Table of contents for December 2018 in Future Music

LIKE IT? TRY THESE… Various Artists Carmageddon TDR 2000 OST Soundtrack to the ‘crash ’em up’ car game, featuring plenty of Utah Saints, and that Nick Cave sampling gabba track that turned out to be a bit much for the label. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Utah Saints – Handsup, Utah Saints – Sick, John 5 – Shoot The Dog Underworld dubnobasswith myheadman Seminal electronic album from the pioneering UK act. Jez and Tim had a soft spot for the single, Dark & Long. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Dark & Long, Cowgirl, Epic Philip Glass Two Pages One of our greatest living classical composers. Jez was enthralled by his mesmerizing arpeggios (see ‘B777’, for proof). ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Two Pages, Contrary Motion, Music In Fifths Utah Saints…

Charles Bradley Black Velvet Dunham/Daptone Records Just four days after what would have been his 70th birthday, the much-loved American soul artist, Charles Bradley’s fourth and final album will be released amongst heightened emotions. Having lost his fight with cancer in 2017, The Screaming Eagle of Soul’s extraordinary life and talent is celebrated across Black Velvet, his final album that comprises of tracks recorded throughout the sessions for his three studio albums. Spanning his entire career, this collection of tracks encompasses some of the more off-beat soul excursions of this wonderfully charismatic artist. Each track, like all of Bradley’s output, is emotionally charged and full of raw, personal soul. Across this album, he shows us his quiet, reflective side, his melancholic wanderings, his shining positivity, bristling energy and his unwavering…

Atmospheric Sound Design WORKING WITH LAYERS OF NOISE It doesn’t seem that long ago that one of the qualities most sought – and now, due to digital recording, possible – was pristine quality. Gone were the days of tape hiss and vinyl crackle and the inevitability that fidelity would be compromised by the medium of playback. It turns out, however, that sonic imperfections are positive qualities and that music made with these entirely airbrushed from the recording process often leaves listeners cold. This should come as no surprise when you consider what an important role distortion has played in the history of recorded music, with the harmonic content offered by grit, drive and saturation a huge part of our connection to the records we enjoy. Entirely airbrushed music can often…

Atmospheric Sound Design Evolution and movement One crucial difference between acoustic and electronic sounds is that it’s possible to design instruments, electronically, which don’t ‘move’. If you program a basic waveform synth patch, fix a filter position and create an amplifier envelope with immediate attack and full sustain, for as long as you hold down a note, it won’t evolve or move. This reliability can be very useful but in other contexts, the lack of movement can be disconcerting, even boring. Whenever you’re designing textures ‘behind’ the dominant elements of a track, try to make them move. Movement comes in many forms and can mean different things but, broadly, if a sound develops from a starting point in terms of its volume, tone, space or stereo position and goes on…

DOs & DON’Ts 1 DO: When making textural sounds, do combine electronic and processed acoustic source sounds. The combo of harmonics from both will produce unique, hybrid results. 2 DON’T: Let the bottom end of your sound designed sounds and atmospheric backdrops get out of hand. You don’t need lots of sounds reinforcing the bottom end but this may happen by accident if you pitch-shift lots of sounds down. Be ready with high-pass filters and EQ low cuts. 3 DO: Think about the level of your background textures: a whole lot less can be more. Things don’t need to be memorable; don’t be afraid to set things back as far as needed. 4 DON’T: Let anyone tell you reverb can’t be added to bass-heavy sounds. When it comes to shaping…

Atmospheric Sound Design CREATING AN AUDIO CANVAS As we’ve seen elsewhere in this feature, creating spatial treatments around the core parts of a mix by designing long, lush reverb treatments can be an extremely effective way to place sounds in space. However, sometimes it’s worth thinking about sound in a slightly different way. The only drawback with reverb is that no matter how much you manipulate a reverb’s parameters or seek to create something unusual, at the heart of that treatment, you’ll find the harmonic footprint of the sound(s) triggering it. As a result, the artistic brushstrokes of those reverb tails will be painted in the same colours as the sounds at their core. “What if you could think about textural treatments in another way?” What if you could think…

PRODUCER’S GUIDE Maschine Mikro Mk3 Creating full tracks with Mikro Native Instruments’ third generation Maschine Mikro has just arrived and – alongside the affordable A-Series controller keyboards – offers the cheapest entry point yet into the Maschine ecosystem. With its MPC-like, pad-focussed interface and emphasis on sampled sounds, as a newcomer it’s tempting to think of Maschine as purely a sampler and beat sequencer. While those elements were the original heart of Maschine, and are still core to the software workflow, there’s much more to this current gen version, from the ability to play plugin instruments to advanced mixing and routing and arrangement tools. In this feature, we’re going to help uncover a few of the features that sit just below the surface. Let’s assume you know your Maschine basics,…

