to your colleague? Dropbox is a good bet! First, go to dropbox.com and click the Sign Up button to register for a free account, which gets you 2GB of storage space. You can buy more if needed, but 2GB should be more than adequate for starters.

Transmission methods The global improvement in internet speeds over the last few years has made it much easier for musicians to send large files to one another across the globe without having to fork out for the kind of expensive ISDN lines that commercial studios had routinely installed for that very purpose only a few years back. Internet-based sites that offer free file-sharing services have sprung up all over the place recently, to the point where we’re now a bit spoilt for choice. Two of the most convenient and hassle-free options for this are Dropbox and, believe it or not, Skype. If you engage in a video or IM chat with your collaborator on Skype, you can initiate a file transfer simply by clicking a Share button and selecting the Send Files option. Browse to the file on your system that you want to send, select it and – boom! – off it goes. Dropbox is a hugely popular service that lets you store files on cloud-based servers that your collaborator can download via a shared folder system. It’s a great solution to the problem of shunting big chunks of data from place to place. Aside from that, there are more traditional file transfer sites – we’re rather partial to WeTransfer.com, which handles large files with ease. And the best part? Basic versions of Skype, Dropbox and WeTransfer are free to use!

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On the Dropbox website, add a new folder and give it a suitable name. You can now invite the person to whom you’re sending the files to share this folder by clicking the Invite to Folder button, entering their email address and clicking Share Folder. This sends them an email in which they simply have to click a link to join the shared folder.

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Once the shared folder is set up, use the web uploader to upload your files to it. Once uploaded, your files will be available for the recipient to download. Even better, download the ultraconvenient Dropbox desktop app to drag and drop files directly into your shared Dropbox folder as if it were a regular folder on your desktop.

6. Importing stems into a new Cubase project

To illustrate how to import a set of stems into a new project, we’re going to load the stems we created in Logic on the previous page into a new project in Cubase 7. We know that the stems we want to import are at 89bpm, so we create a new empty Cubase project at that tempo.

Back in Cubase, go to File » Import » Audio File and browse to the folder containing the stems. Shift-click to select the lot and click Open. In the Import Options dialog box, tick the Copy Files to Working Directory option and click OK. After the files are copied, choose the Different Tracks option and the stems should appear in the timeline.

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In your file browser, locate the Zip file of the folder containing the stems that you received from your collaborator and extract it – this is usually just a matter of double-clicking to extract the original, uncompressed folder, a copy of which will be placed in the same folder as the Zip file.

Now you’re free to rearrange the track order and add colours. Once the project is looking and sounding as it should, you can use your DAW’s Strip Silence command or equivalent to remove the dead space between the audio waveforms if desired, then you can overdub, edit and mix to your heart’s content!

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FREEDOM FIGHTERS

What’s the difference between freeware and free software? We’ll clue you in and show you some great production tools along the way Who doesn’t love free software? There’s loads of it out there, and we’ve produced entire Specials about freeware. Still, you might be unaware that “free” doesn’t always mean free in the sense you might expect. There are important distinctions between what we call “freeware” and what is known as “free software”, “free and open source software” or “free, libre and open source software”. The main difference is in the definition of the word “free”, which has multiple meanings. Freeware is provided at no cost – so it is free in that sense – but are you free to do anything you like with it? Can you re-distribute it without the developer’s permission? The answer is usually no.

However, this isn’t always the case. Some free software is free as in “freedom”, meaning not only that it (probably) costs nothing, but more crucially, that you’re free to do whatever you like with it. You can re-distribute it however you like, or even tap into the code and change it to suit your needs. Yes, developers of such software make the source code freely available to any and all to do with as they like. This is what the term “open source” is all about. More importantly, some free software doesn’t involve restrictive end user license agreements. As free software advocates like to point out, we’re talking about free as in “free speech” not just free as in “free beer”.

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Mind you, just because software is open source, that doesn’t make it free, and vice versa – we’ll explain the differences over the next few pages. We’ll also show you the very best of what’s available. As it turns out, you can do almost anything with free and open source software, from editing audio to recording and producing entire albums. You can even avail yourself of entire operating systems, as any Linux user will attest –in fact, some of them are specifically designed to make music. Curious? You should be. Using free and open source software is not only liberating but often inspirational. So throw off the shackles of industry and join the freedom rally! October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 61

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Open society With so many freeware (cost-free) programs available, why bother specifically with free, open-source software? There are a number of benefits. First, because it can be updated and upgraded by a community of users, it will likely evolve in purely practical ways (rather than being packed with market-driven features in order to sell the next version, as may happen with “payware”). More importantly, though, the users themselves can ensure that their software is kept up to date throughout any OS changes. Most of us are all too familiar with waiting for a developer to support an OS upgrade (or make a 64-bit edition, etc) so that we can resume using a favourite plugin. Additionally, open source software isn’t subject to a company’s viability. Audacity, for example, will always be around as long as the users want it to be and there are people willing to dig into the code and keep it up to date. Users of SoundSoap – a much-loved

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audio editor from the now defunct developers BIAS – most certainly can’t say the same thing. As we pointed out, even your operating system can be free and open source. There’s a vast community of musicians who call Linux home, thanks in no small part to music-minded “distros” (customised Linux-based OSes). We’ve used plenty of them, including the awesome 64 Studio (www.64studio.com), AVLinux (www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html), Musix (www.musix.org.ar/en/index.html), and the mighty Ubuntu Studio (ubuntustudio.org), which you can check out in our walkthrough below. There’s also the gorgeous DreamStudio (dream.dickmacinnis.com/forum) and KXStudio (kxstudio.sourceforge.net). Many of these can be booted from a “live” CD or flash drive, and we recommend doing so before trying to partition a drive on your computer. We should mention that while free and open

source software may be the heart and soul of Linux, it’s by no means restricted to that OS. In fact, of the many open source programs and plugins that appear in this feature, only a small percentage are Linux-only. Most are available for at least one other OS. As a matter of fact, it’s entirely possible that you’re already using free and open source software without even realising it. For example, the ever popular Firefox browser from Mozilla is open source, available to any and all. We only have the space to cover a smattering of our favourite FOSS (free and open-source software) goodies, but you can find many thousands more in the vast collection at sourceforge.net, a comprehensive hub of all things open source. Don’t be afraid to dig in and see what’s available – after all, you’ve got absolutely nothing to lose, and potentially everything (even a bit of peace of mind) to gain.

1. A quick tour of Ubuntu Studio

Ubuntu Studio is a powerful multimedia-based OS for Linux. It comes with everything you need to make music on your computer. As you can see, it provides a familiar and friendly desktop environment with folders, menus and a dock. You can download a “live” DVD to try it without worrying about partitioning your hard drive.

Many Linux programs use an interface called JACK to manage transport controls, synchronisation and routing. Most instruments and effects can be run standalone or patched with JACK. Here, we’re routing the Foo YC20 organ through the Guitarix amp and effects, and into a DAW called MusE.

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Here are some of the things that come pre-installed with Ubuntu Studio. Our old friends Audacity and Ardour are included among the many Audio Production tools, as are a number of effects processors, synths and even mixers for specific popular audio interfaces. You may never run out of stuff to play with…

You might be surprised to learn that there are hundreds of free and open source plugins available to Linux users in a wide variety of formats, including LADSPA, DSSI, Lv2 and even native Linux VST. Here’s the Lv2 version of TALNoiseMaker running in QTractor. Did you know TAL-NoiseMaker is open source?

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…If you do, though, you can easily add more programs with the Ubuntu Software Center. If you like Apple’s App Store, you’ll love this – all of its offerings are totally free to download! If you can’t find what you want here, you can try one of the many Linux repositories instead.

When we say you can do full productions from start to finish in Ubuntu Studio, we mean it. In this example, we’re using an alternative router called Patchage to send the main outputs of an Ardour mix into jamin, a professional-quality mastering program that can add those finishing touches to your tracks.

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2. Using Ardour, the king of open-source DAWs

Ardour requires the JACK connection kit. The OS X version is here: www.jackosx.com. Linux users who don’t have it can get it at jackaudio.org. Once Installed, you’ll have to set it up using qjackctl on Linux or Jack Pilot on OS X. We’re going to do the latter: we click Start in Jack Pilot.

