Future Music -julkaisun October 2019 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

WELCOME Master plan Mastering is a subject that continues to fascinate and baffle producers across the world in equal measure. Perhaps its enduring mystique lies in the balance of science and artistry required – it’s a process that is equally about technical tweaks and creative choices. Maybe it’s because, even now that many mastering tools have become readily available in the software realm, it’s still a subject that remains oblique to many musicians. With our 2019 guide, we’re diving into what mastering involves today. From what you can achieve at home to what you should expect from a professional mastering engineer. Whether you want to try mastering at home, or simply want to understand the mastering stage better, we’ll help get you up to speed. Special thanks go to Bristol’s…

Korg Module 3 adds new features for live keys players Korg have updated Module, their iOS sound module for keyboard players. Version 3 adds several new features and makes the app more intuitive to use, particularly if you happen to be a live performer. For a start, the sound browser has been remodelled, so it should now be easier to find the sound you’re looking for. What’s more, thanks to the addition of the Module Performance Expansion, you now have layer/split options, MIDI CC Learn, and an expanded setlist feature so that you can get that bit better organised when you’re gigging. It’s also worth noting that the full version of Korg Module is now known as Korg Module Pro. The free LE version, meanwhile, is now known as Korg…

Joué’s Grand Fretboard promises digital strings that play like they’re real Joué have added the Grand Fretboard module to their line-up of silicone covers for their MPE-compatible controller. This gives you 12 frets of six strings, each of which is sensitive to velocity, vibrato and bending. The theory is that you’ll be able to play your sounds – a selection from UVI come included – as if you were handling an acoustic instrument (a guitar being the most obvious example). The silicone strings are designed to enable all the playing nuances of the real things, supporting finger sliding and other techniques. There’s also a fretless mode, which opens up even more possibilities. The Grand Fretboard is available in a bundle with the Joué Board for $448 (regular price will be…

INSIGHT Changing tides, changing times © Kentaroo Tryman/Getty Images As a means of understanding just what a potential minefield mastering is today, consider the requirements of mastering’s role during the CD era. The music industry in those pre-internet days was a much smaller place, with an emphasis placed on ‘high quality’. Hi-fi enthusiasts would buy a choice amplifier, a pair of speakers and a CD player and having spent a fairly extortionate amount of money on a CD itself, they would return home, effectively looking to recreate the precision environment in which the record was mixed and mastered in the comfort of their own home. This period represented a kind of ‘audio pinnacle’, where there was a genuine desire to preserve the detail which had gone into the creation of…

TUTORIAL TOOLS OF THE TRADE Most of those mastering their own tracks work digitally. So let’s set up a ‘typical’ mastering chain, assessing the required tools 01 > We start by importing our mix file into a new project. We’re using Logic Pro but any DAW will work for this purpose. We’ve left 2dB of headroom in our mix file and we start by setting up DMG’s Equilibrium. Any EQ which allows for precision frequency-targeting will work well. 02 > We’re keeping our EQ flat for now. Next we set up FabFilter’s Pro-MB Multiband Compressor. This allows us to make individual compression choices for different areas of the frequency spectrum. We gently tighten sub and low mid frequencies before taming a little harshness between 1.2kHz and 5kHz. 03 > Next…

INSIGHT Stem printing workflow and protocol A‘stem’ is a term used to describe either a single sound or a group of ‘comparable’ sounds from your mix. In all kinds of musical scenarios, being able to access the single sounds in a mix or, say, all of the drums (but nothing else) is extremely helpful. Perhaps the best example of this is in remixing, where your remixer might want to use the whole of your drum stem and sample bits of the vocal stem but make do without guitars, synths and basslines altogether. Similarly, in music-for-picture scenarios, it’s not uncommon that the picture edit will change after the score is recorded and mixed, so it’s a music editor’s job to work with the stems of a cue to ‘fit it’ to…

INDUSTRY VIEW Tim Debney, Fluid Mastering How has mastering changed since streaming services replaced CDs as the primary format for sharing recorded music? “I don’t really think anything has changed. The role of mastering is the same; to prepare a set of tracks that will sound great in the real world, for all formats. The overall sound, dynamics and loudness requirements differ from job to job and are defined by the artist’s personal preferences, rather than a set of rules. Mastering for vinyl is really the only format where certain rules do apply, as factors such as EQ, phase and width can massively affect the quality of a vinyl cut. “ Do you think about how a mix will sound through different systems when you’re mastering? “We definitely have to…

