10GB+ IN-DEPTH REVIEWSl

Roland System-8
EXCLUSIVE VIDEOl
ALAN WALKER
BReaKs DOWN
samples, VIDeO, & Roli Blocks
auDIO & moRe! PLUS Teenage Engineering PO-32, UAD 9.1 & more! ALONE
Issue 317
Making the future since 1992

SYNTH POWER!
c k the po ten tia l of 2017s
Unlo g synths
most fo rw ard -th ink in

EXCLUSIVE ACCESS
THE MAGNETIC FIELDS

NATHAN FAKE
TEENGIRL FANTASY
Future Publishing Ltd.
Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA
Tel: 01225 442244 Fax: 01225 822793
FM | WELCOME
Email: futuremusic@futurenet.com
Editor
Si Truss, simon.truss@futurenet.com
Reviews Editor/Online Content Manager
Simon Arblaster, simon.arblaster@futurenet.com
Art Editor
Phil Cheesbrough, philip.cheesbrough@futurenet.com
Production Editor
James Russell, james.russell@futurenet.com

BIG THANKS TO
Catherine Hood, Joe Rossitter, Dan JD73 Goldman,
Hamish Mackintosh, Danny Turner, Tim Cant, Roy Spencer,
Ben Wilson, Jono Buchanan, Bruce Aisher, Jon Musgrave,
Olly Curtis, Joseph Branston, Joby Sessions, Daniel Byrne,
Mark Gyver, Oli Bell, Robbie Stamp, Adam Lee
ADVERTISING
For Ad enquiries please contact:
Leon Stephens, leon.stephens@futurenet.com
MARKETING
Direct Marketing Executive: Will Hardy
PRODUCTION & DISTRIBUTION
Production Controller: Fran Twentyman
Production Manager: Mark Constance
Printed in the UK by: William Gibbons & Sons Ltd on behalf of Future

Synth Power Up
Distributed in the UK by: Marketforce (UK), 2nd Floor,
5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HU
CIRCULATION
Trade Marketing Manager: Michelle Brock Tel: +44 (0)207 429 3683
SUBSCRIPTIONS
UK reader order line & enquiries: 0844 848 2852
Overseas reader order line & enquiries: +44 (0)1604 251045
Its no secret that we love a good retro synth over here
Online enquiries: www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk
Email: futuremusic@myfavouritemagazines.co.uk
at FM. Nothing gets us hot under the collar like an
LICENSING old-fashioned, VCO-packing behemoth, preferably clad in
plenty of wood panelling and boasting an impenetrably
Senior Licensing & Syndication Manager:
Matt Ellis, matt.ellis@futurenet.com

complex voltage controlled modulation system Still, well

Tel: +44 (0)1225 442244
MANAGEMENT
Managing Director, Magazines Division: Aaron Asadi
Art & Design Director: Ross Andrews freely admit that for all their warmth and character, the
Music Group Editor-In-Chief: Daniel Griffiths
analogue classics cant hold a candle to todays most
leading plug-ins when it comes to flexibility, complexity
and sheer sonic power.
Its these qualities were celebrating in this months cover
feature. Well explore some of the cutting-edge techniques
made possible by modern synthesis technology, and show
you how you can use these to add power, depth and
complexity to your own music.
To make the most of the tutorials, be sure to grab the
latest videos, audio examples and tutorial files from
http://vault.futuremusic.co.uk
All contents copyright 2017 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. We hope you enjoy the issue!
No part of this magazine may be reproduced, stored, transmitted or used in any way without the prior written
permission of the publisher.

Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered
office: Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA. All information contained in this
publication 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. You are advised to contact
manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price and other details of products or services referred
to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not
responsible for their contents or any changes or updates to them.

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
Si Truss, Editor
taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents or subcontractors shall be liable for loss or damage.
simon.truss@futurenet.com
We are committed to only
using magazine paper
which is derived from
well-managed, certified
forestry and chlorine-free
manufacture. Future
Publishing and its paper
suppliers have been
independently certified
in accordance with the
rules of the FSC (Forest
Stewardship Council).

5
FM | CONTENTS

38
IN THE STUDIO WITH: Nathan Fake
We track down the new Ninja Tune
signee to his Norfolk studio get
a load of his gear collection, and
find out why hes dropped the soft
synths for his new album Providence

6
 This Issue | Contents

88 98
94 82
60
IN THE STUDIO WITH: Teengirl Fantasy
Five years after Tracer, the duo are back
with their trademark hypnotic sound

rEvIEWS 68
In-depth tests of
all the latest gear
INCLUDES AUDIOl
78 Roland System-8
INCLUDES AUDIOl
82 Teenage Engineering
PO-32 Tonic
86 Waldorf KB37 TECHNIQUE
88 Roli Blocks Essential production
advice and ideas
92 Round-Up: UAD 9.1
94 Universal Audio 26
78
Apollo Twin MkII INCLUDES VIDEOl

Cutting Edge Synths

96 Group Test:
Looping Tools Up-to-the-minute
sound design skills
98 Audio-Technica rEvIEW: Roland System-8
AE2300
100 iZotope Neutron
The new plug-out synth is fully loaded
with Jupiter-8 and Juno-106 emulations 55
INCLUDES VIDEOl

Producers Guide
102 Sounds & Samples 100 86 Build your own
multiband setups

68
INCLUDES VIDEOl

Modular Monthly
Malekkos Voltage
Blocks CV sequencer

7
FM | ONliNE VaulT
On the
FM Vault
vault.futuremusic.co.uk
Future Music has outgrown its covermount DVD!
We wanted to bring you more samples, sounds
and high-quality video than ever before, so were
putting it up online for you to download. Simply
head to the FM Vault at the link above, login/
register, then hit add a magazine to register this
issue and get all the video, audio and samples.

Sample packS VIDeO & aUDIO

Exclusive new sounds with every issue Hear the gear first with our demos
grOOvE CrImINAlS prESENT ON vIDEO AUDIO DEmOS
> Cutting-Edge > Roland System-8
SH Collection Synth Power
> Modular Monthly:
> Teenage Engineering
PO-32 Tonic

500 loops, hits and multis Voltage Block

> The Track: Alan Walker
generated with the gritty
sound engines of Rolands iconic
SH-101 and SH-09 monosynths
CyClICK SAmplES prESENT

Bendy Basslines
268 diving and swooping
loops and lines giving
you the gritty, pitchbend-heavy
sound of modern DnB and EDM

PLUS 48
ACCESS THE FM SaMPlE aRCHiVE! INCLUDES VIDEOl
Download the Sample Archive packs and get over 8GB of loops, hits
and instruments from our back catalogue of high-quality and royalty-free
THE TrACK: Alan Walker, Alone.
samples. From vintage synths and beats to esoteric sounds and FX think The Brit-nominated Norwegian
of it as our best of. All the samples you need to create great music! breaks it down for us in the studio

8
 This Issue | Contents

26
FEATUrE: Cutting-Edge Synth Power
Make your most modern patches
yet with this masterclass of
futuristic synthesis techniques

70
IN THE STUDIO WITH: The Magnetic Fields
For his eleventh studio album, songwriter
Stephin Merritt has penned fifty
autobiographical songs spanning fifty years

12 16
14 14 15 Find us online at
www.futuremusic.co.uk

Watch our videos

www.youtube.com/
futuremusicmagazine
FEATUrES
38 FIlTEr
In the
Studio with:
Expert tips, techniques Nathan Fake All the latest gear from
and tutorials around the world
55 Producers Guide
16 Classic Album: 12 Behringers big plans Follow us on Twitter
Sander van Doorn, 60 Interview: @futuremusicmag
Supernaturalistic Teengirl Fantasy 14 Output Analog Strings
23 Album Reviews 68 Modular Monthly 14 TAL-Dub-X
26 Feature: Cutting Edge 104 Advice 15 Talking Shop:
Synth Power Juveniles Join us on Facebook
106 Gear Guide
20 Subscribe to FM www.facebook.com/
futuremusicmagazine

9
Contents | This Issue

BONUS SAmplES
See this months selection of free demos at vault.futuremusic.co.uk

01

01 02
03 04

05 06
www.loopmasters.com
01 Looptone Ministry Of House
02 Loopmasters Presents UK Garage & 2 Step
03 Ghost Syndicate Pres. Assault Drum & Bass
04 Samplestate Kreature Modern Tech House
05 Loopmasters Pres Liquidism Drum & Bass
06 Loopmasters Juke Footwork 101
07 Singomakers G>Bass
08 Loopmasters Presents Vibrations Instrumental Electronica

07 08
02

https://splice.com
01 Splice Sounds Varien Steampunk Speakeasy
02 Splice Sounds Future Bass Leads + Melodies

10
FM | FILTER

highlights
14 Output Analog 14 TAL-Dub-X 15 Talking Shop: 16 Classic Album:
Strings Juveniles Sander van Doorn,
Supernaturalistic

12

Behringer have
big plans
The ARP 2600, OSCar and a $400
Moog Model D join the pile of
mooted analogue clones
I
ts just weeks since Behringers
much-trailed DeepMind 12 hit the
shelves, but it seems company
founder Uri Behringer has the
wind in his synthesis sails. According
to a series of forum posts from the
man himself, the German company
have at least four new synths in the
works, with plans for up to 20 in the
near future. These will apparently
include both innovative new synths
as well as reviving classics. On the
revival front, Behringer have
expressed an interest in recreating
ARPs mammoth semi-modular
2600, the classic 80s monosynths of
British outfit Oxford Synth Company
and, most recently, Tom Oberheims
OB-Xa. Few details have been shared
about what form these clones might
take, but going on previous Behringer
form wed assume that affordability
would be a top priority. More details
are promised in the coming weeks
no doubt via Behringers favoured
outlet, the Gearslutz forums.
Model behaviour
Slightly more concrete are the
companys plans for an affordable,
desktop recreation of the Moog Model
D. Announced last month, the
Behringer D is touted as an analogue
monosynth based on authentic VCO,
VCF and VCA designs from the
original Model D. Early design renders
show a desktop unit with a control
interface faithful to its 70s
inspiration. A number of modern
touches are promised too though,
including Eurorack compatibility, full
MIDI implementation and 16-voice
MIDI poly chaining for combining
multiple synthesizers into a single
mammoth polyphony.
Before you get too excited, note
that the Behringer D is still in the
pre-prototype phase, although the
The Future Of Music | Filter
plans have already generated a
considerable chunk of hype online,
which wed assume would be enough
to convince the company to move
forward with the project. If and when
it does arrives, Behringers Model D
clone will go up against Moogs own
recent, well-received reissue. The
main difference is that Behringer are
claiming their version will have a
projected price point of $400, as
opposed to the $3,500 retail price of
Moogs official version.
This is far from the first time Uri
Behringer has expressed an interest
in reviving classic instruments. Before
the DeepMind 12 was fully revealed it
was, at one point, touted as a revival
of the Roland Jupiter-8. The company
have previously teased a budget ARP
Odyssey recreation too, and are
supposedly still working on an
analogue drum machine based
around the 808 and 909. Plans have
also been mooted for a desktop
version of the DeepMind 12, so that
ARP 2600 may have to join the back
of a fairly long development queue.
If, in what form, and when any of
these instruments might appear is
still anyones guess, but its certainly
fair to assume that Behringer are hard
at work. Were all in and the teams
are on fire, Behringer stated in the
latest forum post. Exciting times!
13
Filter | The Future Of Music

Splice support
comes to the
Toraiz SP-16
Pioneer DJ have come together with
Splice, the cloud-based sample
provider, to enable Splice Sounds
integration with the Toraiz SP-16
hardware sampler.
You can now build custom
samples kits and sequences online,
download them as SCENE files and
export them straight to your SP-16.
Everything is bundled up to make the
process as seamless as possible, and
you can then start working with the
sounds on Pioneers hardware.
To mark the launch of this
collaboration, Splice is offering a
months free trial of its service. Head

Output unleash Analog Strings to the site and sign up, then use the
promo code TORAIZ16 on the
subscriptions page to take advantage
If youre looking for a strings library with a contemporary twist, Output of this offer.
believes that its new Analog Strings instrument could be for you.
Promising unique and cutting-edge strings, sounds are created by
combining two sampled orchestras, vintage synths and unconventional
sound design techniques. Theres also advanced modulation routing,
dual tape loopers, dual arpeggiators, flux and macro control.
Analog Strings costs $199 and runs in Kontakt and the free Kontakt
Player (v5.6.5 or later) on PC/Mac. Find out more on the Output website.

features and enhancements over the Togus TAL-Dub

Its the end of the road
for the Tempest
Released in 2011, Dave Smith and
Roger Linns Tempest is one of the
most ambitious and feature-packed
drum machines, but its creators have
now announced that its reached the
end of its development cycle and no
further OS updates will be forthcoming.
Writing on the DSI forum, Dave
Smith explained that, having
implemented various requested
years, the team have now hit the limit
of what the drum machines onboard
processing ability is capable of.
Although Smith acknowledges that
there are still a few bugs remaining,
they have addressed the bugs
affecting the Tempests essential
operation and feel that it is stable,
reliable, has abundant functionality,
and is very fun to play. Co-creator
Roger Linn added, Even with some
remaining minor bugs, Tempest is
incredibly deep and remarkably
functional, and in my opinion has no
competition for what it does.
Tempest certainly holds a unique
place in the hardware drum machine
market, but it feels like this
announcement marks the beginning
of the end of its lifespan. It is still
available to buy, however.
delay is reborn
as TAL-Dub-X
Togu Audio Line made their name
releasing free plugins, one of which
was TAL-Dub, a delay effect. Now
its been rebooted as TAL-Dub-X,
which comes with new features and
64-bit support.
Rather than being an emulation of
a specific hardware delay unit, this
promises its own special sound. Its
not a clean effect, and comes with a
saturation stage and low-pass filter for
added flexibility.
A spec list is below, and you
can find out more and download a
demo on the Togu Audio Line
website. TAL-Dub-X costs $25 and
is available for PC and Mac in
VST/AU/AAX formats.

14
 The Future Of Music | Filter

What's your favourite thing to use in
the studio?
I don't have a preference between
hardware and plug-ins. I'd go
hardware for the classic feel;
software to get creative. I've just
discovered mixing with an
analogue summing mixer and I love
it! I send groups the summing mixer,
with a Bricasti M7 for my main
reverb and a Stereo Toolbox on the
output of the mix.
Everyone's got to have one
what's your choice of DAW?
TAL Sampler. A lot of the first
Juveniles demos were made using
these plug-ins from Patrick Kunz.
I love writing my ideas on the road
with TAL-Bassline & TAL-U-NO.
Juveniless essential
production advice
Give space to what's important
Sidechain compression is well
known for its pumping effect, but it
also has a purpose via multiband
compression. If you have multiple
elements fighting for a place in the

TALKINGSHOP I work on Logic Pro, Ableton Live

and Pro Tools, I also program my
low end of your mix like a kick
drum and a bass you can sidechain

Juveniles
patches in Pure Data. DAWs are a
medium just like composing on
different instruments for a song.
Ableton is by far the easiest to get
We grill the funky French two-piece for their tips an idea down in minutes.
only the low end of the bass with the
input from the kick. The bass won't
duck like with a traditional sidechain,
but if that's what you're looking for,
it's a good option. The same

J
ean-Sylvain Le Gouic and
Thibaut Doray have just come
out of the studio after finishing
work on their latest album.
Without Warning follows 2012's
self-titled LP with a storm of upbeat
retro synthpop.
FM: Tell us about your studio
We recently turned the rehearsal
studios weve been using for years
into a recording studio. We have a
control room with some hardware
and it's patched to three small
cabins and a big live room.
What dream bits of gear would you
love to have in your studio?
A couple of DBX 162s, a Drawmer
1962, and a couple of Distressors!
Whats the latest addition to your
studio?
technique can be applied with vocals
that need to be upfront in the mix.
Read the full interview:
http://bit.ly/fmtsjuve
Talking Shop continues regularly at
www.futuremusic.co.uk

Monitors that excel at low volume precision

Great mixing at any sound level

Dedicated to the art of accuracy

Consistent non-fatiguing drivers

Still handmade in Denmark

www.dynaudio.com/professional-audio
 FM | CLASSIC ALBUM
Sander van Doorn
Supernaturalistic
Doorn Records, 2008
For Trance superstar Sander van Doorns debut album he knew he
wanted to push himself, and the genre. The scene was in danger of
Words by Roy Spencer Photos Linda van den Broek
becoming stale and predictable. Too many releases followed the
same patterns and too many producers coasted along with the same
stock sounds. Over the course of Supernaturalistic, released on his
own Doorn Records imprint, the flying Dutchman grabbed Trance by
the scruff and shook the damn thing up. Techno beats met House
chords, moodier textures brought in Soul, and rigid tempo templates
were ignored in favour of letting the tracks find their own steam,
rather than one dictated by the current dancefloor bangers.
A lot of Trance out there at the time had started to use the
same formula, says Doorn. I wanted to add other genres to the
16
mix, and bring in things like more melodic breakdowns. Armed
with his Nord Lead 2X, a Virus C, Logic 7 and a little bit of Space
Designer, Doorn challenged himself to be surprising, diverse, and do
what he felt, not what was expected.
There were a lot of tracks produced using the same synths like
the Roland JP-8000, and a lot of people were using the same kind
of breakdowns, and pretty much the same drops. It needed a little
changing up here and there.
Supernaturalistic tracks like 15 broke the rules of 16-bar
arrangements, while Grasshopper leapt about like its insect
namesake. Album opener Look Inside Your Head took its inspiration
from Alt Rockers Pixies, and By Any Demand took its hook from an
early 90s Hip-Hop club rocker. The rules had gone out the window,
and the resulting glorious noise was causing Doorn to be hailed as
The Saviour of Trance.
I wanted to shake it up, he says. I started to bring in more of
the Techno beats, and moody sounds, and experiment with bpms.
Elsewhere on the album you have tracks that are more laid-back,
and others that lean towards techy, or more progressive sounds.
Through combing all these different types of sounds I guess I
was making Trance a little more interesting to listen to at that point.
It did get a bit more diverse after that.
 Classic Album | Filter

Track by track
with Sander
van Doorn
Look Inside Your Head
Its been fun to look back at this
album. It was made around ten years
ago. It was a very important thing to
do because it was my first album.
I was just producing away, and at
one point I had a lot of tracks that
were just ready to be released. It was
quite an amount. I just thought, Why
not do an album?.
It was fun. When doing an artist The album is a combination of the kind
album you can take steps towards of sound that people would have been
different directions, musically.
Look Inside Your Head was
familiar with because of the things Id put
always going to be the first track, out before and through DJing, and some
though. It actually came into my head more experimental tracks. Tracks like Riff
when I was listening to a Pixies
album. There was this one track, Its shaping up to be a really cool year. Im
would have been the style of tracks I was
Where Is My Mind?, that inspired me getting ready to release my, as yet untitled,
third album. Ive just got back from my
playing out, so people would have been
to get in the studio. I changed all the honeymoon and am back to work. The album used to that kind of sound. With tracks
like Grasshopper I got to go in a
will be very diverse. Im going back to the
notes and got inspired to make my
more melodic sounds, taking it into new
own version of it. It was a
combination of moody vibes and
brackets. It will have an old feel to it, too,
combined with progressive sounds, techy completely different direction. That track
synths, and it came together really
sounds, and more House sounds. It will
feature some guests. HI-LO will definitely be was a combination of genres.
quickly. It pretty much produced on there, as will Landscape. I also have a few
other projects on the go, mainly a lot of solo
itself, to be honest, and it just felt tracks combining different sounds. Im going
right to open the album with. to remix one of my older tracks too.

Riff
This started as a track that I didnt
know how to finish. Id already had
the main riff sound, but with a lot
more notes. It was kind of going
through a whole melody, but I
couldnt get the track really going.
Sometimes that happens.
It didnt have enough drive to
make it a fun track. So I simplified
everything, and only ended up using
two notes of my original melody. It
worked, so I repeated that across the
track. It ended up creating a lot of
energy, which is exactly what I
needed for that track so I was very
happy with the way it turned out.
I just added some cool beats
and it came together very quickly
after that.
By Any Demand
This samples the rapper, King Bee. I
loved that track [King Bees Back By
Dope Demand]. Id always wanted to
use that sample. I originally sampled
it, and based the whole track around
it, but when we went to clear the
original track we couldnt use the
original vocals, so I got in contact
with MC Pryme from King Bee, who
re-recorded it. I took him into the
studio and recorded the vocals into
my track, which was pretty cool to do.
It was a really good track for the
charts in Holland, as well. It stayed in
the commercial charts for three or
four weeks, so I was really happy with
that. It was one of the first tracks that
ever did that.
15
For this one I just had a basic
melody going and then I started
messing with the arrangement.
Normally in Dance music a track
traditionally has eight bars or 16 bars,
but for this track I experimented with
removing one bar at the end, so
instead of 16 bars I now had 15 bars.
I dont think anybody had done that
before so I thought Id try it out. So
thats where the title comes from.
I used to record under the alias
Purple Haze, for making tracks with a
more melodic flow. This track was
very much in that vibe, as well.
Pura Vida
This one has a summer feel to it, for
me. Id actually just came back from
a holiday in Costa Rica where they
have the motto, or life saying, which
was pura vida, which means pure
life. Its a way of saying, Everythings
okay. This track is quite optimistic.
A lot of this album is dark,
but there are flashes of light. I
normally start a track with an
optimistic tone, but it always turns
out to have a pretty moody melody by
the end. They always start positive,
though [laughs].
Sushi
I was working on this track, and I
had this nice House sound going with
a really relaxed melody, but it didnt
really have enough drive in it. So I
started thinking about this festival
called Awakenings, which is one of
the bigger Techno festivals in
Holland, and Id just been there a
couple of weeks before.
I just pictured myself stood in
one of the fields, listening to the
music, thinking, What type of melody
do I want to hear now?. So Sushi
started to evolve around my whole
feeling of being at that festival.
I added some moody chords
towards the end of the track to give it
a bit more speed and it turned out to
be a pretty cool experiment.
The Bass
It all started with the bassline. Id
been messing with it for a while. I
decided to keep the bass at one tone
and try and create a real driving track
around it. I started producing and got
to the breakdown and used this FX
sound that really built towards the
drop. I was really interested in getting
the drop just right so I started digging
through my old library of old House
samples and found this very simple
House chord that was just perfect
for the drop. It just completed the
whole track.
Lobby
This was the first track of mine that
wasnt straight-up Dance music

17
Filter | Classic Album

related. I had the opportunity to
explore different moods and speeds
because this was an artist album.
With tracks like Lobby I got to make
music that wasnt just like a normal
Dance music beat.
So I had that in mind and
started working on this piano sound,
and at one point this track came out.
It had a little bit more of an Ambient
sound to it.
that it clicked into place. This one
also works really well on the
dancefloor, which is important too.
Grasshopper
This did really well. It was picked
up by a lot of the cooler DJs as well
back then. It was an experiment.
Id just started working on Logic Pro
7, which had this new FX plug-in
LIKE IT?
I was just experimenting with TRY THESE
this track. I originally thought about
releasing it under a different guise
because it didnt really have that
traditional Sander van Doorn sound
that people were used to. But, in the
end I just thought, This is me. This is
King Bee
my sound. If I wanted to try
Royal Jelly
Dutch Hip-Hop banger from 1990
something new, I decided I could. that took over clubs worldwide.
I called it Grasshopper because Sander van Doorn honoured this
it jumps from classic by sampling it for his

When doing
It actually gets used for a lot of one part to own album.
documentaries in Holland. I was another add these to your playlist:
Back By dope demand, Feel the Flow, Must|
watching TV the other day and I [laughs].

an artist album you

Bee the Music|
heard it going round on a really
moody and dramatic documentary. It Dozer
was quite funny.