We need to sort out our routing before we can play the synth from our MIDI controller. Select MIDI Connections from the Window menu. Find your hardware interfaces by clicking the Other tab in the available Sources on the left. Connect the ones you want to use to the MIDI In the Ardour Tracks Destinations column.

Now add an audio track by rightclicking and using the Add Track or Bus commands. Then, open the Audio Connection Manager from the Window menu and connect your hardware inputs to Ardour’s Tracks. Let’s record an external source – a mic (use headphones for monitoring) or an electric instrument like a guitar. Arm your track.

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You can quit Jack Pilot without quitting JACK. Open Ardour. It’ll ask you to create a new Session or open an existing one. We’re going to create a new one. Ardour’s layout is standard DAW, with a track view and inspector. Right-click in the Inspector to add a track and select MIDI Tracks from the drop-down menu.

You should now be able to play and hear your synth plugin. If you want to edit it, you’ll need to open the Mixer from the Window menu. With the Mixer visible, click the TAL-Noisemaker processor box in its channel strip and tweak your patch to taste.

Record your audio. When you’re happy with it, disarm your track and open the Mixer again. Here, you can add effects plugins in the channel strip, either pre or post fader. Effects are arranged by category and creator, and you can assign favourites. Here, we’ve loaded up a delay to add some echoes to our audio track.

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As you can see, there’s an Instrument menu in the Add Track or Buss window. Click it to reveal your installed plugins. Choose an instrument. In keeping with the open source theme, we’re going to once again call up TAL-Noisemaker. Click Add to make it so.

OK, let’s record some notes using our MIDI controller. Arm the track for recording by clicking its Record button. If you want to run a click track, click the metronome button in the upper-left. Now, simply click the Record button in the Transport section and then Play to get rolling. When you have something you like, click Stop or hit the Spacebar.

You can export your handiwork via the Session menu. We’ve only been able to scratch the surface of Ardour in this limited space. It’s a serious, heavyweight DAW that rivals those costing hundreds of pounds, yet Ardour is available free or for a small donation, depending on your needs, platform and means. Released under GNU GPL.

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3. Using Linux Multimedia Studio in Windows

LMMS is a music production application available for Windows as well as Linux, but it can be tricky to get it to see your audio interface at first. If you find it consistently defaults to the Dummy interface, close it and, perform a run command in Windows (Windows+R) and entering “dxdiag” (without quotes).

LMMS isn’t a DAW –it’s a music production environment for samples, loops and plugins. Click the magnifying glass icon to open the Browser. Find Kicker and drag it all the way over to the Beat/Bassline Editor and onto the Default Preset in the default track.

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Click the Sound tabs until you find one that looks like your interface. Note the name of the driver (upper right), then open LMMS. If it automatically opens Audio settings, choose SDL as the driver and type the driver’s name into the Device slot.

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The Beat/Bassline Editor is where you make rhythms to support your song. You should see the Kicker GUI and hear it by triggering notes on the virtual keys. Adjust the sound parameters as you like, then click the little buttons in the Beat/ Bassline Editor’s track as shown.

Click OK and restart LMMS. If it skips the Audio settings menu, you’re good. If not, or if you find you have no sound, you may need to perform steps 1 and 2 again, using a driver name from a different Sound tab in the dxdiag window. As you can see, we’re ready to rock.

There’s a track for your Beat/Bassline in the Song Editor. Use the mouse to click and drag in the track area to create a series of blue rectangles. Now, click Play to hear the track. You can drag instruments and samples into the Song Editor. Double-clicking an instrument’s grid brings up a piano roll.

What’s GNU? Most of the software featured in this article has been released under the GNU General Public License, or GNU GPL, which permits users to use, change, copy, sell or give away altered or unaltered copies. A copy of the source code must be included with any distribution – although if the program is made available as a hard copy, it’s only required that there be instructions on how to obtain the source code. Also, a copy of the GPL must be included with all copies. Users who don’t agree with the license can still use the program, they just can’t redistribute it. There are other variations on this theme, each with its own set of ideals. We keep mentioning “free and open source software”, or FOSS. This includes both free software and open source software, but the two aren’t always considered the same thing and represent two different philosophies. Free software is about freedom for users, while open source software is concerned with the

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SWAMI (Sampled Waveforms & Musical Instruments) is a SoundFont editor available free under a GNU GPL

advantages of peer-to-peer development. The GNU General Public License is maintained by the Free Software Foundation, who also maintain a list of GNU GPL licensed software. The FSF has “four freedoms of free software”, used to distinguish what software should actually be defined as “free software”. These include the freedom to run the

program for any purpose, to study how the program works and change it to make it do what you wish, the freedom to redistribute copies to help your neighbour, and the freedom to release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public for the benefit of the whole community. It’s important to reiterate that this definition of free doesn’t take money into consideration. Repeat the mantra “not free as in free beer, but free as in free speech”. This is why some free and open source developers might charge to go to their download page or ask for donations, yet are still considered to be within the definition of free. Conversely, our own Plugins and samples are (cost-)free when you buy Computer Music magazine, and you can use them freely in the creation of your music – and even release it! – but the plugins/samples themselves can’t be freely redistributed, modified and so on.

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WorldMags.net 12 great free and open-source music programs AUDACITY Mac, Windows and Linux-compatible, this GPL-licensed program can do everything you’d expect from a commercial audio editor. Edit samples and songs, process audio files, burn CDs and export a wide range of audio file formats including WAV, AIF or MP3. After Mozilla’s Firefox browser, Audacity might well be the best-known and most widely used open source music application. audacity.sourceforge.net

LINUXSAMPLER Got a folder full of Akai, Giga or DLS samples? You can play them or make your own samplebased instruments in LinuxSampler. Despite the name, it is available for OS X, Windows and – natch – Linux. It’s really just a sampler “engine”, and you decide which front-end to use. Options include Qsampler or Fantasia GUIs, among others. Well realised and mature. linuxsampler.org

CECILIA 5 Released under the GNU GPL for Mac, Windows and Linux, Cecelia is a CSound-based graphical environment for music and signal processing. Additive, subtractive, granular synthesis and processing and more are presented within an easy-to-use GUI. cecilia.sourceforge.net

HYDROGEN Need a wickedly powerful drum machine? Available for Linux and OS X, Hydrogen is an advanced pattern-based drum sequencer and mixing environment. With swing and humanisation functions onboard, along with the ability to layer both samples and patterns, you’d be hard pressed to find a better way to build beats for free. www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms

PURE DATA A sweeping visual programming language for multimedia, Pure Data is an open source program released under a “Modified BSD” license, considered GPL-compatible by the Free Software Foundation. If you always wanted to get into the Max or Kyma systems but lack the bread, this one’s for you. Mac, Windows, Linux and even Android and iOS are supported. puredata.info

CSound is a favourite among academic musos, but for us simple folk, Cecilia provides an easier front end

MIXXX A Linux, Windows and OS X program that was among the first open-source products to be made available in Apple’s App Store, Mixxx provides a professional quality DJ mixing environment that can read MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, AIFF and FLAC formats, among others. Support for more than a dozen hardware controllers is written in, too, for hands-on mixing. Nice. mixxx.org

ROSEGARDEN Another DAW initially developed for Linux and now in alpha for Windows, too, Rosegarden is a fully realised MIDI and audio workstation with all the trimmings. It’s been around since 1993, if you can believe it, and it shows in the highly evolved, mature workflow. Released under the GPL license. www.rosegardenmusic.com

development since 1996. Designed as a programming language for real-time synthesis and algorithmic composition, SuperCollider is dense and deep. Books, seminars and workshops exist for those inclined to take the plunge. supercollider.sourceforge.net

SONICBIRTH SonicBirth is a massive modular construction environment that enables the user to patch together individual modules in order to create their own audio effects, synthesisers and more. Better still, anything created in SonicBirth can be exported as either a VST or Audio Units plugin. It can get pretty deep, for sure, but it’s well worth the effort for those with a bit of time to commit. This one is available for OS X and released under the GNU license. sonicbirth.sourceforge.net/index.shtml

QTRACTOR Yet another nifty DAW, this one’s strictly for Linux users. Everything you need is here, including support for a wide variety of plugins (DSSI, LADSPA, Lv2 and VST in both native Linux and Wine-wrapped guises). Fully integrated with Jack and Linux’s ALSA, Qtractor is easy to use and easy on the eyes. It’s released under the GNU/GPL license. www.rncbc.org/drupal

SAMPLV1 Our second entry from Qtractor creator Rui Nuno Capela, samplv1 is a classic hardware-style soft sampler with multimode filtering, plenty of modulation options and a supremely easy-tohandle GUI. It sounds the business and can be used standalone with Jack or as an Lv2 plugin. This one’s Linux-only. www.rncbc.org/drupal

SUPERCOLLIDER OK, it doesn’t look pretty and this guitar processing suite can sound kinda ugly as well – but in a good way!