INDUSTRY VIEW Shawn Joseph, Optimum Mastering We regularly discuss DIY and at-home mastering tactics in these pages, but be under no illusion that this means there’s less value in using the services of professional mastering studios and engineers. While there are artists out there who master their own tracks themselves (Four Tet being a notable example), the majority of artists, producers and labels will still tell you how important a dedicated mastering service is to their output. As an artist or producer, part of the appeal of understanding the mastering process is enhancing the way that you work and communicate with a mastering engineer, in order to help both sides get a better understanding of what you ultimately want out of a track. To get a better grasp of how…

Patching up a West Coast-inspired synth in Poly Grid The Grid’s modulation-equipped oscillators are ideal for Buchlainspired sounds… 01 > Wavefolding and audio rate modulation are key to the ‘West Coast’ sound, and both are easy to set up in The Grid. First we load a Triangle oscillator as our main ‘carrier’ signal. This has wavefolding built-in: simply turn the Fold control to apply it. Easy! 02 > Next we add a second Triangle oscillator as a modulator. We route its output to both the Phase In and the Pitch In of our carrier. We can now use the attenuator controls of these inputs to apply two kinds of audio-rate modulation – phase modulation/distortion and frequency modulation. 03 > With modulation applied, try tweaking both the ratio and pitch controls…

Reviews Behringer VC340 Vocoder £489 Vocoders are back in vogue as Behringer resurrect a classic. Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman chimes in… Back in the late 1970s vocoders were all the rage, with many prominent artists using them to give a futuristic sound to their records. Some used vocoders as an effect to process instruments and enhance voices; some so that they could sing in tune and front their own records and live shows (like Herbie Hancock). At the time, the Sennheiser VSM201 Vocoder along with the Roland VP-330 (1979) reigned supreme in Vocoder-land and while the Sennheiser has long since disappeared (and now fetches crazy prices, mainly as it was regarded as the holy grail vocoder), Roland have continued to make solid vocoders through the years with their VP and VT…

Bitwig Studio 3 Bitwig Studio 3 $399 With The Grid, Bitwig adds an ambitious modular environment to its already impressive toolkit. Si Truss asks if this is the most creative DAW on the market It’s a little over five years since version 1 of Bitwig Studio first hit hard drives, which makes it still a relative infant in DAW terms. The application has come a long way in that time though, throwing off the shackles of its inevitable Ableton Live comparisons – the two share a number of original developers and some significant workflow similarities – by adding multiple features that have bolstered Bitwig’s reputation as possibly the most creative DAW on the market. The most significant of those additions has been the flexible modulation system introduced for Bitwig 2.…

FM|ROUND-UP Vocoder plugins Do the robot – and much more – with this handful of processors based around that blue-sky, evergreen vocal effect MeldaProduction MVocoder €49 A versatile and powerful vocoder with up to 100 bands, MVocoder works as an effects plugin (VST/AU/AAX) inserted on your Carrier signal by default, with a sidechain input adding your modulator into the mix, although you can swap the carrier and modulator signals at will. The number of bands trades off quality against CPU, while the original mod and carrier signals can be blended back into the mix. MVocoder does vocoding, dual vocoding (carrier modulates modulator signal in parallel), ring mod, two types of morphing (crossfading but more combinatory), exciting and inversion. That’s a far more creative possibility than you’d get in a straight…

GROUPTEST External SSD drives On the lookout for external storage options? These four drives offer rock-solid stability, plenty of storage space and super-fast transfer speeds. With Wi-Fi connectivity and power bank capabilities on hand, here are our top picks… 1 This one’s on the pricey side, but for good reason. The My Passport Wireless SSD from Western Digital, as the name suggests, is wireless, as well as featuring USB 3 connectivity with transfer speeds of up to 390Mbps. However, that’s just the start of it. This drive has been designed for photographer/videographers, and as such, there are plenty of features that benefit producers too. The onboard SD card reader slot is perfect for field recording, with backing up on the fly as simple as hitting the one-touch copy button. The…

