Table of contents for May 2020 in Future Music

WELCOME Solace in synthesis The world is going through some strange times right now, with lots of us shut up at home and – in the case of many musicians, DJs and those working in the live music sector – facing financial struggles. When facing uncertainty, it can be helpful to take some comfort from things that relax us, like making music. We’d be lying if we said we had the incredible foresight to plan this issue’s cover feature to time with the arrival of a new global pandemic, but this month’s guide to the best cheap and compact hardware synths is particularly well suited to gearing yourself up for a little social distancing. Maybe now is the perfect time to pick up a new, wallet-friendly noise maker (ideally from…

NI reveal plans to make Maschine a “start to finish” production platform Native Instruments have offered an intriguing update regarding the future of their Maschine platform, noting that the ultimate goal is to “get to a point where you can produce tracks start to finish” when using it. Of course, there are already many people who use Maschine as far more than as a musical scratchpad, but NI’s statement implies that we could be approaching DAW levels of functionality somewhere down the line. Whether this will extend to a Maschine that works standalone rather than relying on a computer – as Akai’s latest MPC models do – also remains to be seen. The good news is that you might not have to wait long for at least some of this…

IK Multimedia’s new reverb puts Sunset Sound studio spaces in your DAW > Opened in 1958, Los Angeles’ Sunset Sound studios is a legendary facility that initially handled work for Disney – the music for Mary Poppins and 101 Dalmations, for example – before opening its doors to external clients such as The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Prince. Now, thanks to IK Multimedia, you can recreate this classic space in your own DAW with the T-RackS Sunset Sound Studio Reverb. This runs as both a plugin and within T-RackS 5, and is powered by IK’s Volumetric Response Modeling technology and physical modelling of the studio’s consoles. The software was created in collaboration with producer/engineer Ross Hogarth (Van Halen, Doobie Brothers) and many of Sunset Sound’s engineers, and recreates the…

Infinity 4.5 promises to take you beyond other audio editors with MIDI-like levels of tweaking > Hit’n’Mix have updated Infinity, their ‘atomic audio editor’, to version 4.5. Unlike some editors, which offer editing of just the waveform and/or frequency spectrum, Infinity promises to ‘unlock’ audio and work with notes, harmonics and unpitched sounds. Indeed, it's claimed that editing is so deep and flexible that it can feel like you’re working with MIDI, not audio. v4.5 comes with a raft of new features. You can rip and export video and MIDI files, import and paint your own samples into rips via the Instrument Palette, auto-detect and set BPMs/tempo/scales/keys, and remove noise. A whole host of other audio processing and workflow improvements are included, too. Hit’n’Mix say that these improvements will save…

Mini Synth Shoot-Out Feature The synths on test Arturia MicroFreak First out of the gates, Arturia’s MicroFreak certainly lives up to its name, being the odd one out in so many different ways. There’s the capacitive keybed keyboard that has no moving parts but, at the same time, isn’t as unfeeling as a touch keyboard – more somewhere in between. The synth’s sound is also ‘out there’, wayward and wobbly and you’ll realise early on that this is for experimenters rather than purists. That’s because at its core lies a digital engine of several types, with 11 modes that cover subtractive, wavetable, Harmonics and other synthesis types. The best part is that they are controlled via four main orange dials and virtual pots on the OLED screen meaning you can…

Conclusions > It’d be easy to sum up and say ‘well there’s something for everyone here’ because most of these cheap synths have been designed with quite tight briefs in mind, so there isn’t often a lot of direct crossover. Even with our analogue contenders, there are wildly different approaches which makes choosing one for your needs easier. If you want pure, raw analogue, there is the obvious choice of the Neutron. Not only does this have the biggest, ballsiest analogue tone, it gives you a lesson in both standard and modular synthesis and is a great intro to the latter. For easier analogue, presets, sequencing and still a surprisingly big sound, UNO delivers the best bang for buck. That said, a shade over 50 quid more gets you the…