Apple
can take steps This was a lot
of fun to make. I
wanted to try Pixies
I had a Faithless track in mind when
I was making this called We Come 1
towards different and find a
different mood
Surfer Rosa
Alternative Rock classic. Stand out
track Where Is My Mind? inspired
[from 2001s Outrospective album].
The melody in that song at one point
reverses itself and comes back to the
directions, musically for this one. I
was just messing
around in the
Doorns own Look Inside Your Head
from the title down.
add these to your playlist:
start. I really liked that sound and had called Space Designer. You could add studio and this started to come Where is My Mind?, Bone Machine, Vamos|

always wanted to try and incorporate some really nice, cool, warm reverb to together. I called it Dozer because it
it into one of my tracks, and when I your melodies. reminded me of a bulldozer. It had a
was working on this Apple track I I used it in combination with really tough Rock beat. I used an
decided to try that reverse technique. sounds from my Virus C. It helped ahhh sounding synth, which kind of Faithless
For me it created that same kind of me take the whole melody to an took me back to tracks like [New Outrospective
Faithless feel. ultimate climax. Then I just dropped Orders] Blue Monday, or stuff by Besides nicking their album title for
Then I added a techy, driven it back to like, nothing, with just a The Farm. his last track, Sander also took the
bass that held it all together. After kick and a bassline. I used that kind of sound and way tracks like We Come 1 used
went about trying to build a decent reversed sounds for another
Supernaturalistic track, Apple.
element of suspense around it. Then I
add these to your playlist:
added a nice kick drum sound and a We Come 1, donny X, Code|
really techy kind of bassline over the
top. It came together really well. It
was definitely one for the rougher
types of DJ sets that Id do.
New Order
Outrospective Power, Corruption
It was a perfect end track for me. It
& Lies
Later collectors editions of this
had a more Rock feel to it. It wasnt
album contained smash hit 12-inch
on a House beat. It built more around Blue Monday. Dorn says this monster
a guitar sound. For me it felt like it track inspired some of the mood of his
had a little bit more of a U2 feel to it. own song, Dozer.
It sounded like the perfect ending. add these to your playlist:
Blue Monday, age of Consent, ecstasy|
Oh yeah, If you leave the track
playing after its ended theres a live
recording of the end of one of my sets
from a gig in Washington, DC. I
In The Studio With Sander van Doorn recorded my set and forgot to turn it Sander van Doorn
Back then the studio was based around my Mac Pro. I was working on
off at the end so the microphone Eleve11
Logic. I was just making the switch from Logic 5 to Logic 7 I skipped 6. picks up the crowd. I thought it was a Check out Doorns follow-up album.
funny way to end. Speaking of secret More of the same genre-bending, plus
Then I used that in combination with the Virus synth from Access, which
tracks. If you start track one on the his first true crossover hits.
was my main hardware. I also had a Nord Lead 2X. That was the only
add these to your playlist:
hardware I had. The rest I pretty much did with software, using basic album and immediately rewind it love is darkness, Koko, rolling the dice|
synths from Logic, combined with a lot of synths from the Virus C. Logic 7 youll find an extra hidden record
also had a great FX plug-in called the Space Designer, which came in very
called Minus 1!
handy. The Virus was my main point of focus, though. It was a digital
synth, but it had a really analogue feel to it. I would just mess around with
the buttons and see what came out [laughs]. Oh yeah, this was around the
WANT To KNoW MoRE?
time that Id just bought the Evolver from Dave Smith Instruments. I used
For everything Sander van Doorn, including
that a lot. Its actually where the riff sound in my track Riff came from. I the latest on his new album, head to:
was really into that back then. www.sandervandoorn.com

18
TRY 5
ISSUES
FOR 5 SAVE
UP TO

84%
Never miss an issue
Delivered to
your home
Free delivery of every issue,
direct to your doorstep

Get the biggest

savings
Get your favourite magazine
for less by ordering direct

Simply visit
myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/springMusic
 Choose from our
best-selling magazines
SAVE SAVE SAVE
84% 83% 82%

Computer Music 3D World EDGE

SAVE SAVE SAVE
83% 83% 83%

Computer Arts .net Imagine FX

Hotline 0344 848 2852

OFFER
ENDS
TERMS AND CONDITIONS Savings compared to buying 13 full priced issues from the UK newsstand. The trial offer is for new UK print subscribers paying by Direct Debit
31ST MAY
only. You will receive 13 issues in a year. Full details of the Direct Debit guarantee are available upon request. If you are dissatisfied in any way you can write to us or call 2017
us to cancel your subscription at any time and we will refund you for all un-mailed issues. Prices correct at point of print and subject to change. Offer ends 31/05/2017.
 FM | ALBUM REVIEWS
Les Amazones dAfrique
Rpublique Amazone
Real World Records
R
publique Amazone is the inspiring debut album from Les
Amazones dAfrique, an all-female collective of West
African musicians who are campaigning for gender
equality around the world. Bringing together an eclectic
mix of musicians from across the continent, including world-
renowned and emerging talent, the record is an electrifying melting
pot of styles, cultures and time periods. The vocals drift between
English, French and Mandinka as the lyrics take on domestic
violence, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, gang rape and
oppression while also promoting love and female empowerment.
Rpublique Amazones fascinatingly diverse soundscape sees
traditional and ancient styles blended with Afro-rhythms and then
pumped through an undercurrent of Dub and Electronica. This
engaging sound is then constantly flecked with Hip-Hop, Funk,
Blues, Reggae and Jazz in an album that moves through disparate
album of the month
genres, tempos and moods, giving an all-encompassing snapshot of
the spirit of contemporary Africa. The record is alive with energy,
colour and passion.
But it is not just their exhilarating, provocative and invigorating
music that is helping Les Amazones dAfrique to make the world a
better place the band raise money for the Panzi Foundation who
treat women affected by sexual violence in the Democratic Republic
of Congo. Dynamic, inspiring and endlessly talented, Amazones
dAfrique are triggering the change of attitudes and perceptions
armed with an album that sounds so good that it will get you
dancing as you clench your fists in solidarity. Tom Jones
ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST:
Dombolo, Doona, Anisokoma|
9/10
23
Reviews | Albums

Recommended
Mr C
Incidents
Superfreq
Few people have had date. Feeling much like throughout the years,
as lasting an effect on a love letter to the while also injecting a
the UKs underground history of club music political edge,
club culture as Mr C. throughout his long and Incidents forms a
Forever pushing in distinguished career, unique and immersive
new directions, the Incidents also draws on energy that takes you
LA-based veteran now elements of Dub, on an unpredictable
returns with his third Electro, Ska, Roots, journey throughout
album, Incidents. Italo Disco, old-school time and space. As
A masterclass in all Techno, Chicago innovative and
things Acid, the record House, breaks and authentic as ever, Mr C
barbs with jagged synth Tech House. All remains a true and
lines, trippy FX, meshed together with unmoveable bastion of
stabbing basslines and adept skill, the whole club culture. Tom Jones
wild syncopations album feels like a ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST:
throughout. Yet for all condensed Mr C set. A Civil Dose, Stand Up, Shape
of its tough Acid, this is Merging modern Your Dreams|

8/10
Mr Cs most expansive club aesthetics with
and diverse work to underground scenes

Future Islands
The Far Field
4AD

T
The Incredible Adventures of he Far Field is undoubtedly the most anticipated of Future
Islands albums so far. Despite forming in 2006, it wasnt
Captain P until their 2014 album, Singles, that the Synth-Pop outfit
broke through onto the global consciousness. Almost three
Escapism years on, the Baltimore trio follow it up with their fifth and most
expressive album to date. Like much of their previous output, The
Soul People Music Far Field is an emotion-laden exploration of dreamy Synth-Pop and
US House stalwart Fred House and Techno, the Hip-Hop bristling away New Wave. Brimming with an intense yet buoyant energy, the record
P delivers a highly record also sees the throughout the album bristles with shimmering synths, fluid basslines, warm pads, subtle
immersive and producer, real name too. Spacey synths, melodies and Samuel T. Herrings distinctive vocals.
expansive record with Fred Peterkin, delving warm pads, deep, Bold, confident and expressive, yet with an intimate,
Escapism. His second into a vast range of rolling basslines and melancholic vulnerability, The Far Field channels difficult emotions
LP under his Captain P field recordings and tight drums combine to into finding joy, strength and positivity in life. The LP effortlessly
guise, Escapism is the sound collage. These build a distinctive shifts moods, jumping from reflective to joyous, heartbroken and
New York DJ and excursions allow him to sound palette. defiant with consummate ease. There is a breeze of naturally flowing
producers seventh splay the record out Laid-back, refined but energy throughout the entire record as each of the 12 addictive
overall album. Released into unexpected with plenty of sparkling tracks slot into place with an evolving sense of groove and vigour.
on his own Soul People tangents, creating club fodder, this is Fred The magnetic power and potency of the album mirrors that of Future
Music imprint, the LP its diverse and P at his subtle best. Islands themselves. The Far Field is yet another reminder of the
showcases some of his expansive soundscape. Tom Jones individuality and singularity that makes Future Islands one of
most personal and There is also plenty ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Americas most exciting and distinctive bands. Tom Jones
stylistically varied work of Peterkins usual lush All I Want To Say, Way Of The| ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST:
to date. Ingrained with deep House, Chi Town Vibe, Escapism| Ran, Cave, Candles|

8/10 9/10
plenty of his trademark groove, Motor City
deepness and lush Techno and Detroit

24
 r up -to -th e-m
Maste
tech niq ue s a n d g e t th e
s
m ig htie s t v irtu al instruments
today
H
ere in 2017, were
living in a golden age
of music-making.
Computing power
and DSP technologies
are more advanced
than ever, so hot new synthesisers are
hitting the market on a weekly basis,
giving todays producer convenient
access to tools that can generate
almost any sound. From speaker-
incising leads, animalistic bass
splurges and beautifully shimmering
pads through to dream-like chord
washes and ear-defying FX creations,
anyone can now design sounds that
leave dancefloors screaming for more.
Yet with the mind-bending
complexity of modern synthesis
reaching further and further heights,
its become all too easy to scavenge
through ready-made presets and
banks in search for an easy fix; or
even copy your favourite artists
sounds in a cookie-cutter fashion.
If were describing you, then its
26
inu te sy nthesis
m o st from
time to ditch those lazy habits and
step up your sound design game
once and for all!
Conveniently, youve already
uncovered a way to elevate your
patch-building chops up to advanced
level: simply flip the page and dive
into our Cutting-Edge Synth Power
guide! Aside from giving fundamental
synthesis techniques a thoroughly
modern twist, well design a raft of
unique synth patches from scratch,
incorporating futuristic synth design
techniques such as intricate
sequencer modulation, vocal
resynthesis, wavetable bass design
and much more.
Plus, in addition to our 9-page
treasure trove of expert synthesis tips
and step-by-step preset-building
tutorials, well use screen-capture
video to take you on two epic preset
design sessions with no edits or
cutaways in sight! To follow along,
simply grab the vids, presets and
audio from this issues Vault.

Modern
Synthesis 101
To kick off, lets briefly cover the
most common synthesis types,
starting with the most famous of all
subtractive synthesis. As its name
implies, you begin with very simple,
harmonically-dense oscillator shapes
(sine, saw, square, etc) before carving
away these harmonics with the
synths filter. Although this approach
can generate a broad palette of
bread-and-butter timbres, youre
pretty limited to classic analogue or
VA sounds think Moog basses,
G-Funk leads, Juno-esque pads,
and so on.
Therefore, in modern sound
design situations, it helps to be able
to generate more complex harmonics
and overtones. Popularised by the
classic Yamaha DX7 synth (and now
Native Instruments emulation,
FM8), the also aptly-named
frequency modulation synthesis FM
for short uses the inverse approach
to subtractive. By using an inaudible
modulator oscillator to wobble the
frequency of an audible carrier
oscillator at an audio-rate speed,
Cutting-edge Synth Power! | Feature
complex harmonic overtones are
generated within the carrier signal.
At restrained modulation amounts,
this can create everything from
realistic instrument emulations
through to metallic sound effects and
searing growls. Go too far though,
and youll end up with a clangorous,
inharmonic mess!
Another sound-generating method
that operates inversely to the
old-school subtractive approach is
additive synthesis, which is found in
modern synths such as NIs Razor.
Based on Joseph Fouriers proof
that all sounds are made up of
multiple sine waves, this technique
combines hundreds of basic sine
building blocks (partials) at various
frequencies, which are modulated
in frequency and amplitude to
generate interesting combinations
of harmonics.
Operating in a similar vein to
additive is spectral synthesis, as
found in modern synths like
iZotopes Iris 2 and Apple Alchemy,
whereby a signal is split into bins
(ie, frequency bands) for visual
manipulation on a per-bin basis.
Then theres the much-discussed
technique of wavetable synthesis,
featured in NI Massive and Xfer
Serum amongst others. A wavetable
is comprised of hundreds of
individual wave shapes, and by
scanning through the index of these
various waves, a whole array of
modulating timbres are generated.
As the current-day producer can
import additional wavetables, or even
now draw entire wavetables from
scratch, this approach is probably the
most common for creating Dubstep-
style wobs, dark D n B growls,
evolving textures and more.
Granular synthesis, meanwhile,
breaks down a signal (usually an
audio signal) into tiny wait for it
grains! When these tiny chunks of
sound are recombined at differing
speeds and pitches, unique ambient
and stretched timbres are possible.
Propellerhead Reasons Maelstrom
synthesizer uses its own graintable
technology, a combination of the two
previous methods.
It stands to reason that these
different synthesis types create wildly
varying sounds, meaning that you
should dig in and really experiment
for yourself. And we havent even
touched upon the various ways you
can use samplers/resampling,
layering, audio manipulation and
signal processing to elevate the most
basic of subtractive synth tones into
more characterful sounds well
leave that for another session!
For now though, lets dive in
headfirst and get hands-on with
some futuristic sound design
27
 the way the sounds frequencies,
dynamics and harmonics alter over
time. How is this done? Yep, you
guessed it through modulation!
The fundamental principle behind
synthesizer modulation is simple:
instead of needing several physical
fingers to get dials rotating, you can
instead employ a synths built-in
modules to do it for you, hands-free,
by assigning one synth parameter to
modulate another. The classic
example is a low-frequency oscillator,
or LFO for short a sub-20Hz signal
that creates a steady rhythmic pulse.
spit out rudimentary shapes
sine, square, or steps, for
example that arent always that
useful for designing complex rhythms
and morphings. However, more and
more modern synths are now
incorporating more customisable,
unpredictable modulators that
amalgamate the various types of old.
For example, plenty of synths now
enable you to draw your own
sequencer-style LFO shapes with
multi-breakpoint envelopes. By
syncing this kind of custom LFO to
host tempo, you can dive in and

The importance
By defining an LFOs wave shape, design intricate fins, curves, peaks
then telling this (usually inaudible) and troughs that will cause other
signal to sweep multiple parameters parameters to duck and dive around

of modulation
On the previous page, we discussed
the various synthesis methods that
can be used to design the ultra-
modern synthesizer sounds heard in
todays cutting-edge genres. But why
bother synthesizing your own efforts
from scratch when sampled
oscillators can be loaded into a
sampler and played back with almost
zero effort or sound design
knowledge? Well, a complex but
static synth timbre is almost
pointless if the sound is one single
snapshot a repeating, machine
gun sample or static oscillator will
lack movement, variation and
interest. The real key to futuristic,
ear-catching synth sounds lies in
at once eg, a wavetable oscillators
index amount, FM amount and the
filter cutoff by a particular amount,
it becomes extremely easy to inject
temporal vibe and motion into a
synth patch, triggered with only a
single note press. Other examples of
modulators include envelopes, that
are one-shot, four-stage dynamic
shapes; and MIDI signals such as
velocity and aftertouch.
step sequencers ie, pattern-based
Customisable modulators
This stuff is basic analogue synthesis
theory, of course, but traditional LFOs
and other modulators are known to
other elements of your track, in
perfect sync with beats and the
overall rhythm. Conversely, by
unsyncing an unusual LFO shape
from your hosts bpm and setting its
rate in Hertz, synth settings can be
slowly swept over time to create
Ambient-style bubblings and
drifting soundscapes.
Other useful modulator types with
a heritage in old-school synthesis are
grid devices that output uniform
signals at a rhythmic division of your
choosing; and arpeggiators, which
swallow up incoming chords and spit
those notes back out in sequential,
monophonic patterns. Todays power
synths advance the primitive

Combining Multiple Synthesis Types sequencers and arps of yesteryear by

adding more options for manipulating
step length, shape, per-note level,
Cutting-edge synths often let you combine several advanced pitchbend, and much more.
synthesis methods at once here are three of our faves
Time to experiment
The majority of todays all-powerful synthesizers are jam-packed full of various synthesis types, ranging from frequency modulation (FM)
While a knowledge of all this
and additive through to wavetable, phase distortion synthesis, subtractive and more. Having several types of sound-generating options all
modulation theory is useful, its far
under one roof means you can combine these modes in futuristic new ways. Want to frequency-modulate two wavetable-morphing
oscillators against each other? No problem! How about sculpting an additive oscillator with subtractive-style filters and envelopes? easier to learn on the job, so to
Of course you can! However, one caveat is that it can be easy to crank everything up to 11 and turn a smooth sound into an inharmonic speak. Yep, that means firing up your
mess so go easy. With all this in mind, here are three top synths that let you mix and match synthesis types at will favourite power synth and hooking up
all these futuristic modulators to
target parameters in an experimental
fashion. We all know what it sounds
like to modulate a synths filter cutoff
with a standard sine wave LFO shape
(hint: wob, wob!), but youll really
advance your modern synth patches
by pushing past the norm. For
starters, design an intricate LFO
shape or sequencer pattern, then use
this to induce movement over tens of
parameters at once, all by varying
amounts of subtlety for instance,

> > >

Spectrasonics Omnisphere serves up a raft
of synthesis options: subtractive, wavetable,
granular, FM/ring mod and more and you
can even import samples and mess them up with
the unique Harmonia and Innerspace algorithms.
In Xfer Records Serum, if only one oscillator
is assigned to subtractive or wavetable
synthesis duties, you can modulate its
frequency or amplitude with the other. Use the
audible oscillators Warp dropdown select FM or
AM from the list, then ramp up the amount dial.
Oh, Logic Pro X users, you lucky things.
With Alchemy now included in the package FM depth, oscillator level, unison
as standard, youve got yourselves one of spread, filter cutoff/resonance, white
the deepest sample-based instruments around.
Each patchs four sources offer up granular,
noise colour, effects wet/dry mix
additive, spectral, sampler and VA. you get the idea!

28
 Cutting-edge Synth Power! | Feature

Dissonant FM Drone With

Forms Vocal Resynthesis
Want to morph the most basic of sound
sources into a dystopian soundscape? Look no
further than Native Instruments synth Form

> >
Futuristic resynthesis techniques are great In Forms Sample tab, we set up a
for transforming simple recordings into back-and-forth loop around a suitable
mind-blowing synth sounds. Here, we start portion of the vocal oscillator. Then, by
by dragging in a chunk of a vocal sample onto reducing the Sample Length Speed right down to
NI Forms main window the synth then analyses around 0.04 samples, we slow the playback right
and resynthesizes the vocal sample into an down to create a stretched tonal vocal effect.
oscillator for playback.

> >
Now over to the Sound page, where we Over in the Form Osc section, we get the
blend in Forms Additive Oscillator for a Formant knob wavering with a second,
solid square wave layer, adding thickness. triangle-shaped LFO, which adds
After this, we modulate the Osc FX>FM dial with formant-wobbling to the main oscillator for
a slow-moving sine LFO, which slowly introduces timbral interest. We then assign the first sine LFO
dissonant harmonic overtones over time. to the Osc FX>Shaper parameter for more
expression and grit.

> >
Now Forms built-in FX will spice up the To wrap up, we head back throughout the
overall timbre further. We dial in the two various pages and fine-tune our patch for
Frequency Shaping bands to taste, and visceral impact and temporal movement.
push up Drive for more grunt. The Dynamics, The FM, FM Stereo, FM Multiply and Additive
Unreal Reverb and Ping-Pong Delay effects Oscillator Volume parameters all have their
then place the drone in a dense, cavernous, modulation amounts tweaked and refined to inject
resonant space. more FM-like sweeping dissonance.

29
Evolving Ambient Pads With Oscillator Stacking
By layering multiple oscillators and modulating each at a slow rate,
you can quickly generate blissful ambience. Lets dive in further

> > >

Many modern synthesizers allow you to pile
up multiple oscillators, combine various
synthesis types and dial in uber-thick
unison features. To demonstrate, well create a
complex ambient pad with Vengeance-Sounds
insanely powerful VPS Avenger. We start by
triggering the synth with a basic C minor triad.
Lets set up our first oscillator as the core
evolving element of the pad. After dialling
in some ultra-thick five-voice unison
detune, we audition through the synths wavetable
oscillators, settling on an organ-style wavetable.
A free-running LFO is used to scan through the
wavetables index for a constantly evolving timbre.
Next, a contrasting wavetable type is called
up as the second oscillator. A different
free-running LFO this time set to a more
jagged curve shape slowly modulates this
oscillator wavetable index. The same LFO also
modulates this oscillators level for more motion.

> > >

A third sine oscillator is then used to
provide basic solidity and consistency in the
low-mids. After that, we program a fourth
wavetable oscillator via the synths tempo-syncd
step sequencer, to provide a rhythmic blip
pattern that rides above the floatier elements.
Lets add further movement. The jagged
LFO from Step 3 is used to modulate the
sequenced oscillators FM amount, which
gently morphs the rhythmic blips in and out of a
state of inharmonic noise for more treble texture.
The same LFO also subtly wobbles the overdriven
low-pass filter cutoff.
Finally, we call upon Avengers plentiful
effects for a splash of character: the
Vinylizer module mixes in vinyl crackle and
noise; Chorus adds swimming width; a Bitcrusher
fades in treble fuzz and grit; and some ping-pong
Delay injects ambience and lush repeats.

30
 generators to bolster this main
oscillator and fill out the frequency
spectrum. This works well with
QUICK
TIPS
morphing oscillators generated via
wavetable or FM synthesis, as these
methods inject dynamics and sinewy
motion at the expense of solidity
For cutting-edge synthesis
yet a simple sub oscillator and
sweeping white noise tone can merge
in, lacking the bass weight and

>
treble sharpness required.
Another great technique weve Many synths let you

Mega-thick synths touched upon in Sequenced Melodic

Rhythms With Massive is the
concept of filling in gaps left by one
create your own
wavetable oscillators
from scratch, but the

with stacking
oscillators movement. If youre
moving one tone around with positive
process can often feel
LFO modulation, try gently fading in
like trial and error.
Be sure to dissect your
and layering
a thinner oscillator thats being
negatively modulated with the favourite preset tables
same LFO. This embellishes the first to get a feel for what
signal with a subtler mirror image separates the wavetable
signal for not-so-obvious interest
wheat from the chaff.
and individuality.

The majority of our tutorials
throughout this feature have one
thing in common weve blended
our chosen synths multiple
oscillators and/or processed signals
in parallel to generate a full-
frequency, 3D sound. This isnt a
new concept by any means: the
classic Minimoog bass sound, for
>
Finally, just as in the realm of Frequency
example, is comprised of all three mixing, parallel processing (via a
oscillator tones, each tuned equally synths built-in effects) is really just
modulation
apart to create a thick sound another way of layering additional synthesis has a
spanning three octaves. character and depth. Just as youd daunting reputation for
One great approach when blend a reverb signal in gently, have complexity. Build your
designing synth patches is to use a go at sliding up multiple effects FM knowledge up slowly
one oscillator as the core provider of processors by small amounts, by designing simple
timbral character, movement and helping elevate a decent sound into
basses and leads, then
interest; then use the other signal more texturally varied territories.
gradually adding more
modulators until you
grasp how it works.

>
Oscillator Voice Stacking And Detuning Samplers are
essentially
One of the easiest ways to create ultra-modern synth leads is by synthesizers, so
stacking and detuning oscillator voices. Lets take a closer look dont be afraid to
For years synthesists have been detuning two identical oscillators slightly in opposing directions to create subtle beating and thickness. multisample your most
Yet it was the Roland JP-8000 synthesizer in the early 2000s responsible for the classic Trance supersaw sound that popularised the complex oscillator
modern synthesis technique of oscillator stacking and detuning. Following in the JP-8000s footsteps, most modern power synths let you
pile up multiple voices within the same oscillator, then detune and spread these stacked voices. This is now a staple synthesis technique
creations and carry on
for generating incredibly thick leads, pads, hoovers, Reeses and more. Lets walk through this simple but effective technique for jaw- the synth design process
droppingly dense synth sounds. Well use the ever-popular Serum synth, but many similar synthesizers offer some variant on this feature. using your favourite
samplers sound-
mangling features.

>
Designing a
complex synth
patch during the
heat of a track-writing
session is the quickest
way to kill your
compositional creativity.
Set aside dedicated

> > >

Well begin with a basic sawtooth. Cranking
up the unison voice amount will pile up that
number of identical osc voices. While the
JP-8000 synth could stack up to seven voices,
Serum can go right up to 16 voices but this can
make the final sound a little cloudy and indistinct.
After backing the unison voices down to 7,
we ramp up Unison Detune, which sets the
tuning offset for the given number of voices,
creating the supersaw sound. Serum has a Blend
amount, which alters the level offset between the
central voice/s and the additional ones.
Most synths let you spread the multiple patch-building sessions
voices out to the sides of the stereo field.
100% gives maximum width, but can to stock up your custom
create phase cancellation so experiment with
lesser settings of around 50% for a good balance
presets folder ready for
between stereo spread and mono compatibility. creative droughts.

32
 Cutting-edge Synth Power! | Feature

Tearing Neurofunk
D n B Reese With Serum
Modern synths such as Xfer Serum make it easy
to synthesize complex growls and morphing
timbres in the style of Noisia. Heres how

> >
Call up Xfer Records Serum, load up the Bs The synths Mono and Legato are on,
Reese Evolve preset weve supplied, then and Portamento is at around 12 oclock,
trigger the synth by playing notes across giving us a bending, gliding effect. The
your MIDI keyboard. This thick, evolving Reese patchs core movement is created via LFO 1s
bass sounds complex but is actually pretty easy to slow, unsyncd modulation of Osc As WT Pos
synthesize using Serum. Lets delve deeper into knob, which is scanning through Osc As
the patch gnarly wavetable.

> >
Old-school D n B wobble basses often Head over to Serums FX tab, and youll see
have a distinctive change in speed when that the insert effects weve dialled in are
played up and down the keyboard. To huge contributors to the basss aggression
replicate this, Osc B (a sine) is modulating Osc and character. Heavy compression is placed after
As amplitude via Osc As Warp mode, set to AM reverb, causing the verb to swell out between
(from B). A slow-attack envelope is increasing this notes. Theres also forceful distortion, careful EQ
Warp amount over the course of each note. and widening going on.

> >
Back to the Osc panel. For fizz, Serums LFO 1s Mode is set to Off, so our wavetable
Noise oscillator is pushing additional modulation is constantly evolving. This
high-frequency noise into the final distortion means that each bass note has different
stage; and the sub oscillator is adding solid modulation. Therefore, for more consistency, its a
low-end to the overall sound. Finally, note the good idea to print a good few minutes of a
filter: were modulating a double notch type for programmed riff down to audio, then chop out the
even more sweeping motion. very best takes.