Aftertouch routing on the MatrixBrute I’ve bought a MatrixBrute but can’t work out how to route aftertouch to pitch modulation. Help! With all the MatrixBrute has to offer, there is a learning curve but once you’ve had a few of those ‘ah, that’s how you do it’ moments, you can store a few basic user template patches with routings already set up. Here’s how to route AT to oscillator pitch mod...…

Gear Guide Essential Tools For Music Making DRUM MACHINES & SAMPLERS IK Multimedia UNO Drum €305 Full Review: FM347 There’s a lot to like about the UNO Drum’s punchy sound and flexible feature set, although it is held back a little bit by the ‘budget’ feel of its hardware. Elektron Digitakt £659 Review: FM320 With deep sequencing and a powerful sound engine, Digitakt is the ‘affordable’ Elektron groovebox we’ve been dreaming of. Akai Force £1,299 Review: FM343 More than just a standalone sampler, Force is a full DAW-in-a-box, with synth and effects. If you can afford the price and want to ditch your existing gear, this is worth a try. Elektron Analog RYTM £1,499 Review: FM331 Though the MK1 remains a great box, there are plenty of reasons to upgrade…

Intuitive Audio’s Echo Studio plugin promises powerful and versatile delay processing Echo Studio is Intuitive Audio’s creative delay plugin. It gives you 32 delay taps to work with, each of which can have its own effect processing chain. This means that you can adjust the gain, pan, low-pass cutoff, high-pass cutoff, resonance and pitchshift settings for each tap individually. There’s also a global effect engine, a distortion engine, diffusion and global filtering. The modulation system, meanwhile, gives you the ability to assign up to two different modulation sources to modulate the likes of delay time, global filter parameters and feedback panning, giving you even more control. You can snaffle a demo of Echo Studio now from the Intuitive Audio website, while the full version costs £45. It runs in VST/AU/AAX…

Roxsyn is an iOS synth you can control with your guitar Yonac’s Roxsyn is a new iOS synth that you can play using your electric guitar, but it promises to be rather different to ‘guitar-to-MIDI’ instruments that have been released in the past. There’s no pitchtracking involved here, which Yonac say means no pitch estimation errors, octave glitches or wonky chords. Instead, we’re promised “metamorphic sound generation technology” that retains all the nuances of your guitar playing. Roxsyn responds to vibrato, slides, bends, dynamics and more. The result, we’re told, is a truly expressive guitar-specific synth that can be played simply by plugging an audio cable into your iOS audio interface of choice. “Unhappy with cold and temperamental guitar-to-MIDI synths that dominate the market, we developed a completely new approach…

CLASSIC ALBUM Danny Tenaglia Hard & Soul Tribal, 1995 Words by Roy Spencer © Charley Gallay/Getty Images It’s the mid-’90s, and Danny Tenaglia is back in his native New York after doing a five-year stint in Miami, with a string of successful remixes to his name, and his production chops sharpened. His career-defining club residencies at the iconic Roxy, Twilo and The Tunnel are a little while off, but his signature musical style is starting to develop as he puts down tracks for his soon-to-be debut album. It will perfectly mix up his disco roots, while embracing the tougher dance flavours that were emerging around him. The title would fit it like a glove: Hard & Soul. “My whole lifestyle has been derived from that soulful stuff,” says Danny. “People…

INSIGHT Separate mixing from mastering Tempting, isn’t it? There you are, working on a mix for hours and your ears need a boost. You’ve already turned the level to your speakers up several times that day but that final ‘sheen’ is missing; the temptation to run the whole mix through an output chain of effects, to ‘master’ it, is overwhelming. Our advice is: don’t give in to temptation. Or at least, if you do give in, be ready to throw away that output chain after just one itch-scratching listen. Be in no doubt; mastering is a separate stage of the creative process to mixing. To understand this, consider the opposite scenario to above. Suppose that before you even start a mix, you set up an output channel chain of effects…

TUTORIAL UNDERSTANDING COMPRESSION CODECS To compress a full-rate mastered file for streaming services and easy file sharing, your track passes through an algorithm – or codec – for processing Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute can boast as one of its biggest achievements the pioneering development of compressed audio – which ultimately led to the mp3 format. A few years ago, Fraunhofer partnered with plugin developer Sonnox to offer a way for mix and mastering engineers to audition their masters ‘through’ a range of the assorted ‘lossy’ formats which now prop up the audio industry (such as iTunes+, AAC and assorted bit rates of mp3). The resulting two plugins are now available and they allow for monitoring and file export at assorted codecs. The Fraunhofer Pro plugin lets you set up and monitor…