Another one for OS X, Windows and Linux, this GNU GPL release has been in active

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With SonicBirth, you can cable together various modules and processors to make your own plugins!

SOUND GRAIN From the man behind Cecilia and Zyne, Soundgrain taps into the weird and wonderful world of granular processing. Released under GNU GPL for Windows, OS X and Linux, it’s a blast to use and easy to figure out. code.google.com/p/soundgrain October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 65

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the ‘master’ while another is designated the ‘slave’. Whenever the master oscillator completes a wave cycle, the slave oscillator begins its wave cycle again from the start too, no matter where in the cycle it may have been at the point of retriggering. By offsetting the frequency of the slave oscillator, we get a harmonically rich, edgy tone that works particularly well for lead lines and hard basses.

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HARMONICS

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Ever had a question about harmonics, hertz or headroom? Or wondered how best to use hi-hats, hysteresis or hard syncing? H is for…

H HARD CLIPPING

When an audio signal exceeds the limits of a digital system, it clips, completely flattening the waveform at the threshold. This is known as hard clipping. Soft clipping, on the other hand, eases into the clipping, rounding off the waveform so that any threshold violations are smoothly curved rather than brutally flattened.

HARD DISK DRIVE

maintaining its contents even when the host computer is powered down. A hard disk comprises one or more non-magnetic platters coated in magnetic material, spinning at (usually) 5400, 7200 or 10,000rpm. Although most conventional computers will host at least one internal hard drive that stores the operating system and any installed applications, additional drives can be attached via USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt or External S-ATA for the storage of documents and media, including – pertinently for the computer musician – sample libraries and ROMpler soundbanks. Today, the HDD faces increasingly stiff competition from flash memory-based solid state drives (SSDs), which offer the benefits of faster data access and no moving parts. With SSD technology rapidly falling in price, it’s only a matter of time before the HDD goes the way of magnetic tape.

HARD SYNC While a Mac or PC’s random access memory (RAM) serves as essential temporary storage for Many virtual analogue synthesisers offer hard real-time operational data, amongst other things, sync as an option in their oscillator sections. the hard disk drive is the primary storage system, When activated, one oscillator is designated

A series of mathematically predictable frequencies present above the fundamental frequency of a (musical) audio signal that serve as essential components of the overall sound. Harmonics are spaced apart equally by an amount dependent on the fundamental. The note A4 above middle C, for example, is at 440Hz, with harmonics at 880Hz (A5), 1320Hz (E5), 1760Hz (A6), etc – so the harmonic frequencies are multiples of the fundamental. Perhaps slightly confusingly, the first such frequency above the fundamental is the ‘second harmonic’, as the fundamental is considered to be the ‘first harmonic’. An understanding of harmonics is essential in sound design (particularly involving synthesisers) and mixing (with regard to EQ, specifically). Sounds may also contain inharmonic frequencies; that is, non-musical or dischordant tones such as noise mixed into a synth sound, and these are not multiples of the fundamental frequency.

HARMONISATION The process of composing a chordal accompaniment to a leading melody.

HARMONISER An audio effects processor that pitchshifts its input signal and overlays the results on top of the original in order to generate a two-or-morepart harmony. The original harmoniser was Eventide’s H910 hardware unit, released in 1974, and the American company still own the rights to the Harmonizer trademark today.

HARMONY When two or more notes played or sung at the same time sound pleasing to the ear due to their concordant harmonic relationship (eg, a major chord), they are said to be ‘in harmony’. Chords that don’t seem to fit together in such a pleasant way are said be ‘dissonant’, but this doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t musically relevant or that they aren’t part of harmony theory.

HEADROOM In practical terms, headroom is the amount you can boost a particular audio signal before the system it’s playing through will distort – in other words, the difference in level between the signal’s loudest point and the maximum level the system can handle. If you find that the master output is clipping in your DAW, lowering its level fader attenuates the signal level and increases the headroom, giving you more ‘room’ to add further sounds to the mix that might raise the overall level further.

HERTZ (HZ)

For the note F1, this sawtooth wave’s harmonics are spaced by 87.31Hz, the frequency of the lowest one

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Defined as “the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon”, hertz (named after the physicist Heinrich Hertz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI). The pitch of a soundwave is defined by its frequency

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a to z of computer music / make music now <

WorldMags.net can be used correctively to reduce low-end rumble and sub bass, or creatively for upward sweeps, general sound design, etc. A high-pass filter often features a resonance control for applying boost to the frequencies directly around the cutoff point, and the amount of attenuation is determined by the number of ‘poles’ in the filter, each one adding 6dB of attenuation for every octave the signal moves away from the cutoff frequency. So, a 4-pole high-pass filter lowers the volume of the signal by 24dB for every octave below the cutoff point.

HI-HATS

Every track we add in a project will increase the level of the master and reduce our headroom

in hertz, with a signal at 440Hz generating the note A4, for example. Synthesiser oscillators, filters and EQ, LFOs… numerous elements of your DAW and plugins deal directly with the frequency of sound or modulation waves (generating or shaping them), all described in Hz and kHz (kilohertz – thousands of hertz). The clock speeds of various components in your computer are also described in hertz, of course – these days, they’ll most likely be up in the gigahertz (GHz – billions of hertz) range.

HEXADECIMAL Also known as ‘hex’ or ‘base 16’, hexadecimal is a numeric system that most musicians will never encounter – unless, that is, they use tracker software. While the numbers 0-9 are selfrepresenting, the numbers 10-15 are represented by the letters A-F. Trackers are programmed by entering values into a grid (that you can loosely think of as analogous to your DAW’s arrange page and MIDI editor combined) to specify note data and parameter changes. Most trackers use a hex numbering scheme for efficient representation of values in a limited space.

A pair of small cymbals mounted, facing each other, on a stand and brought together via a footpedal, the hi-hats are one of the three main components of the drum kit, along with the bass (kick) and snare drums. Very generally speaking, while the kick and snare provide the main beat (boom, crack, boom boom, crack, etc), the hi-hat is held closed and struck with a stick on eighthor 16th-notes, filling out the groove – a core drumming technique known as ‘riding’. Played closed, the sound of the hi-hats is tight and bright; played open, they become much bigger and more splashy; and when brought together by depressing the pedal, the hi-hats make a soft “chick” sound that can be very useful for accenting the off-beat when riding the ride cymbal instead, or playing with brushes on the snare (in jazz, primarily). Electronic music also uses hi-hat sounds, though almost always of the programmed, non-realistic variety.

HISS Related to hum but not as controllable, a certain level of hiss is inevitable in even the most software-based studio, since the amplifiers in or connected to your loudspeakers can’t help but generate a certain level of it. Other causes of hiss include poor quality and/or unbalanced cables, and recording instruments and microphones at too low a level, which bring up the noise floor and hiss when the playback level is raised to compensate.

Three of the best… HARMONISER PLUGINS WAVES ULTRAPITCH With its Shift, 3-Voice and 6-Voice modules, this old – but still good! – plugin pulls off some neat pitch tricks and features random asynchronicity for more ‘human’ results. N/A » N/A » £100

EVENTIDE H3000 FACTORY HARMONIZER NATIVE A powerful plugin recreation of the Patch and Mod Factory algorithms from one of the greatest multieffects processors ever made. 186 » 8/10 » £279 We said: “It’s nowhere near the full Ultra-Harmonizer, but H3000 does what it aims to do very well indeed”

HIT A short, one-shot percussive sample, eg, a drum.

HIGH-PASS FILTER

HUM

A filter that attenuates (lowers) the level of all frequencies below its cutoff point (thus letting all those above it through), the high-pass filter (or the high-pass mode on a multimode filter)

Not the hair-wrenching issue it once was thanks to the proliferation of integrated digital systems, hum in the recording studio (beyond the lowlevel noise intrinsic in the transformers of any electronic audio equipment) is caused by various undesirable processes including ground loops, CRT monitors and shared impedances. The fix depends on the cause, but fortunately, it’s not something the computer musician has to worry about too much these days, since virtual instruments and effects don’t generate noise of any kind (unless they’re designed to!).