Fickle Friends The Track Making Pretty Great’s groovy bassline in Logic Jack uses the awesome power of Omnisphere plus choice processing to create a contagious bass riff 01 > “Everything is on the same rhythm as the riff, I didn’t want to make it too complicated,” begins Jack. The first layer of the bassline comes from the Circuitrix Subz patch in Omnisphere. This is compressed with the help of a Waves CLA-2A. “It just gives so much punch!” he enthuses. 02 > Next Logic’s Channel EQ is applied to attenuate the signal in the 100Hz and 7.5kHz regions, and the low end is boosted with a touch of Waves Renaissance Bass. “It accentuated the subby frequencies, I love it,” extols Jack. 03 > The second bass…

Reinforcing low-end weight 1 Start with some heavy perc parts from Laboratory Audio’s Strikeforce library and a Taiko instrument from Action Strikes, both playing a (mostly) 1/8ths rhythm. Velocity hits help demark the pulse. The texture is dense but could be more impactful. 2 Extend the frequency range of the demarcated rhythm with an extra, ultra-low frequency percussive source. Select an 808 Kick Drum from Battery 4 and program the rhythm, selecting one loud Velocity and applying it to every hit. 3 In this clip, the Kick is absent from the first four bars and introduced for the second half. You need good monitors to hear the difference, so listen carefully. But the second-half hits are more impactful for having been ‘extended downwards’.…

Ambient Three ways to add a hint of ambient to your music Generative tools 1 As an interesting offshoot of ambient music, generative music is an approach in which software generates melodies and patterns based on adjustable parameters. Priced from £1.99, the series of iOS and Android apps produced by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers offers a fascinating take on infinitely-evolving background music. Check out Bloom: 10 Worlds first, but others like Air and Scape are also well worth a look. AberrantDSP SketchCassette 2 Strictly speaking, ambient isn’t necessarily lo-fi at all, but there’s a certain softness or warmth that often characterises music in the genre. We’re big fans of tape emulation for all sorts of purposes, but one recent release which feels highly appropriate for ambient is the excellent…

GEAR GUIDE DRUM MACHINES & SAMPLERS Roland MC-707 $999 Full Review: FM349 It lags behind some rivals on the sampling front, but on the whole the 707 is a powerful and well-designed groovebox. A welcome return for the company’s MC line. Elektron Model: Cycles $299 Full Review: FM356 More than just a cut-down version of the Digitone, this is a fun and personality-packed FM groovebox, driven by a fantastic sequencer with lots of creative tools. Elektron Digitakt £659 Review: FM320 With deep sequencing and a powerful sound engine, Digitakt is the ‘affordable’ Elektron groovebox we’ve been dreaming of. Elektron Analog RYTM £1,499 Review: FM331 Though the MK1 remains a great box, there are plenty of reasons to upgrade to the MKII – user sampling, individual outs, and the QPER feature…

Gear Guide SOFTSYNTHS Kilohearts Phase Plant from €169 Full Review: FM350 Phase Plant’s modular architecture is an incredible resource for conjuring real and otherworldly sounds. A powerful, flexible synth in every way! Native Instruments Massive X £179 Full Review: FM348 A long time in the making, NI’s follow-up to the most successful softsynth of all time doesn’t disappoint. There are still some rough edges at launch, but it sounds exceptional. 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. 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. Audiaire Zone £99…

MONITORS 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 Although the new…

The MOD Dwarf puts effect and instrument plugins in a stage-ready stompbox > The latest project from the creators of the excellent MOD Duo multi-effects box, MOD Dwarf, might look like a conventional guitar pedal but it’s actually rather more than that. Specifically, this little box can be loaded up with all the effects, amp sims, cabinets, virtual instruments and MIDI utilities that you need, and then taken to the stage. Originally conceived as a guitar product, the MOD Dwarf could also attract keyboard players, thanks to its class-compliant USB MIDI connectivity. You also receive two independent audio channels, three assignable knobs, three footswitches and three push buttons. Designed to offer the complexity and power of computer-based processing in a self-contained piece of hardware, the MOD Dwarf can utilise both…

Daisy is the $29 audio board that can be turned into a synth, guitar pedal and a whole lot more Going down a storm on Kickstarter – already at five times its funding goal – Daisy is an ‘embedded platform for music’ from Electrosmith that can be used to create synths, Eurorack modules, guitar pedals and more. You can use Daisy however you want, but the barebones headlines are that it offers two channels of 24-bit/192kHz audio (or more if you wish) and full support for USB MIDI I/O. It features an STM32 ARM Cortex-M7 CPU running at 480MHz with internal 32-bit floating point processing, and 64MB of SDRAM. We’re promised low latency (less than 1ms), full compatibility with the Arduino platform and a suite of software libraries and documentation.…