Processing Intended’s diva vocals in Reason Prospa use built-in Reason effects and VST plugins to put a new spin on a late-era disco sample 01 > The vocal line that inspired Intended comes from a classic sample source, but it’s not a direct sample as Gosha explains: “For the vocal, we sampled Let No Man Put Asunder by First Choice, but we ended up getting it resung for sample clearance purposes. They re-sang the vocal at original pitch, trying to copy the sample so we could add our own effects and pitching.” 02 > “We wanted to keep it fairly dry and not overdo it with a load of effects,” adds Harvey. “Too much delay and reverb can be overpowering, but when we do use them we use The Echo…

Go stereo! All signals throughout The Grid are stereo. What does this mean and how do we take advantage of it? All signals throughout The Grid are stereo. By default, you’re unlikely to hear this in action, since the majority of modules process the left and right channels as one unless directed to do otherwise. Bitwig have included a number of tools to take advantage of this, however. The most obvious are the Stereo Split and Merge modules, which let users divide the stereo channels and process them individually – delays and modulated filters are great options here. There’s also an LR Gain module that can be used to adjust the levels of each channel separately. This effectively acts like a pan control (albeit not a true stereo version), moving…

A hybrid drum machine We’ve made a simple synth and sample-powered drum machine, which you can download from FileSilo. Let’s look at its features… 01 > For X0X-style sequencing we’re using the Gates’ data modules with their phase input linked to the Transport sync’d LFO. We’ve disengaged the Gates’ device phase, so they only run when we hit ‘play’. Adjusting the Transport module’s Length parameter and each Gates’ step length controls the rhythm of our sequences. 02 > Our kick is a simple sine oscillator with an AD envelope generating a pitch sweep to give it that classic ‘punch’ sound. An ADSR envelope is used for the amp, allowing us to shape the resulting kick. 03 > For our snare, we’re using two triangle oscillators in a carrier/modulator phase modulation…

RETROSPECTIVE UK Garage From ’70s roots to ’90s chart dominance, UK garage is the European cousin of a classic New York sound © Sal Idriss/Redferns UK garage emerged as a genre in the mid ’90s, but to understand where it came from we need to go back to ’70s New York, where a young Larry Levan got his first big break as a DJ and secured a residency at the new Paradise Garage club. In much the same way as the music played at the Warehouse in Chicago was referred to as ‘Warehouse music’ and then house, the mixture of soul, disco and rock that Levan span at the club became known informally as ‘Garage music’. With the arrival of house in the ’80s and Levan’s position as one of…

SOUNDS & SAMPLES UVI Keysuite Electric $199 The UVI team must be getting very little sleep at the moment. It seems that they are on a mission to sample every instrument created, and their ‘Keysuite Electric’ is just a case in point. UVI have explored pianos before, and previous instruments and collections have included acoustic, electric, digital and more experimental, treated variants. This time, however, the focus is on electro-acoustic and electronic keyboards, and takes in classics alongside some rarities. With 63 different instruments to choose from, and weighing in at 14.4GB (equivalent to over 60GB when uncompressed), the sampling may not initially appear to go as deep as some more instrument-specific libraries, but still represents a serious undertaking. The instruments fall into seven categories – Tines, Analog Keys, Electro-acoustic,…

GEAR GUIDE DAWS Tracktion Waveform 10 from $199 Full Review: FM345 Waveform is now friendlier, contains more creative tools and brings workflow improvements you’ll have missed from other DAWs. Steinberg Cubase Pro 10 £480 Review FM340 Despite some niggles, this is a solid update to an excellent DAW; the new features could potentially do away with third-party tools Cakewalk by Bandlab free Cakewalk was recently been killed off by Gibson but saved by BandLab. It’s now free, so head over to their site and get downloading! We’re interested to see what the future holds... Propellerhead Reason 10 €369 Review: FM327 Reason is now ready to lock and load with VST plugin support. 10 adds several new instruments and effects, helping you maximise your creativity. PreSonus Studio One 4 Pro £345…