33
 Traditional subtractive synthesis is like sculpture: you
Future filters start with full-frequency oscillator tones, then carve
away those frequencies using the synths filter. For
temporal interest, you control the filters movement
over time via envelopes and LFOs. Were all familiar
with this kind of low-, high- and band-pass filtering,
but todays ultra-modern wave of power synths feature
plenty of additional filter types, all suited to cutting-
edge sound design. Xfer Serum has a hefty selection
of 90 filter types, including a Flanges category of
Comb-type filters for zipping phasing effects try
modulating one of these filter Types cutoff parameter
with a tempo-syncd custom LFO shape, then use the
filters Mix knob to blend this pseudo-flanging in
parallel alongside your main wavetable oscillators.
Another way to take filtering further is by engaging
two or more filters at once. NI Massives two
independent filters can be routed in series or parallel.
By routing the synths sound generators to either filter
by differing amounts and mixing the two filter outputs
together, an interesting blend of timbres can result.

> >
Todays modern synth patches Its often the final processing
How to are wider than ever, with next- How to effects that add that final

Dial In level stereo width designed for

stereo systems and headphones.
Utilise A stamp of sonic individuality.
These can be added using external
Impressive Yet with most club systems still set Synths Effects hardware or software processors but

Width up in mono, your core synth sounds

must have a strong presence down
there are advantages to your synths
built-in effects: their settings are
the centre of the mix as well as the packaged within a synths preset for
sides. Aside from spreading and easy recall; their parameters can
panning unison voices (see Oscillator generally be sweeped automatically
Voice Stacking And Detuning), there via the synths onboard modulators;
are plenty of ways to give your synth and some synths allow you to pipe
parts lush stereo content. Simple is various elements of the synths
often better: pan multiple oscillators internal signal path into these effects
out to the sides, or get them swirling by varying amounts for greater
around the stereo field by assigning a flexibility. For vibey grunt and drive, a
medium-rate LFO to your oscillators synths built-in distortion stage is
pan control. usually a good starting point.

> >
The modulation wheel is the White noise is an essential
How to traditional way of adjusting How to ingredient for adding treble

Add parameters in real time as you

perform within your synth, assign
Synthesize fizz, bite and top-end intensity
to any synth patch. Yet the
Performance the mod wheel source to any White Noise bog-standard white noise oscillator is

Controls destination parameter (or several),

then spin your MIDI keyboards mod
becoming old hat, as developers are
cottoning on to the fact that a synths
wheel as you play. Nowadays though, potential for creative sound design
its all about macro assignments. can be expanded by including
Macros are blank knobs that can be different types of noise. NIs Massive
assigned to affect any parameter houses several sampled noise types
combo across the entire synth, so you including brighter, thinner variations,
can induce a whole bunch of and even sampled paper-rustling for
separate parameter movements with sculpting weirder percussion and FX.
just a single knob twist. Ideal things Xfer Serum has hundreds of sampled
to hook up are a tempo-syncd LFO or noise waveforms in its pseudo-
sequencers rate, so you can easily sampler noise oscillator and you
switch up rhythms mid-performance. can even load any sample in.

34
 Cutting-edge Synth Power! | Feature

Sequenced Melodic Rhythms With Massive

Employ a synths tempo-syncd LFOs, sequencers and arpeggiators to get
multiple parameters moving and create rhythmically complex sounds

> > >

Lets deconstruct a preset weve created for
NI Massive, called Seq Twangy Lead.nsmv.
The patchs main clock is provided by the
5 Performer mod source, which is sequencing all
three oscillators Amp amounts. Spin the 7
Pattern macro knob to fade between 5 Perfs two
different rhythmic patterns.
All three of Massives main wavetable
oscillators have been stacked together for
complexity: Osc 1 gives sub weight; Osc 2
is a fizzy reverse layer for interest; and Osc 3, set
to the Polysaw II wavetable, provides the patchs
core chord element.
To give Osc 2 its distinctive warping effect,
weve negatively modulated its Amp with 5
Perf; and a simple sine LFO (6 LFO) sweeps
its wavetable for even more movement. Weve also
used a looping 16th-note rhythm (via the 7 Perf
mod source) to sequence the Noise oscillators
Amp amount, creating a plucky hi-hat layer.

> > >

For extra timbral interest, Filter 1 is set to a
tuned Comb type. Filter 2 outputs the dry
signal, so we can use the filter Mix slider to
fade this comb effect in parallel to blend its
effect into the mix, raise the 1 CombMix macro.
Massives various effects give the sound pro
thickness and character. Modulated
bitcrushing adds grit; the Frequency Shifter
blends in shifted tones in parallel; Tele Tube adds
grunt and drive; and Reverb gives the final stamp
of space and depth. Subtle EQ bumps gently beef
out the patchs treble and bass.
Finally, by altering various synth settings
over the course of an arrangement, our
impressive melodic rhythm can be made to
evolve and progress hence why all of Massives
eight macros have been assigned to key
parameters. Fire up the patch for yourself and
get tweaking!

35
LOOPMASTERS.COM
GREAT SOUNDS.
SERIOUS INSPIRATION.
LOOPMASTERS DRUM & BASS DISRUPTION
Loopmasters present Hybris Drum & Bass Disruption
a hard-hitting collection of Drum & Bass samples from
heavyweight Czech producer Hybris. With over 1GB of Royalty
Free content, we advise you strap yourself in tight, and
prepare for maximum disruption!
LOOPMASTERS JUKE FOOTWORK 101
Loopmasters present Juke Footwork 101 by TS Repman - a
frenetic collection of killer urban sounds for the most Futuristic
genre in the musical metropolis! With over a gigabyte of 100%
Royalty Free content for your music, its time to drop the beat
and get down to some Footwork.

FEATURED LABELS
Earn 10% virtual cash
We exist to cut with every purchase
through all
n
the hype and
bring a diverse 2Gb+ free sounds &
and exciting selection of the samples
hottest sampling products n
to break down barriers and Superfast server and
inspire producers from downloads
around all over the world. n
Tech articles &
Our main industry knowledge
goal is to n
bring a truly Artist sample
unique, collections
exclusive and experimental n
sound to your music Search by label/
production. We make the genre/format
tools that will inspire your n
OWN sound. DAW Templates/ Midi
Files/ Synth Presets
n
Demo samples for
every product
Every release from
F9 Audio has been MAKE SURE YOU CHECK OUT...
created by Professional
Producers & Musicians
for one purpose: To Make
everything sound better! THEPLACEFORMUSICPLUGINS

COURSES & TUTORIALS

From software
intelligence to music
production techniques
and beyond, this is your
one-stop-shop for all
your music production
expertise.

THE SAMPLE BOUTIQUE

 In The Studio With | Nathan Fake

Nathan Fake
Norfolks finest sonic voyager, Nathan Fake,
emerges from a hiatus with the divine
Providence, his fourth album proper and first
for Ninja Tune. Hamish Mackintosh finds out
more about one mans electronic prophecy
Joby Sessions

38

H
aving eschewed the mixed
delights of London for a return
to his native Norfolk three years
ago, Nathan Fake reenters the
musical fray having beaten a
two-year patch of the dreaded
writers block. Its a return of
some style and swagger with
Providence, a new album crammed full of
irresistible synths, arpeggios and warped rhythms.
Nathan Fakes reputation has been built on his
unique take on electronic music and first came to
light in 2003 when an encounter with equally
mercurial electronic musician James Holden led to
the release of Fakes debut single Outhouse on
Holdens Border Community label. The sumptuous
LP Drowning in a Sea of Love in 2006 saw Nathans
reputation cemented as a major new talent in the
electronic music scene with a slew of critically-
acclaimed albums and EPs, and remixes for the
likes of Jon Hopkins, Radiohead, Perc and Clark.
Providence is a stunning feast of electronic
processes even more welcome given it signals an
end to Fakes writers block and, hopefully, signals
the beginning of a long and fruitful journey with
Ninja Tune. FM were delighted to catch up with
Nathan at his home studio in Norfolk to ascertain
what digital and analogue machinery helped fashion
the sublime Providence.
FM: Youve got an eclectic array of synths at
your disposal Care to talk us through them?
Nathan Fake: Theres a laptop running Ableton
and Cubase. Ive got a Korg Prophecy, which is one
of the main things I used on Providence. Theres a
Jupiter-6 as well and an Arturia MicroBrute that was
used a tiny bit for some bass sounds. In terms of
drum machines theres a Casio RZ-1 and a Roland
Aira TR-8. Again, the TR-8 was used quite sparingly,
mainly for bass drum sounds. Its nice but weird that
it doesnt really sound like an 808. Its very boomy so
you have to EQ the kick as theyve added like a 50Hz
boom on it. I run it through a preamp to warm it up
a little as it is fairly spiky and digital, although the
sounds are fairly faithful to that analogue,
synthesized, sound with the hi-hats and stuff and
there are a couple of really nice extra sounds too.
The Korg Prophecy is a blast from the past
I remember when they came out, maybe about
1996, reading that The Orb and Autechre were using
them and thinking they must be a really good synth.
I happened across one online the year before last
and thought Id check it out. Its a weird little thing
that looks like a MIDI controller and its a very
strange synth. Its a monosynth but its got quite a
deep synthesis system to it. Korg came up with their
MOSS [Multi-oscillator synthesis system], which
means it has all the standard square, triangle etc
waveforms but it also has reeds, brass and plucked
strings. There are all these dense, washy digital
synths but its a monosynth so you have all these
huge pad sounds but you can only do one note at a
time! I think the Triton and the Trinity evolved from
the Prophecy and Ive never really been into those
Nathan Fake | In The Studio With
big workstations but I just liked how awkward the
Prophecy is and the sounds on it are pretty usable.
On Providence theres a real warmth to the
synths How do you achieve that?
I like that mixing of aesthetics when you have
something pristine and digital, then roughing it up.
Ill record stuff onto cassette tapes and also when
you take a phat, stereo sound and squeeze it into
mono, that adds a different dimension to it too.
Does some software make us too lazy to add
that little something extra to the sound?
Yeah, maybe. Currently though, I think tape has
definitely come back. Loads of labels are even
releasing cassettes again, which is just the antithesis
to digital streaming or MP3s, really. Its the same
reason vinyl got popular again its a nice alternative
to the digital formats. When I started making music
Id put things onto cassette as that was all I had.
Then, I got a computer, which was amazing, and
now Im recording stuff onto tape again as I think
tape sounds good.
You suffered a bit of writers block. Did
Providence come in one big rush after that?
It really did, actually. It didnt take long at all. I kind
of started writing things towards the end of 2015
but I started working properly on the tracks last year
and Id got the album all done by June. There was a
lot of overlap where I was writing stuff and finishing
stuff at the same time so all the tracks were on the go
at the same time.
Is being an electronic musician akin to being a
plate spinner at times?
[laughs] Yeah especially when you work on a
computer, you can bring up a saved project, work on
it for a bit then switch to something else. I guess I
did use a lot more hardware than I have before so I
did stick to one track at a time a lot more than Ive
done in the past. My older stuff was done solely on
the computer so it was definitely fun having more
physical stuff to use.
Have you gone to hardware for compressors
too, or do you still use software for that?
Its a mixture, really. A friend has a Drawmer
compressor that I really like and I intended to
borrow that to use on the album. Actually, not too
much of it is compressed as recording a lot of the
stuff with tape brings the headroom down quite a
bit and then I master it afterwards. My older stuff is
really, really compressed but I just used software
compressors, which sound good if youre doing it in
a rush but, a few months later, I listened to some of
the stuff on headphones and it sounded a bit
squashed. With this album I made a decision not to
compress everything and sidechain things, which
I used to do loads. Its paid off I think as theres a lot
more space in the mix.
When youre mixing, do you listen to things
in a variety of different formats for reference?
Mostly on speakers although Ive used headphones
39
In The Studio With | Nathan Fake

a lot more on this album just to help get the mixes

right. I used to be a bit more slapdash with my older
stuff but that was also the idea of it, to keep it quite
raw. Ive got some speakers in the kitchen that I like
to listen to mixes on and also in the car. I like putting
stuff on my iPod and playing it on shuffle and
sometimes one of my tunes will pop up, which is
interesting to hear how your own music sounds next
to others. Its good to hear your own stuff that way
as sometimes when youre making it youre listening
too hard to it.

Do you mix in the box?

Yeah. I mean, I do use a little Mackie desk too, but a
lot of it is mixed as I go on either Cubase or Ableton.
I used to use Cubase years ago so I still end up doing
sketches and ideas in it sometimes, and I actually
ended up finishing a couple of tracks for the album
in it this time. I use Cool Edit as well Ive always
quite liked using these weird, standalone programs
as its nice to close down the workstations and mess
around in Cool Edit for a bit.

Its healthy to shift environments every so

often, isnt it?
Yeah, it is. Ive got Ableton Live 9 Suite, which is an
incredible piece of software, but it does absolutely
everything, and occasionally you just dont know
where to begin. Thats why I also like having things
that are really simple stuff like the Prophecy,
which does a lot but you cant really do a lot with it
other than pump out some melodies. So, I like
sitting playing around with that for a few hours or
messing around in Cool Edit.

which has its place too, but its nice to step

away from the matrix and strict timing every
once in a while, yeah?
Definitely, yeah The thing with the Korg
Prophecy is that its got note velocity, which a lot
of the older, analogue synths Ive used in the past
didnt have. So, thats something Ive never had in
my tracks before, different velocity on notes. You
cant quite put your finger on it but it definitely
adds something.
an amazing filter and also an Envelope-follower,
which sounds amazing when you run external
stuff through it.
So a little extra effort and imagination with your
sound can pay dividends?
I think when youre working on an album then you
make a little extra effort to experiment with things
like that. I dont really know that much about gear; I
Are you good at deciding youve got a take?
I am. I feel like Im not when Im working, but
when I look at other people I know who make
music then theyll have like 20 versions of
something. Ive had five or six versions where Ive
added or improved on something but I think Im
pretty good at sticking with the original idea. Theres
one track on the album, HoursDaysMonthsSeasons,
where it started off with loads more drums in it but
I thought all the hi-hats and

I put stuff on my iPod, and sometimes one claps sounded way too busy
so I muted them and it
sounded brilliant with just a
of my tunes will pop up its interesting to kick drum. So, there was four
versions of that with all the

hear how your music sounds next to others
Are you using any external modulation
or filters?
No, its basically all done in the synths, really.
With the filters on the Prophecy, the resonance is
quite harsh because its digital. In my live set I use
the Sound Toys Filter Freak but I dont think I
really used it on the album. It sounds so analogue
and nice. Ive also got a Roland SH-09, which I
forgot to have out today. I didnt use it as a synth
on the album but I used the filter as its got a
line-in so you can put things through it. Its got
just have bits and bobs. I come across stuff like the
way I found the Prophecy. With the SH-09, I had a
mate who had one and I thought it sounded
amazing and had to get one. There are times in
between albums where Ill just bang something out
just in Ableton with soft synths but if Ive written a
melody Im happy with then Ill often do some
experimentation with it. Mostly on this album, as it
was mainly the Prophecy on it, Id just jam out a
soloed MIDI part then comp together all these
jams and edits.
drums in then the one where I
muted a lot of stuff ended up
being the final one.
So you subscribe to the importance of the
happy accident in the creative process?
Absolutely. I was playing the Jupiter-6 at one point,
recording something into my laptop and, for some
reason, the input had been changed to the laptop
microphone rather than the sound card. I sat there
playing the Jupiter for ten minutes before I realised
it sounded really weird but it sounded so ghostly
and distant so I ended up using it. Its similar to how
mobile phones have that gate where, below a certain

40
 Nathan Fake | In The Studio With

As a solo producer/music maker, do

you jam a lot of the tracks with MIDI
to get the basic structure together?
Thats how most of the tracks are born, really,
yeah. A lot of the melodies are played in on the
keyboard, quantised or whatever. With my older
stuff it was more clicking with the mouse writing
melodies, which is cool too but you get a more
human feel when you go back to actually playing
the keyboard or instruments. It feels a bit more
creative too. I guess I do have a good
understanding of notes so I can look at the
note-matrix on Ableton or Cubase and click in
melodies but you can sometimes end up making
quite clinical-sounding stuff.

41
In The Studio With | Nathan Fake
volume it just goes silent. Theres no way I wouldve
thought of trying that deliberately.
The Jupiter-6 is underestimated isnt it?
Yeah, its a beautiful, very distinctive synth. A mate
had a Juno and theyre very popular and have a
distinctive sound too. I was kind of expecting the
Jupiter-6 to be in the same vein as a Juno but it isnt.
Its a really sharp, cutting synth. Quite unpredictable
I might find some other random 90s synth
and make an album with that! I gravitate
towards crap gear rather than high-end stuff
too. Mine even more so as some of the oscillators
dont work on certain keys, which does actually
create quite interesting effects when youre playing
arpeggios. You can get strange note drop-outs or
some of the notes go out of tune with each other.
Thats the beauty of old analogue gear.
Just how brilliant are the onboard arpeggiators
on the old analogues?
[laughs] Yeah, absolutely! Ive never really used
them on a track before. The arpeggiators on the
42
Prophecy and the Jupiter are like separate
instruments in themselves! So many things on the
album are just doing weird things with the
arpeggiator. Its also good that they slip out of
sync a little at times even though the Prophecy is
digital, the arpeggiator does slip and make some
bizarre noises! Ive even used some of the presets
from the Prophecy, which are a little dense and
unusable as I like the challenge of making
something cool from those sounds. A couple of
tracks were born out of that.
When you go out to tour Providence are you
taking any of the hardware synths out live
with you?
I use the MicroBrute. I did think about using the
Prophecy but decided against it as its not the kind
of synth you can play around with very much live.
Its just buttons and all you can really do is trigger it.
Ive used the MicroBrute to recreate some of the
sounds I used from the Prophecy on the album
and I am still using the Waldorf A1 for the live
shows too. I can program stuff really quickly on
that it doesnt use much CPU on the laptop and
it never crashes. Ill have several instances of that
open and routed to MIDI controllers with all the
cutoffs and stuff.
Providence sees you working with vocalists
for the first time too
Both those collaborations
came about quite by chance
as they were people who I
became friends with.
Degreelessness, the track with
Prurient, came about when we
hung out once and he
suggested we work on
something together. The collaboration was done
over the net so I basically sent him parts of
something Id been working on and he sent it back
with all his delay and pitchshifting on it. In that
context it was like getting parts for a remix. I would
like to do more of it actually in the studio as the
same thing happened with the track I made with
Raphaelle [Standell-Preston from Braids] as shes
based in Canada. She sent a whole bunch of stuff,
which was all amazing but I only ended up using
a little bit of it.
In The Studio With | Nathan Fake

Are you excited to be a Ninja Tune artist now?

Yeah, its a big change. Border Community were
great and raised me up, really, since 2003. Ninja were
interested for a few years but I didnt have much to
let them hear until now. I didnt make the album
with a view to being on Ninja and its really exciting.

Do you think de-camping back to Norfolk has

helped get the creative juices flowing again?
I did live in London for about seven years and I
moved back mainly as I felt like a change. I dont
know if where Im based geographically influences
the music I make. [laughs] I dont think when I was
in London I was making music that was more
urban. The last few years Ive been fortunate enough
to live on my own which is great for working.

Is there a lot of excess material left over from

Providence sessions?
Basically, right now Im putting a live set together
although it has been played out a few times already
so its more a case of tweaking it. Ive got a few things
that Id like to release so Im trying to put together
what concept the next album or bunch of tunes
could be in terms of instruments I use. Im quite
into the idea of finding unusual instruments to
work with, whether its synths or acoustic
instruments. I like the idea of trying to play a flute
and recording what comes out! [laughs] Or maybe
find some other random 90s synth and make an
album with that! I tend to gravitate towards crap
gear rather than high-end stuff, as nice as that can
be. I dont know if its the fun element of it I guess,
when I use something high-end I convince myself
Im not going to use it to its full potential! I felt a
little like that when I got the Jupiter. I was chuffed
but felt like maybe there was someone who could
make better use of it than me.

No modular stuff yet?

Im a bit like what I just said about the Jupiter with
modular stuff, really. Ive got some friends who are
really deep into it and making some amazing stuff
but I dont think Im tech enough for all that. Theres
a massive crossover with tech and musicianship with
the modular stuff but it seems to be mostly tech.
People nerding out over the various modules does
look fun but Im not that geeky. I like just grabbing a
synth, turning it on and seeing what it can do.

What are you using for an interface?

Ive got a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6, which is brilliant
and the best sound card Ive had. Its quite small
with not that many ins and outs but I dont have
huge amounts of gear so thats fine. Ive got
Neumann KH310 speakers and theyve got an
amazing low-end response. This album is the first
proper album Ive made with them and [laughs] it
did feel like I hadnt been making music properly
before I got them! The speakers are probably the
most expensive thing in the studio!

want to know more?

Providence is available on Ninja Tune. To find out more
visit: http://nathanfake.com

44
 Nathan Fake | In The Studio With

No soft synths on the album

at all this time around then?
Thats a first for me, yeah. The main soft synth
Ive used over the years has been the Waldorf
A1, which came free with Cubase SX. It actually
sounds a lot like the Jupiter even though its
digital. If you tweak it a bit and put it through
some nice effects then it really does sound quite
analogue. Its ancient but I know it like the back
of my hand. Ive played it out now, really as
theres not much else I can do with it as it feels a
little like treading old ground when I use it now.
Over the years its been very useful though.

45
 FM | THE TRACK
INCLUDES VIDEO VaULt.fUtUrEmUSIC.CO.Uk
Alan Walker
Alone
2016, Sony Music
T
he ascendant pop star may still be in his teens, but hes
already scored social media numbers that most of us can
only dream of. At the time of writing, his breakthrough hit
Faded has nearly one billion YouTube views, and his latest
single Alone is heading rapidly for two hundred million. Stunned at
the sight of such astronomical play-counts, Future Music headed to
Oslos Fat Cat Studio to find out how the sinisterly masked Alan and
his writing partner/co-producer the impressively blonde Anders
Fren (aka Mood Melodies) get their crowd-pleasing, slo-mo sounds.
Joe Branston
What was the inspiration behind Alone?
Im trying to establish the Alan Walker style Alone has the triplet
melody, and I think its pretty cool to have a follow up in the same
48
style as Faded and Sing Me To Sleep. The trilogy tells a story and
sends out the message that you are not alone: were all the same,
were all equal, we can all achieve amazing things no matter who we
are. In the music video you can see a bunch of what we call
Walkers, all wearing masks and hoodies, and thats pretty cool
because pretty much anyone can be a Walker.
How inclusive! There are a few musical ideas in the track, but which
one of them came first?
First we came up with the chord progression, then me and Anders
started to write the lyrics thats when everything started to come
together. Later on we started making the melody; we went through I
dont know how many drop melodies, and then we put everything
together. That worked really well, but I mostly prefer producing the
instrumental then forwarding it to a vocalist, and then we can see
what the vocalist can do!
What about the technology? Which DAW did you write the track in,
and how did you get the sounds together?
Ive always used FL Studio to produce music. Anders uses Cubase,
and we bounce down stems to send them between each other,
which really works well. The drum sounds are all from packs that
 Alan Walker | The Track

Watch the video in

your web browser at
bit.ly/fmtrack317

I think the coolest way to do

things is when you dont really
follow a script. One of my really
big inspirations is Hans Zimmer
you have to think outside the box,
and you dont always have to follow
the script because thats when
the interesting ideas happen.

you can buy online. Im a big fan of the KSHMR sample packs
hes made two and theyre really good. Hes got really good kicks
and stuff, and Ive used some of his sounds in Alone. For other
sounds like leads and chords and stuff, I mainly use Nexus, Spire,
Massive and Sylenth1.

Do you have a particular strategy for the arrangement of a track

when you start out making it?
Not really. If you look back at for example Fade [not to be confused
with Faded], that one is way different. I think the coolest way to do
things is when you dont really follow a script. One of my really big
inspirations is Hans Zimmer... you have to think outside the box,
and you dont always have to follow the script because thats when
the interesting ideas happen.

So how long does an Alan Walker track take to put together?

I spent a couple of months making Fade, then we had the idea of
making Faded, and that took even longer because we had vocals
we had to rewrite it and remaster it. I spend an average of three to
five months, so a lot of time is spent on just putting things together.
The idea of Alone came together pretty quick, but we also spent a
lot of time finishing it a couple of months.

49
The Track | Alan Walker

The Gear
Software:
Image-Line FL Studio
Steinberg Cubase Pro
Soundtoys AlterBoy,
EchoBoy, Decapitator
LennarDigital Sylenth1
reFX Nexus2
Nicky Romero Kickstart
D16 Group Toraverb

Were you happy with Alone?

Yeah, how it has been received by the fans, and it got a hundred
million views in such short time, which was absolutely incredible
and remarkable. I didnt expect it to get that response! Im also
happy because its good to have more of the Alan Walker sound in
the song, because I felt like I missed that in Sing Me To Sleep. If
people listen to a song now and it has that triplet feel, theyre going
to know its Alan Walker, and thats a pretty cool signature to have.

It seems to us like your music is heavily inspired by video games.

Is that fair to say?
Yeah, Ive always been a gamer, and I feel its pretty cool to have
that influence. I dont know why my sound is so gamer-friendly!
I guess when I started back in 2012 I was making hands up
Techno, a genre that you mainly listen to when gaming.

So whats next for Alan Walker?

Its very hard to say because I want to keep going on the same
path with the same signature sound, but I think its very cool to
explore new ways. I think for example the Chainsmokers are a
good example with Paris thats really different from what theyve
done before.

50
 Alan Walker | The Track

Creating Alones
atmospheric intro
The composition process
happens in FL Studio, but the final
version of the track is pieced back
03 >
Anders has a feeling that the synth patch
used in Alones intro is the same sound
used in his tune Sing Me To Sleep ie,

together and mixed in Cubase.

LennarDigital Sylenth1s LD Dance Lead
preset. This plays a low bass part under
the chords, and is dirtied up with
Soundtoys Decapitator.