QUICK TIPS 1 Use the sound selection menu – found to the top left of the Pattern grid – to set up choke groups containing multiple sounds, for authentic interactions between hi-hats or to silence ghost notes. 2 Don’t overlook Maschine’s built-in Bass Synth. Pretty much all users have access to Monark, Prism and Massive these days, so it’s easy to ignore the application’s own basic-looking offering. But with an acid-friendly filter and cool morphing oscillator, it can be a great source of fast, gritty sounds. 3 Even Maschine Mikro can be a handy sequencer for external hardware. Over on the NI site you can find templates for a lot of common hardware synths and drum machines, which will be able to give you a quick setup ready to route…

Maschine Mikro Mk3 Producer’s Guide To Full arrangements with Maschine Mikro Mk3 Maschine’s Scenes and Perform FX offer a fun way to play around with full arrangements 01 > In the accompanying video, we’ve prepared track elements using multiple Groups, each with Patterns providing different elements of a melodic techno track. Let’s create some Scenes and sequence these. 02 > In the software, we build up our first few Scenes where each adds a new element from a new Group. We can now trigger these from the controller to build up our track piece by piece. We can rename and colour code these for ease too. 03 > We use the ‘Unique’ setting to create fresh duplicates of each existing Scene, in order to create ‘break’ versions of each –…

In The Studio With Noncompliant Noncompliant Midwestern rave icon, Lisa Smith – formerly DJ Shiva and now renamed Noncompliant – chats with Leo Maymind about workflows, crossing the DJ-producer divide, and not looking a gift-Machinedrum in the mouth © Seze Devres @sezepix Lisa Smith is a charismatic individual, both behind and in front of the decks. Part of that appeal comes from her deft mixing and deep knowledge of underground ’90s techno, much of which was on display at her recent b2b with Courtesy in Paris for Red Bull Music Academy, as well as on mixes for Resident Advisor, Discwoman and Slam Radio. But another part of that charisma comes from her outspoken nature on all things related to music and life in the US, including her pure and contagious…

Reviews NI Komplete Kontrol A25 NI Komplete Kontrol A25 £119 Si Truss asks if NI’s budget board can compete in a crowded sector… NI have never exactly been known as a ‘budget’ brand. That’s not to say their products are overpriced, but – for hardware at least – they’re rarely the most affordable option around. That changes with the launch of the A-Series, a range of wallet-friendly controller keyboards available in 61, 49 or 25 key form. At just shy of £120, the A25 isn’t the cheapest MIDI keyboard out there, but it’s certainly well within reach of entry-level and cash-strapped producers. The price drop, however, isn’t matched by a drop in quality, and in terms of build and capabilities these controllers punch well above their weight. Hardware-wise, the matt…

DRIFTING AWAY - THE FULL SET Of the current seven-strong range, the Driftbox R Limited is closest to the Driftbox R(_midi) – MIDI being the only difference. Searching online for the Driftbox R(_midi) may also show a synth with different labelling and toggle-switches to the one seen here The range also includes the Driftbox SE Digital Paraphonic Synthesizer, a MIDI-equipped, DCO-based synth with a 12dB/octave Steiner Parker filter and so-called ’Drift’ joystick. A joystick also features in the dual VCO Driftbox S, five employed in Driftbox W. The Driftbox J uses two joysticks as XY CV controllers and also features a two-channel programmable CV sequencer. Finally, the Driftbox C is a four-channel, two-bus mixer capable of handling audio and CV signals.…

Analogue Solutions Treadstone Analogue Solutions Treadstone Eurorack module £359 The SynthBlock steps into the Eurorack realm. Simon Arblaster investigates Treadstone first appeared last year when it was released in Analogue Solutions’ SynthBlock format – a small, affordable desktop module – and when news of this Eurorack version of the single oscillator synth voice landed, we weren’t surprised, as it fits right in with its 12-point patchbay and slightly esoteric control layout. On first inspection, the only apparent differences were that the faceplate features an ever-so slightly more subdued design and the obvious lack of wooden sides, enclosed back and rubber feet of the original enclosure. It is still the same self-contained analogue synth voice as before and it still includes the same 12V DC power socket on the board. However,…