Essential Tools For Music Making MONITORS (OVER £500) Focal Shape 65 £600 each Full Review: FM328 | Delivering delicious frequency balance, terrific transient detail and a crystal-clear stereo image, the Shape 65s are a worthy upgrade MunroSonic Egg 100 £1,299 Full Review: FM295 Stunning visually and sonically, the Egg 100 package isn’t cheap, but it sets the bar for compact nearfields HEDD Audio Type 20 £1499 each Review: FM329 Outperforming monitor speakers at twice the price; a worthy investment for the serious producer/mixing/mastering engineer Adam S2V £3,072 per pair Full Review: FM331 Top quality components and sonics in a compact near field. It’s dear, but for critical monitoring in small/medium sized rooms it’s a fine choice Genelec M Series £579 Review: FM272 A great new design that makes Genelecs more…

Gear Guide Essential Tools For Music Making AFFORDABLE SYNTHS Modal Electronics Skulpt £269 Full Review: FM344 Skulpt exists in a crowded market, but with its wealth of oscillators and modulation options, this digital synthesiser will give you a lot back for the price you pay. Novation Circuit £250 Review: FM299 A broad range of sounds with a fluid and intuitive workflow all adds up to make Circuit a winner. Its sequencer is absolutely killer too. Korg Minilogue XD £565 Review: FM341 The four biggest Prologue features (Multi-Engine, user oscillator/effect import, filter-drive and stereo-effects) in an affordable form. Instabuy! IK Multimedia UNO £210 Review: FM335 Despite some manufacturing compromises, IK’s first hardware synth is a great-sounding source of analogue basses and leads at a bargain price. Teenage Engineering OP-Z £529 Review:…

FILTER Universal Audio emulate two rare limiters for the latest UAD update Sought-after outboard processors hit the UAD platform with the 175B & 176 Tube Compressor Collection The Universal Audio brand has become synonymous with painstakingly authentic emulations of classic studio hardware, accessed via their UAD platform and DSP-equipped Unison interfaces. While recent years have seen them increasingly enter the guitar realm, with a growing library of amp emulations and their OX hardware, the latest update to the UAD software is very much a ‘bread-and-butter’ affair for the brand, adding two rare hardware tube limiters originally designed by company founder Bill Putnam Sr. Added with the v9.10 update, the 175B & 176 Tube Compressor Collection emulates two hardware devices that were precursors to the more widely-recognised 1176 compressor. According to…

Eventide bring their classic effects to iOS Eventide are the latest developers to bring their best-known effects to iOS, with Blackhole, UltraTap and MicroPitch all hitting Apple devices. Each were originally found in classic Eventide studio hardware before finding favour with DAW users thanks to plugin versions. The Blackhole Reverb can be used to create out-of-this-world spaces, which explains why it’s been used in countless film productions. It’s designed to be easy to use and comes with more than 50 presets from artists like Black Violin, Vernon Reid, Jakob Haq and MIKNNA. UltraTap, meanwhile, is a modulation-filled multi-tap delay that can create everything from rhythmic delays and glitchy reverbs to comb-filtering effects and pad-style volume swells. Finally, there’s MicroPitch, which enables you to mix in detuned and delayed versions of…

Talking Shop | Matthew Wilcock “If Bitcoin goes on a run I might bid on a Yamaha CS-80 – I want one soooo bad.” Matthew Wilcock Combining a passion for sound design and a background in soundtrack work, Manchester-born, London-based musician Matthew Wilcock creates highly evocative, emotive music, as demonstrated on last year’s ambient synth piece, Tear, or delicate recent single I Might Die Now And I Feel Fine. With more new music on the horizon, both under his own name and his Model 86 alias, FM caught up with him to find out more... When did you start making music, and how did you first get started? “I started baking beats and looping samples in Windows Movie Maker when I was about 15. I then got a copy of…