01 >
The foundation the intro is a composite of
several takes played through Guitar Rig and a
picked melodic lead over the top made up of
single notes. The lead is delayed with Soundtoys
EchoBoy and reverbed with D16 Toraverb.

04 >
reFX Nexus2 is a big favourite, and here it
provides some filter-sweeping pads courtesy of
the synths PD Andromeda Pad preset. This is
layered with another pad, and a slick pluck
sound taken from a KSHMR sample pack.

02 >
The guitar strums are layered with piano
chords recorded in the studio, and some
vocal one-shots are sprinkled over the top
for added atmosphere. These are formant-
pitched, delayed, reverbed and filtered.

51
FM | youtuBE
MORE UNMISSablE VIDEO FEaTURES FROM Future Music
Meet our line-up of exclusive YouTube goodness. Head online for all this and more!

tHE trACK
Top producers go in-depth on Top producers show
|CHANNEL
HIGHLIGHTS
From our famous
you the world of studio sessions to
the sounds, ideas and techniques Steinberg in our gear tours, technique
behind their latest releases monthly video series tips and much more
DONT MISS: DONT MISS:

We visit Bridgend to meet Welsh New to Eurorack? Discover the best

producer and musician Jayce Lewis modules and essential techniques
in his Northstone Studios facility. in our Modular Monthly playlist

Roosevelt, Wait Up
The Greco-Roman artist invites us into his
Cologne studio to break down the production
tricks behind the vintage pop-inspired We head to Amsterdam to talk Want to get the most out of your
production with British Electro gear? Head for our Producers Guide
opener to his self-titled debut album. House master Matt Nash video playlist for some essential tips

DONT MISS:

In this episode we head north Master your music making with

Ren LaVice, Richter Scale
The Canadian DnB producer invites
us into his studio to watch as he
deconstructs his (literally) earth-
shaking club banger Richter Scale.
to Glasgow to meet up with Raj our Best Of playlist of essential
Disciples, Daylight from Bhangra duo Tigerstyle production technique tutorials
The UK trio talk us through the
writing, recording and production
process behind their catchy,
club-ready House track Daylight.

We meet up with stone-cold Dance See more studios of the stars!

music icon Ray Keith. Watch how Peruse our extensive playlist of
he creates tracks in Cubase classic In The Studio sessions

Keeno, Enigma Swindle, Connecta feat. Ricardo China

Bristol-based D n B producer Keeno We meet up with the UK producer in
invites us into his studio to see him his studio as he exposes the techniques
break down his latest track Enigma. behind his Brazilian-inspired track.

KEEp it www.yOUTUbE.cOM/FUTUREMUSIcMagazINE for your

rEguLAr ELECtroNiC musiC tECHNiquE ANd tECHNoLogy fiX
52
 Studio Sessions
the monthly video
series from the
makers of
The worlds top producers show you
how they get more from Steinberg

Only
part of
www.youtube.com/
For this episode were back in Bridgend
magazine with Welsh musician Jayce Lewis.
See his Northstone Studios facility
and watch how he works in Cubase.
Direct link: http://bit.ly/2nuQtoM
 The No.1 website for musicians

Love this magazine?

Youll love musicradar.com
Thousands of gear Tips and techniques
reviews and killer to help you create
video demos your own sound
 FM | PRODUCERs GUIDE

INCLUDES VIDEO aND aUDIO VaULt.fUtUrEmUSIC.CO.Uk

DIY Multibands
Originally they were the preserve of
mastering engineers, known for their
precision and clinical accuracy; but in
todays digital world, multiband devices
have become crucial players in both the
sound design and mixing processes. To
truly get stuck into a signal, what better
way than to divide it into bands and
process each individually?
In the digital age, its become possible
to create multiband devices easily, and
with more flexibility of design than their
hardware counterparts. Naturally, it didnt
take long before software companies
started pushing the boundaries of what a
multiband device does, and producers
were quick to follow, using the easy-to-
access software for mixing and even sound
design duties. The developers then pushed
the boundaries even further, applying the
multiband concept to a host of other
common processors. We now live in an age
of multiband chorus, multiband distortion,
multiband reverb, and loads more.
But it neednt stop there in this guide,
were going to show you how to make your
own multiband set-ups, going further than
todays best plug-in effects to make
custom networks of multi-effect processors
using a few simple devices in your DAW.

55
Producers Guide To | DIY Multiband

Bands on the Run

The multiband compressor is the
prototypical multiband device.
You get several dynamics controllers
presenting alternate patterns in
higher ranges; bitcrushers can
provide interesting degradation
multiband devices? Even the most
stylish plug-in effects almost always
stick to one thing a multiband
QUICK
TIPS
distortion unit may offer different
flavours of distortion per-band, but it
only offers distortion for each. With a
custom multiband set-up, the skys
the limit. Were free to process and
manipulate any band we like with

>
in one unit, and each takes across the frequency spectrum, and any processor we care to call on.
command of its own frequency band. transient processors expand on the Saturation in the low band and Distortion sounds
It allows you to, say, scalp the ends multiband dynamics devices of the flanging in the tops? Go for it. Heavy great in low bands
from low frequencies, add punch to past in a modern setting. compression on the low-mids and a but less so in high
mid signals, and bring up the average sprinkling of
bands. For a different
The skys the
levels of the highs all in delay higher up?
customisable frequency ranges that Feel free. And in take on the effect, split
dont interfere with each other. the modern DAW, higher bands after
Software has given rise to even
more multiband solutions. FabFilters
limit Saturation you get even
more tools to
distortion is applied, so
you can use them to
Pro-MB software compressor lets you
compress or expand multiple bands, in the low band help make your
set-ups count process the distorted
all to different extents. With a anything with a signal higher up the
software option you can choose to
compress more or fewer bands than
and flanging in the rack system can
save and recall
frequency spectrum.
tops? Go for it
>
the standard hardware device, which settings and
are often three-band models. routing for later Were putting
While it all started out as use, for example.
compression and dynamics, the The principles used in multiband Were going to take you through
multiband set-ups
multiband concept has been taken processors stay relatively similar the some basic multiband set-ups and together in racks
much further by ambitious software frequency spectrum is split into show you how to take hold of here, but doing the
developers. Almost every effect you bands by filtering, and the resulting precision processing, and then show
same on individual mix
can think of has been attempted signals are processed separately. you how to make multibands count in
some more successful than others. Those filters and processors already a creative context for sound design channels can be really
Multiband delays, for example, can exist in our DAWs, so whats to stop duties. First, though, we start with a powerful too, giving
leave the low-end clear while us having a go at creating our own word of warning about filters you all the advantages
of a channel such as
insert effects, faders,
mid/side controls for
Using The Right Filters each band. Group
Not just any filter will work when designing the perfect the channels to their
crossover network heres what you have to consider own buss for mix-
Argh! Yes, you read that right! unfortunately, multiband crossover networks are a little more nuanced than they may appear at first, channel control over
and slapping any old filter over a signal can throw your material off-balance. A generic filter might not have a consistent behaviour or the output signal.
response, and this is especially so with your DAWs stock filter. For this reason, its best to reach for a plug-in but dont just call

>
up any filter. To check your crossover network thoroughly, duplicate your original track and phase-invert it against your multiband
network (with its processing bypassed). If any sound is coming out (even at a low level), your crossover isnt set properly. Ableton Live users
can get more
power out of their
racks with siblings, ie
the same controls on
different devices inside
a rack. You can copy or
map items to multiple
siblings at once by
right-clicking. This
feature may need to be
> > >
A standard, analogue-style filter does its To combat this, what youre looking for is a Another way to be sure of clinical results is
thing by adding tiny delays to the signal. At
frequencies around the cutoff, a filter
linear-phase filter, but these come with their
own problems: they can add a ringing tone
to co-opt a full multiband plug-in with its
processing bypassed for each band. With
activated in Abletons
changes the phase of the audio especially
problematic at low frequencies.
to the material. If youre hoping to process
transient material like drums, make sure you
the individual bands soloed, youll be using the
plug-ins crossover networks for your own effects.
options.txt file in your
proceed with caution. OSs file browser.

56

Make your
Own Basic DIY
Multibands
Create a custom three-band
set-up out of individual plug-in
components. Heres how
01 >
Well use Ableton Lives Rack functions here, but you
can apply the same principles in other DAWs, or
duplicate a track entirely to create different bands. In
Live, create an Audio Effect Rack, open the Chain
Selector (three lines), and right-click to Create Chain.
Do this three times.
02 >
Name the chains Low, Mid and High. Drag a capable
filter onto the Low chain were using FabFilter Pro-Q.
Set up a high-cut filter with a Q of 1 at 200Hz. Leave
the slope at 24dB. Type these values in to make sure
theyre completely accurate. Now, importantly, switch
Pro-Q to Linear Phase Max.
DIY Multiband | Producers Guide To
Watch the video
here: http://bit.ly/
fmpg3171
03 >
Duplicate the plug-in into the Mid band, and
change its filter type to low-cut. Create a new
high-cut filter at 2kHz again set the Q to 1.
Duplicate this plug-in into the High band and
switch the 2kHz filter to a low-cut. Delete the
other filter. You can save the Rack for later
use at this point too.
04 >
To check the multiband set-up, duplicate the
track. On the new version, remove the Rack
and place a Utility instead. Switch in Phz-L
and Phz-R to reverse the polarity. If your
crossover splits have worked, you should
now be hearing nothing. If using Live, you
might have to save and restart the project
for it to work.
05
We now have a fully-functioning DIY
multiband network. You can place processors
into the chain after the Pro-Q to process the
Low, Mid and High bands alone. Here were
mono-ising the Low band. You can also use
Lives Configure parameters to map two
crossovers to the same macro.
57
Producers Guide To | DIY Multiband
> >
Bitwig Studio has its own
How to make Multiband container devices,
multibands in called Multiband FX-2 and
Multiband FX-3. One of these gives
Bitwig Studio you two bands and the other gives
you three, but were not telling you
which is which The idea here is
that you drop components into the
windows at the top of the devices to
create custom processing chains in
each band, before setting the
crossovers. We have tested these
devices using polarity-inverted
duplicate tracks, and we found that
the filters werent so clean, so you
might find it would be best to use
these containers for creative
processing only.
> >
Logic doesnt have a rack
How to make system, so youll have to create
multibands in a separate channel for each
band. Co-opt Logics Multipressor if
Logic Pro X you dont have your own linear-phase-
capable EQ add it to the first band,
set the crossover splits, disable all
processing, then duplicate onto the
other band channels before soloing
the correct band on the plug-in for
each channel. Logics Smart Controls
are pre-mapped so unlikely to be a
good solution for connecting two
crossover filters into one control. You
can change Smart Control presets
using its Inspector, though. Like in
Cubase, map the cutoff frequencies
to a MIDI CC to change more at once.
Multiband plug-ins to try out
Meldas MMulti collection has a processor for just about everything
58
Steinbergs DAW isnt the best
How to make kitted-out for DIY multibands
multibands in but is flush with dedicated
multiband devices: the envelope
Cubase shaper, expander and compressor.
These devices can be co-opted for
your own uses if you add one to a
track, bypass all its processing, then
set bands up with the crossovers
where you want them, you can then
duplicate the track, soloing the
correct band on each. Of course, you
can also make use of a good
linear-phase EQ for the same
purpose. If you set the crossover
cutoff to MIDI CCs, you can control
corresponding bands at once without
too much fuss.
No multiband devices here,
How to make unless you pay some cash in
multibands in the Prop Shop. It gets worse
when you try setting the SSL mixer
Reason EQ accurately, and then the MClass
Equalizer only has shelving filters!
There is one way to multiband
heaven, though: you can create clean
crossover filters using the MClass
Stereo Imager, which has dedicated
outputs around the back for its
low- and high-band signals. Use the
Separate Out output jacks, and Solo
the Lo Band at the front. If youve got
everything wired right round the back
and have tested it out, make sure to
save your multiband splits inside a
Combinator to grab again later.
For when youre not in the DIY mood, there are plenty of
multiband plug-ins on the market. For some classic
multiband compressor action, Waves are a great option,
with the C6 Compressor, L3 Multimaximizer and more.
Weve also covered FabFilter in this tutorial as well as the
excellent Pro-Q 2 being a brilliant linear-phase-enabled EQ,
theres their Pro-MB compressor, and of course Saturn, an
incredible multiband saturation unit with tons of distortion
flavours. Theres even free software out there, like Xfers
OTT and mdas Multiband.
But the prize has to go to MeldaProduction, who have
made an artform of the multiband processing device its
all here, from MMultiBandDynamics, through to
MMultiBandFreqShifter and MMultiBandAutopan, right up
to MMultiBandConvolution, to name just four of 23 (yes
really) multiband plug-ins. Theres even MXXX, which can
combine any and all of their processors into a single
plug-in; and yep, that ones got multiband functionality too.
 DIY Multiband | Producers Guide To

Get Creative with Watch the video

here: http://bit.ly/

Custom Multiband fmpg3172

Sound Design
Build an inspiring multiband
03 >
Lets pick out the second band, which
should hold the real voice of this bass
sound. Well bring it out with some

effects cocktail to enhance a track characterful heavy compression, with the

help of Klevgrnds Korvpressor. Again, if this
was applied to the whole track, it could get

in selected frequency areas overbearing and tasteless.

01 >
Heres Studio One 3s Routing Editor. Weve
set up three Splitter devices creating four
frequency bands to process. A compressor is
after the crossovers for some sidechaining
action. SO3s splitters arent linear-phase, but
thats okay for creative sound design uses.

04
The highs are still lacking. We can bring them
up and add character to the top-end using
FabFilters Timeless 2 delay. We can also add
an analyser to chain after the bands have been
brought back together to get the whole picture.

02 >
The low band is a bit lacklustre, and some
analogue saturation goes well on it. If this
was placed on the full-band signal, it would
saturate the mids and highs as well. The
highs themselves need some smoothing, so
we can throw a chorus plug-in onto the top
two bands, after they merge back together.

59
 In The Studio With | Teengirl Fantasy

Teengirl
Fantasy
Logan Takahashi and Nick Weiss found
acclaim for their hypnotic, hardware-driven
take on House and Techno. Danny Turner
quizzes them on their evocative sound and
their hands-on creative approach
Daniel Byrne

60
 Teengirl Fantasy | In The Studio With
N
ick Weiss and Logan Takahashi
crossed paths while studying at
Oberlin College in Ohio. Their
shared interest in electronic
music saw them immediately
combine technologies,
resulting in 2010s leftfield
electronic album 7AM, which
spawned the underground club anthem Cheaters.
They followed it up in 2012 by releasing their
second album, Tracer, on re-launched independent
imprint R&S Records.
After a hectic period of creativity, the duo parted
ways to focus on side projects, including Takahashis
solo album Nogeo, but 2017 sees Teengirl Fantasy
return in sparkling form with 8AM. Almost entirely
instrumental, its their most introspective and
abstract long player to date pulsing with early
House and Disco themes, and perfumed by the
duos evocative slow-motion-styled Techno.
Did the two of you first get tuned into electronic
music at a young age?
Nick: Hip Hop and R&B was my main access as a
(very) young producer. I interned at a Hip Hop
studio when I was about 11 just observing mostly
but sometimes running sessions. Eventually I got to
submit a beat for one of their artists. It actually had a
4/4 dance vibe, even though I wasnt fully aware of
what I was doing. My primary influences back then
were Missy & Timbaland, the Neptunes, Darkchild,
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. I started to learn more
about House, Techno and other electronic music in
high school, and then got much deeper into it when
I was in college.
Logan: My first memory of electronic music was
playing on my dads Casio SMK-1 as a little kid and
being spooked out and intrigued by its bell sounds.
Later, I got into electronic music when I was at high
school, originally via a bunch of weirdo outsider acts
like Excepter and Black Dice. That stuff kind of led
me to falling in love with Techno and House towards
the end of high school and into my college years.
How did your love of those artists and genres
segue into experiments with music technology?
Logan: When I was 14, I got a copy of Ableton 4 for
Christmas, and that was a turning point for me.
I had grown up studying violin, but it wasnt until
that point that I was able to start viewing music as a
way of expressing an identity or viewpoint. So I
started a bunch of bands in high school with
electronics being a major element. One of them was
called Dipole Dipole, with my friend Guy. Wed
basically experiment with tape samples and an array
of guitar pedals.
Nick: I remember using Acid Pro on the computer
- it was my very first introduction to music software.
Then I moved on to Magix Music Maker. I wanted
the Hip Hop edition but the Trance one was the
only one left at the store. They were both mostly
loop-based programs; pretty similar to what
GarageBand is now, but you could do really cool
stuff in Magix, including making your own music
video with green screen effects, which seems way
more high-tech than what we have now. Later on in
high school I got a Korg Triton LE keyboard with
money Id saved up from my Bar Mitzvah, because
I knew it was what the Neptunes were using. It had
an onboard sequencer, and I would make beats on
that. I later sold it because I needed some fast cash,
but I regret that now.
You met each other in college was there an
immediate musical connection between you?
Nick: We met at a new student orientation on
pretty much the first day. We had some initial talks
about music that excited us, mostly about some of
the more DIY electronic acts that were bubbling up
back in 2008. But our sound just kind of came
together intuitively when we started jamming on the
instruments wed brought with us to college.
Logan: I had a pretty good idea of the things that I
was interested in and how I wanted to align myself
in terms of the other music I was listening to when
we started. At the time, there werent nearly as many
people doing electronic House/Techno-based music
in the space that we were trying to do it in, so
perhaps it was even easier back then to align and
position ourselves in a certain way.
So the first thing you did was to set about
combing all your gear together?
Nick: Yeah, Logan had a Roland SP-404 sampling
workstation, a microKorg and a Korg Electribe synth,
and I had an Akai MPC and a Roland Juno-106. We
basically made all of our first songs using that gear.
How did you get signed to Planet Mu?
Nick: Wed met Mike Paradinas [aka -Ziq] at a
show in London and heard through the grapevine
that he was into our music. As a result of that,
we held some initial conversations with him about
releasing something and he, coincidentally, emailed
us about releasing stuff on Planet Mu the same day
we were about to send him our album demos.
Logan: Its been great working with Mike and
everyone at Planet Mu. It feels way different to receive
comments about music from actual musicians like
Mike and Jamie Kuedo that you already look up to,
rather than A&R from a label or somebody who
doesnt actually release music themselves.
Apart from some EP releases, theres been quite
a delay between this album and the previous one.
Nick: Thats because we were both working on
different projects at the same time as our own.
I would say that life just got in the way, both living it
and figuring out what we wanted to say after Tracer.
That album was made pretty soon after we had just
gotten out of college and I dont think we really gave
ourselves much time to think about what its overall
concept would be. We just threw stuff up in the air,
tried everything and released it. I think that 8AM
has a lot more focus, and loads more tracks were
made than actually ended up being on it. Planet Mu
was also very helpful in paring down our ideas and
editing the sequencing too.
Logan: I guess wed been kind of slowly but steadily
working on a collection of new tracks since 2013
61
In The Studio With | Teengirl Fantasy

and probably worked in seven studios across the
UK, the US and Germany. We also devoted some
time and energy to other projects, including doing
an original score last year for [Vogues] Opening
Ceremony Fall/Winter 2016 soundtrack. We also
released some EPs and remixes, and did some other
solo and collaborative projects. I released a solo
Logan Takahashi album Nogeo on Ghostly last
year, that Id wanted to get out for a while.
when you can hear the computer through the
music. But Omnisphere is obviously a really deep
instrument. Because its based on real-world sounds,
it really does sound powerful when matched up
against hardware. Having said that, Rob Papens
SubBoomBassis a pretty good soft synth, and
The Granulator 2 Max For Live instrument in
Ableton is super fun to play around with and great
for generating ideas fast.
Nick: We use the Slim Slow Slider VST plugin
when the basic Ableton sidechain compressors arent
enough. It does much more drastic sidechain
compression for when we want the pump to be
audible instead of just using it as a mixing tool. We
also like to use PSPs MixPack; these plugs are pretty
solid for saturating a signal when the stock Ableton
Saturator which I actually think is one of Abletons
most amazing plugins wont do. Well use them to
add midrange to a bass or make

This is the first time weve gone into the certain signals more audible
when the mix is cluttered.
Logan: iZotope Trash has been
studio with a specific concept in mind: the one of my go-to plug-ins for
the last year or two. It suddenly

melancholic dancefloor glowy comedown turns sounds that you wouldnt

You could say youve come back refreshed. Do
you think the break has changed your sound?
Logan: The main difference between Tracer and
8AM has been the lack of vocal collaborations.
We only have one track on the album with vocals,
which is the track we did with Khalif Diouf [also
known as Le1f]. This is also the first time we ever
really tried going into the studio with a specific
concept or idea in mind: the melancholic dancefloor
glowy comedown or after-peak vibe. We were
jokingly calling the album 8AM years before we
officially decided to make that its name.
What about the effects? What are the trustiest
plug-ins in your folder?
Logan: We have a bunch of effects plug-ins, and we
tend to use them in a kind of grab-bag way, just
quickly putting one in while were working, and if
it works it stays. I recently signed up for the
subscription service at Slate Digital because their
Virtual Mix Rack is pretty great for basic mixing
EQs and compressors. They have some pretty solid
presets to start from, and while the plugins have a
subtle sound, they do make a difference.
consider using in a mix into
palatable sounds. It can be quite
a heavy-handed effect, but Ill use it more subtly,
sometimes only using 10% or less of the wet like a
little dash of spice in a dish!
But you also like to use plenty of outboard too?
Logan: Yes, we use an Ensoniq DP/4 effects rack,
although it actually belongs to our friend James
Connolly, aka L-VIS 1990. While hes been out of
the States, its been living in our studio and has
ended up being a great companion for this album.
We run just about everything through it because it

Have you substantially upgraded your studio or

modified how you work between this album and
the last?
Nick: We didnt really have a studio for our
previous albums we worked in bedrooms, living
rooms and friends studios. For this album, some
of it was recorded in a cabin in upstate New York,
and then as we were finishing it we started using
our current studio space. The previous two albums
were also made on Logic Pro, whereas this album
was fully written on Ableton. That allowed much
more freedom in terms of how it was edited.
Our previous records were more like live jams
with some editing into tracks, whereas with 8AM,
some songs might have elements of a live jam but
we did much more writing and arranging in the
computer afterwards.

You mentioned using Ableton, but I understand

that you used to work on Logic. Why the switch?
Nick: Logans primarily using Ableton. Logic lost
me when they updated to X. I was a veteran Logic
user ever since it was Emagic, but then it was
upgraded and the people who owned it were just
expected to buy it again. I still think Logic Pro 9
sounds really great, but you just cant beat the ease of
use and speed with which you can write in Ableton.
My ultimate wish would be for Ableton to make its
audio engine sound as good as Logic 9s.

So whats in your virtual production armoury

of soft synths and effects plugins?
Logan: The main soft synth we use is Omnisphere,
but we dont use soft synths much as we dont like it

62
In The Studio With | Teengirl Fantasy

Ensoniq DP/4
Our favourite
effects rack,
currently on loan
from a good friend.
Love it, if even for
the sake of recording
out things that were
previously in the
computer in order to
get them out of the
box and allow
effects to just sit as
they are without
endless tweaking.
Its amazing for
harmonyies, phasers
and distortions.

Elektron
Monomachine
The first piece of
Elektron gear and
probably still my
favourite. Its great
for organic textures,
basslines and pads,
and has a fun
arpeggiator. It really
offers molecular
control of sound. rich and cut through
Akai MPC-1000
This MPC has
managed to stick
Elektron around since I got it
Analog RYTM the year it came out.
The analogue It feels limited
drums on this are compared to the
Elektron stuff Logan
the mix really well. has, but it still comes
You can layer them through for live
with your own performance
samples. It works as and occasional
a functional drum beatmaking.
machine, but can
easily go to freakier
zones if you choose.

Do you collaborate in the

Allen & Heath
ZED-12FX
This has a great
sound and range
of control. In my
opinion, the quality
of the effects is on
par with any
outboard processor. specific roles in the project. If you wanted to
studio or do you work
separately and swap files?
Logan: We both work together in Nicks studio.
I have my own studio setup at home in my
bedroom where I can work on things before
bringing them over to Nick, then we can both
look at the material together. We do some file
swapping, but the most crucial work gets done
in real-time, in person. Things go much faster
that way.
Weve deliberately avoided trying to define
make a really generalised stereotype, you could
say that Nick has more of a producer approach
and my approach is more composition-based.

64
 Teengirl Fantasy | In The Studio With

helps to achieve a more real sound, whatever that

means. What we also like about it is that whatever
we run through it as an effect cannot be messed
with later like you could an effects plug-in. Because
its set in stone, you have to like whatever the effect is
I especially like the harmoniser and guitar
distortions on this rack. We also like the Eventide
Eclipse for its rich reverb, and weve been using that
for quite a while.

Do you have any tips or techniques on how

you approach sound design and creation?
Nick: Creative panning can be super-effective.
Roland Juno-106 Being able to draw the pan in Ableton or have
Ive had this Juno certain high-frequency elements on a pan with LFO
forever replaced can be a good way to create dimension. Stereoisers
the voice chips and
everything. Ive are cool, but they often weaken sounds.
played other peoples Logan: Weve got into the habit of always trying to
Juno-60s and -6s and record a live take of an automation first, preferably
really dont like how
they sound. I love with a real knob or controller. You can hear the
how the 106 is so live-ness of it better that way, and of course you can
soft; it always sounds
good with the cutoff always adjust it later. Just think with your gut and
down. Its our go-to trust your intuition, and louder isnt always better.
for chords, and Increasing our dynamic range was something we
sometimes bass.
talked about a lot with some of these tracks.