FingerSonic unveil the feature-packed AnalogFusion Italian brand FingerSonic have announced AnalogFusion, a hybrid polysynth, sporting a total of 13 digital and analogue voices. Split into two distinct areas, the AF comes with six analogue voices, each comprised of two oscillators (saw, pulse and triangle waveforms) with PWM, three LFOs, hard-sync, ring modulation, a multimode filter, plus white and pink noise generators. The oscillators are detunable and all the analogue circuitry is made with discrete components. There is also an additional analogue bass voice, which isn’t so feature rich, with just a single oscillator (saw and square waveforms) and a filter. On the digital side, the synth has three main areas: Virtual Analog, which has two oscillators, a multimode filter, two envelopes and three LFOs; an FM section, with operators with…

CLASSIC ALBUM Words by Roy Spencer © Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images Utah Saints Two Echo, 2000 You’re only as good as your last album, and the Utah Saints’ debut set the bar pretty high. Three top ten hits, success in America, and a six-album deal with London Records. How do you follow that? For Tim Garbutt and Jez Willis the obvious choice was to hand in an album of anti-hits and ultra-fast techno bangers so radio-unfriendly that they were promptly dropped from a label expecting more pop hooks and effortlessly marketable stadium dance beats. “Everyone at the label was excited about the album they thought that we would be working on,” says Jez. “It was all big studio time, and they had imagined that it was going to be full of…

ALBUM OF THE MONTH Leifur James A Louder Silence Night Time Stories © Alex Kozobolis The debut album from London-based producer, Leifur James, is certainly an immersive one. His LP follows two impressive single releases and finds him exploring an expansive soundscape that welcomes diversity and experimentation with equal vigour. Subtly weaving through varied textures, James effortlessly sews together elements of electronica, classical, jazz, blues, soul and world music to create a restless and fascinating mesh of styles. Dubby synths sit beside warm pads, hazy guitars, jazz breaks, lush keys and succulent bass as the Londoner finds an atmosphere that is at once laidback, energetic and purposeful. His instrumentation has a soft, cushioned feel, adding variety and intrigue while allowing us to sink into his beautifully layered arrangements. James’ ability…

RECOMMENDED The Scorpions & Saif Abu Bakr Jazz, Jazz, Jazz Habibi Funk Berlin-based imprint Habibi Funk is a reissue label focused on bringing eclectic, stereotype-busting sounds from the Arab world to a wider audience. These reissues have helped spread the word of some astonishing Arab artists across the globe. Their ninth release sees them move away from compilation format to drop a straight album reissue for the first time. The chosen record is the wonderfully energetic Jazz, Jazz, Jazz album from Sudanese outfit, The Scorpions & Saif Abu Bakr. The band’s sole LP, it’s an expansive fusion of styles. Exploring energetic funk, laidback traditional rhythms and upbeat, guitar-driven cuts, the record has a good-time-driven tone that propels the whole thing forward. Powerful horn sections collide with surging bass, bristling drums…

Pitch-modulated delay Delay treatments can be much more bespoke than you’d think. By playing with tone and pitch modulation, even subtle taps can be effective Delays can be surprisingly sophisticated. Adding an echo seems like a simple process of instantiating our favourite plugin, picking a delay speed and pressing play. But taking time to refine delay taps always pays dividends and most delays let you go quite far without having to add extra effects afterwards. In this example, we’ve started by adding some tape simulation and then using high and low-pass filters to only add echoes to notes in the mid-range. Then, we’ve increased the pitch footprint of the delays by introducing an LFO targeted at the pitch of each echo, so that this subtly warps in and out of…

Atmospheric Sound Design CREATE ONE-OFF VOCAL EFFECTS Textural treatments don’t have to be reserved for instrumental sounds; indeed, some of the best are wrapped around vocal parts, carefully designed to support particular lines and phrases. Let’s just qualify what we mean, as effects treatments are part and parcel of producing a vocal part. So which effects are we referring to if not to the standard tone, dynamics and reverb settings applied to most vocals? Here, we’re talking about effects which add subtle layers of extra detail such as gently undulating, filtered echoes, or reverb textures which seem to rise and fall with the contours of a track. “Some of the best textural treatments are wrapped around vocal parts” To take this latter example first, great things can be achieved when…