MELDAPRODUCTION MHARMONIZER CM Our very own Plugins suite features a tasty harmoniser of its own, based on Melda’s even more amazing MMultiBandHarmonizer. N/A » N/A » FREE

HYSTERESIS

A high-pass filter will remove low frequencies in an audio signal for corrective or creative uses

In audio, hysteresis is a parameter found on some noise gates, used to reduce ‘chatter’ when the input signal hovers around the threshold level. To implement it, two thresholds are applied: one to open the gate when the signal exceeds it, and the other, a few decibels below the first, to close it when the signal drops below it. The gap between the two prevents the constant opening or closing of the gate by signals hovering around either.

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October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 69

Dave Clews’

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Syncopation Rhythms too predictable? Tracks flat and lacking funk? Chances are, you need to get busy syncopatin’ your beats An old musicians’ joke defines syncopation as being particularly popular with brass players because it involves ‘an uneven movement from bar to bar’. The actual definition, however, is a shift in rhythmic emphasis made by placing an accent on a beat that’s normally weak – in other words, changing up a standard rhythm by stressing beats that wouldn’t normally be stressed. Syncopation is all around us and occurs routinely in multiple forms of music, but it’s

>Step by step

particularly present in Latin, dance and jazz forms. It’s all about which beats in a pattern are important and which aren’t – the important beats are normally emphasised by being played louder or harder, while the less important ones fit neatly in between. Syncopation turns this on its head by moving the emphasis to the less important beats, introducing a more interesting, unpredictable feel. With beats cleverly shifted behind or ahead of where you’d normally expect them to be, syncopation has the effect of injecting more

DOWNLOAD Download the video and the MIDI/audio files for each step at vault.computermusic.co.uk

excitement into otherwise rigid, metronomic and straight timing. This month I’m going to illustrate some simple ways of syncopating a basic rhythm to convey the idea, then I’ll look at some practical examples of applying them in a real-world, modern-day production scenario. As usual, you can find MIDI and audio files for each step in the Tutorial Files, along with a video version to demonstrate the process as a whole. Let’s get to work and throw our listeners off the beat!

Using syncopation to make rhythms more exciting

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Let’s start with 1. Syncopation.wav. It’s a really basic, regular beat played on a cowbell and consisting of just four beats to the bar. In its current state, it’s a straight rhythm – no syncopation happening here at all. For a bit of context, we’ve put a drum beat behind it: a basic rock beat courtesy of Logic Pro X’s new Drummer feature.

We move the following two cowbell hits, placing them on the offbeats of beats 2 and 3, adding an extra hit on beat 4. This forms a classic Latin pattern known as the ‘3-2 son clave’. Son is the term for the root of most common styles of AfroCuban dance music, while the clave works as the rhythmic framework for other percussion instruments to play around.

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We’re going to leave the drums playing the same pattern, but now we shift the cowbell beats so that they play an eighth-note later (on the offbeats). This is syncopation in its simplest form, yet it has a profound effect on the rhythm. To continue, though, we’ll put the cowbell beats back to their original position and look at other ways to subvert the beat.

Another of the first genres to really popularise syncopation was ragtime music. Originating in America in the early 1900s, it developed from pianists trying to play full marching band music solely on the piano. Here’s a short piece – the MIDI is in the Tutorial Files. The straight ‘oompah’ rhythm of the drums and euphonium was covered by the left hand...

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Now we’ll use rests (leaving notes out) and accent offbeats to weave a slightly more complex but familiar Latin rhythm around the straight backbeat. With the original cowbell positions restored, we start by moving the second cowbell beat of each bar one 16th-note to the left, anticipating the beat in a move known as a ‘push’.

...while the right hand had to cover everything else, incorporating the melody with other rhythmic parts. Pianists achieved this by filling in the gaps around the main beats, giving the style its trademark joyful sound and paving the way for jazz artists like Fats Waller to further refine the style over the following years.

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RECOMMENDED LISTENING

PRO TIPS

CALVIN HARRIS, THINKING ABOUT YOU

NUDGE NUDGE

BIFFY CLYRO, THE GOLDEN RULE

SYNCOPATION INSPIRATION

Calvin Harris is a master of the modern rhythmic keyboard riff, and the synth part from this track is what provided the inspiration behind the example shown below in steps 7-9. Shifting the stabbed synth chords from every quarter-note beat to every third 16th-note creates a rhythmic overlay that sits beautifully between the 4/4 beats of the rhythm track, driving the beat forward without becoming intrusive in any way. Never ones to shy away from unusual rhythms, Biffy are the masters of the syncopated stab. This cut from their Only Revolutions album is a masterclass in syncopation, from drummer Ben Johnstone’s wonderfully clever lopsided fills in the intro to the unbelievably tight orchestral stabs that permeate the ending. Although I’ve highlighted this particular track, almost any track from this album could also be singled out as an example. Clever stuff.

7

To illustrate how you can bring syncopation into effect with more current keyboard parts, here we have a Logic project containing just a straight 4/4 house beat. We’ve placed some synth chord stabs on the beats emphasised by the drums. Listen to 7. Syncopation.wav and note how metronomic and uninteresting it sounds.

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Another typical use of syncopation is with electric rhythm guitar. To illustrate this, we’re using the Rob Papen RG-Muted CM guitar instrument that’s part of Computer Music’s own Plugins collection. This has preprogrammed patterns available as presets - we select #105 (Muted L-Acc) and trigger it with a 4-bar-long MIDI note on C1.

Dave Clews In a studio career spanning almost 25 years, Dave has engineered, programmed and played keyboards on records for a string of artists including George Michael, Kylie Minogue, Tina Turner and Estelle. These days, in between writing articles for and other magazines, he collaborates on occasional songs and videos with singer/songwriter Lucy Hirst, aka Polkadothaze. www.daveclews.com

Using your DAW to nudge notes forward and back in time is a great way of spicing up a rhythmic part in ways you might not ordinarily think of. Starting with a MIDI part that plays a straight rhythm, just set the nudge/move value to, say, 16th-notes. Next make your way through the part, nudging the odd beat here and there back and forth in an almost random fashion until you end up with something interesting. Another good way to come up with syncopated rhythms is to find two chunks of audio at the same tempo – drum loops, for example – that are obviously playing on different beats, or even in different time signatures, and combine them to get what’s known as a cross rhythm. If one is playing straight beats and the other has a triplet feel, for example, playing them simultaneously will create a syncopated feel that will naturally suggest new accented beats.

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Watch what happens when we move the chord stabs onto some of the weaker beats. Instead of having a chord on every fourth 16th-note beat where the drums hit, we’ve shifted them forward in time so that there’s a chord on every third 16th-note beat. The pattern takes on a driving rhythm to complement the rigid drum track.

The pattern is already quite funky, but there’s a bit of a clonker on beat 4 of the bar – this is due to the downstroke on step 13 followed by two ties on steps 14 and 15. Start by changing step 13 from a downstroke to a glide/extra stroke by placing the ‘x’ in the corresponding square. This removes the emphasis from beat 4.

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To make the rhythm even more interesting, try adding a delay effect with the timing of the repeats synced to the tempo of the project. If the original signal is syncopated to begin with, setting the timing of the repeats to eighth- or quarter-notes can result in some really interesting rhythms as the repeats fill in the gaps between the original chords.

Next, turn step 14 into a downstroke by moving the ‘x’ down one square, then insert another downstroke on step 16. Now the emphasis is one 16th-note later. Finally, for some interest in the mid section of the bar, add a ghost stroke on step 8, a glide on step 9 and a final ghost stroke on step 12 as shown.