Talking Shop Becker & Mukai “Our studio is full of instruments, there’s always something to hit or strum in there” Parisian composer Jean- Gabriel Becker and Japanese multi-instrumentalist Susumu Mukai (aka Zongamin) have each had storied musical careers in their own right. The former is known for his cinematic work, and has partnered with the likes of Massive Attack and John Foxx, while the latter has collaborated with the likes of Alexis Taylor and Floating Points and remixed releases from Trevor Jackson and Air. Together as Becker & Mukai, they’ve now released a wonderfully genre-agnostic album, Time Very Near. We caught up with the pair to find out more... When did you start making music, and how did you first get started? SM: “We’d known each other for a while…

Come on baby, drive my synth Having effects on a synth can really add to sonic flexibility, as we can see on many of the contenders in our list As we’re looking at cheap synths, we don’t really expect too many optional extras, but some of the effect options thrown in are a nice surprise. The most out-there effects come from the Behringer Neutron with a bucket brigade delay which has to be heard to be believed, but its Drive section is also very powerful, acting almost like an oscillator. Drive is also available on the Korg, adding a rich distortion to filth up many of that synth’s sounds. The UNO Synth’s effects on the other hand, are more for performance duties. Let’s take a closer look. Perform with UNO…

YOUTUBE MORE UNMISSABLE VIDEO TRAINING FROM FUTURE MUSIC Discover our line-up of exclusive YouTube goodness. Head online for all this and more! THE TRACK Leading producers go in-depth on the sounds, ideas and techniques behind their latest releases Lia Mice, Which Memories Will Make It? The multidisciplinary artist talks techno, time travel and how to artfully ‘degrade’ beautiful sounds DON’T MISS: Boston Bun, Don’t Wanna Dance Thibaud Noyer on sampling, replays and how he made his latest house hit Jack Boston, The Place The DnB producer breaks down his track, featuring vocalist Vanity Jay Twin Atlantic, Barcelona Rock favourites Twin Atlantic explore the making of single Barcelona  Jaded, Pancake ft. Ashnikko UK-based house and remix kings talk about their bass-heavy hit steinberg Studio Sessions Top producers show you the…

REVIEWS Elektron Model:Cycles $299 The Digitone sound engine gets made over as an FM drum machine. Upcycling? Or clever re-packaging? Si Truss finds out Elektron’s Model series made its debut with last year’s Model:Samples – a sample-powered groovebox based around the engine from the brand’s Digitakt sampler. Housed in a white, lightweight chassis – distinct from the company’s usual dark and weighty aesthetic – the Model:Samples set itself apart with an affordable, sub-£500 price point and a workflow considerably more approachable than the deep and complex designs Elektron gear is notorious for. In a move that will surprise nobody, Elektron is now expanding the range with a second instrument, this time based around the sound engine of the Digitakt’s sibling Digitone. As with Digitone, Model:Cycles is based around a polyphonic…

ROUND-UP Width gadgets Get ready for some pan-spreading, as we investigate five stereo imaging plugins that’ll net you control over your girth iZotope Ozone Imager 2 FREE A recent update to iZotope’s free stereo imaging plugin, ripped from the iZo flagship Ozone software, Ozone Imager 2 is a dab hand at visualising, collapsing stereo signals to mono, and widening mono signals into stereo. Visualisation is available in three types: the filled-in Polar Level, the dotty Polar Sample (pictured), or geometric Lissajous, with a stereo correlation meter. The main Width control starts at 0 (normal), reduces to -100% (mono), and increases to 100% (extra stereo). The Stereoize slider, meanwhile, helps turn a mono signal into a stereo one, with a choice of two algorithms; check the correlation meter, which should ideally…