Are there certain tenets you stick to when it

comes to trying to achieving a great mix?
Logan: When were making a track, there usually
comes a point where the focus becomes more about
what things to take away rather than what to add.
Simplifying and subtracting has become a crucial
step in the process for us.
Nick: Honestly, I think learning the proper way to
mix has been a double-edged sword. Yes your mixes
might become cleaner and more hi-definition, but
its easy to go overboard and stop just listening. Im
really trying to detox from the habit I got into of
staring at plug-ins while mixing, and just trying to
listen as carefully as possible. I think having that
balance of intuition and learned skills is the best.

Roland V-Synth What tools do you use for compressing and

This synth is a limiting the sounds within your mixes?
beast for ethereal, Nick: Im still trying to figure this out, but usually
hard-to-define,
elastic, and Ill mix into a limiter with the threshold at zero just
digitally fucked up to catch the peaks. My advice would be to make the
sounds. Favourite attack slower if you want louder transients. I try to
things about it are
the D-beam and match the makeup gain to a little below the amount
touchpad, which give of gain reduction, so that the volume isnt lost from
extra dimensions to
your performance. compression just the little peaks. The stock
Lots of bend and Ableton Glue compressor is pretty good actually,
squeal in this one. and the Waves CLA-2A is also good for when things
need to be loud. Slate Digital compressors are pretty
good for a more transparent style. Using sources
other than just a kick for sidechaining can help you
find some nice unexpected grooves.

What are the different strengths behind the

various hardware synths in your studio?
Logan: We have the Elektron Monomachine,
which is great for sequencing, both onboard and
MIDI out. Its also great for bass and off-the-grid
rhythmic sounds. Ive got into exploring the
different user waveform packs that are out there too,

65
In The Studio With | Teengirl Fantasy

so its still a valuable piece of gear in our setup six

years in. Our newest piece of gear is the Elektron
Analog Rytm, which appears on a few tracks on the
album. Were really into this one the analogue
synths cuts through in the mix in a really nice way,
and the drum sounds are nice and full. Its probably
the most intuitive piece of Elektron gear theyve
released so far.

You have a few classic synths like the

Roland V-Synth and, as you mentioned
previously, the Juno-106
Nick: We discovered the Roland V-Synth because it
was sitting in a writing studio we used in the UK.
Its a truly bizarre workstation from 2003 that kind
of does everything at once while doing nothing a
digital workstation would normally do. For
example, theres no true piano or string sound, but
there are a lot of digital monks and indescribably
elastic-sounding arpeggiators. It has a rough,
plasticky quality that we utilised a lot on this album.
The sounds can be controlled with a digital beam
handwaving motion, so it produces organic
modulations of inorganic compound sounds.
The Juno-106 has been our go-to synth for
chords right from the beginning. It makes some
appearances on 8AM because we love to use it
with the chorus effect on, but we recorded in mono.
We also use a Korg Wavestation SR, which is a sick
rackmount digital wavetable synth. We downloaded
some patches from some random corner of the
internet and loaded them via SysEx. The
Wavestation has a good ethereal, mountainous vibe.

Where do you stand on the modular craze?

Is it something youve looked into?
Nick: Modular synths always look really cool and
impressive, but they sometimes seem limited to me
in terms of what sounds you can actually get out of
them beyond bleeps and squiggly res-y bloop
sounds. But I cant really say, as Ive never gone
in-depth and used one.
Logan: I respect the amount of control they give you
over the sounds, and I appreciate the idea of people
building their own sounds rather than selecting
presets. Sometimes it feels like a scene unto itself, but
you could also say the same thing about making
music on computers. Basically, if I had more money
I probably would have got more into it by now.
Where do you stand on the question of gear?
Do you like to accumulate a variety of kit, or do
you prefer to go deeper into a few select pieces?
Nick: More gear is not the answer to making better
music. Knowing the gear you have super-well is
much more important. That being said, walking
into a studio filled with random toys youve never
seen before can be inspiring and help to make a new
track fast. One of the tracks on our album, Star-rise,
was made in a studio in Berlin that was filled with
sick synths and a Japanese board that made
everything sound really thick when you ran stuff
through it. But that studio was all arranged for
everything to only be recorded as a two-track, which
I thought was crazy!
Do you master your own records, or do you
prefer to hand that part of the process over
to somebody else?
Nick: 8AM is our first record to be mastered by
Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering in
London, otherwise its mostly been done by
Joe LaPorta. We went with Beau for the Planet Mu
record because he masters all of their releases and
we didnt want to break form with them. Well
definitely still be mastering with Joe in the future
theyre both fantastic. Since we didnt have any
help with mixing 8AM, the mastering was more
important in order to help the tracks sound more
slick and complete. We often prefer more muted
sounds, which can end up with purposefully
muddy or dark mixes, so I think mastering helps to
balance that out.
How do you spin a studio projects into
something you can use to play live?
Logan: My setup is mostly Elektron-based at this
point. The memory structuring on their machines
can seem a bit convoluted, which is why I dont
think people use some of their machines to their
full capability. This was my problem at first, but
theres so much room and space on these things
to invite endless non-destructive variations and
playing with ideas. The ability to end up in a new
place from where you started is what I appreciate,
and its what try to cultivate in a live setup. Basically,
we have all our gear synced to a MIDI clock,
triggered either by the MPC or the Monomachine.
When recording, well send a MIDI clock out from
Ableton, connected to all our gear so that they can
start on time.
Nick: When we first started touring, the gear we
made the music with was exactly the same gear we
brought out to play. But now Ive been able to
replace my Juno-106 on tour with the new JU-06,
which is a portable digital version. Man, I really
wish this existed a few years ago when I was slowly
destroying my Juno-106, lugging it around the
world. When we improvise at shows, its pretty
similar to the improvisation process when we
write a song. Many of our earlier songs were
composed live, so theyre a little easier to play
out, but with the addition of Logans Elektron
Octatrack, were able to sample stuff out of the
computer but still be super-flexible with it.
Now, well often rewrite or create new songs when
were performing live. I also like to project to the
audience the fact that were playing live rather than
DJing sometimes people make this mistake even
when we have keyboards on stage!
want to know more?
Teengirl Fantasys latest album 8AM
is out now on Planet Mu http://planet.mu

66
 Teengirl Fantasy | In The Studio With

We understand youre
big fans of the Elektron
Octatrack for sampling?
Logan: Im still uncovering new things after
owning it for four years. The learning curve has
been pretty steep but rewarding. Ive recently
got into spending more time planning out
the storage of samples within a project so that
theres a greater fluidity between track ideas
I like to allow as many of the sounds I use as
possible to be interchangeable with one another
because it allows more flexibility and spontaneity
when jamming. Ill also use the cue slider as a
way to safely explore different parameter settings
without changing the pattern itself.

67
FM | MODULAR MONTHLY
Get Flowing with
the Voltage Block
Animate and automate eight channels
of CV with Malekkos signal sequencer
M
alekko Heavy Industrys
Voltage Block is a CV
sequencer offering
eight channels of up
to 16 stages of CV. Theres loads of
power to manipulate and animate
any system, its super-fast, and the
whole thing is wrapped up in a
nicely packaged and easy-to-use
6x5x3-inch module.
Once weve built a basic patch,
we can use it to fire out eight CV
signals for animation, interest and
movement. Its super-fast, which is
very inspiring and motivating. You
also get live slider automation
recording, letting you jam on the
sliders before playing the whole thing
back killer!
Theres quantisation and scale
selection, a choice of smooth or
stepped modulation, its controllable
by clock, CV or slaved to a Varigate
68
8+ (the two, by the way, are an
amazing pair together). Elsewhere,
the unit allows you control over stage
length, reset and hold, glide, and
multiple play direction options yep,
you can play sequences backwards,
forwards, in pendulum or randomly.
There are also per-channel mutes and
a song mode.
All this functionality adds up to
an inspiring and quick unit thats still
massively feature-packed. What truly
makes Voltage Block different, though,
is that the sliders dont relate to steps
in sequences they actually
represent the voltage level for each
output. You build sequences by
holding down a step button then
adjusting the slider to the desired
level. Youre only ever a few button
presses away from any function, so
lets dive in and take a look at how to
use the Voltage Block

Sequencing CV
with the Malekko
Voltage Block
Lets take it step-by-step and
check out what this eight-channel
electrical mistress can do
01 >
Lets have some fun! Set up a basic patch then use
the Voltage Block for animation. Connect the eight
outputs to various CV inputs for modulation whether
thats pulse width, cutoff, VCA levels, LFO rates or
envelope time, theres loads of potential.
02 >
Once youve carefully crafted your animation sequences,
hit Save and lets approach things differently. Set a
patch playing with the eight CV outs patched, and
just jam on the sliders. Its fast and intuitive, and the
module will record all your movements, which is ace!
Tutorial | Modular Monthly
Watch the video in
a web browser at
bit.ly/fmmod317
03 >
With a range of scales to quantise to,
lets build a melodic sequence. Take the
first CV out into the 1V/oct input on your
oscillator, hit Scale, and move the first
slider to move between scales likes blues,
major, minor, pentatonic, Japanese, Persian
and more.
04 >
For further live manipulation and interaction,
try playing around with the freeze mode,
which is great for fills and transitions in
otherwise static patches. Hold the Shift
and Freeze buttons, then press any of the
top eight buttons to freeze that output
while held.
05 >
Do you ever get tired of 16-step sequences?
Well Voltage Block has your back! Simply
press the Length button and press the
button you want to act as the last step.
So hitting button 7 will give you a seven-
step sequence.
06 >
You can play the step buttons, and hold them to
manipulate a sequence as it plays but theres also
an Arpeggiator mode that cycles through held buttons
too simply hold two or more and youre off. Here
were holding steps 3 and 5 to make them arpeggiate.
69
 In The Studio With | The Magnetic Fields

The Magnetic
Fields
The Synthpop foursomes founder and
songwriter Stephin Merritt is known for his
prolific output and distinctive baritone vocal.
Few, however, have been privy to his enormous
collection of vintage gear. Now Danny Turner
lifts the lid on his beautifully kept studio.
Daniel Byrne

70
 The Magnetic Fields | In The Studio With
S
tephin Merritt has had an
extraordinarily varied career.
Although hes collaborated with
several other bands (The
Gothic Archie/The 6ths and
Future Bible Heroes), hes best
known as the principle singer/
songwriter of The Magnetic
Fields. Beyond that, Merritt has released audiobooks,
movie soundtracks, collaborated in musical theatre
and recorded a TV commercial for Volvo. Most of his
output has been released on the critically acclaimed
Nonesuch Records.
Merritts eleventh studio album is different. The
mammoth 50 Song Memoir is an autobiographical
concept album chronicling the first 50 years of his
life. Even when singing about himself, Merritts
caustic wit shines through on songs such as Come
Back as a Cockroach and A Cat Called Dionysus.
Both revealing and unpretentious, Merritt sings on
all fifty tracks and plays more than one hundred
instruments, dovetailing gracefully between acoustic
pop and frazzled electronic pop.
Although fairly self-explanatory, what was the
motivation behind the new album?
I read that Bob Dylan was coming out with an
album with 30 tracks on it, and the article tried to
make it seem like a trend. The motivation behind it
was my record company president Robert Hurwitz,
who took me to lunch at the Grand Central Oyster
Bar and said that he had a good idea for a new
album commemorating my 50th birthday. It quickly
turned into this 50-song monstrosity.
You also released 69 Love Songs in 1999.
Is this type of release simply a result of your
prolific nature?
Some themes are easier than others. If I were writing
an album of political songs from, say, presidential
elections from the beginning of the United States
until the present an idea that keeps coming up
every four years it would be hard whereas an
album of 69 love songs is much easier. Writing an
album of 50 songs about me, with no particular
rules other than it being about me, was a lot easier.
Over what period were the songs written?
I incorporated earlier songs, so maybe 10 songs
pre-date the idea for the album. I started writing
three months before I began recording, then I kept
writing for another year and a half. Im not the one
who put the dates at the beginning of the song titles,
by the way! I thought there was going to be a colon
there. The songs are meant to be autobiographical.
Apparently, you were reading Grace Joness
autobiography but had to put it down because
it might influence the album in what way?
I read the first chapter and thought it was pretty
seductive I didnt want to have to live up to Grace
Joness narrative strategy. I dont know if she had a
ghost writer, but I made a point of not reading any
memoirs or autobiographies for this project; I just
didnt want to compare myself to any of them.
Is that the same with music? Some artists dont
like to listen to music while recording
It depends on what Im working on. I dont think I
listened to any music as research on this album, but
I certainly listened to a lot of music as research on
the album Realism. Since I recorded the album, Ive
been listening almost entirely to instrumental music,
mostly baroque harpsichord music. Basically, I listen
to harpsichord music in the car, which is great
because its so easy to separate it from the sound of
the engine.
The track Foxx and I presumably pays homage
to John Foxx?
Yes, hes one of the artists that I think has actually
improved since his so-called heyday. I like his music
now at least as well as I did in the 70s and 80s. He
did something sort of halfway between ambient
music and an audiobook, called The Quiet Man.
Its made up of piano pieces or solo keyboards with
a narrator intoning short stories by John Foxx.
You did a Gary Numan cover some years ago.
Have you ever considered asking him and John
to collaborate?
I dont know. Id be very happy to talk to John
about it, but we might both want too much
control over the final product [laughs]. I have
difficulty relinquishing control and I imagine
he does too. I did do a pointedly un-Electropop
version of Gary Numans I Die: You Die, with
bluegrass instrumentation.
Is that era where your interest in electronic
music comes from?
I got a synthesiser in 1979, when I was 14 a
Yamaha CS-60, which was a junior version of the
CS-80. I hadnt heard much music which was totally
guitar-free at that point. It was just before the British
Electropop explosion, so when I first got a synth, if
I had to emulate anyone it would have probably
been Yes rather than someone I hadnt been exposed
to yet. The synth was a present from my mother.
Did having the CS-60 spark you into choosing
music as a career path?
Ive never thought of music as a career path. Its
completely befuddling to me that Im a professional
musician, as I would never hire myself to do
anything that I do. By the way, the one thing that
you can do with The Yamaha CS-60 is that theres an
audio input, which is just a plug, so what you put
into it doesnt have to be audio at all. I used to have
fun connecting the other end of the patch chord to
my teeth and making zapping sounds and things.
After the CS-60, I got the Roland TB-303 and
the 606 drum machine. There was a DIN cable,
which was a precursor to the MIDI cable, connecting
the two. The TB-303 was the first sequencer that I
had before that everything I did was hand-played.
I guess the first computer I had was an Apple in
1986 which had 512KB of memory and I got the
Roland S-50 sampler. Id read about the software
Performer in Computer Music Journal, which said
that it allowed fine-grain quantisation in synths so
71
In The Studio With | The Magnetic Fields

you could make MIDI events that didnt sound like
clockwork. Im very into mechanical music, but
what I dont like are things that sound exactly the
same each time. I grew up with 70s Kraftwerk
albums, where everything is flanged or phased, and
the octaves keep changing. As repetitive as the music
is on paper, the sounds keep changing, and thats
what youre listening to.
represents a note value or control voltage, and I
dont know of any sequencer that was like that
before. Its not necessarily even a note sequencer
you could apply that voltage to anything.
50 Song Memoir has electronic
instrumentation but somehow sounds
very acoustic
Its not primarily an acoustic album but one where
About ten or 12 songs were produced by Thomas
Bartlett, who has an all-electronic studio except for
his piano. Thomass production choices are much
more crystalline than mine smoother textures
so once the songs got into my studio, I made them
rougher and produced on top of him. I prefer more
interesting textures, and whats more interesting to
me is warmth and fuzziness. I always like things that
change every second rather than samples. For
example, I want to get an

Whats more interesting to me is warmth electric harpsichord, and the

easy way to do that would be to
get the new Roland C-30,
and fuzziness. I always like things that which is sample-based. But
after 20 seconds of playing the

change every second rather than samples
What do you think of the path electronic music
has taken since then?
There havent been many new ways of making an
oscillator sound. I think weve had 50 years of a few
waveforms, but what is new are aleatory, or alien,
instruments like the Swarmatron and the Crackle
Box things that arent completely controllable. So
I think theres actually an avant-garde scene again,
at least instrumentally, and that part I find exciting.
I like the introduction of John Cage-based chance
operations into instrument design, which hasnt
been done before as far as I know.
a lot of the electronic elements are easily thought of
as acoustic. When I use rhythm units, I often place a
speaker on a snare drum to make sure it actually
sounds like an acoustic drum, and I have a lot of
strategies for blurring the distinction between
electronic and acoustic sounds. So Im flattered that
you think it sounds like a primarily acoustic album,
because it isnt.
The songs are quite rough around the edges. Is
that from a tendency to avoid overproduction?
middle C, I just feel like Im
hearing the same thing again
and again, whereas if I get a
vintage harpsichord, which is probably fantastically
expensive, when you press middle C youre creating
an electro-mechanical action that will be slightly
different every time.
Could you also apply that principle to the
distinction between analogue hardware and
digital software?
I used a lot of digital gear on my first album Distant
Plastic Trees. It was entirely made on a Roland S-50
sampler, a Yamaha RX21 rhythm unit and a Korg

Are we talking modular?

There are modular devices that can do that. In
Buchla-land, theres the 266e Source of Uncertainty,
which is a great modular that allows you to control
chaos in a control voltage form. You get to choose
which kinds of chaos and the amount for each
parameter. Wiard also has a chaos modular. The last
Magnetic Fields album, Love at the Bottom of the Sea,
has a whole lot of chance-based electronics used as
percussive elements. Maybe Ill do an album of just
that under another pseudonym.

When you say chance-based, are we talking

about devices that are not designed to make it
easy for you to do everything?
As always, its only easy to make certain kinds of
music. The autoharp makes it very easy to make a
certain kind of music once youve tuned it, which
is actually quite hard to do. It can make exactly one
kind of music, or maybe two, very easily, and I think
thats true of most modern rhythm units if you want
to make one of three or four sub-genres of dance
music. But youre being funnelled into aesthetics
choices that are being made by someone else.

Funnelled in the same way that the explosion

of modular is led by their affordability?
Yes, but a lot of the new modules are things that
really didnt exist before. I have a Kilpatrick Audio
Pattern Generator, which is based on a little square
of graphics where you have 64 dots that can be
cycled through in a predetermined number of ways
to represent 128 graphical images and different ways
that the cursor can run through those. Each one

72
In The Studio With | The Magnetic Fields

Music and
More DRM-1
The best, most
controllable analogue
drum machine ever,
except theres no
sequencer. You can
actually see what
youre doing! The
trigger pads are so
tiny you have to
play with subtlety
and nuance!

You have electronic sounds, but

never electronic-sounding beats.
Do you use acoustic instruments
for beats?
Yes, its a mix of rhythm units and acoustic
drums. I use synthesisers for making drum
sounds and melodic sounds, but I often make
simple thuds electronically from sounds that you
wouldnt expect to be electronic sounds that
are too toned to be electronic and dont sound
like someone at Roland manufactured them in a
lab coat like someone just whacking a bass
drum in the bathroom when theyre actually
poking the Moog Voyager with a little vibrato so
its different every time. I tend to use humble
sounds that dont draw attention to themselves.
The rhythm unit that I love, and wish I could use
all the time, is the Metasonix D-1000, which is
made with vacuum tubes, so what youre hearing
is actually an electro-mechanical process.
Basically, it sounds like something going wrong
inside your television set.

74
 The Magnetic Fields | In The Studio With

Poly-800, which is technically a digital synth

Kilpatrick Audio
K4815 Pattern
Generator
A 64-step voltage
sequencer with
visually oriented
operation that seems
like a dumb toy until
you discover its
gigantic range
of possibilities.
although it sounds pretty messy by todays
standards. In order to make the sounds change all
the time, even though most of them are samples, I
did what you can do with the S-50 that you cant do
with most samplers, which is to send the same note
twice at the same time, which makes each note
comb filter slightly differently. Because the
motherboard cant actually play them at exactly the
same time, it plays them a fraction of a second apart,
so thats one strategy to make digital sounds
different from each other.
You have an amazing studio, but we assume
that as a songwriter, the kit doesnt necessarily
lead the writing process as much as the
strength of the songs themselves
Absolutely, and I dont think of myself as a good
cover artist at all. I havent tried in several years
because I think that every time I do a cover I dont
do it justice, whereas when I do my own songs,
not doing them justice is the whole point. I write
pretty conventional songs in a musical way, and
then I subvert them in the studio, which I pretty
much have to do anyway because my voice is not
a pop instrument at all its the same as my
speaking voice.

But its a very unique-sounding vocal you

wouldnt necessarily want to change that by
Metasonix S-1000
taking singing lessons
A vacuum-tube I have taken singing lessons [laughs]. Its always
synthesizer, pointedly
unlike the called an untrained voice, but its actually not an
mainstream untrained voice. Usually on Magnetic Fields albums,
keyboards that might I have more than one lead vocalist. Ive had Shirley
be overrepresented
in this photo Simms doing co-lead vocals for the last 11 years, but
(because theyre for this album it didnt seem appropriate.
big). Incredibly
warm endless fun.
Does the writing process usually begin with
acoustic instrumentation?
No, I never write with instruments. I sit around in
bars with a notebook. I write down lyrics, but I
expect to remember the music, which is why I write
catchy songs if theyre not catchy, I cant remember
them. I think if I used really complex chording,
I would probably need an instrument to hear it on,
but because I usually dont, I go straight from a
click track to a bassline and typically have much of
the arrangement in my head. Where would you
begin writing the arrangement if you didnt have it
in your head?

Its hard to compute being able to do that,

unless youre a songwriter of course
Yes but most people can do lots of things
that I cant do. Most people can cook and I cant
Snazzy FX Wow cook at all. Last night I made myself pasta and it
and Flutter was horrible!
An echo maker
where the modulation You have an AdrenaLinn drum machine.
is the point as in
dub. Makes your That was that made by Roger Linn who made
piano sound like the famous Linn Drum...
its bobbing in the
ocean and your Its a very small contribution to the Linn Drum
drums sound like a line. It has Linn Drum sounds on it, but can do
washing machine. thousands of things. Its completely counter-

75
In The Studio With | The Magnetic Fields
intuitive and can make your guitar sound like a
sequencer. Its sort of a guitar-pedal and a rhythm
unit. I also have a Rhythm Ace drum machine,
which I believe is actually what turned into Rolands
famous CompuRhythm series, and the Tempest
Drum Machine, which is an odd beast because I
havent actually been able to use it in the ways that I
wouldve liked. For some reason, they released the
software before it was ready and never updated it,
It has no memory, so what youre looking
at is what youre hearing. Its a great way of
coming up with drum sounds
so it absolutely cannot play in any meter except
4/4 and it cant even play in swing time! And yet
its got all these lovely synths on it; you can
compress and distort different notes and make the
filters wobble, which is fun, but its a profoundly
flawed instrument.
What other drum boxes do you like using?
Theres something called the DRM-1, which has
been made under another the name to the one
I have, which is Music and More. Its got eight drum
76
sounds and no sequencer, but theres a little
button for each drum, and each one has eight
parameters including resonance, volume and
envelope so you can see what youre doing. It has
no memory, so what youre looking at is what
youre hearing. Its a great way of coming up with
combinations of drum sounds. Its got a MIDI
input, so you can sequence it if you like, and by
todays standards its kind of huge.
You have some particularly unusual gear, what
can you tell us about the Congost Xylomatic?
Its Hungarian a kind of a music box that you can
program. Its got a little rotating wheel with spokes
that make you able to play it like a little xylophone
mechanically. Its not very controllable, so you cant
make it sound professional only toy-like, like a
badly played glockenspiel. Im a pretty bad
glockenspiel player myself, but I cant speed up or
slow down like the Congost Xylomatic. You can hear
it best on the introduction to the track Eye Contact.
The Suzuki Omnichord and Casio VL-Tone
look like interesting toys too
The Suzuki was designed as a sort of electronic
autoharp. It has a little section where you can strum
it with a guitar pick. Its probably plastic, and its
ribbed so it has some resistance to it. It also has a
rhythm unit and a sequencer, but of course it
never really sounds like an autoharp and no listener
would be fooled.
Everyone had The Casio
VL-Tone in 1983; it was made
famous by the German group
Trio with their hit single
Da Da Da. That song is entirely
VL-Tone in the intro, and the
snare drum plays along with it.
We were going to use it on tour
before we realised its about
30 cents sharp I have no idea how, as digital
synthesisers have no business changing their pitch.
Can you describe the Andes Melodica, a mini
keyboard that you blow into?
Yes its a lot of fun. Its not what everyone would
call a melodica; its really a keyboard recorder. Its
actually wooden on the inside rather than metal,
so it sounds like a recorder playing, but when you
hit a second note it sounds like two except it
suddenly goes flat, so playing it in tune is extremely
difficult. Basically, its really great at sounding like a
group of children playing a recorder.
And how do you bring it all together on the
computer? Whats your DAW of choice?
I use Pro Tools with some plug-ins. I have the
Waves Diamond Collection and a few others the
same ones as Thomas Bartlett so I can hear what
hes hearing. In the 80s I had Performer, so I
naturally moved to Digital Performer when that
came out, but my engineer made me switch to Pro
Tools because he was familiar with it. It was a really
dumb thing to do, and Ive regretted it ever since,
because theres essentially no sequencing ability in
Pro Tools.
My next studio activity is to get Digital
Performer back and run both of them, and if I cant,
I might dig out my previous computer now that its
been fixed and use them simultaneously. Its about
control as far as I know, Ableton and Cubase are
oriented to particular kinds of music, but Performer
is not. But I havent actually tried either of them; Im
only judging by who uses them.
Do you use the software tools mainly for
sequencing or the plug-ins to trigger ideas?
Well I dont have any digital instruments. If Reason
is on my computer, Im unaware of it. I think I tried
them once but they sounded too cheesy for me, and
they werent controllable and not easy to use with all
my outboard gear.
want to know more?
50 Song Memoir is out now on Nonesuch Records.
The Magnetic Fields are on tour in the USA from mid-April.
www.nonesuch.com
 The Magnetic Fields | In The Studio With

Roland Space
Echo/Chorus Echo
Do not even try to
mix vocals without a
Space Echo. I usually
use two passes of it,
sometimes three.