October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 71

rachMiel’s

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Symmetric scales, Pt 1 Discover how taking a palindromic approach to composition can open up a whole new world of melodic and rhythmic possibilities rachMiel

I’m very interested in symmetry. There’s something wonderfully compelling about a structure that mirrors itself on one or more levels, a sense of deep order and rightness. This is especially true of visual structures; think of snowflakes, Persian rugs, Tibetan sand paintings and so on. But it can also be true of musical structures: melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, etc. We’ll explore octave-based symmetric scales in this Off the Dial and non-octave-based symmetric scales in the next one. So, what exactly is an octave-based symmetric scale? The octave refers to the pitch interval at which the scale repeats. Virtually all scales from all music traditions repeat at the octave, because humans perceive pitches at different octaves as lower or higher versions of the same pitch. We perceive middle C as a higher version of the Cs one, two, three octaves below it, and a lower version of all the Cs above it. That’s why the note is called C, regardless of which octave it’s in. By scale symmetry, I mean that the scale has the same set of intervals whether played upwards or downwards. Consider the scale of C major: C D E F G A B C. The intervals (in semitones) moving up from the lower C to the higher C are 2 2 1 2 2 2 1. The intervals moving down are 1 2 2 2 1 2 2, C B A G F E D C. These two sets of intervals are not equal, and therefore major scales are not symmetric. Now, consider the symmetric scale of C Dorian: C D E F G A B

After a decade of formal music studies in America and Germany, rachMiel left academia and has never looked back. A recovering atonalist, his musical influences range from Frank Zappa, Karlheinz Stockhausen and North Indian classical drumming to 60s pop, horror movie soundtracks, avant electronica and, above all, silence.

C MAJOR SEMITONES

C

C DORIAN SEMITONES

C

D 2

E 2

D 2

F 1

2 F

E 1

G

2

A 2

G 2

B 2

A 2

C 1

B 1

C 2

C. Moving both upward and downward, the intervals are the same: 2 1 2 2 2 1 2. Octave-based symmetric scales can have between one and twelve pitches per octave. (See Non-Chromatic, Non-Equal-Tempered Scales for exceptions.) All the following example scales have C as their fundamental (tonic) pitch. There is only one variant of the one-pitch/octave symmetric scale: C C. The same is true for the # two-pitch/octave symmetric scale: C F C; and # # # # # the 12-pitch/octave scale: C C D D E F F G G A A B C. The remaining N-pitch/octave symmetric scales all have multiple variants. For the complete set of 64 octave-based symmetric scales, see the Scales.rtf and Scales.mid files in the Tutorial Files folder.

From tile to tessellation

I’m a big fan of integral approaches to composition – formal systems that use one overarching principle to determine multiple aspects of a musical structure. To that end, I’ve devised a simple method to determine both pitch and rhythmic intervals: Take the intervals between pitches in a scale and lay them out as points on a rhythmic grid. For example, use the 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 intervals in the symmetric scale mentioned above to create a rhythmic grid of 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 eighth notes, which works out to a 5/4 bar. This rhythmic grid defines the points in time at which notes occur. You can be as strict or flexible with the grid as you’d like. A strict approach would be to play a note on every point in the grid. A more flexible approach would be to skip some grid points – ie, have them remain silent – and to interpolate additional notes between points, similar to fills in drum beats. The same goes for the pitch grid of your symmetric scales. You can limit yourself to only using the pitches in the scale or add, at your discretion, secondary “helper” pitches in-between. The latter is especially useful for scales with large intervals: thirds, fourths, etc.

Non-chromatic, unequal scales A chromatic scale is one in which an octave # # # is divided into 12 semitones: C C D D E F F G # # G A A and B. For this, we use an equallytempered scale, meaning that all of the semitones are the same size – ie, the space # between the notes C and C is exactly the same as the space between # the notes C and D. We use the same method to build symmetric scales in all equal-tempered

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systems. To create a symmetric scale in 19-TET – or “19 equal temperament”, a pitch system in which the octave is divided into 19 equal intervals – you’d proceed exactly as you would with chromatic scales, making the intervals going upward (from the lower to the higher octave) the same as the intervals going downward. Here’s an example: 1 2 3 1 5 1 3 2 1. Things get rather trickier when you enter

the realm of non-equal temperament. 2 2 1 2 1 2 2 is a true symmetric scale in an equaltempered chromatic system, but not in a system where those semitones have inconsistent sizes. If you want to create purely symmetric non-equal-tempered scales, you’ll have to build them yourself from scratch in a computer program like Reaktor or Max. Which would be very cool indeed – give it a try!

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off the dial / make music now <

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>Step by step

Composing a piece using an unusual symmetric scale

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Octave-based symmetric equaltempered chromatic scales (what a mouthful!) can have from 1-12 notes per octave. In the Tutorial Files folder is a complete list of all 64 of these scales: Scales.rtf (text) and Scales.mid (MIDI). And here’s what they sound like in ascending motion from C2 to C6: Scales.wav.

Next I write the chord layer, selecting all chord pitches from the notes in my symmetric scale, relying on my ear rather than a formal idea. The chords also loop, but over eight bars instead of four (bassline). The rhythmic grid is 1 1 4 1 1 4 whole-notes, the same as the scale’s 1 4 1 1 1 4 1, but starting with the middle 1: Chords.wav.

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For the example piece, I’ve chosen the rather exotic six-note/octave # symmetric scale, 1 4 1 1 4 1 (C D F F G B C). It’s exotic because it consists solely of two extreme intervals: a minor second (one semitone) and a major third (four semitones). Here’s what the scale sounds like, moving up, down, and in chords: 1-4-1-1-4-1.wav.

Onto the third layer: melody. I decide to use a theme-and-variations approach. The rhythmic grid is the same as the scale grid: 1 4 1 1 4 1 eighth-notes. After thorough experimentation with the scale, I find that it works well with repeated notes. Here’s the theme I come up with: Melody-theme.wav.

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I decide to compose a three-layer piece – melody, chords and bass – that I imagine being performed by a lush string ensemble. I begin with the bassline, a fourbar (6/4) loop that plays each note of the scale once in a rhythmic grid of 4 1 1 4 1 1 half-notes (same as the pitch scale, but starting with 4 instead of 1): Bass.wav.

For zee grand finale, I write four variations of the melodic theme. Each variation modifies the previous one by adding notes and transposing octaves (D 3 to D 4, for example). The result moves from sparsity within a narrow pitch range to higher density within a much wider pitch range: Symmys.wav.

Composing with rules Most composers write music based on a set of rules. These rules can be explicit: the piece is divided into exactly 16 sections, each with 32 bars, in the key B minor and time signature 3/4, etc. Or they can be implicit; most composers who write ‘by ear’ generally adhere to the rules of the genre they’re working in: dance, folk, dubstep, DnB, and so on. So, since you’re most likely following rules whether you know it or not, you might

as well become aware of your particular rules and take control of them, instead of having them control you and the music you’re making. There are lots of ways in which you can do this. My favourite is to spend a good chunk of time up front devising rules and formal structures before diving into the actual writing of the piece. I’ll often start with an idea – an improvised phrase, for

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example – then back up, study this idea from all angles, get a full sense of its compositional potential, then conjure up a set of rules and formal structures that emerge from the idea. That’s how I came up with my rules for creating symmetric scales, both octave- and non-octavebased, and for using the pitch intervals in these scales to generate rhythmic intervals (durations).

October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 73

Scot Solida’s

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Thor’s wavetable It seems the industry is abuzz with this PPG-style synthesis method, and Scot Solida is always keen to spread the word Last month I demonstrated the means by which I once tried to kid myself into thinking I could fake a PPG using additive waveform manipulation. Sure, it made a cool sound, but it never convinced anyone that they were hearing a real PPG, with its dynamic wavetable oscillators. I had no idea that a minor wavetable renaissance was being prepared even as I penned that particular treatise. Indeed, the Editor’s smoldering delete key had barely cooled to room temps when I discovered that my

>Step by step

darling PPG iPad apps were to be joined by two more: Waldorf’s Nave and Propellerhead’s mighty Thor with its PPGbased oscillator module. With wavetable synthesis still rolling about in my skull, it seems only right that I should further the path I started upon last issue, but this time with an authentic PPG-style wavetable synthesiser. To that end, I’ll be using Thor. I’ve long been a great admirer of Thor with its semimodular routing, PPG wavetables and built-in sequencer, and I’m absolutely thrilled to see it

DOWNLOAD Get the sample audio and patches on your PC/Mac at vault.computermusic.co.uk

come to iOS. I’ll be running it in Reason 7, but you iPad users can follow along too. We’ll whip up a classic modulated wavetable patch and while we’re at it, I’ll knock out that elusive choir sound I told you about last issue (but this time we’ll get it bang on the head thanks to Thor’s wavetable oscillator). By the time we’re through, you’ll have a clear understanding of what makes a wavetable synthesiser such a brilliant alternative to plain ol’ analogue instruments. So let’s fire up the Mighty Thor and see if we can stir up a storm.