SOUNDS & SAMPLES EastWest - Hollywood Backup Singers $399 (or include in ComposerCloud from $19.99/month) This month, we’re taking a look at two quite different voice-based libraries, but both take quite a novel approach to the creation of vocal textures. The new offering from EastWest sits in an altogether different musical space to Mysteria (more on which next), building on EW’s Voices Of Soul, but also embracing technology found on their ‘Hollywood Choirs’ library. There are the usual range of ‘ohhs’ and ‘aahs’, alongside other variants of sung consonants and vowels. There are also versions that move between styles using key-switches or the mod wheel, and phrases sung in every key. As expected from EW, there are also multiple mic mixes that let you tweak the sound (captured in the…

Building a chorus sound with Serum Let’s explore a simple choir patch using Xfer’s wavetable synth 01 Starting with Serum’s Init preset, select the Basic Mg wavetable and adjust the wavetable position so that the result is a warm sawtooth. Since choirs are comprised of multiple voices, use the Unison parameter for a thick supersaw. If your CPU can handle it, select 10 voices with the detune parameter in the default position. 02 Formant filters are the secret sauce for creating vocal effects, so select one of the Formant filter types. Modes I and II work best. Once you’ve selected a filter mode, lower your master volume and maximise the resonance to emphasise the vowel characteristics. Finally, sweep the cutoff in order to hear vowel options, like “aaaaah” and “oooooh”.…

Gear Guide MIDI KEYBOARDS Novation SL MkIII from £540 Full Review: FM338 Well-designed and versatile. For those who work with both hardware and software, this may be the best studio centrepiece on the market. NI Komplete Kontrol S-Series Mk2 £499 Full Review: FM324 Komplete Kontrol MkII brings a whole sonic universe under your fingertips like never before, with much deeper DAW integration too. Akai Advance 49 £399 Review FM293 Combined with Akai’s VIP software, the Advance controllers remove the disconnect between controller and DAW. NI Komplete Kontrol  A-Series | from £119 Review FM338 A quality controller combined with a well-rounded software bundle. Arturia MicroLab £69 Review: FM355 This may not tick all the boxes for a studio controller keyboard, but as a super portable travelling device it hits the mark.…

Gear Guide HIGH-END SYNTHS Novation Summit £1,899 Full Review: FM350 Though the Peak is still great, Summit is even greater. A powerhouse polysynth, perfect for classic tone emulation as well as next-level, out-there sound design. Waldorf Quantum £3,500 Full Review: FM336 A stunning piece of hybrid synth design – setting a new benchmark for features, interface and sonics. It’s expensive, but a great investment that you’ll find inspiring for many years. Korg Prologue from £1,299 Review: FM332 Despite a few surprising omissions, this sounds inspiring. A unique character, plus the analogue voices layered with VPM sounds and effects sound magical! Sequential Prophet X £3,359 Review: FM336 The Prophet X is a fresh and inspiring hybrid synth that encourages you to explore sound making in new ways. The results sound unique…

Gear Guide DAWS Reason Studios Reason 11 from $69 Full Review: FM350 Having the ability to use Reason’s Rack tools as a plugin is something of a revelation, and the new effects are great. Bitwig Studio 3 $399 Full Review: FM348 A powerful, inspiring update that further cements Bitwig Studio’s stake as the creative producer’s DAW of choice. Steinberg Cubase Pro 10.5 £480 Review FM354 A solid update to a great DAW, though whether you choose to update now will depend on your own workflow and needs. Tracktion Waveform 10 from $199 Review: FM345 Waveform is now friendlier, contains more creative tools and brings workflow ideas you’ll have missed from other DAWs. Ableton Live 10 €349 Review: FM329 Live 10 is a quality update to one of the best DAWs…

FILTER Sonic shutdown As the Coronavirus outbreak impacts countries around the world, how is electronic music affected, and what can we do to help? Unless you’re reading this from one of the increasingly rare corners of the earth remaining untouched, undoubtedly many aspects of your life will have been affected by Corvid-19. The electronic music realm is far from unaffected – in fact, many DJs, musicians and venues will be hit hard. Several major music festivals have already been postponed or cancelled for the year altogether. Coachella is now happening in the autumn, SXSW is off until next year, as is Ultra Music Festival and a number of other events. At the time of writing, Glastonbury is still hoping to go ahead, but it’s looking touch-and-go for many others. While…