Roland SVC-350
Vocoder
I also have the
VP-330, which is the
keyboard version.
But this has 11 bands
of formant controls
for actual
intelligibility.
Awesome on drums.

Avalon VT-737SP
This is a channel
strip, with tube
preamp, opto
compressor,
four-band EQ and,
most importantly for
home recording, a
nice big VU meter
with a lightbulb.

Orban Dual
Spring Reverb
Of the four spring
reverbs in this rack,
Pultec Filter this is the festive
HLF 3C blue one. So
deliciously unrealistic,
Irreplaceable for more like a box
tuba taming, this spring than a cave.
ten-pound tank is
great for extreme
settings, telephone
voices, evil
dwarves I wish I
had two of them.
Whats your opinion on people who
listen to music on laptops or
mobile phones? Is it regressive?
I think sound quality plummets every few years, actually. In the 50s, singles came out
on poor-quality 7" vinyl and we listened on AM transistor radios, which sounded totally
horrible. Only Rock and Roll was listenable, and it evolved to be listenable in that format.
There was no particular low end it was all midrange, and the lyrics were largely
nonsense. The technology keeps doing that again and again, and the current iteration of
that is playing music on the phone. 12 year olds dont care about fidelity because they
dont understand what it is they like toy piano sounds and voices that sound like their
mother gurgling at them. They like high end, and as people grow up they like low end.

77
FM | REVIEWS

INCLUDES
AUDIO

Roland System-8 1,299

The latest AIRA Plug-Out synth is Rolands biggest and most
powerful to date. Dan JD73 Goldman explores the green giant

CONTACT WHO: Roland TEL: 01792 702701 WEB: www.roland.co.uk KEY FEATURES 3 ACB oscillators, 8-note polyphony, S8 engine
+ 3 plug-out slots. 49 keys with velocity, pitchbend/modulation lever, 64 patches/64 performances, SD card storage, 64-step sequencer, arpeggiator,
3 FX blocks, 2 audio inputs/vocoder, USB audio/MIDI, 2 pedal inputs, Trigger in, Gate/CV outs. Dimensions: 881x364 x109mm. Weight: 5.9kg

78
 Roland System-8 | Reviews

THE PROS & CONS

+
Sounds stellar, covers
huge sonic territory
with well-thought-
out, hands-on control

Includes Juno-106
and Jupiter-8
Plug-Outs, plus the
ability to buy more

Solid sequencer
onboard, plus
plenty of versatile
FX, including the
famous Juno Chorus

-
Performance mode
doesnt store edits.
Practically a patch
reference directory

Sequencer has no
click-track. Arp has
no swing or gate
modes. No aftertouch

Plug-Outs are on
Roland Cloud, but
there are currently
no VST/AU versions

F
rom the TR-8 and TB-3
to the System-1 and
now the System-8,
Rolands acclaimed
ACB (Analog Circuit
Behaviour) technology
definitely delivers the
goods, capturing the essence of
Rolands classic analogues. Whilst the
System-1 (which I reviewed back in
2014) sounded great using its own
engine, it also gave us the first
glimpse of Rolands tasty Plug-Outs
(which could reside both in the synth
and on your computer).
Designed by the AIRA team (a
separate division within Roland), the
System-8 can be viewed as the
System-1s big brother and then some!
Its an eight-voice, ACB polysynth
with its own powerful native engine,
accompanied by three Plug-Out slots
into which you can place your choice
of any three Plug-Outs from the
Roland Content Store. The S-8 ships
with Plug-Out versions of the
Jupiter-8 and Juno-106, arguably
Rolands two most-loved polys. Weve
already heard these engines, (albeit at
lower resolution/polyphony) in the
Boutique JP-08 and JU-06 modules.
Built into an all-black plastic case
that closely follows the form-factor,
profile and build of the JD-XA
Crossover synth, the S-8 looks sleek
and feels solid, yet its very portable
and manageable for one person. Like
other AIRA products, the main control
panel is black brushed aluminium
(non-reflective), and all dials and
sliders are backlit with green
surrounds great for dark studios or
on stage. The backlighting system
can be dimmed to taste (unlike on
the XA), and the panel has been
cleverly designed so that only the
controls relevant to the engine or
Plug-Out being used are lit (so you
know where your sound or plug-out is
set). All dials feel tight and solid with
little-to-no wobble, and the rubberised
backlit selector buttons feel great in
use too (all this is in line with other
AIRA products). If you wish to
personalise your S-8 further, Roland
also offer wood and aluminium side
panels for an extra 49.99.
Roland are once again using their
49-note synth-action keybed from the
JD-XA (with slightly shorter keys),

79
Reviews | Roland System-8

THE AlTERNATiVES which feels positive and fast to play synth even without the Plug-Out The System-8s MIDI-syncable
but with a nice amount of resistance. options. Its duo-timbral and has two and super-accurate LFO goes into the
However, unlike the XA, theres no main modes (Patch and Performance), audio range and can be sent to filter,
aftertouch, so for real-time modulation with the main engine for the S-8 and amp and pitch simultaneously via
youll have to use the mod-bender or Plug-Outs running at 2-channel, three dedicated dials. While theres
the control pedal input. Assigning the 32-bit float, 44.1 to 192kHz. A Patch only one global LFO, that one LFO
Roland JD-XA mod-bender is straightforward, and is a single mono/unison/poly sound, does have two variation modes, with
1,499 the four sliders directly above control and a Performance allows splitting, Variation 2 adding a second stealth
Four-voice analogue/ the amount of pitch or filter change layering, and switching between any LFO to modulate the first, and
digital SuperNatural applied by the pitchbend or mod two sounds. Performance mode Variation 3 adding a resonant pulse
synth with 16 parts, lever. One notable here is that theres doesnt currently store sound tweaks, LFO. There are also six wave types on
49 keys with no dedicated Mod LFO as on the though, so if you select a bass from offer, including random and sample
aftertouch, JD-XA, so you cant have independent the S-8 engine and a pad from the and hold, so you get plenty from your
LFO, filter or amp speeds/settings for Juno Plug-Out then tweak the settings one modulating oscillator.
sequencer, deep
the mod lever. The pitchbend range and save the performance, those As for the main oscillators, the
customisable arp,
slider has no markings for semitones tweaks arent kept. Hopefully this will S-8 engine offers a versatile setup
powerful effects, on the panel so (for example), its hard be solved soon. capable of a huge range of tones,
splits, layers and to accurately set pitchbend range for
vocoder. +2 or -5, (+2 actually translates to
www.roland.com around 44 on the parameter display).
Otherwise, the interface is excellent,
patch selection is easy using the bank
While theres only one global
Nord lead 3
and number buttons, and its all very
intuitive with little menu diving.
LFO, that one LFO does have
500-900
used
The native S-8 engine has the
widest range of tweakable parameters two variation modes
on offer, and its a serious powerhouse
Like the S-8, this
oldie has a very
hands-on interface
and offers multiple
engines along with
some really unique PluggiNg-OuT!
filters. Still killer!
www.nordkeyboards. Rolands Plug-Out system allows you to purchase and import new engines into the three
com Plug-Out slots via your DAW (an SD card slot allows you to store extra patches too, but not
upload plug-outs). The improved Jupiter-8 and Juno-106 engines really do have the key
inherent characteristics of the original synths. The Jupiter-8 emulation is certainly a very
powerful synth, and it can sound close to the original, its the Juno Plug-Out that really
stands out in terms of authenticity and vibe. Both now have polyphony up to eight notes,
Vintage Jupiter-8 matching the original Jupiter and expanding on the original Juno. Having owned a
+ Juno-106 Juno-106, I honestly wouldnt spend the money on a vintage 106 again the S-8s take
10,000+ used on it is so close to the
If you were to buy a original and sounds
real Jupiter-8 and wonderful, without the
Juno-106 youd reliability headaches. Even
need a serious the Junos spectacular
amount of cash chorus sounds spot on,
and then youd still right down to the tweakable
need money in the noise, and can really
pot for upkeep, too, transform the Junos basic
making the S-8 sounds. My review unit
seem like a bargain! shipped with the SH-101
www.roland.com plug-out in slot 3 (which I
loved when I reviewed the
System-1) but you could
also add the excellent
Promars, SH-2 or System
100, turning the S-8 into a
completely different synth.

80
 Roland System-8 | Reviews

from future-electronic to classic

vintage, and it all sounds precise yet
warm and musical. There are three
ACB oscillators available, and Oscs 1
and 2 are identical, except that the
first has cross-modulation, compared
to Osc 2s ring mod and sync.
Under Variation 1, each oscillator
has six standard waveforms, Saw,
Square, Tri, and Super versions of
each. Variation 2, has a batch of six
more unusual waves including
NoiseSaw (a more gritty dual saw-type
sound), Logic (introduces aliasing at
extreme settings), FM and FM+Sync,
(its very easy to dial in classic linear
FM-like sounds), Vowel and Cowbell.
These are all indispensable additions
to the S-8s sonic arsenal.
The Colour dial (per-oscillator)
controls the defining character of
each wave type (PWM, shape etc) and
can be modulated by the pitch, amp
or filter envelopes, or via Osc 3 or the
LFO. Thats a very impressive
complement of sonic power, and all
without entering a menu! Osc3/Sub
really helps to thicken and underpin
sounds (it becomes the famous
Juno-106 sub when using the Juno
Plug-Out) and offers sine and triangle
waves at various pitches.
The filter system is similarly
versatile, with three variations. These
can sound very analogue or future-
digital, but always musical. Variation
one houses a self-oscillating LPF/HPF
(each with 12, 18 and 24dB slopes);
these modes sound great all-round for ARPEggIATOR: The simple but SEqUENCER BUTTONS: 16 TR-8 VOCODER/AUDIO IN: The vocoder is CHORD MODE & CONDITION:
pads, brass, leads, basses and FX handy arpeggiator has six basic -style buttons function as bank/patch capable of very intelligible results. You Hold Chord Mode to add up to eight
modes and six note divisions. buttons in Patch and Performance can route audio into the Input FX notes, then trigger it from any key.
(and the LPF produces great kicks The output of the arpeggiator can modes. In sequencer mode, they block, but this doesnt go through the Condition emulates the drift found in
also be recorded into the sequencer. become step buttons. filters, amp or envelopes. vintage analogues and works a treat.
using the self-oscillating resonance).
Variation two houses six SideBand
filter variations, which allow you to
highlight or remove areas within your envelope would have been great, but but then again, the S-8 is more synth admission. Throw in the Juno, Jupiter,
sound. Sending the LFO to the filter, then the sequencer does record knob than workstation. Nevertheless, four the audio interface/CV capabilities,
then band-tweaking via resonance tweaks with or without notes, so there parts (a part per engine) would have the sequencer, a decent vocoder (plus
works particularly well here. is a way to live without one. been ideal. audio inputs with dedicated FX) and
System-1s Low-Pass Filter is also The sequencer, by the way, (step For a final touch, there are three its hard not to be impressed!
present, plus theres keytracking, or real-time) is a very intuitive blocks of simple but great-sounding
amount to envelope, and a separate scratchpad and ideas generator, and effects. The first block features
High-Pass Filter with a high cutoff its polyphonic as well, so if you want overdrive, distortion, bitcrusher, metal
resolution. Theres loads of filtering to to record up to eight single lines or a and fuzz; while the second block FM VERDICT

get your teeth into, and some really
unique textures are possible,
especially with the SideBand filters.
No synth is complete without
envelopes, and the System-8s are
punchy and tight, suitable for
anything from slow fading pads to
super-snappy drums. Theres an
ADSR for the filter and the amp (both
are velocity sensitive), and also a
two-stage pitch envelope for detailed
time-based pitch-sculpting. A mod
mixture of chords and singles lines,
the S-8 makes that childsplay. There
are various scale and quantise values,
shuffle, first/last step, key trigger and
playback modes including random and
invert, plus forward/reverse settings
(although it misses keyboard-led
transposition and a click track).
As the S-8 is two-part
multitimbral, you can only use or
address two sounds simultaneously,
whether internally or over MIDI
9.0
features great delay and modulation
effects such as chorus and flanging;
and the third showcases reverbs. The
effects are all of excellent quality and
musical throughout, though the reverb
is fairly metallic without shaving the
tops in the menu system. You can
also record your FX tweaks into the
The System-8 covers a vast
sequencer, too, which is great. sonic territory with superb
To conclude, based on this flexibility from vintage
excellent native engine alone, the Roland tones to futuristic
System-8 is well worth the price of sounds, it truly delivers.

81
Reviews | Teenage Engineering PO-32 Tonic

INCLUDES
AUDIO

Teenage Engineering
PO-32 Tonic 85
Teenage team up with fellow Swedes Sonic Charge for a drum
synth with a unique trick up its sleeve. Si Truss investigates
CONTACT WHO: Teenage Engineering WEB: www.teenageengineering.com KEY FEATURES A 16 sound drum synth featuring 16 performance
effects and a 16-step sequencer. Features include built-in speaker, battery power (2x AAA), pulse clock sync, alarm clock and Parameter Lock automation. Can
receive sounds and patterns from Sonic Charge MicroTonic (sold separately)

82
 Teenage Engineering PO-32 Tonic | Reviews

THE PROS & CONS

+
Comes stocked with
quality, characterful
drum synth sounds

Performance effects
are great instant
90s IDM!

Can easily be loaded

with fresh sounds
created in the
MicroTonic plug-in

-
Patterns and sounds
cant be sent back
into MicroTonic

Workflow is a little
fiddly and unclear

Requires a separate
purchase of
MicroTonic to get
the most out of it
The effects are fun to play
with and capable of quickly
conjuring up glitchy sounds
akin to classic 90s IDM
can be loaded with fresh sounds and of sounds or send creations to
patterns created using the plug-in, friends. Its possible to make
allowing users to completely alter transfers via a wired connection too,
and overwrite its sonic palette. by connecting a computer or PO

T
he PO-32 Tonic
is the seventh
addition to Teenage
Engineerings range
of compact, battery-
powered Pocket
Operator grooveboxes.
As with previous iterations, this PO
packs 16 sounds, 16 performance
effects and a 16-step sequencer into
an exposed-looking hardware unit
slightly larger than a credit card.
However, where previous POs have
been limited to a pre-defined range
of sounds, this one is capable of a
broader sound palette via some
clever cross-platform compatibility.
This flexibility is thanks to the
fact that the PO-32 has been created
in collaboration with Swedish
developer Sonic Charge. The PO-32
takes both the Tonic part of its
name and the basis for its sound
engine from Sonic Charges
MicroTonic a software drum
synthesizer first released over a
decade ago. The primary upshot of
this is that, as well as coming
stocked with an array of sounds
created using MicroTonic, the PO-32
This loading of sounds is made
possible by the addition of a small
microphone to the PO hardware
itself. Information is transferred from
plug-in to hardware as sound using
the harsh, tinny audio-data signals
synonymous with old dial-up internet
connections. To make a transfer, put
the PO-32 into receive mode, hold
its mic close to a studio monitor or
computer speaker and let the retro
protocol do its stuff. As the PO
features a built-in speaker, its also
possible to use the same method to
transfer data from one unit to
another, allowing users to clone a set
output to the POs input jack which
is fortunate, as a few transfers will
inevitably be enough to remind most
users that the sound of dial-up
internet was actually fairly irritating.
Even ignoring the transfer
capabilities, the PO-32 has a lot
going for it. MicroTonic remains a
quality drum synth (see MicroTonic),
and its capabilities have been put to
good use in stocking the PO-32 with
factory sounds. The 16 sounds span
bass-heavy kicks, fizzy white-noise
hats, crunch snares and plenty of
more esoteric, synthesized
percussive sounds.

83
Reviews | Teenage Engineering PO-32 Tonic

THE ALTERNATIVES As with the previous POs, each

sound can be manipulated by a pair
of parameter knobs. Here, these
control the sounds pitch and
MicroTonics morphing capabilities.
The latter of these allows each sound
to smoothly transition between two
pre-defined parameter set-ups,
Teenage effectively meaning that each sound
Engineering slot can contain two different drum
PO-12 Rhythm sounds and a whole range of
49 variations between the two. The POs
Parameter Lock capability allows the
The original PO
movement of these two knobs to be
drum machine now automated on a per-step basis too.
retails for around As is true of all the POs, the
50, which makes it performance effects are the real star
a bargain source of of the show here. The effects
inspiring drum loops. themselves cover rhythmic filtering,
www.teenage delayed fade outs, lo-fi and distortion
engineering.com effects, beat repeats and more.
Theyre a lot of fun to play around
with and are capable of quickly
conjuring up glitchy, stuttering
sounds akin to classic 90s IDM. INPUT The input jack can SEQUENCER Labelling of the POWER As with all the Pocket
MicroTonic compatibility aside, receive audio and sync messages POs sequencer isnt the clearest Operators, the PO-32 runs on a
at the same time. It can also be but once youve read the manual pair of AAA batteries. An auto-off
the workflow of the PO-32 is much used for sound uploads. its fairly straightforward to use. feature lengthens battery life.
Arturia the same as the other POs. As with
DrumBrute those, theres a lot of Shift presses
379 involved to accommodate so much
Arturias excellent functionality into a fairly limited This is all forgivable though, given instrument, but the PO-32 is more
drum synth is range of controls. A small screen the PO-32s portability and price. capable than its disposable
offers some visual feedback As before, the PO-32 features a appearance might suggest. The
well-equipped for
numerical bpm and shuffle settings, few tricks that allow it to integrate MicroTonic compatibility adds to its
its price but still
position of the two parameter knobs into a larger studio set-up. It can creative scope considerably too. Its
remains very and a digital alarm clock but send and receive a pulse clock a slight shame transfers arent
much affordable. screen real estate is mostly signal, allowing it to act as a master bi-directional; the ability to send
www.arturia.com dedicated to a cartoonish animation, or slave when hooked up to other sounds and patterns back into the
and on the whole it serves more of pulse compatible gear, such as other plug-in for deeper editing and DAW
an aesthetic than a functional POs, Korgs Volca range, Arturias processing would really enhance its
purpose. Labelling of the controls analogue hardware or a simple pulse potential. Hopefully this might be
isnt too clear either, meaning that signal sent from an audio interface. something its possible to implement
youll want to memorise the manual Its still a long way from being a in a future update though. Detractors

Korg Volca to get the most out of the PO-32. properly integrated studio will still write this latest PO off as a
toy no doubt, but the PO-32 sounds
Kick 139 great and, even if just as an
The Volca Kicks inspirational source to sample, loop
synthesis remit is and churn out toplines, at 85 its
more narrow than worth the price of admission.
the PO-32s but MICROTONIC
again its surprisingly
well-equipped for Despite being fairly old in plug-in terms the current
its price. iteration, version 3, arrived in 2011 MicroTonic FM VERDICT

8.4
www.korg.com remains a powerful and well-designed drum synth. It
features eight drum channels (compared to the POs 16
sound slots), each of which offers noise and oscillator
sections for building sounds, along with various mixer,
distortion and EQing tools. A morphing function allows
users to set and transition between two different The PO-32 is a fun and
iterations of each sound, a feature which is carried inspiring noise-maker and
across to the PO-32. Theres a sequencer too, which can the added MicroTonic
send patterns to its hardware counterpart. compatibility broadens its
sonic scope considerably.

84
Reviews | Waldorf kb37 Keyboard

Waldorf kb37 775

Its a 37-key keyboard with room for 107
HPs worth of Eurorack modules built in!
Bruce Aisher drops in a few of his most
cherished modules and gets plugging

CONTACT WHO: Waldorf (Hand In Hand Distribution) WEB: waldorf-music.info handinhand.uk.net

KEY FEATURES 37-keys keyboard with aftertouch, pitchbend wheel, modulation wheel and glide
control, Stereo audio inputs with volume control for line output. Headphones output with separate
9 Control Voltage and 3 Trigger outputs: USB and MIDI In/Out, Thru + Sustain pedal and Sensor inputs.

86
 Waldorf kb37 Keyboard | Reviews

THE PROS & CONS

+
Plenty of CV output
options controllable
from the keyboard,
built-in wheels, sensor
and via MIDI CC.

Clock output can

run from internal
or external clock.

Built-in Arpeggiator
is fun and useful
(and can generate
MIDI notes as

T
well as CV/Gate).

-
here appears to be no
slowing in the race to
modular nirvana, and
Waldorf are certainly
Some synth modules will
not going to be left
out. In recent months,
only require the audio The price is high
considering you also
theyve introduced a
range of Eurorack modules catering to be connected before have to budget for
modules to control.

getting up and running

for host of generation and processing
duties, but its the kb37 that is
perhaps the most intriguing. The
concept is simple: build a modular
rack into a keyboard. This, of course,
begs a question why havent we
seen more of these?
The modular concept has seen
increasing interest in a number of
areas of the music technology
landscape. 500-series module racks
for audio processing can now be
found built directly into mixing desk
designs, and modular synthesis has
exploded with hundreds of small-
scale producers and numerous
DIYers getting in on the game.
Thats all well and good, but unless
you use a rack-based sequencer,
most of the time the modules are
separate from any physical
controller but what if you want to
that your current stock is compatible
before taking the plunge.
Below this is the keyboard, with
its 37 full-size keys. This feels nice to
play and also generates velocity and
aftertouch information.
Modules draw power (up to 1.5A)
from the standard Doepfer-style
backplane, which (by default) has
its CV and Gate lines linked to the
onboard CV interface. This means
that some synth modules will only
require the audio to be connected
before getting up and running. The
small audio panel on the extreme
right has two audio inputs that route
sound to the back-panel jack and
It would have been
great to have
included a drum
input on the rear). Throw in an trigger module in the
arpeggiator, Glide control and CV/Gate section.
multiple note trigger modes and
youre almost done.
The kb37 is a very nicely
designed piece of kit and helps
turn a bunch of modules into a
self-contained playable synthesis
system. However, at nearly
800 before even beginning to
add any of the all-important
modules to the bill it represents
a serious investment.
FM VERDICT

perform live or create your own
immediately playable system?
Waldorf think they have the answer.
At its heart, the kb37 features a
large empty space where you can
place your choice (up to 107HP) of
Eurorack toys. Maximum module
depth is 65mm, though the rightmost
15HP has only 25mm of clearance.
The kb37 should therefore
accommodate most modules,
although it would be worth checking
7.9
front-panel headphone socket. Each
of these gets its own volume control.
At the other end, the CV Panel
deals with the other aspect of
interfacing, and there are enough
outputs here to keep most people
happy. Alongside the expected
A great idea thats nicely
Gate and Pitch CV, you also get
Clock outs (from the internal clock
thought-out and well
generator, or via MIDI/USB clock) implemented, the only
as well as a wide range of other thing holding the kb37
control sources (including the sensor back is its high price tag.

87
Reviews | Roli Blocks

Roli Blocks from 170

The Seaboard creators aim their expressive controller technology
at the mass market. Si Truss goes for a spin around the block

CONTACT WHO: Roli WEB: roli.com KEY FEATURES Music making system based around the MPE (multidimensional Polyphonic Expression)
equipped Lightpad Block, suplemented by Loop and Live Blocks. Powered by free Noise app for iOS. Free Dashboard app allows general MIDI configuration.
PRICING: Lightpad Block: 169.95 Loop Block: 69.95 Live Block: 69.95. Loop/Live Blocks can not be used without at least one Lightpad Block.

88
 Roli Blocks | Reviews

THE PROS & CONS

+
Lightpad Block is
a solid, innovative
control surface

The actual sounds

contained in Noise
are high quality

Dashboard offers
plenty of potential
for those willing to
put the effort in

-
Noise app is severely
lacking in terms
of pro features

Third-party control
requires considerable
assignment and
setup time
assortment of controls for transport,
BPM and quantise settings.
Loop and Live The studio element of Blocks
Blocks have little use comes in the form of an iOS app,
away from Noise Noise. Noise is a free app available
whether you own the hardware or
not. It offers preset drums and
instruments with more available to
purchase in-app, including signature
packs from Steve Aoki and RZA.
Owning Blocks hardware unlocks a
number of extra sound packs too.
Unfortunately, as a self-contained
ecosystem, Blocks reliance on Noise
is its downfall. Noise is, if were
being generous, a mixed bag. On the
positive side, the actual sounds it
Beyond that, though, Noise begins to
feel painfully limited.
Projects are constricted to a set
division of one drum kit and three
instruments, and while each of these
slots can be filled by any preset,
theres nothing in the way of
customisation. Theres no way to mix
and match sounds within a drum kit,
for example, and while sounds can
be tweaked by dragging a finger
around the Lightpad interface, none
of these parameters are labelled and
theres no way to tailor drum sounds
for yourself. Moreover, at the time of
writing, there are countless serious
music making features missing.