Recreating a modulated wavetable sound in Thor

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We’ll start by firing up Reason and creating a Thor device (or you could simply call up Thor on your iPad, of course). Use the Edit menu to access the Reset Device command. This will initialise the instrument’s patch. Currently it’s just a raw analogue sound. Click or tap the arrow in the top-left of the oscillator to choose the Wavetable oscillator.

Now try playing and holding a note while turning the Position knob. Wow! That’s a very dramatic effect – and a bonafide classic one at that. Let’s take a look at the Routing matrix; nothing is assigned at the moment. Let’s select ModEnv as the Source for the first slot, and Osc 1 » Pos as the Destination.

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Wouldn’t you know it? The default wavetable in the Wavetable oscillator is yet another analogue sound! No matter, we know what we want. Click or tap on the Table Select display to open the list of available wavetables. Select Mixed Waves 1 – this one contains a diverse range of waves and will be good for the typical PPG sound.

Got it? Okay, next let’s set the Amount to a full 100. This will tell Thor that the position in Oscillator 1’s wavetable should be modulated by the Modulation Envelope to the fullest allowable amount. Go ahead and play and hold a note. There’s the classic PPG “gargle”! Now just to make some minor adjustments.

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Now, I want you to play and hold a note, while at the same time gradually turning the Position knob. You’ll hear the waves fading from one to the other. The PPG couldn’t actually do this with a full wavetable; it jumped abruptly from one wave to the next. We can better simulate this effect by turning off the X-Fade function.

Finally, increase the Mod Envelope’s Attack to 550ms and its Decay to 13 seconds. The Release should be 6.7 seconds or so. While you’re at it, increase the Amp Envelope’s Release to 5 or 6 seconds and activate Thor’s built-in Delay for some added sweetening. Beautiful! Save that patch and then reset the device to begin again.

sound essentials / make music now <

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RECOMMENDED LISTENING

JARGON BUSTER

KLAUS SCHULZE, DZIEKUJE POLAND LIVE

WAVETABLE SYNTHESIS

A lengthy non-stop semi-improvisational blowout, this performance comes hot on the heels of The Man’s Audentity LP. Rife with all of the era’s latest digital technology, it offers a number of excellent examples of the Fairlight and PPG systems in all of their gritty glory.

MARK SHREEVE, LEGION

A masterpiece of eighties English electronica, Shreeve’s bombastic blast of 8-bit samples and bone-shaking bass sequences kicks in at high velocities and never lets up. It’s a brilliant showcase of all things MIDI from an era when the word ‘digital’ was a synth’s badge of honour.

PATRICK O’HEARN, ANCIENT DREAMS

Here, ex-Zappa cohort and erstwhile member of Missing Persons O’Hearn trots out an incredible arsenal of the best of that decade’s technology. The highlight for me was the sound of early wavetable synthesis in all its grainy majesty.

>Step by step

Scot Solida Scot bought his first synth over a quarter of a century ago. A synthesist, sound designer and audio engineer of international repute, he’s provided factory presets for many of the music software industry’s most acclaimed synths, samplers and drum machines, not to mention the Plugins suite. Occasionally, he manages to find time to make records for Beta-lactam Ring Records under the name Christus and the Cosmonaughts.

The term wavetable has been muddied a little, as later synthesisers that used samples also came to be branded wavetable synths – these ones are also called ‘ROMplers’ or ‘Sample+Synthesis’ instruments. However, PPG, Ensoniq and other classic wavetable instruments did more than just call up one sample (or one type of sample) – they stored their waveforms linearly end to end and could dynamically ‘scan’ through the table.

PRO TIP SEQUENTIAL CIRCUIT

Korg’s Wavestation blurred the lines between wavetable synth and ROMpler by allowing users to ‘sequence’ various samples using a single oscillator voice. This could produce rhythmic sequences with different samples on each step. We can’t quite manage that sort of sound with Thor’s wavetable oscillators, but you can still get a lot of mileage out of its built-in sequencer.

Setting up a classic PPG choir patch using Thor

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Now, as promised, we’ll create a variation on the elusive PPG choir. This one is based on the patch residing in my own PPG Wave 2.2, which itself is a slightly customised version of the factory sound. We’ll need to call up the Wavetable oscillator again, only this time we’ll select the table called PPG 27 Formant.

Set the Filter Envelope’s Attack to around 2ms and crank the Sustain up to the max. Set its Release to 8 seconds. Now, let’s go to the Routing matrix. Set the first slot’s Source to Voice Key » Note (Full Range). Set the Destination to Osc 1 » Pos and the Amount to 100. We’re getting close!

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Reduce the OCT value to 3 and set the Position knob to 85. We’ll once again want to de-activate the X-Fade function. Set the Amp Env’s Attack to around 17ms and push its Decay and Sustain up to the max. Set the Release to a little over 2 seconds. It sounds a little better than last month’s attempt, but it’s still not there.

Next, in another slot, set ModEnv as a source and Osc 1 » Pitch as its Destination. Set the Amount to 22. Now let’s look at the Mod Envelope. Push the Delay to around 1.9ms. Set the Attack to under 1ms. The Decay should be 120ms or so and the Release should be set to 4 or 5 seconds. Get it as close as you can.

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Let’s tweak the filter a little. First, reduce the Frequency to around 360Hz or so. Set the Resonance to 16. Push the KBD knob up about halfway. This will cause the sound to get brighter as higher notes are played. Set the Filter’s Env knob to about 33. The Filter mode should be set to 24 type 1.

Now some final tweaks. I bumped up the Table Position of Osc 1 to 91 and added another Wavetable oscillator at a low level to fill out the sound a little. This second one can have slightly different settings and mod amounts, but should have the same wavetable. Ah, now there’s that classic PPG choir sound!

October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 75

WorldMags.net For years, we’ve strived to bring you fantastic exclusive free synths and effects, created by the most talented software developers, with our popular Plugins collection. And what better way to show them off than to put on a spectacular display of sonic fireworks with an FX design masterclass? That’s exactly what we’re going to do in this issue’s Focus! Almost all modern productions now feature ‘FX’ of some sort, whether it’s the classic filtered noise sweep, an epic rising synth buildup, or a huge unearthly FM scream. Whilst these techniques have been utilised on dancefloors for many years, today’s mainstream pop tracks have evolved to incorporate just as wide a variety of textures as those traditional club bangers, thanks to crossover artists like Calvin Harris, Chase and Status and Swedish House Mafia. If your tastes aren’t quite that mainstream, don’t worry – many electronic genres still take pride in using strange soundscapes and evolving effects. House, techno, trance, DnB, dubstep and hardcore producers all pepper non-musical garnish over their tunes, teasing and exciting their listeners. As ever in Focus, we’ll only be using our own free Plugins – all of which can be downloaded online from vault.computermusic. co.uk. We’ll be making use of Aalto CM’s crazy FM capabilities, the subtractive power of Dune CM, the flexible filtering of Vengeance’s Philta CM and a whole load more of our versatile toolkit. You’ll find out how to start from our Plugins’

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FX DESIGN

Create your own sweeps, booms, whooshes, rises and falls with our very own Plugins collection

focus

Get the Plugins, audio examples and presets from vault.computermusic.co.uk

“Electronic genres still take pride in using strange soundscapes and evolving effects”

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default patches and instantly get twisting, modulating, and filtering, skillfully sharpening your sound design skills along the way. We’re using Ableton Live as our host, but any DAW will do the trick. If all this is still not enough FX madness to satisfy you, then there’s only one thing for it: you’ll have to get Computer Music Special 60: The Sound Designer’s Handbook, which is absolutely rammed with tutorials, videos and samples. Order a print edition at bit.ly/ cmspecial60 or get a digital edition right now on Apple Newsstand (computermusic. co.uk/cmsdigital), Zinio, Google Play, Amazon Newsstand or Nook.

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1. Creating a sawtooth riser effect with Dune CM

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We’re going to kick off by building a thick, versatile sawtooth riser using subtractive synthesis – the finished patch can be found in the Tutorial Files folder in the Vault. Load DuneCM onto a new MIDI track and select Bank B to reset the synth to its default Init patch – we want to start from a clean slate.