Magix release ACID Pro 10, bundled with a free copy of Xfer Serum We’re slightly confused as to how it differs from ACID Pro Next (which was announced last year but now seems to have disappeared) but Magix have announced that ACID Pro 10, the latest version of its loop-based DAW, is now available. This includes an “all-new” version of Zynaptiq’s Stem Maker audio separation technology, which lets you extract individual elements (drums, vocals etc) from mixed audio. Stem Maker 2 promises refined separation and better overall sound quality. There are also ACID Morph pads; assign audio tracks, instruments or busses to a pad and you can then morph sounds and effects, giving you a new creative option. The MIDI Playable Chopper, meanwhile, gets a new transient detection feature and…

This MIDI controller will make you feel like you’re using a real Prophet-5 > SoundForce have announced their latest synth-specific MIDI controller, this time focusing on the legendary Prophet-5. Designed to work with the likes of the Arturia Prophet V and u-he Repro-5, this is known as the SFC-5 V2, and offers improvements in comparison to the V1 model, including a 100% sheet metal case, wobble-free metal shaft pots and walnut side panels. The SFC-5 V2 includes 32 rotary pots and 28 switches, plus a couple of extra user controls for your effects plugins. It can send out standard MIDI CC messages and works with any software that’s MIDI-mappable. Configuration takes place in a web-based control panel, and you can save and load different setups. SoundForce stress that this is…

In the studio with Crazy P Dani: “It was recorded in the studio we’ve had for over 20 years. In the ‘dark room’, which added to the vibe. It just created a… womb. The womb room! [laughs].” Jim: “There was quite a lot of outboard. We prefer stuff out-the-box because it’s a bit more hands on. The synth palette was similar to what we have now.” Toddy: “The Juno 60 and 106 played a big part. Then the Moog Voyager is all over that album. The Godwin string synth, which was new to us, was important. The Bass Station, Nord Electro, and Nord Lead 2 have been part of our setup since the beginning. Dani loved the Boss RC-20XL Loop Station. I think we had an Allen & Heath analogue…

Feature The eight synth contenders We’ve got an incredibly varied bunch of cheap synths in for this test. Here’s a run down of the runners and riders… Arturia MicroFreak £233 RELEASE: May 2019 1 Freak certainly stands out from the crowd. It has fairly robust feel next to some of the more plastic offerings here, and a more leftfield Buchla Easel-style 25-key capacitive keyboard. Inside you get a 4-part paraphonic architecture, a 12-mode digital oscillator covering a multitude of raw ingredients including analogue-emulation, wavetable oscillation, physical-modelling and a Modal Resonator for real instruments and drums. We said: “it feels like multiple synths in one. If stuck for ideas, quickly flipping to a different oscillator mode can instantly inspire something new.” arturia.com Behringer Neutron £275 RELEASE: August 2018 2…

PRODUCER’S GUIDE Dramatic impact Impact: that dramatic, cinematic quality which oozes from every trailer, film score and game soundtrack and yet which seems so elusive. Until now… © PYMCA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images As those working in music production develop their skills and begin to pay closer attention to the way in which music they admire is made, one question arises more frequently than any other: ‘how do I make my music sound like that?’. Rarely are those asking that question thinking about harmony, melody or ‘treading on the toes’ of the musical foundations of admired tracks. Instead, it’s usually asked as a lament to the fact that commercial tracks often sound wider, bigger, louder, punchier, more dynamic and, somehow, more impactful. And, of course, the temptation is to…

Fight back against lazy sample library usage! As you’ll be all too aware, there are sample libraries for every instrument group these days. Synths, orchestral instruments, percussion ensembles, vintage and rare instruments…¶ it’s hard to think of a sonic category which isn’t fully stocked with assorted sample library options. For all of the upsides of having such ready access to high quality sounds, this proliferation of content does make it harder to make your own productions stand out, partly because – in truth – too many of us have become a little lazy. It’s easier to scroll through lists of presets than it is to start sound designing dramatic sounds of your own. Yet it’s a DIY approach which will really set your sounds apart. No matter how you interpret…