L
ondon-based company
Roli have risen to
prominence over the
past few years with
their Seaboard range;
a unique take on the
traditional piano format
that offers string-like expression via
Multidimensional Polyphonic
Expression (MPE) technology. Their
latest product, Blocks, is an attempt
to incorporate the same technology
into a more affordable package
So what is Blocks? Roli call it a
modular music studio. The modular
contains are strong; the instruments
part of this tagline refers to the three are powered by Rolis impressive
hardware elements that can be Equator sound engine, while the
purchased and used in a mix-and- sampled drum kits are punchy,
match manner. The central element characterful and well produced.
is the Lightpad Block, a rectangular, Playing a single preset instrument
rubber-topped control surface using the Lightpads MPE surface is
incorporating MPE technology so it fun and expressive, allowing various
can be played using a variety of preset sonic parameters to be
expressive gestures. This can be manipulated via pressure, slide,
supplemented by the Live and Loop velocity and aftertouch gestures. The
Blocks, which are button-based apps Scale, Chord and Arp modes
controllers the former handles are nicely implemented, particularly
Scale, Arp and Chord modes for when used in conjunction with the
the instrument controlled by the Live block, which makes a neat tool
Lightpad, while the second offers an for inspiring melodic patterns.
Theres no audio/project export and
no inter-app audio or audiobus
support, meaning that the only way
to get your creations out of the app
is to share your work online with
other users via the Noise website or
record from your devices headphone
jack (assuming it still has one!)
Theres no overdubbing either.
Recorded a beat loop but decided
youd like to add another element
over the top? Your only option is to
start from scratch and attempt to
finger drum the whole thing in one
go. Further still, Noise has no way to
edit loop lengths, no pattern copy/

89
Reviews | Roli Blocks

THE ALTERNATIVES paste, no mixer, no mute, no solo,

no sync capabilities, no built-in
effects the list goes on. The result
is a system that feels more like a
technology demo than something
designed for actual music makers.
Korg Gadget Fortunately, the arrival of
& nanoKey Dashboard currently in public beta
Studio does address this somewhat.
39 & 124 Dashboard is a desktop application
Another wireless allowing the hardware to be
configured as a general MIDI
app/control combo.
controller. It contains a variety of
The nanoKey cant
pre-made set-ups configuring the
match Blocks for Lightpad as a playing surface, drum
expression, but pad, fader bank and even a couple of
Gadget is stocked basic video games. Users can create
with a wealth of setups using C++ coding too.
sounds and offers far While this opens up the potential
superior workflow of the Blocks hardware considerably,
and DAW integration. Dashboard merely controls the MIDI
www.korg.com messages outputted via the hardware,
meaning that users still need to set
up mapping themselves in their
chosen plugin or DAW. While there
are some applications that already
accept MPE MIDI Bitwig, Kontakt
Roli Seaboard and Omnisphere to name a few
Rise 25 649 even in these situations, setup is
If the innovation of hardly plug-and-play. In most
MPE is appealing scenarios a fair amount of assignment
and customisation is required. Its LIGHTPAD BLOCK An adaptive LIVE BLOCK The Live Block can LOOP BLOCK The Loop Block
and youre sold on rubber surface that allows toggle Scales, Arp types, Chords, offers transport controls,
worth noting too that with Dashboard multi-dimensional control and has a hold-down Sustain metronome on/off, record
the sounds of of drums and instruments. button for use with the Lightpad. quanitse and sound selection.
the Loop and Live Blocks merely
Equator, the
offer on/off buttons, and none of
cheapest of Rolis their Noise functionality is carried
Rise controller range over unless users set this up in
is a much better software for themselves. inexperienced music maker, while controlling purposed-built sounds,
purchase, despite Max or Reaktor power users or Dashboard lacks the immediacy to the Lightpad is a great controller.
the higher price. C++ coders are likely to be the ones hold the attention of casual users. It needs to be unshackled from the
www.roli.com who get the most out of Dashboard. Does this mean Blocks is a write weak framework of Noise, and
The average producer, however, is off? Not necessarily. The idea of a possibly from iOS reliance altogether.
still underserved Noise is too portable, accessible MPE controller If Roli bundled Blocks with a desktop
shallow to appeal to all but the most is definitely appealing, and when version of Equator, or FXpansion
Strobe, and threw in some third-
party mappings, then it could be a
great control system. As it is, it feels
like an interesting proposition wasted
by confused implementation.
CONNECT, CLIP AND CHARGE

Each of the Blocks hardware elements is wireless,

connecting to a computer or iOS device via Bluetooth. FM VERDICT

6.7
Every element is equipped with magnetic metal
connectors, allowing the Blocks to snap together.
This connection isnt strong enough to keep multiple
Blocks together firmly when being held by hand, but it
will keep them in place together on a desktop. These
connectors also allow several to be charged from a single Blocks is an interesting
USB connection to a central Lightpad. Dashboard can hardware concept, but
also interface with the Blocks over USB, which allows it its currently severely
to be used with non-Bluetooth equipped systems. underserved by poor
software implementation

90
FM | ROUND-UP
UAD 9.1 Plug-Ins
In the latest round of UAD plug-ins theres an overhaul
to the Moog filter emulation, the sound of a rare French
hardware processor is mined, SSLs classic E Channel
Strip is updated and Brainworx provide a Subharmonic BX_Subsynth Subharmonic
Synthesizer 115
Synth generator and add to UADs line of amps Since the 70s, the DBX 120XP
Subharmonic Synthesizer has been a
go-to choice for Dance musicians
and DJs looking to add extra punch,
weight, definition and power to the
bottom-end of mixes, finding
FM | MUST HAVE!
particular favour amongst the early
Disco scene. Effectively, the 120XP
worked by adding a synthesized
waveform an octave below the
fundamental frequency of the source
signal. Produced by Brainworx for
UAD, the Subsynth Subharmonic
Synthesizer builds on the legacy of
that processor. The addition of a
mid-side matrix is welcome, allowing
enhanced control over the bass-
boosting effect. The main event here
is the central Sub module though,
which adds bass using modelled
waveform synthesis. This processor
wont only enhance kicks and basses
its just as happy adding weight to
entire mixes at the mastering stage.
www.uaudio.com

VERDICT 8.5
Moog Multimode Filter
Collection 189
UAD return to the modelling of the most classic synth filter of all time
with the Moog Multimode Filter Collection, led by the new XL plug-in.
This models the entire signal chain of the Moog filter, with Input Drive,
Envelope staging, twin clock-able LFOs, a resonant multimode Filter,
and a dedicated output stage. But the most exciting addition to the
interface is a multi-parameter Step Sequencer. Click the start button to
get this running and then the Edit button to enter four lanes of pattern- UAD OTO Biscuit 8-bit
based step modulation, with Filter Cutoff, Resonance, Input Drive and Effects 189
Output volume all offering positive or inverted assignments. This Regular UAD collaborator Softube
offer a fascinating take on the
means you can take any source signal and give it the full Moog filter cult-classic OTO Biscuit. The
treatment. Sumptuous. hardware original which was first
www.uaudio.com released by French outfit OTO back
in 2011 is seen as something of a
VERDICT 9.1 secret show-stealer among many in

92
 Round-Up | Reviews

the EDM community. The original

processor offers bitcrushing, FM | STUDIO ESSENTIAL!
analogue multimode filtering,
pitchshifting, waveshaping and more
and each of its capabilities has been
modelled here. Control layout is kept
simple: users can increase input
Drive, then balance the original input
source and its processed version,
using Naked and Dressed dials,
while coloured LEDs toggle between
low, high and band-pass filter modes
and sculpt lo-fi bitcrushing effects.
Then you can add movement via the
four-mode effects section, using the
buttons below the display area.
These allows users to switch between
Waveshaping, Delay, Pitchshifting or
Step-Sequenced Filtering. Sonically,
this effect morphs beautifully from
the sublime to the ridiculous. For
owners of the hardware sorry, but
the secrets out. As for the
uninitiated this is one to try!
www.uaudio.com

UAD SSL E Channel Strip

VERDICT 8.6

Collection 229
UAD Fuchs Overdrive
UADs new take on the SSL E Channel Strip
Supreme 50 115 offers a comprehensive update of its previous
incarnation; owners will find that in downloading
UADs amp emulation plug-in roster
gets a boost thanks to Brainworxs
emulation of Fuchs Overdrive
Supreme 50. The original amp was the 9.1 version, its predecessor is retained (for
itself based on the infamous
Overdrive Special amps built by
project compatibility) with legacy added as a
Howard Alexander Dumble. Now a
sought-after bit of kit in its own
suffix. UAD promise that a thorough, end-to-end
right, the popularity of the Fuchs
amp is in part due to its flexibility,
remodelling of the original hardware has gone
with Brite, Deep and Rock/Jazz into this upgrade and it certainly sounds like it;
toggle switches at the top
significantly changing its character. the overall sound is clearer, punchier and more
These are joined by a three-band EQ
section, for further sculpting of the responsive, with Brown and Black EQ/filtering
amp tone. Brainworxs FX Rack is
included too. This lets you further options available via a single switch. Better still,
enhance the rich array of tones with
extra effects including a noise gate,
this update offers Unison technology, meaning that
filters and Power Soak circuit. 82
Recording chain set-ups are
for those with supporting hardware, you can track
available, offering multiple
combinations of mic and cabinet.
through the E Channel Strip. UADs emulation of
The amp is Unison-ready too. this console legend takes some beating.
www.uaudio.com www.uaudio.com

VERDICT 8.2 VERDICT 8.8

93
Reviews | UA Apollo Twin MkII

Universal Audio
Apollo Twin MkII
from 590
The Apollo Twin MkII is not just a pretty
new face, as Jono Buchanan discovers
CONTACT WHO: Universal Audio WEB: www.uaudio.com KEY FEATURES Desktop 2x6
Thunderbolt interface for Mac/Windows, 24-bit/192kHz audio conversion, UAD-2 Quad, Duo, or Solo Core
Processing, talkback mic, improved monitor functionality 2 mic/line preamps; 2 line outs; front-panel Hi-Z
instrument in and headphone out, 8 channels of additional input via Optical TOSLINK connection,

94

I
ts easy to forget that as the
digital division of Universal
Audio UAD continues to add
to its roster of award-winning
plug-in emulations, the
companys origins were founded
on the hardware designs of Bill
Putnam. Alongside the recording
channels and dynamics processors
that Universal Audio continue to sell
today, equally well known among its
hardware ranks are the Apollo audio
interfaces. These Thunderbolt-
enabled boxes for Mac and PC
balance high-quality audio
conversion with two killer unique
selling points. Firstly, UAD plug-ins
are powered from the Apollos
onboard DSP, taking the load away
from your computers CPU. Secondly,
through Unison technology, you can
track through some of the most
coveted hardware emulations of all
time, with near-zero latency. So,
what does the latest addition to the
Apollo line-up offer?
The original Apollo Twin was
launched in early January 2014 and
it remains the most compact of the
Apollo interfaces. The 24-bit/
192kHz MkII offers the same two-in/
six-out I/O configuration and broadly
retains the same shape and feel,
albeit the unit is now a darker colour,
to match its big brothers in the
Apollo range. The Twins front edge
offers a Hi-Z instrument input and
the headphone output, while the rear
panel provides two Unison-enabled
microphone/line inputs. These have
increased dynamic range over their
predecessors and are a direct match
for the Unison-enabled preamps of
the Apollo 8, 8p and 16 interfaces.
There are twin stereo outputs,
primarily to drive two pairs of
monitors, while an ADAT input offers
eight channels of further audio input
routing. The Twin MkII can act as a
front-end for a larger Apollo system:
you can daisy-chain up to four Apollo
interfaces using Thunderbolt with
the Twins main rotary dial acting as
a monitor controller for the entire
system. Indeed, this can extend
further yet; as two further UAD
devices can be added, if you own
Satellite or UAD-2 PCIe cards, a
monstrously powerful system can
be configured.
The buttons on the Twin MkIIs
upper panel now have dual
functionality. In addition to
configuring the units preamps for
recording, you can now access
UA Apollo Twin MkII | Reviews
THE PROS & CONS
+
The Quad Core
Apollo Twin MkII is
the most powerful
portable interface
from UA ever
Extended monitoring
and talkback
capabilities
Included software
bundle offers a good
range of classic
hardware emulations
-
There is fierce
competition and
some rivals
interfaces are
considerably cheaper
The Twin MkII brings its
capabilities in line with the
rest of the Apollo range
Monitoring functions too, routing and (up to) a Quad processing card,
sound to the Alt Monitor outputs, as this is one of the best-sounding and
well as accessing the Talkback mic, most powerful compact Thunderbolt
alongside Dim and Mono monitoring interfaces money can buy.
options. Buying a Twin entitles users
to the Realtime Analog Classics
bundle of UAD-2 effects, so youll
be able to run emulations of 1176 FM VERDICT
9.1
and LA2A dynamics processors,
Pultec EQ, the UA 610-B channel
strip for Unison-enabled recordings,
alongside a raft of other effects,
including amps and reverbs. Of
course, any of the other UAD plug-in
titles can be added whenever you
With sumptuous AD/DA
wish to make additional purchases.
The Apollo Twin MkII brings its
conversion, increased
capabilities in line with the rest of monitoring capabilities and
the Apollo range and, coupled to enhanced preamps, the
Unison-enabled recording channels Apollo Twin MkII is a winner.
95
FM | group test

1 Boss RC-202
Loop Station
TC Electronic
Ditto X4 Looper
2 299
210

Looping
Tools
The array of formats for looping tools
has exploded from tiny one button/knob
pedals to full workstations, with flash
memory and MIDI/USB connectivity
expanding looping integration. We look at
five options for desktop, floor and hand
96

This desktop option will be
3 TC Helicon
VoiceLive
1 at home in the studio, in a
synth/FX set-up or beside
Touch 2 410 turntables. The I/O is fully stocked
for instrument/line (mono or stereo),
mic input, Aux minijack input, USB
and MIDI. The display may be the
small LED type, but the RC-202
controls light up like a Christmas
tree for instant feedback of the
effects, dual loop controls, and
memory management (~three hours
record time). Its easy to operate
straight out of the box but a proper
delve into the manual unlocks an
impressive array of parameters.
boss.info
VerDICt 9.0
The stereo I/O Ditto X4 is
2 built for the pedal board.
The dual looping controls
are spartan but flexible. The seven
FX processes are straightforward
(half/2x speed, reverse, tape stop
and more), accessible by a knob and
footswitch, and can be layered on a
loop. The playback loop options
cover all bases, with MIDI In adding
Sonuus Loopa
119
4 external sync. USB connectivity is
available for loop import/export, and
with five minutes available for each
loop some comprehensive backing
can be loaded in (the memory is
held when powered off). The TC
quality, including hard bypass, is
hard to beat.
tcelectronic.com
VerDICt 8.6
Equally at home on mic
3 stands and desktops,
theres an awful lot going on
behind the VoiceLive Touch 2s LCD
display and touch-sensitive control
panel. Its easy to dive straight into,
5 Electro-Harmonix
22500 Stereo
but does require the dedicated
learning youd expect for over 400.
Looper 234 It packs in a high-quality signal path,
FX engine (nine simultaneous
FM VerDICt
BEST OVERALL: The Boss RC-202 with its full
set of looping/sound manipulation tools, easy
interface and comprehensive I/O options.
BEST VALUE: As a stage and studio tool, the EHX
22500 comes loaded with all the features needed
for a variety of sources and uses.
Group Test | Reviews
effects) and looping tool set, backed
with exhaustive I/O (MIDI, USB,
stereo aux input, guitar in/thru and
more). The sound quality and effects
range are impressive, and the control
surface makes navigation and editing
a breeze. Highlights for the vocalist
include harmonisation, choir backing
effect, the auto-tune and sweepable
filter via the ribbon control. The
Rolls-Royce of vocal looping.
tc-helicon.com
VerDICt 8.9
The Loopa is the simplest,
4 cheapest and lightest tool
here. Powered by a single
AA battery, it boasts two buttons, a
volume control (loop) and a power
switch, and visual feedback comes
via a light ring below the head mesh.
The mic sounds good, though a little
lacking in headroom. The undo/redo
function lets you build layers that
can be switched in/out to make up a
performance (15 undo levels); record
time is >13 minutes. Its easy to use,
and for vocalists it can be a serious
tool for performance/composition.
sonuus.com
VerDICt 8.0
This dual loop pedal is a
5 formidable performance
tool for instrumentalists,
producers and vocalists alike, thanks
to stereo I/O, mic input (with +48v),
SDHC storage (8GB supplied) and
USB (loop importing/exporting).
What it lacks in effects (octave up/
down and reverse only) it makes up
for in looping/recording controls. The
inbuilt rhythm facility can be
augmented with imported loops. Its
a quality looper pedal in sound,
flexibility and build but does require
some deep manual munching.
ehx.com
VerDICt 8.7
97
Reviews | Audio-Technica AE2300

Audio-Technica
AE2300 249
Can this little dynamic microphone do
justice to high-SPL sources with such
a small footprint, asks Jon Musgrave

CONTACT WHO: Audio-Technica TEL: +44 (0)113 277 1441 WEB: www.eu.audio-technica.com
KEY FEATURES Length: 95.6mm, Diameter: 28mm, Weight:138g, Frequency Range: 60Hz
to 20kHz, Polar Pattern: Cardioid, Low Pass Filter: 6dB/octave at 6kHz, Sensitivity: 1.4 mV/Pa

98

T
he Audio-Technica
AE2300 is a cardioid
dynamic instrument
mic and the latest
addition to Audio
Technicas long-
established Artist
Elite series. In terms of design, its
not as fancy as their own dual capsule
instrument mics (the AE2500 and
ATM250DE), but is better equipped
than their regular ATM250 or
ATM230 instrument dynamics,
as reflected in the mid price point.
The AE2300 is a broad-
application high-SPL cardioid
design, so should be ideal for
percussion, drums, guitar amps and
brass. Its also pretty compact (less
then 10cm long), so is perfect for
discreet use in a live environment.
The weighty brass casing and top
grille feel robust, and the screw-tight
rubberised clip should see off any
wandering drum sticks while
providing some mechanical isolation.
Overall, its a beautifully designed
and manufactured mic.
The proprietary double-dome
diaphragm improves high-frequency
and transient response. The off-axis
frequency response is also
reasonably linear up to 120 degrees,
and not bad even at 180 degrees
off-axis, which could certainly be
beneficial when setting up a
multi-miked drum kit.
The highs and the lows
Sonically, the AE2300 is voiced to
provide a mid-to-high-presence lift
peaking just above 5kHz, and also
has a small air lift at around
14kHz. In practice this is great on
both percussion and drums, bringing
out the attack, and on the face of it
does a similar job to a Shure SM57.
Nevertheless, I put the two mics up
side by side and the AE2300 sounds
more precise in its midrange lift
while capturing more high frequency
air, and overall on exactly the same
instruments they do sound noticeably
different. The AE2300 also has more
going on in the low frequencies than
an SM57, and only shows noticeable
tail off from about 80Hz. This makes
it great for capturing the full
frequency of lower pitched toms for
example, and on an electric guitar
cab those low frequencies are also
very welcome, even if one chooses to
curtail them later.
There are situations where the
extended high-frequency response
Audio-Technica AE2300 | Reviews
THE PROS & CONS
+
Compact stylish
design ideal
for live use
Tailored frequency
response with mid
and high boosts
Optional low-pass
filter to help curtail
excess high
frequencies at source
Rubberised screw
tight clip for
secure mounting
-
Reasonably pricey
for a dynamic mic
Small size precludes
It has more going on in use as a handheld
the low frequencies than
an SM57, and only shows
noticeable tail-off from 80Hz
may not be ideal, and with that in typically battle on for years with
mind, the AE2300 also includes a no maintenance requirements, so it
switchable 6dB/octave low-pass should provide good value in the
filter. This is set at 6kHz, which long run.
does a good job of sucking the life
from percussion. Even so, in a
lively recording space, or if youre
trying to minimise high-frequency FM VERDICT
8.8
spill (cymbals and hi-hats for
example), its great to have the
option. I even found that the
low-pass filter worked quite well on
a guitar cab, as it shifted the focus
slightly more into the midrange.
Overall, the AE2300 is a
It doesnt come cheap,
fantastic mic, and although its small
but the AE2300s attractive
size makes it unsuitable for use as a
handheld, in other respects its more
design, compact footprint
versatile than the army of vocal and supreme build quality
dynamics typically used on make it an incredibly
instruments. It certainly isnt cheap, desirable instrument mic for
but well made dynamic mics both live and studio use.
99
Reviews | iZotope Neutron

iZotope Neutron
from 155
The latest from the Ozone creators
packs an automatic Track Assistant.
Si Truss asks if its too good to be true

CONTACT WHO: iZotope (via Time & Space) WEB: www.timespace.com

KEY FEATURES PROCESSORS: EQ, Compressor, Limiter, Exciter, Transient Shaper,
Surround Sound (Neutron Advanced only) PRICING: Neutron Standard 155, Neutron Advanced 235

100

T
he past few years
have seen a
noticeable trend
towards intelligent
mixing and mastering
tools. Into this fray
enters iZotopes
Neutron, a suite of mixing processors
enhanced by a Track Assistant tool,
which analyses an audio signal and
presents the user with a tailor-made
channel strip. While this might
sound like heresy, iZotope are quick
to point out that Neutron isnt
intended to replace your carefully
honed mixing skills. Rather, the idea
behind Track Assistant is to present
the user with an intelligently
designed preset from which to build.
Even without taking into account
Track Assistant, Neutron is a quality
suite of mixing tools. It offers five
processor slots, each of which can
be filled with any one of Neutrons
effects modules. These include an
EQ, compressors, exciter, limiter and
transient shaper. The plug-in is
available in Standard and Advanced
editions, the latter adding a 7.1
surround sound tool to the mix
and allowing the processors to be
used standalone.
Anybody whos used iZotopes
Ozone will find themselves on
familiar turf, both in terms of the
plug-in layout and the general quality
of the processors. Each of Neutrons
tools holds up as a solid effect in
its own right, going beyond mere
vanilla processing to offer a variety
Each of Neutrons tools
holds up as a solid
effect in its own right
of modern and advanced features,
including dynamic EQ, multiband
compression and transient shaping,
and four flavours of saturation from
the exciter module.
Arguably the most useful of
Neutrons tools is its masking meter,
which offers a simple visual tool for
identifying overlapping frequencies.
With Neutron placed across multiple
tracks within a session, a dropdown
menu allows the EQ settings and
spectral analysis of tracks to be
compared one above the other, with
Neutron highlighting the busy
frequency areas. Its a very useful
tool for identifying frequency bloat.
As for the Track Assistant itself,
results are undeniably impressive
although far from infallible. The
algorithm almost always did a very
impressive job of serving up a well
tailored starting point from which
to shape the source material. In
most situations I did find myself
tweaking this to taste, so a decent
level of mixing knowledge is
recommended to get the most out
of Neutron, in order to know when
and how to override these
iZotope Neutron | Reviews
THE PROS & CONS
+
Track Assistant is a
quick source of tailor-
made mixing presets
Masking meter is
very handy for
identifying bloated
or busy frequencies
Each processor is a
well-specd mixing
tool in its own right
Still requires a
solid grasp of
mixing theory and
experience to get
the most out of it
automated decisions. The well-
designed UI makes tweaking an easy
process though; with simple tools for
bypassing and A/Bing. Global
settings allow the analysis to be
tweaked between subtle, medium
and aggressive, too.
In all, Neutron is an excellent
mixing tool. Far from being digital
snake oil or a crime against
musicianship, it feels like a genuine
step forward in plug-in technology
and one which we should whole-
heartedly embrace.
FM VERDICT
9.1
Neutron is a powerful and
well-designed mixing tool in
its own right, and the Track
Assistant feels like a real
technological step forward
101
FM | SoundS & SampleS
UVI IRCAM Prepared
Piano 399
While the use of effects mangling,
extreme sampling treatments or even
circuit-bending are not uncommon in
todays electronica scene, it is less
often that you come across large
acoustic instruments that have
undergone sonic surgery. This is
unashamedly the case with UVIs
Prepared Piano library, which has
been produced in collaboration with
IRCAM the world famous research
institute that has been at the centre
of the experimental music world for
the past 40 years.
Prepared pianos, where objects
are introduced to physically interact
with the strings, have a relatively
long history. However, it was John
Cage who arguably contributed most
in terms of formalising the approach,
and who wrote pieces that
specifically required the use of
screws (between strings) combined
with other disruptive objects.
This UVI instrument makes use
of their free Play engine though it
can also be integrated into their
Falcon software and requires
4.5GB of disk space, which expands
to 19GB on playback. In its
unadulterated state you get a nicely
playable Yamaha C7 grand piano.
The fun starts though when you
use the main software page to
select one of the 45 preparation
techniques. These can be assigned
per note, and with the option of
using layers to create two different
treatments per note (each with
separate control of level, tuning and
envelope). Preparations include
screws, erasers, coins, clothespins,
sticks and others. Strings can be
played normally, via the piano
mechanism, or with a mallet,
plectrum, bow or Ebow. There is also
scope for introducing finger-muted
harmonics and movement based
performance effects.
The big question is perhaps how
useful this might be to the average
FM reader and with a price of
399 euros this is certainly not a
casual purchase. For pure
experimentalists this is a very
powerful and engaging tool, and fans
of Tom Waits (who in turn was
heavily influenced by Harry Partch),
will also enjoy the twisted percussive
tonalities it offers. However, it is also
capable of creating new, and very
musical, tones that stretch far
beyond the conventional piano,
particularly when combined with
effects. Bruce Aisher
www.uvi.net
VeRdICT 8.0

Tim Exile SLOO 39

Continuing in a somewhat
experimental manner, we have Tim
Exiles new SLOO. Shorthand for
Shed Loads of Oscillators, this
so-called Voice Swarm Synth is a
Reaktor-based instrument that
employs 48 simultaneous oscillator/
voices designed to behave like a
flock of birds. Conceptually, the 48
voices share a core set of
parameters determining pitch,
frequency modulation, filtering etc.
However, each section also has a
distance control that determines
the voices possible deviation range
during the swarming process.
The best place to start is with
the four banks of presets,
102
whereupon you quickly realise that
SLOO covers quite a bit of sonic
territory, and is quite unpredictable
at times. For those expecting an
immediately playable instrument
that fits into more conventional
musical structures, this may not be
for you. However, if you are willing
to spend the time exploring (and
definitely reading the manual a few
times), it can deliver some
interesting, and often unexpected,
results. Its hold mode is particularly
useful for drone creation.
Bruce Aisher
https://shop.timexile.com
VeRdICT 7.5
 Sounds & Samples | Reviews