In the studio with Danny Tenaglia “I went to Giant Studios in New York a great deal. They had an SSL console. It wasn’t state-of-the-art, but they had one really good room. I did my tracking there. “I also used François Kevorkian’s Axis Studios – a legendary building. Back then it was 100% 48-tracks, 2” tape, and syncing the machines. “I used to use a Roland MicroComposer or a Roland D-50, but when I hired [Frankie Bones collaborator] Tommy Musto to help me as a programmer he turned me on to the Akai S950. That became my main instrument for sampling sounds, drums, and loops. “The other main bits were the SP-1200 drum machine, and an Oberheim Matrix 1000 synth, which was a pivotal sound piece for me. I still…

TUTORIAL CHECKING YOUR MASTERS With the assorted ways in which consumers listen these days, it’s important to ensure your masters sound good on multiple playback systems There’s something wonderful about working with good stereo monitors in a treated acoustic space. Knowing that throughout the production, mixing and mastering phases, your listening environment is rewarding the subtle changes in level, tone and dynamics added and taken away throughout the creative process is reassuring. Once your masters leave your room, however, they’ll need to survive the hundreds of ways they’ll be heard. How does your master sound through an iPhone speaker, or different consumer headphones? Will the label’s first playback be on a laptop speaker? It’s been standard practice for years to recommend testing tracks through as many systems as possible, but…

INSIGHT Sample rate and resolution For each new project, make sure you’re clear about the sample rate and resolution your client, publisher, record label, collaborator or co-writer is expecting from you. Music-for-picture projects are commonly delivered at 48kHz/24-bit whereas ‘CD quality’ is 44.1kHz/16-bit and those may be the defaults. Of course, some composers/ producers like to work at considerably higher sample rates during the writing process, ready to render down to lower sample rates when it comes to delivery and that’s fine, so long as you remember to adjust sample rates accordingly before delivery (submitting a rogue 96kHz file in a batch of 44.1kHz files won’t make anyone happy…). Similarly, if you’re receiving files from someone else, check the resolution of files before you start, so that you don’t inadvertently…

TUTORIAL CREATING STEMS FROM TRACK STACKS In Logic Pro, there’s a simple way to create a set of stems in record time. You just need to organise instrument groups into Track Stacks Every tip and trick discussed throughout this article is applicable regardless of which DAW you favour… with the exception of this one. When Apple introduced Track Stacks with Logic Pro X, initially they just seemed like a useful place to have a fader which could control any sounds assigned to that Stack, with the added bonus of being apply to apply auxiliary effects directly from each Stack, thereby allowing a single Reverb assignment, for example, to apply to multiple, complementary sounds. However, Track Stacks go further and as we’ll discover through the following steps – taking particular note…

TUTORIAL STEMMING IN ANY DAW Any DAW which lets you set up instruments, create auxiliary tracks and internally route those to audio tracks will let you stem like this 01 > Our work-in-progress track features piano, a string ensemble of short string articulations, a cello solo and a taiko drum track. We want to stem these into four parts – Strings Long (cello), Strings Shorts (strings ensemble), Piano and Drums. In our examples (on FileSilo) hear how the track sounds in its current form. 02 > As each new track is created, its default output is the ‘Stereo Out’. We manually change this, sending the cello to bus 1, the short strings to bus 2, the piano to bus 3 and the taiko to bus 4. As these busses are…

YOUTUBE THE TRACK Leading producers go in-depth on the sounds, ideas and techniques behind their latest releases Josh Butler, Right Time The tech-house favourite gives us an insight into how he created the rolling beats and processed samples of Right Time in Ableton Live DON’T MISS: Ambassadeurs, Nocturnes Mark Dobson talks us through a cut from his new album Phildel, Glide Dog Phildel breaks down a dark, moody track from her new album Ishmael Ensemble, The River ft. Yazz Ahmed Producer Pete Cunningham tells all Sophia Saze, Self The Dusk & Haze boss on her continuous cassette album DON’T MISS: In the studio with Berlin-based techno eccentric T. Raumschmiere Michael Gray breaks down his remix of You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) Mike Wells, aka Force Mass Motion, shares…

Awaken your creativity with the Coma Reactor With CV, send and return path, noise and more we can get a lot out of the Coma Reactor 01 > We’ll start with a percussive synth loop, balance the dry and wet and explore the delay times and Coma setting. Understanding the range of noise and saturation with Coma and delay times introducing further noise is key to making the most of the module. 02 > Set the module to a short delay time and balance the dry and wet to a 50/50 mix. Starting with a droning oscillator at the input, add an LFO to the delay time modulation input and use the attenuator to create a chorus-like effect. 03 > Use a stepped random CV source such as a sample-and-hold…