Noise elements in beat programming If you make music which relies heavily on beat programming, you can still take an ‘atmospheric’ approach to the sounds you choose There’s no reason why the textural techniques we’re looking at throughout this article can’t be equally applied to drum programming. As we’ll see below, however, identifying the ‘pitch’ of the drum and percussive elements you choose and seeking to unite these helps bridge the gap between atmospheric/drone sounds and traditional rhythmic instrumentation. We start by identifying a groove from FXpansion’s Geist, which we’ve pitched up. To this, we’ve added other elements which reinforce the groove and build a pattern but also add key ingredients seen elsewhere in this article – noises and spatial treatments – which blur the boundaries of our source sounds.…

Producer’s Guide To Maschine Mikro Mk3 Preparation is everything Maschine Mikro Mk3 downsizes the hardware screen compared to previous controllers. As a result, you’ll find yourself turning to the plugin interface for most library browsing duties. This is fine, but it can have the effect of breaking your creative flow if you’re halfway through building a groove and need to grab the mouse to dig through sounds. The best way to overcome this is be prepared. Whether you plan to work from existing presets or want to use only your own sounds, it pays to set aside a few sessions in order to properly get to know your sound library and create lists of favourites. Maschine’s browser uses a ‘star’ system to highlight Sounds, Instruments and Groups, and this is easily…

Maschine Mikro Mk3 Producer’s Guide To Get to know Maschine’s Audio plugin Audio was added to Maschine for the first time late last year. Let’s take a look at how it works 01 Adding audio works just like adding a sample. We find our audio file in the browser and drag it to Sound 1. It automatically adds a Sampler to the sound. Click the arrow next to the sampler in the plugin list to change it to Audio. 02 There are two playback modes: Loop simply plays back the entire audio file triggered from the start of the Pattern, and Gate, which lets us cut the loop in and out using the sequencer. 03 We select Gate mode, and enter Step mode on our controller. We can now use…

In The Studio With Martin Buttrich Martin Buttrich Martin Buttrich has grown to become one of techno’s most respected DJ-producers, renowned for his technical prowess. Danny Turner discusses the esoteric production skills hidden behind his unique sound Launching his career on the ’90s German club circuit, Martin Buttrich cut his teeth collaborating with former partner in crime, DJ-producer Timo Maas. With more than 100 co-productions under their belts, including remixes for Depeche Mode, Fatboy Slim and Green Velvet, the duo bagged a Grammy nomination in 2003 for their remix of Tori Amos’ Don’t Make Me Come To Vegas. This education helped Buttrich learn his trade and begin building his own discography. Over the past 15 years, the German has become a highly influential producer in his own right, producing a formidable…

FM EXPLAINER | Stem Mastering Stem mastering What is it, how is it different from traditional mastering techniques and is it suitable for you? Traditionally, the two stages of mixing and mastering are kept completely separate. When preparing a song for the mix stage, producers generally render out all tracks in a project as a collection of ‘stems’, which is essentially all tracks printed down to uniform audio files. These stems are then imported into a brand new mix session, ready for the final mix. This multitrack mix session comprises dozens – or even hundreds – of individual tracks, which can all be levelled, panned and processed on the journey towards a well-balanced, clear, punchy mix. Once the mix is complete, it’s bounced down to a stereo file (the ‘premaster’)…

How to prepare a mix session for stem mastering Preparing a finished mixdown ready for ‘regular’ mastering is simple: make sure your track doesn’t peak above -2dB, export the track down to a stereo file, then send it to the mastering engineer. Easy! However, prepping your mix session for stem mastering takes a bit more consideration. You’ll want to sum your collection of tracks down to a handful of stems that will facilitate the engineer’s job down the line, and as every mix has its own unique characteristics, it’s vital that you understand how to take full advantage of this approach. The best way to do this is to create five or six group channels (ie, buses) in your DAW, route signals into them, then label them all up appropriately.…

Reviews Electro-Harmonix Mod Rex Electro-Harmonix Mod Rex £229 Four modulated effects grooving to the same pulse: fun or just chaos? Robbie Stamp gets his wobble on Mod Rex is not a ’50s sci-fi weapon, though you’d be forgiven for thinking so. It’s a Polyrhythmic Modulator, with four effects (modulation, filter, tremolo, panning) linked to a single tempo, and their own subdividable LFO with four waveforms: triangle, square up saw and down saw. Tempo can be set internally, or externally via MIDI and pulse clock. Though initially confusing, the Mod Rex layout quickly becomes familiar, making it easy to get into the nitty-gritty of conjuring modulations, from mild to wild. The two larger modulator blocks (Mod and Filter) flank the more simple Trem and Pan sections. These latter two possess division…