To | XXXX RETROSPECTIVE Ambient Defined in the late ’70s by Brian Eno, ambient’s unique approach has filtered down to lots of other genres © Erica Echenberg/Redferns With the release of his 1978 album Ambient 1: Music For Airports, Brian Eno defined a new genre. Wholly unsurprising, we’d add, from a man who has dedicated most of his career to the pursuit of the original. Eno never claimed to be the first artist to explore the idea – although he’d somewhat controversially later claim to have ‘invented’ ambient music – but by naming the genre he hoped to define it and encourage others to get involved. Inspired by a lengthy delay at Cologne-Bonn airport, he set about creating music specifically with that setting in mind. Cynically, you could surmise that…

AUX EFFECTS The effects offering here is identical to that found on Model:Samples, featuring both reverb and delay as auxiliary effects, along with a per-channel volume control that doubles as a subtle digital distortion when pushed into the upper levels. The two auxiliaries are fairly straightforward; each has a front panel rotary for hands-on control with a secondary function provided by a shift-press. In the case of the delay, this allows users to edit the delay time (sync’d to 128 note divisions of the main tempo) and feedback level. The reverb, meanwhile, has editable Size and Tone parameters, the latter of which applying a bidirectional shelf EQ in order to adjust the effect’s high or low frequency. While the effects in themselves are fairly straightforward, as with most of Model:Cycles’…

ADVICE Does ‘lightweight’ always equate to poor quality? > Gear that has a nice weight to it is often considered higher quality, however this isn’t always true. For example, Roland’s System-8 and JD-XA are both built into very light plastic enclosures and many touring artists attest to its sturdy roadworthiness. Similarly, a Nord Stage 3 compact weighs relatively little, but it’s super tough! Can I use my voice to control my plugin synths? > There are plenty of ways to turn audio data into MIDI – this is a feature that may well be built into your DAW – but ‘playing’ your synths with your voice in realtime is another matter. However, there is a potential solution for anyone who wants to do this: the Vochlea Dubler Studio Kit. This…

Create harmonic voices in Operator Ableton’s FM synth is great for interesting harmonics. Let’s take a look at it in action... 01 Starting with the Default initialised preset, select the all-carrier algorithm (no FM modulation), since we won’t be using FM for this sound. Then set Osc A’s amp envelope to a soft attack (100 ms) and medium release (1000 ms), with full sustain. Use your ears to determine how ‘pad-like’ the sound will be. 02 Since this choir doesn’t require a lot of high frequency content, we can use the 16-harmonic mode for the additive waveform editor. Start by increasing the first four harmonics to maximum volume, then reduce the volume of harmonics 2, 3, and 4 progressively, making each a little lower than the previous harmonic. 03 While…

Gear Guide SEMI-MODULAR SYNTHS Moog Matriarch £1,979 Full Review: FM355 The Matriarch is very inspiring. It’s well built, has the classic Moog Modular sound and is complex yet intuitive. A future classic! Dreadbox Erebus 3 €499 Full Review: FM355 The Erebus V3 is a powerful, well-specified and flexible synth, capable of both conventional and more experimental tones. Korg Volca Modular £190 Review: FM342 A West Coast synth in a compact package. It may be fiddly and a little complicated, but if you’re willing to give in to its experimental ethos, the Modular is endless fun. Pittsburgh Modular Microvolt 3900 $629 Review: FM341 A characterful semi-modular that wears its influences on its sleeve, but still has its own unique style and sound. Moog DFAM drum synth £549 Review: FM333 A unique…

Gear Guide AUDIO INTERFACES Arturia AudioFuse 8Pre £1,800 Full Review: FM354 All in all, this is an excellent interface with some thoughtful touches. The included software makes it good value too. Antelope Audio Discrete 8 £1,279 Full Review: FM351 An impressive platform: audio conversion is precise and the I/O configuration is deep. The future looks bright for Discrete 8. Universal Audio Apollo x6 £1800 Review: FM340 Now a match for any rival interfaces. If you’re tempted by the UAD ecosystem, this is highly recommended. Universal Audio Apollo x4 £1,500 Review: FM355 With a seductive feature set, and, at a lower price than its bigger brothers, the Apollo x4 will prove attractive to many. SSL 2/2+ from £179 Review: FM356 Solidly built with impeccable sonics. Plus, by keeping them reasonably simple,…