Salaryman Drum & Bass Pulse collection will be right up your alley. of samples taken from favourite tracks. Its is sure to bring some variety to your Trap
Vol 3 | 29.95 Theres 1.63GB of eerie sounds, quite the haul, and a joy to poke through. production. Roy Spencer

VeRdICT 8
www.loopmasters.com otherworldly FX, and general high-fidelity, Yet, as with all Splice content, you can
Drum n Bass don cinemascopic aural mood music to draw pick and choose the choicest bits from
Salarymans third over your next production. And, besides this or any pack with your monthly sign up
Loopmasters release is the loops, 65 sampler patches are fee, so go mad, fam. Roy Spencer ModeAudio Beat: Drum Machine
Samples | 15.00
VeRdICT 8
a finely stocked library included for your DAW of choice, as well
of demonic bass, as 34 MIDI files to pick over. It all makes https://primeloops.com
vicious snares, and for a supremely versatile pack. Pass the Assembling a fierce
weighty atmospheres, with touches of popcorn. Roy Spencer Origin Sound Eastern rack of vintage drum
Trap | $7.99/mo
VeRdICT 7
Breaks, Jazz, and Techno influences machines would cost
alongside the rolling D n B that hes https://splice.com you an arm and a leg,
known for. The 1.3GB of content if Looking to give your plus three months
anything has fiercer beats, synths, Splice Stki Sound Sample latest Trap workout a sitting on eBay bidding
one-shots, fills and percussion elements Pack | $7.99/mo little more gravitas and against cowbelllover78 all through the
this time around. Whether you boot up one https://splice.com musicality? Then night. Thankfully, ModeAudio have gone
of the 72 sampler patches or just dive into Stki is the check out this serious and captured all the crusty, chunky, fly
the sampler folders as they take your eye, multifaceted sound new bank of Eastern and funky, hits, snares, rolls, and kicks
youre in for a treat. Its hi-octane stuff, and vision collective inspired loops and melodies. Drawing on youll ever need. This package features all
throughout. Roy Spencer from London, made up traditional Jazz chord progressions and your favourite sounds the boom of the

VeRdICT 7
of DJ/producers, Lukey
and Jelacee. They rock
the UK Bass vibe mixed with upfront
Loopmasters Dark Hip-Hop and Trap stylings to murder
Cinema | 29.95 dancefloors in their own inimitable way.
www.loopmasters.com Fans of their recent banger, My Gs, will
If youre finding it hard know what to expect on the duos first
to capture that sample pack for online subscription
cinematic tone in your service Splice lolloping bass moves,
own wide-screen crisp and playful percussion, epic rising
productions, or you FX, and sparse, but heavy melodies.
just want to cast an air Besides nods to their latest beats, this
(beyond) old-school Egyptian grooves, the
peerless Origin Sounds sound designers
have crafted a fine collection of exotic
sounds to play with.
The 379MB of sample content offers
a wealth of rich pads, inspired synth lines
and some bang up-to-date basslines. Also
included are full stems and bounces of
some live drum loops, to counterbalance
the digital heaviness, and some great
World music rhythm percussion files to
help you find your timing. A ten pack of
808 kick, the 12-bit crunch of a Casio
keyboard, and the ringing grooves of that
other Roland stalwart, the 909. The vaults
have been plundered, and a slew of iconic
machines dusted off and wrung dry of
their celebrated sonics. The results are
astounding. The extra processing thats
been lovingly added draws out even more
qualities from this army of kit. Each folder
offers a different spin, too. Be it Layered,
Processed or back to basics Raw, each
ones a winner. Roy Spencer

VeRdICT 7
of self-importance over your latest pack picks through Stkis extensive back Massive presents only sweetens the deal,
beatscape, then this latest Loopmasters catalogue of material to present a library and brings home a unique sample set that

Dare to believe.

Focus on making
music with Allianz
Musical Insurance by
your side.
Unlimited professional use
500 accessories cover included
Accidental damage & theft
Premiums from 3 a month

Get a quote:
allianzmusic.co.uk
0330 100 9626

Terms and conditions apply. Allianz Musical Insurance is a trading name of Allianz Insurance plc.
FM | ADVICE
Dispose of/keep broken leads?

>
Firstly, establish whether the cable or
connectors are faulty (try a cable testing
box). Try to repair the existing cable and/or
connectors (if youre handy) depending on which
has failed (the most economical route).
Otherwise, replace the broken parts with new,
recycle for cash at a metal recyclers, skip the
busted ones at your local tip, or buy new leads.

sales. And perhaps either the
demand for AUs just isnt as great as
we might think, or adding AU
support is particularly tricky or
Why arent there more All of this remains true, but the labour-intensive.
iOS Audio Units? bottom line is that we havent seen Its also worth noting that not all
players to get onboard, but surely its
only a matter of time before more
compatible instruments and effects
start to arrive.
Are official emulations

>
When Audio Units arrived on as many iOS AUs as we were iOS music production apps currently always better than
iOS in 2015, we suspected expecting. Its hard to say why this have the option of hosting AUs. unofficial ones?

that theyd come to supercede
the likes of Audiobus and Inter-App
Audio. Whereas these standards
enable you to connect apps and use
them together, AUs offer the promise
of proper plug-in-style hosting of
instruments and apps within your
iPhone or iPad DAW, which certainly
seems like a better solution.
is, but the bottom line could be
well, the bottom line. Lets not forget
that most iOS apps sell for a fraction
of the price of their desktop
counterparts, so its much harder for
a developer to justify spending time
and money adding features (in this
case, AU support) if they dont think
itll result in a massive increase in
Youll find it in the likes of
GarageBand, Cubasis and Auria, for
example, but not in Korgs Gadget.
As such, it doesnt yet feel like a
full-on standard that developers
feel compelled to support.
Nevertheless, we still think that
iOS AUs have great potential. Yes,
were still waiting for some major
>
Were still not quite sure how
the legal land lies when it
comes to emulations of classic
hardware, particularly ones that
come in software form. Its clear
though, that not being able to put a
company stamp on an emulation
hasnt stopped countless developers
from taking inspiration from classic
products; many vintage synths and
effects have been emulated
numerous times in one form
or another.
Is official always best, though?
Those who create the branded
emulations would certainly have you
believe so, and its true that, if you
choose a synth plug-in (for example)
thats been officially licensed or
produced by the company that
created the original hardware, the
chances are that itll look and feel
very similar, with a like for like
(or possibly slightly expanded)
feature set.
However, theres also the
possibility that the slavish emulation

Yamaha SY77 worth buying?

might turn out to be slightly more
restricted. If a developer is sticking

>
to an original blueprint, it might be

The SY77 still sounds fresh and can be found for

at the expense of more advanced
features, or an interface and

250-ish. However, although its a killer FM synth workflow that are more suited to
modern music production. Not
(it can do a mean analogue impersonation too) having to produce a strict emulation
can give a developer more freedom,
the screen backlights generally go dim and need which could, in some cases, lead to

replacing (which is a big job due to internal a better product.

Youre always wise to consider all
complexity), plus the operating system (like most FM your emulative options then, and not
make a decision based on name and
synths) is a royal pain to master. Otherwise, great! profile alone.

104

Is one set of
monitors enough?
>
If your speakers and room are
giving you an accurate picture
of how your mixes sound in the
real world, you can rely on one set
of monitors. If your speakers arent
the most accurate, youre mixes
arent translating and your room
has issues, its best to have other
speakers to check your mixes on
(including consumer hi-fi speakers,
boombox, small desktop speakers,
headphones and a mono speaker).
Can you use Ableton Link
with hardware?
> >
We noted last year that Ableton
Link is becoming something of
a standard in the music
software world support for this
wireless tempo-syncing technology
can now be found in Abletons own
Live and a wide range of desktop and
iOS applications, including Korgs
new Mac version of Gadget,
incidentally but hardware is a
different kettle of collaborative fish.
As things stand, no hardware
product has featured Link support,
but we can tell you about the pink-0,
a Raspberry Pi-powered prototype
device from developer Vincenzo
Pacella that could enable you to add
Link-age to your Eurorack rig. This
isnt something you can buy at the
moment, and might never be, but it
does introduce the possibility that
hardware could one day be on the
Link agenda.
Certainly, with the internet of
things now very much a, err, thing, it
doesnt seem like too much of a
stretch to imagine that hardware
synths and drum machines will soon
be wi-fi enabled as a matter of
course, and if that happens,
anythings possible as far as
connectivity is concerned.
Your Production Problems Solved | Advice
Getting bass guitar to sit
Im struggling to get my bass guitar to sit nicely
in my mixes. Do you have any pointers please?
Electric bass is hard to get right as there are many sonic variables. The playing may result
in inconsistent tone or loudness. Then the strings that are played less may be brighter and
the more regularly used ones duller. Plus theres potential interference which can cause
headaches. Human inconsistencies are important to capture for authenticity/soul but
managing them for a great result is challenging. Ideally, get a great consistent take, use
fresh strings with a well set-up bass and stay away from computer screens when recording.
> >
If some strings/notes are brighter than If the bass is sticking out in general, its
others, instead of using a compressor across worth trying sidechaining the bass to the
the whole mix, use a multiband compressor kick, so that when the kick hits, the bass
to focus in and compress any frequency areas that gets tucked in a little. This often gives a nice
are jumping out too much in the mix. The result
will be a more manageable and natural bass tone.
push and pull to the groove of your track and
helps the bass sit better.
> >
If your bass part is sounding weak, try using All that may be needed is some subtractive
a sub-harmonic enhancer (plug-in or EQ (to get rid of excessive low/mid/high) or
hardware) to add a solid synthesized
foundation under the real bass. Or track a synth
rubber-band compression to improve
general consistency of tone/level. For smoothness,
bass part that copies the real bass part, then
compress together with the real bass on a buss.
try fast attack/slow release and experiment
placing the compressor before or after the EQ.
Tabletop stand for small synths?
Despite all the minisynths/machines, there
are only a handful of stands available. For
tabletop use, the Ekho Black Adjustable
Desktop Laptop Mixer/DJ Equipment Stand is a
great bet for around 40. Then there are many
DJ/laptop stands (Gorilla, Pioneer, Crane, Magma
etc), and the Quiklok QL-322 mini X-stand.
Got questions that need answering?
Send your queries to us at futuremusic@futurenet.com and
our team of experts will endeavour to solve them
105
FM | GEAR GUIDE
hIGh-END SYNThS

NEW ENtry

Roland System-8 Arturia MatrixBrute

1,299 1,619
Full Review: FM317 Full Review: FM315
The System-8 covers a vast sonic territory Theres very little not to love about the
with superb flexibility from vintage Roland MatrixBrute. It oozes personality and can wear a
tones to futuristic sounds, it truly delivers. lot of hats, from a warm, sweet monosynth to
The Juno and Jupiter plug-outs impress too. dirty ambient chord machine. Mind blown!

Dave Smith Instruments
Pro 2 | $1,819
Review FM284 A ridiculously versatile mono/
paraphonic synth that anyone can happily get
lost in. Without doubt a great investment.
Sequential Prophet-6 | 2,549
Review FM297 The Sequential name
returns, and the Prophet-6 more than
lives up to its heritage. Another future
classic from Dave Smith.
Elektron
Analog Keys | 1,099
Review FM278 A system capable of great
results, though perhaps held back by some
ease-of-use issues. Its built like a tank though.
Dave Smith OB-6 | 2,729
Review FM307 Has the essential Oberheim
character/signature crossed with DSIs
sonic DNA it sounds tight and modern with
a nod to vintage Oberheims.

Moog Sub 37 | $1,579
Review FM286 With a richer set of features and
fewer operational hurdles than its predecessor,
the Sub 37 is a superb and highly desirable
upgrade to the Phatty family of Moog synths.
Roland JD-XA | 1,499
Review FM295 Greater than the sum of
its parts. It can be a great analogue and
a great digital synth, but combine the two
and some real magic happens.
Behringer DeepMind 12 | 999
Review FM316 The DeepMind wont undermine
the market for characterful analogue polysynths,
but it is flexible. It isnt cheap, but it has plenty
going on and a sound of its own.
Moog Model D | 3,249
Review FM311 While bringing back the iconic
sound of the original Minimoog, Moog have
added elegant modifications to deliver a modern
synth thats fully worthy of their storied legacy.

106

hYbrID coNTrollErS
NI Maschine Jam
299
Full Review: FM310
Jam is a great, creative controller in its own
right, but its best used as a counterpoint
to the existing Maschine hardware.
NI Komplete Kontrol S61 | 539
Review FM285 A beautiful hardware
and software package that just works.
Now works with third-party plug-ins too.
Ableton Push 2 | 599
Review FM302 Push and Live were already
a great combo, but version 9.5 and Push 2
raise the bar for one of the best hardware/
software experiences around.
Akai Advance 49 | 399
Review FM293 Combined with Akais VIP
software, the Advance controllers remove the
disconnect between controller and DAW.
ROLI Seaboard RISE 49 | 999
Review: FM304 Coupled with the excellent
Equator software and the new Noise app,
ROLIs unique, multi-dimensional controller
is an appealing package.
Essential Tools For Music Making | Gear Guide
Arturia MiniLab
MkII 89
Full Review: FM316
The Mk2 is only a subtle step on from the Mk1
hardware-wise but its a solid little controller and
worth the price for the included content alone.
Native Instruments Arturia KeyLab | 299
Maschine Studio | 889 Review FM301 A top keyboard controller,
Review FM273 A great package for creative and the addition of all those sounds makes
beat-making with excellent hardware control. it one of the best synths on the market too.
Novation Launchpad Pro | 249 Akai MPC Touch | 479
Review FM296 The Launchpad Pros Live Review FM301 The addition of a touchscreen
control isnt quite as extensive as Push, narrows the gap between software and
but its more compact and works standalone hardware, bringing an all-round more tactile
too. Easily one of the best controllers around. and integrated creative experience.
107
Gear Guide | Essential Tools For Music Making

DJ coNTrollErS

Numark S7 III | 1,299 Hercules P32 | 165

Numarks flagship four-deck controller is an Review FM306 Not a serious pro option but
impressive and classy DJ device. Its not cheap, nevertheless a fun product that offers plenty
but its build, feel and feature set are great. for beginners and occasional performers.

Pioneer
DDJ-RZ | 1,759
Full Review: FM309 NI Traktor Kontrol S8 | 829 NI Traktor Kontrol S4 | 469
A pro-level DJ controller at a pro-level Review: FM287 Whether you use Stems
or not, the S8 is hands-down the
Review: FM234 It may be overshadowed by the
S8, but for jog wheels, Stem/Remix Deck control
price. It might be expensive but the RZ best Traktor controller money can buy. and extra inputs, the S4 is still a great package.

is a seriously well-equipped piece of kit.

Drum SYNThS

Korg Volca Kick | 139 Elektron Analog Rytm | 1,140

Review FM316 The Volca Kick is capable of beefy Review FM282 The Rytm sounds massive
drum and bass sounds that belie its compact and is very flexible. Its inspiring and addictive,
form factor. A must-try for club-focused producers. and the sequencer is hugely versatile.

Arturia
DrumBrute | 379
Full Review: FM312
A characterful and flexible analogue drum
machine with some uniquely creative sequencing
tricks up its sleeve at a winning price.
DSI/Roger Linn Tempest | 1,819
Review FM248 Doubtlessly lives up to
the heritage of the two names behind it
certainly destined to be a future classic.
NEW ENtry
Teenage Engineering
PO-32 Tonic | 85
The palm-sized drum synth is a lot of fun,
and compatibility with Sonic Charges
Microtonic synth makes it surprisingly flexible.

108

DAWS
Steinberg Cubase Bitwig
9 Pro | 468 Studio 2 | 379
Full Review: FM315
It may not be game changer, but there should
be enough new elements in Cubase 9 to
keep upgraders happy. New users should
definitely add Cubase to their must-try list.
Apple Logic Pro X | 139
Review FM270 Version ten of the popular
DAW revamps the interface and introduces
some long-awaited MIDI effects plugs.
And lets not overlook that price wow!
Cakewalk Sonar | 419
Review FM275 A well-bundled package with
an audio-engine that beats some of its rivals
on paper. Most certainly a heavyweight
contender with enough extras to lure new users.
Avid Pro Tools 12 | 550
Pro Tools has now caught up with other DAWs,
bringing in a fast workflow to match its power.
It still only runs AAX plugins, and there are
alternative subscription payment models
Image-Line FL Studio 12 | 64+
Review FM294 Despite bringing mostly
functional updates, version 12 is great. Like
a fine wine, FL Studio improves with age, and
its a superb production environment any user.
Essential Tools For Music Making | Gear Guide
Full Review: FM316
The newcomer DAW is now a grown-up
and well-rounded contender, but its Bitwigs
unique and brilliantly executed modulation
system that make it a real winner.
Tracktion 6 | $60 PreSonus Studio One 3
Review FM293 More comprehensive and Professional | 279
well implemented than you might think, Review FM295 Studio One 3 is stable, capable
Tracktion 6 is a well-rounded budget DAW of sating any music production need, and even
worth trying. does things that other DAWs cant dream of.
Ableton Live 9 | 315 Propellerhead Reason 9 | 369
Review FM265 Version 9.5 is a free upgrade for Version 9 further refines the interface and
current users of any version 9. The overhauled workflow and adds new MIDI tools. Not a
Simpler is fantastic, and Suite owners get a trio groundbreaking update, but regular users
of new Max synths to play with. are likely to appreciate the new features.
109
Gear Guide | Essential Tools For Music Making

SofT SYNThS

NEW ENtry

Spectrasonics Vengeance VPS

Omnisphere | $499 Avenger | 199
Full Review: FM294 Vengeance-Sounds first ever proper synth is
an ambitious beast. With powerful wavetable
Version 2 of Omnisphere is a must-try. Audio editing, a ton of modulation, an onboard drum
import is the standout new feature, but dig a little machine and sequencer and plenty of effects,
deeper and there are improvements in all areas. this is a true power synth in every sense.

Native Instruments
Massive | 129
One of the most widely used synth plugins on
the market, Massive has a cutting-edge sound
with a sonic size that lives up to its name.
Xfer Records Serum | $189
This flexible, powerful wavetable synth has
quickly risen through the ranks to knock
Massive and Sylenth off the top of the
synth every producer must own list.
Arturia Synclavier V | 199
Review FM307 The highlight of Arturias
new V Collection, this note-perfect
recreation of the legendary NED Synclavier
is hugely powerful and sounds great.
Rob Papen Predator 2 | 124
A decade on from its original release,
Papens lauded wavetable synth has been
given an upgrade, cementing its place
as one of the best softsynths out there.

Synapse Audio Dune 2 | $169
Review FM284 Extreme oscillator stacking,
packed wavetables, endless modulation,
gorgeous filters and great effects undoubtedly
one of the best out there.
NEW ENtry
KV331 SynthMaster One | $79
SynthMaster One is an easy-to-use sibling
to KV331s excellent Synthmaster. With over
500 presets and user wavetable import, it
offers a lot of flexibility for the price.
PPG WaveMapper 2 | 99
Palms best yet, WaveMapper 2 has
made the transition from iPad to desktop.
Its immensely powerful, hugely enjoyable
to use a truly unique instrument.
Cakewalk Z3TA+ 2 | 79
A popular plugin ever since version one was
released in 2002. With its well-designed
interface, powerful mod matrix and flexible
sound engine, Z3TA+ 2 is a must-try synth.

110

AuDIo INTErfAcES
NEW ENtry
UAD Apollo Twin
MkII | from $699
Full Review: FM317
UAs desktop interface has been refined
across the board for better sound and lower
latency. Theres now a Quad DSP version too.
Universal Audio Apollo 8
Thunderbolt | 1,699
Review FM293 The Thunderbolt connection
adds near latency-free data transfer to UAs
already exceptional Apollo package.
Antelope Orion Studio | 2,345
Review FM304 A comprehensive multi-channel
interface with 12 quality mic pres, onboard DSP
and very flexible I/O options.
Audient iD4 | 120
Review FM312 This compact interface
delivers audio quality and stripped-back
functionality for a thoroughly reasonable
price. A great budget interface.
Focusrite Clarett 4Pre | 500
Review FM304 The whole Clarett range is
excellent, and this punches well above its weight
in audio quality, functionality and ease-of-use.
Essential Tools For Music Making | Gear Guide
Antelope Audio
Zen Tour | 1274
Full Review: FM310
A high-quality compact interface
for studio, rehearsals and gigs, with
excellent built-in DSP processing.
Roland Super UA | 409 Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 | 290
Review FM314 Super UA does everything Review FM311 The second generation 18i8
youd expect and more, and can easily benefits from increased preamp performance,
hold its own alongside similar compact extended sample rate compatibility and
high-end interfaces. a better overall sound. A quality package.
Apogee Ensemble
M-Audio M-Track 2x2M | 100 Thunderbolt | 1,999
Review FM312 As budget audio interfaces go, Review FM294 Excellent sound quality, flexible
its hard to go wrong with M-Audios I/O and some very clever re-amping capabilities
MIDI-equipped 2-in 2-out box.. make this a great high-end interface.
111
Gear Guide | Essential Tools For Music Making

moNITorS (ovEr 500)

Equator D8 | 750 Dynaudio LYD 7 | 519 each

Review FM273 A well-balanced studio monitor The LYD 7s powerful low end makes it possible
with nicely focused imaging and midrange. to mix bass without a sub. They provide plenty of
power with good all round sound quality too.

MunroSonic
Egg 100 | 1,299
Full Review: FM295
Fluid FPX7 | 730 Genelec M Series | 579
Stunning visually and sonically, the The FPX7s are a solid pair of mid-sized monitors Review FM272 A great new design that
Egg 100 package isnt cheap, but it at a very reasonable price. Stereo imaging is makes Genelecs more affordable without

sets the bar for compact nearfields excellent and theres plenty of flexibility. compromising the sound.

moNITorS (Sub 500)

M-Audio BX5 Carbon | 178 Eve Audio SC203 | 389

Review FM292 Compact, solid and surprisingly Review FM306 These monitors offer quality
loud, the BX5 Carbon is an ideal affordable transient response with a nicely balanced mid
monitor for smaller spaces. range. Bass is impressive too, and theres enough
control to adapt to most studio spaces.

Genelec 8010A
199 each
Full Review: FM306 Adam F Series | from 339 Tannoy Reveal 802 | 418
With a deceptively powerful low-end and plenty Review FM274 Serious performance at an Review FM278 The established players in the
affordable price youd be crazy not to give mid-price active monitor market just got some
of power, these Genelec punch well above their them a listen. serious competition.
weight. Sound quality is excellent too.

112
 Make great music
on your PC or Mac!

8GB
DVD

FREE LIMITER PLUGIN

MAXIMAL 2 CM
Dial in loudness, punch and impact with
Venomodes character-packed limiter
FREE SOUNDWARE FREE PLUGIN COLLECTION

71
VOL. 43

SHIMMER
2.7GB
& SPARKLE SAMPLES INSTRUMENTS
SHIMMER & SPARKLE
+ Loopmasters 1GB Pack AND EFFECTS

& SPARKLE
SHIMMER
+Loopmasters 1GB Pack

SAMPLES
SHIMMER & SPARKLE

2.7GB 71
AND EFFECTS
INSTRUMENTS

Computer Music is the character-packed

magazine for musicians with a PC or Mac. Its packed with tutorials,
VOL. 43
FREE SOUNDWARE FREE PLUGIN COLLECTION

Venomodes limiter
videos,
Dial samples
in loudness,and exclusive
punch software
and impact with to help you make great music now!
MAXIMAL 2 CM
www.computermusic.co.uk
FREE LIMITER PLUGIN

Available digitally on these devices

DVD
8GB
Gear Guide | Essential Tools For Music Making
AfforDAblE SYNThS
Korg Volca FM
129
Full Review: FM305
A great-sounding box of classic FM sounds. It
might lack the polyphony of the DX7 but, apart
from that, the sound is bang on. Its motion
sequencing is seriously powerful too.
Novation Circuit | 250
Review FM299 A broad range of sounds with a
fluid and intuitive workflow makes Circuit a
winner. Its sequencer is absolutely killer too.
Make Noise O-Coast | 350
Review FM309 A fantastic way to get
quickly immersed in the realm of modular
synthesis without the hassle of lugging a
huge case around.
114
Yamaha Reface DX | 347
Review FM298 Finally we have a new DX with
an intuitive interface that helps bring FM to life.
Its well built, portable, has an improved 4-op
engine with FX and it sounds suitably DX-y!
Arturia MicroBrute | 230
Review FM273 The MicroBrute certainly lives up
to its name. Its a fantastically gritty monosynth
that is easily compact enough to bundle in your
rucksack along with a laptop.
Korg Minilogue
435
Full Review: FM302
Four-voice polyphony, killer sound, flexible
features and great build quality. Were not sure
how Korg pulled this off for the price, but theyve
nailed it. An essential purchase!
Moog Mother-32 | 499 Waldorf Pulse 2 | 406
Review FM302 It can be a standalone synth, or Review FM273 Being a sound module without a
you can plug it into any number of gadgets to keyboard, its not quite a go anywhere synth.
create a modular monster. With a Mother-32 But for our money this is the most power youll
under your arm, the world is your oyster! find in a small package for the price.
Korg Monologue | 299 Dreadbox Hades Bass
Review FM312 Cheap and cheerful, but Synthesizer | 249
powerful, and with a surprising amount of Review FM310 The Hades is a fairly
flexibility given its limited envelope section. straightforward monosynth, but its well-designed
and packs some serious low-end punch.
9000
9012