Reviews Reon Driftbox Reon Driftbox R £429 Reon’s little-known synth boxes are now coming to the UK. Bruce Aisher gets stuck into three-way cross modulation and takes a listen Reon are a little-known company outside of their native Japan, though they have been designing and building their Driftbox units in Osaka for a number of years. Things, however, are set to change with the recent news that Korg will be distributing their products. Currently this extends to seven products which embrace synthesis, sequencing and controller-based applications (see boxout for more). Here we’ll be taking a look at the Driftbox R(_midi) Dual Voice Analog Synthesizer. Although its name might be a mouthful, the “(_midi)” addition to its appellation hints that there may be a Driftbox R without MIDI. This was originally…

Instruo Cš-L Instruo Cš-L £510 Complex oscillator or oscillator complex? Philip Wise tries out the new dual voltage controlled oscillator from Instruo After leaving Qu-Bit Electronix and setting out with his own brand, Instruo, a little over a year ago, Scottish designer Jason Lim has developed an impressive lineup of Eurorack modules. Instruo’s range stands out from the crowd with a striking design aesthetic and some unique twists on classic synth design. The Cš-L is their take on the complex oscillator, a design pioneered by Don Buchla with the 259 module in the ’70s that typifies the West Coast paradigm of creating complex tones from simple sine waves by way of analogue frequency modulation and wavefolding. There are many complex oscillators available in Eurorack with perhaps the DPO from Make…

TYPES OF FREQUENCY MODULATION The Cš-L can switch between two types of frequency modulation: linear and exponential. Linear FM shifts the carrier pitch by a number of hertz rather than semitones, enabling the VCO to stay in tune unless the modulation depth is pushed really hard. This makes it more suitable for melodic lines. Exponential FM works the same way as the 1v/oct scale, it creates more aggressive sounds and causes the VCO to go out of tune when you change the modulation depth so it’s more suitable for atonal noises or percussion. There is a third type called linear through-zero FM which allows the VCO to stay in tune regardless of the modulation depth by reversing the waveform when it hits 0Hz. This is how digital FM works and…

Authentic rhythm guitar parts I can’t play real guitar, can I emulate funk rhythm parts authentically on my ROMpler? Most ‘ROMpler’ keyboards or modules are stacked full of rhythm guitar samples and patches, so firstly pick a patch that sounds authentic to your ears. Once you have a patch that fits with the track you’re working on, then practice along with your track, tweaking the sound as needed. Concentrate on playing tightly and keep chord shapes simple; most rhythm guitar parts use chords made up of three notes (max). These stripped down chords leave space for other instruments to breathe/interact within the music. Keep chords to three notes max and play tightly, with clean note-offs as well as clean attacks. Alternate between longer and more percussive feels, adding ‘ghost’ notes…

Roland update Vocal Transformer with the VT-4 Five years on from the launch of the VT-3, Roland have unveiled their latest Vocal Transformer box, the VT-4. Part of the Aira range, this is designed for adding both classic and futuristic effects to your voice, and offers hands-on control and a MIDI input so that you're able to ‘play it’ from your MIDI keyboard. The processing tools cover the likes of harmonisation, vocoding, pitchshifting, hard tuning and more, all of which can be accessed from the front panel with no menu diving. What’s more, the VT-4 can be powered for up to five hours with batteries, making it truly portable. The effects offer real-time control, so you can make tweaks as you sing. There are dedicated Pitch and Formant sliders, while…

2hp’s latest module brings cat noises to Eurorack… really Cat, the latest module from 2hp, which generates cat sounds with what its creators say is an ‘unprecedented level of detail and alive-ness’. They further assured us, importantly, that no cats were harmed in the making of the module. The Age control will affect the pitch of your kitten, from deep tones to high-pitched caterwauling, while the Mood function selects the type of sound available in your average cat’s arsenal: purrs, miaows and hisses. And you won’t need to worry about your wailing puss being out of tune as the module features accurate v/oct tracking. Cat is available now for $99 while stocks last.…

Rent-to-own Reason Rack Extensions Propellerhead have announced a new way for you to access some of its Reason Rack Extensions. The Rent-to-Own programme lets you pay monthly for certain instruments and effects, with all funds going towards owning the Extension outright. Rack Extensions were launched for Reason in 2012, and a subscription scheme was rolled out in 2017. You can still buy Rack Extensions in the regular way, but the new programme allows users to ease the financial burden somewhat. The Rack Extensions included are: Parsec Spectral Synthesizer, Umpf Club Drums, Layers Quadrasonic Sample Player, PX7 FM Synthesizer and A-list Acoustic Guitarist. Each one is available for $9.99 a month until you’ve paid in full.…