The sound needs thickening out. DuneCM has two types of unison available, so let’s apply both, first turning the master output Volume down to 22%, since the added unison voices will increase the overall volume. Turn Osc 1’s FAT parameter (near the top left of the interface) up to 25%. In the Unison section, set Voices to 8, and Detune and stereo Spread to 18%. Instant phatness!

For extra width, let’s add some subtle ping-pong delay with KR-Delay CM. Add it as an insert and change the delay Mode to PingPong. With the Dry/Wet control set at around 17%, the effect is blended in only slightly. With the Delay time and Feedback set to about 96ms and 48%, this allows enough of the taps to carry over without clouding the dry signal.

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Click Mod Matrix 1>12 to open the mod matrix, then in slot 2 set the Source column to Mod Env and Destination to Oscillators » Osc 1 Semi. Set the Amount to 100%, and listen to how the pitch is now affected by the modulation envelope when you play a note. For a longer rising effect, set the Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release in the Mod Envelope panel to maximum.

Our riser needs more interest as it opens out. We can assign various parameters to the modulation envelope (which already modulates oscillator pitch) so that their effects creep in gradually. In the mod matrix, set up three new slots with Mod Env as the Source, assigning them to: Other » Pan Spread at +100 Amount, Oscillators » Osc 1 Fat at +100, and Osc Common » Noise Level at +53.

Our saw riser is complete, and it makes a great uplifting sweep for a build-up – hold notes between C1 and C3 to let it expand fully. If you want greater control, set the Mod Env to Osc 1 Semi Amount to 0, and instead change the polyphony to Mono and turn Glide all the way up to 100%. Now simply play or program overlapping MIDI notes for a slippy, slidey effect!

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Five tracks with fantastic FX Paul Woodford presents Bobby Peru Erotic Discourse Is it FX or a bassline? Possibly percussion? It’s a tough call, but this metallic evolving monster is an FX designer’s dream come true. The lead line grinds and snakes through the arrangement like a robotic rollercoaster, proving all you truly need for an effective track is a hook and a kickdrum. Sub Focus Timewarp VIP Whilst this DnB smasher is crammed full of delightful stuttering stabs and FX, it’s the zappy square uplifter we’re concerned with here. This siren-like rise plays several roles in the arrangement, initially playing call-and-answer with the stuttering filtered saw, then later taking centre stage to open out in all its modulated glory. Wolfgang Gartner Illmerica This tough, melodic houser employs some show-stealing electro synths, dirty leads and midrange growls, yet Mr G’s clever choice of FX pad out the other elements nicely. A strange panned feedback effect sits slightly over to the right of the mix, emphasising key transitions, whilst other zaps, buzzes and smashes keep you on your toes throughout. SHM vs Knife Party Antidote Forget the obvious modulated bassline, hard-hitting beats and the assortment of vocal elements at play here, and instead pay attention to the lashings of ear candy dotted throughout this dense production. Highlights include zapping rises to build excitement and a reverb-drenched snare to surprise dancefloors. Chemical Brothers Electronic Battle Weapon 9 A superb classic, and an example of how to carry a production along with a clever choice of FX and pinpoint arrangement. A world away from the Brothers’ hook-laden releases, the skilful use of white noise, zaps, rises and falls put this club workout firmly ahead of its time. New producers, take note! October 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 77

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> Step by step

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2. A clever bubbling riser using Curve 2 CM

We’re going to use Cableguys’ Curve 2 CM to create a really individual riser effect. This synth’s macro function enables the assignment of up to eight parameters to just a single knob, giving you octopuslike control over the entire synth – perfect for bubbling synth risers! Load a fresh Curve 2 CM into your DAW and click the New button at the top left to initialise it.

Click the dropdown menu above Filter 1, select 12dB Peak, then set its Cutoff to minimum. The macro we’ve set up is controlled by MIDI CC1, which is the standard mapping for the mod wheel, so you can either use your mod wheel or draw a curve while playing a note to hear the effect. Back in the Macro Editor, raise the modulation Amount to 0.86 for a more pronounced effect.

Now that we’ve got a usable sound that responds to the mod wheel, let’s program in a precise MIDI CC curve for it. Create a new four-bar MIDI clip and draw a note at C3 for the clip’s duration. Open up the MIDI clip, set up an automation envelope for MIDI CC 1, and draw a rise over the duration of the clip – each DAW handles MIDI automation differently, so consult your manual if necessary.

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Change Osc 1’s waveform to a square (use the preset strip just below the waveform display), giving us a broad range of frequencies to modulate and filter. We don’t need Osc 2, so turn its Volume all the way down. Open the Macro editor by clicking the magnifying glass icon at the top-right of the Macro panel. Three columns of eight user-assignable slots are available.

Let’s make our tone a bit weirder: set the LFO mode to Fixed-Retrig and Speed to 18.0Hz, then, in the mod matrix, find the point where the LFO row and Filter Cut1 column intersect and turn this cell up to 100 – the LFO is now modulating the filter cutoff. Hear it purr! Set Filter 2 to a 12dB LP with 150Hz Cutoff.

The bubbling riser is there, but it’s a bit boring – let’s bring it to life with some stereo effects. Wolfram CM is ideal for the task thanks to its impressive array of spatial effects, so add it to the track. In Wolfram CM’s patchbay, assign LFO 1 as a source and Manipulator 1 » Pan as its destination, with the modulation Amount knob at maximum. Adjust LFO 1’s Rate to taste – we’ve settled on a brisk 4 o’clock.

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Let’s use the first of the three macros, MWheel, which responds to the modulation wheel. In its top slot, click and hold the orange cross icon. You’ll see all of the synth’s available parameters light up orange. Drag the cross over to Filter 1’s Cutoff and let go of the button – Cutoff 1 appears in the first macro modulation slot.

It’d be great to get our mod wheel macro working harder – let’s use it to make the pitch and second filter cutoff rise and fall. Drag the next empty macro slot’s cross icon to Filter 2’s Cutoff and set the Amount to 0.84. Next, drag the third macro slot’s cross over to Osc 1’s Pitch and apply the full 1.00 Amount. Now try the mod wheel again while playing a note: our bubbling riser is really taking shape!

Set Wolfram CM’s Dist to 9 o’clock for some overall bite. For added retro spaciness, turn on the Filter + Delay section, set the Mix to around 10 o’clock and the Time to 60ms. Finally, an instance of CM-EQUA 87 rolls off unwanted sub frequencies using a high-pass filter at 95Hz. Now we have our cool modulating rise! Check this month’s Tutorial Files folder for the audio and patches.

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WorldMags.net > Step by step

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We’re going to make a whooshing white noise sweep effect of the kind heard in countless dance tunes over the years. Begin by loading WhiteNoise.wav from the Tutorial Files folder into your DAW. We used ZebraCM to create this, as it has the ability to output pure white noise via its noise oscillator – any synth with this ability can be used, if you want to create your own white noise sample.

> Step by step

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3. A big-room white noise sweep using

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White noise contains all frequencies across the audible spectrum at equal power, so it’s perfect for filtering. Insert Philta CM as an insert, then automate the Lowpass dial to rise from minimum to maximum over a four- or eight-bar period. Setting Width-Reso to 60% will accentuate the frequencies around the cutoff point even further.

4. Making a sine boom with Synthmaster CM

Let’s craft an explosive breakdown boom using Synthmaster CM. Load it onto a MIDI track in your DAW, then rightclick Oscillator 1 Pitch and select Modulation Source » Voice » Mod Env 3. This creates an assignment in the mod matrix, so set the modulation Amount knob to -35. This causes Oscillator 1’s pitch to be modulated by Mod Envelope 1.

To dirty up the tone, select After Filter in the Distortion panel’s menu. Reduce the Volume in the Architecture panel to +13, then raise the Distortion’s PreGain to +55. Switch on the Reverb in the Effects panel. Set Amount to 60%, Time to 5.5s, Size to +6.8 and Damping to +662Hz. Add the boom at the beginning of any breakdown for thunderous impact!

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The pitch envelope doesn’t have the response we want, so click the Modulation tab at the bottom-left to view Mod Envelope 1. Now if we raise the Attack to maximum we can hear the pitch fall steeply. You can shape the decay response into more of a kick drum-type tone by lowering the Attack further – we settle at around +112 for this effect.