Three vintage UK garage bargains 1 E-mu modules From £50 Hardware romplers have become almost extinct in the age of softsynths, but in the ’90s they were one of the most accessible ways to incorporate realistic sampled sounds into your tracks. Essentially a MIDI-controlled sound bank in a 1U rackmount box, most modules offered relatively little in the way of sound design but served up an array of keyboard sounds, synths, drum hits and acoustic instruments. E-mu were one of the leading brands at the time thanks to modules like the Vintage Keys, Proteus and Planet Phatt. You’ll hear their sounds all over classic garage tracks, but their outdated approach means they’re worth very little. Snag yourself a bargain from around £50 for a truly authentic hit of ’90s garage…

THE PITCHSHIFT PANEL/VOCODING TECHNIQUES The intriguing pitchshift panel is simpler than it looks and once again nails the functionality and sound of the classic model upon which it’s based. The dial labelled ‘short/long’ controls the ‘swoop’ of pitch glide function (so essentially slower or longer portamento). You can automatically glide between notes when the flick switch is set to ‘auto’ (or use a footswitch to engage the glide when the flick switch is set to off/ext. control). If the flick switch is set to ‘manual’, you use the horizontal fader to pitchbend upwards to the note/chord you’re playing (great for those classic Beastie Boys Intergalactic- style pitchbend dives!) In terms of performing with vocoders, the humble Shure SM57 is normally a great bet for good results (but note that there’s…

ADVICE Can I learn to use a Eurorack modular synth using software? > The Eurorack boom shows no sign of busting, but we can appreciate that, for a lot of people, stepping into the world of modular synthesis feels like a big step. Even creating a relatively modest Eurorack setup isn’t going to be cheap, and if you’re a newcomer to the world of patch cables, you might not know what to buy or how everything works. There’s also a risk that, having invested in a modular setup, you decide that the world of Eurorack just isn’t for you (and, let’s be honest, it isn’t for everyone). Alternatively, you might get bitten by the bug and suffer the frustration of not having enough money to fund your bleepy new habit.…

Essential Tools For Music Making SOFT SYNTHS Brainworx bx_ oberhausen $249 Full Review: FM345 A strong virtual instrument debut with solid sound and versatile options. The RRP is a bit high though, and it may well also take its toll on your CPU. Arturia Pigments $199 Review: FM342 With a multipart synth engine, sequencer and lots of creative tools, there’s a lot going on in this latest synth powerhouse. Spectrasonics Omnisphere $499 Review: FM294 Version 2 of Omnisphere is a must-try. Audio import is the standout new feature, but dig a little deeper and there are improvements in all areas. 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’…

MONITORS (UNDER £500) KRK Rokit 7 G4 £220 each Full Review: FM348 | KRK’s Rokit monitors look and sound the best yet, and the RP7 represents an excellent balance of power, footprint and price. M-Audio BX5 D3 £100 Review FM321 The D3s are the best looking and best sounding BX5s ever. These diminutive monitors remain one of the best budget designs you can buy Genelec 8010A £199 each Review: FM306 With a deceptively powerful low end and plenty of power, these Genelecs punch well above their weight. Sound quality is excellent too Eve Audio SC203 £389 Review FM306 These monitors offer quality transient response with a nicely balanced mid range. Bass is impressive too, and there’s enough control to adapt to most studio spaces Mackie MR524 £139 each Review: FM328…

Essential Tools For Music Making AUDIO INTERFACES Universal Audio Apollo x6 £1,800 Full Review: FM340 The new series is, sonically, now a match for any rival interfaces. If you’re tempted by the UAD ecosystem, this is highly recommended. Steinberg AXR4 £2,200 Full Review: FM342 Stunning audio quality with ultra high-resolution recording rates and gorgeous preamps designed with Neve’s involvement. Apogee Element 46 £859 Review: FM318 If you’re happy with your studio interface being controlled via software, Apogee’s Element range offers great quality and features. RME Fireface UFX+ £2,418 Review: FM330 Multiple analogue and digital sources in one incredibly flexible device. Plus it’s a bargain. 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…