To finish off, we’re going to use the Reverb’s EQ to roll off the effect’s low frequencies at around 1100Hz, removing muddiness from the reverb tail to keep the direct signal’s low end clean. This completes our simple-but-effective sine boom – add it to the start of a breakdown for explosive impact!

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The noise is dry and has no stereo width, so we add KR-Delay CM and Reverberate CM to widen it. There’s huge scope for personalisation with filtered noise, so get experimenting with your own effects. It’s best to roll off unwanted sub bass at around 80Hz (we used DDMF’s IIEQ Pro CM), and sidechaining the whoosh to the kick always sounds great, as you can hear in our audio example.

Saving and resampling FX Just as recycling is an important part of our daily lives, it’s really useful to archive your special FX sounds for later use, too. Simply save your synth’s preset so you can call up your patch for further tweaking any time you like. Most DAWs also allow you to save custom chains of plugin inserts too, so you can recall and re-automate them in later sessions – ideal for a white noise downsweep that will fit another song but may need some automation changes to fit perfectly. When composing and arranging, you won’t always fancy a two-hour sound design session, so don’t feel guilty about drawing from your own bank of custom presets. Once you’ve created your FX sounds, it’s also a great habit to start exporting out your FX creations as WAV or AIFF files to archive for later use. As well as making them very easy to use simply by dropping the audio file into a project’s timeline, you can also twist them up further using a sampler or effects. Modern soft samplers are tremendously powerful and can bring a whole new lease of life to your FX – try pitchshifting, stretching, looping, filtering or granulating your bounces inside your DAW’s sampler to create some completely fresh noises. Some sampler instruments, such as our own XFadeLooperCM, have unique looping and crossfade functions that allow you to mangle your FX even further, providing limitless possibilities for sound design.

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Integrating FX into tracks It’s all well and good being able to synthesise special FX, but how do you fit them into your tracks? It’s important to note that these types of sounds tend to be used as ‘ear candy’ – extra sprinkles of interest that sit behind your track’s main elements and assist their impact. If your sweeps, whooshes and blasts are stealing the limelight, overpowering your vocal or lead line, consider using EQ to roll back some of their overbearing frequencies and make space for other parts. The 2-6kHz upper-mid area tends to be a key area for lead vocals, so be wary of filling this region with FX noises. Low-end rumble can build up as a side effect of extreme processing, so get proactive with a high-pass filter to prevent unwanted sub frequencies clashing with your kick and bass. Also consider the possibility of simply turning down your FX to sit them further back in the mix. Another way to prevent FX clashing with lead parts is to ensure a good balance of the stereo field. FX generally sit out at the sides of your mix or pan around from left to right, so get them out the way of your main mono elements, either using an auto pan plugin or by automating your channel’s pan manually. Choruses, phasers, flangers, delays and reverbs offer other creative ways to spread your FX out to the sides. Remember to use a “monoising” plugin to sum your master channel to mono (so you can check your overall mix’s mono compatibility), but as long as your core track elements don’t disappear, you can sacrifice a little of your FX for more width. As FX morph and move, they can greatly vary in tone and dynamics. Because of this, it’s worth making sure their level is a little more constant. A ten-second rise is pointless if you only hear the very tail-end of its ascent, so try evening out its volume with some automation or a compressor plugin. Your DAW’s stock compressor will likely provide the transparent leveling required here, but you can also try out some more characterful models for creative effect (such as our very own Fat-FET). Above all, remember that the scope of your FX is as broad as your imagination, so feel free to experiment and break the rules as you see fit!

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> Step by step

5. A resonant alien FM downsweep with Aalto CM

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FM synthesis is a terrific method for weird sound design and FX creation, thanks to its ability to generate complex and unusual textures. Our very own Aalto CM (which was the subject of 193’s Focus) is a shining example of such a synth. Its intuitive patching system means we can turn a simple tone into a whistling, resonant alien sweep. Start by loading Aalto CM into your DAW.

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Let’s use AaltoCM’s LFO to wobble the Mod Index. Drag from the LFO’s output node (small dot) into Mod Index’s input dial, then turn up the latter to apply the maximum amount of modulation. We can’t hear the LFO’s effect, so turn its Level up to 0.76. By then setting the LFO’s Freq to maximum, we get a metallic buzzing tone. LFO Noise introduces “dirt” to the modulation, so bring it up to 0.39.

When sculpting FX, you’ll generally aim to create a sound that’s full of harmonics, so that any subsequent filtering will have a rich array of frequencies to act upon. We’ve completed the former, so now it’s time to put Aalto CM’s filter to use. Set the Filter Type all the way round to Band and increase the Q to maximum. At these settings, the sound is filtered away to nothing – let’s fix that.

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The initial patch is just a simple sine wave – the carrier. By raising the Mod Index, we bring the modulator signal to bear on the carrier’s pitch, as you can see in the Pitch dial’s graphical response. Leave the Mod Index at around 2.95. Bring the Modulator’s Ratio up to 13.00 and hear how the frequency modulation makes the sound more nasal.

The Waveguide/Delay section adds comb filtering delays for more metallic madness. Patch the LFO’s output node to the Input on Waveguide/Delay’s left side, then apply full positive modulation. The effect is barely noticeable until the Feedback is raised – bring it up to 0.50 to blend in extra robotic tone. Set the Waveguide/Delay’s Frequency slider to 880Hz for a more atonal effect.

Connect Envelope 2’s Output to the Cutoff’s input and apply maximum negative modulation. By raising Envelope 2’s Attack to 20.00, our band-pass filter will slowly sweep open when a key is pressed. Back in the Oscillator section, set Noise to 0.50 and Timbre to 0.61 to reduce the slight harshness. Finally, mix in 0.35 of AaltoCM’s lush, cavernous reverb to polish off our metallic sweep.

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years back

What’s on your hard drive?

History continued to repeat itself in November 2003’s issue of Computer Music In 65 we looked at Novation’s thennew software emulation of their own BassStation hardware, which itself was inspired by a number of classic analogue synths. As we said at the time, it all felt very postmodern, and we feel even more inclined to slip on a black turtleneck sweater and grow a silly beard in 2013 as we reflect on the fact that, in response to fresh demand for affordable analogue hardware, the original, ‘real’ BassStation is getting a refresh in the form of the BassStation 2. Expect a plugin version of

“We asked the Burning Question, ‘Have DSP cards had their day?’” that sometime around 2020… In the light of increasing computer speeds, we asked the Burning Question “Have DSP cards had their day?” By the end of the issue, we’d published a glowing review of TC Electronic’s PowerCore – a DSP-powered plugin system, no less. The PowerCore platform is now dead, though it hung in gamely until 2011. Finally, the Wanted section of our Reader Ads page included a Londonbased urban soul band seeking a “virtual DJ” of “any shape/colour” to play with. We’re not sure if anyone got in touch – or, indeed, if anyone managed to work out what they meant by a “virtual DJ”.

Guy J John Digweed’s Israeli protégé reveals the tools behind his deep and dubby progressive house tunes STEINBERG CUBASE “Cubase has been part of my life for over ten years now. I fell in love with it but don’t quite remember how! I love the workflow and just know my way around it so well.” SPECTRASONICS OMNISPHERE “Omnisphere is one of the only VSTi’s I use in my music. It has a beautiful, atmospheric sound. I know it sounds strange, but it’s hard to find good sounds to be in the background of your tracks – those that don’t stand out too much or crowd the mix. Omnisphere does it best.” ABLETON LIVE “When DJing, Ableton allows you to go wild with no limits. It creates a flow in the set, and the ability to quickly make some bootlegs and edits on the fly is fantastic. The options for creativity are truly endless. I used Live to create one of the tracks on my Balance compilation, using a bassline from one track and a vocal from another

65 hailed the arrival of Sonar 3 as a potential game changer in the Windows sequencer market

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Balance Presents Guy J is out now guy-j.com

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track (Citylife, DJ T). Live’s flexibility is its true strength.” UNIVERSAL AUDIO CAMBRIDGE EQ “I think this is the best EQ out there! You can hear every little move you make on it. I use this plugin on almost every channel in my

“When you use RE-201 in a track, sounds become warm right away” projects and it helps me to get what I want on the mix of a track.” UNIVERSAL AUDIO ROLAND RE-201 “This is an emulation of the legendary delay by UAD. When you use RE-201 in a track, sounds become warm right away, so it works perfectly for the music I create. It sounds amazing on vocals and main synths.”

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