Max Richter White Boy Rick OST StudioRichter / Deutsche Grammophon Award winning British-German composer Max Richter once again showcases why he is the best in the game with his soundtrack to the upcoming Yann Demange-directed and Oscar-tipped film, White Boy Rick. The intense yet expansive soundtrack draws on a heady concoction of drone, classical, industrial, ambience and electronica influences to create a dark, brooding atmosphere that brings the senses of the murky underworld of the 1980’s Detroit drug scene closer to life. Richter’s ability to merge traditional and orchestral instruments together with machines to create something so organic and cohesive is unrivalled. A bristling bottom end induces immediate feelings of tension, fear, stress and unease whereas there are lighter moments where piano motifs and drifting melodies allow beauty and peacefulness…

Atmospheric Sound Design ATMOSPHERIC SOUND DESIGN The ear-catching foreground elements in your mix are nothing without support. Through the following pages, we’ll focus our attention on a whole range of background sonic landscapes When we make music, it’s tempting to simply think about each new track we add as a new sound and therefore a new piece in a jigsaw. But, relatively speaking, jigsaws are flat, almost two-dimensional entities, whereas mixes are not. From hard left to hard right, they offer a horizontal frame and from sub bass to shimmering treble, they provide a vertical one. But through thoughtful use of reverb, carefully chosen volume, a reduced timbral footprint, increased stereo width and any number of other techniques, we have the capacity to set sounds ‘back’ in a mix, to…

Atmospheric Sound Design Reverb on ice Frozen reverbs offer a way to create ethereal reverb textures which can turn existing instruments in your mix into atmospheres We start by programming a part for Muted Piano, using Spitfire Audio’s Ólafur Arnalds Composer Toolkit. We add Valhalla’s VintageVerb plugin via an auxiliary bus, using the Dirty Hall algorithm (for a little dusty noise), with a generous decay time of 5.34 seconds. We set up UVI’s Sparkverb as an insert on this second instrument, though you can use any reverb plugin with a Freeze option. We click the Freeze button and press play. This produces a decay-free ‘cloud’ of reverb from the notes of our cluster chord. We return to the cluster chord and transpose it up and octave. We then change parameters…

Add reverses to your textures Here, we’re filling in the gaps between phrases with some tone and space-enhanced reversed sounds, to add an ethereal atmosphere Sometimes the ‘right sound’ to fill in the gaps between musical phrases isn’t a new instrument, but a ‘version’ of the lead sound itself. In the following example, we’ve programmed a moody piano sound with some tempting gaps between phrases into which we’d like to place a haunting, atmospheric sound. A reversed version of the piano seems like a good choice, especially when we treat it with its own tone and spatial treatment and look to make each reversed slice occupy its own part of the stereo field by automating pan. Be careful with how you reverse the original piano and also which sections of…

Atmospheric Sound Design Working with found sounds Even the most humble of raw recordings can form compelling layers of drone-based, atmospheric textures We start by importing two audio recordings onto two new audio tracks. One is a recording of a small cardboard box being opened and closed, while the second is of five dice being shaken and rolled inside a plastic container. Both are completely unprocessed. Next we add a sound called ‘Circuit Pad Raise Ambience’ from Omnisphere 2. We head to the in-built effects and increase the Tape Slammer Saturation, whilst also turning up the ‘Age’ parameter. We run this alongside our sampled cardboard box texture. We vary the box’s tone with Soundtoys’ Filter Freak 2, using opposing band-pass filters for movement. Add Tremolator to create a rapid, snuffling…

In The Studio With Jeff Mills Jeff Mills Underground Resistance founder and dance music icon, DJ/producer Jeff Mills is one of Detroit techno’s greatest exports. Danny Turner discusses his latest collaboration, the four-piece ‘super group’ Spiral Deluxe © Kevin Lake Born in Detroit, Michigan, Jeff Mills has become internationally recognised as a key figure in the techno movement. Initially a DJ, in the late ’80s Mills founded the culturally influential Underground Resistance with ‘Mad’ Mike Banks and Robert Hood. With UR, solo, and under the now retired moniker The Wizard, Mills forged a reputation for relentless, stripped-down techno and DJ sets that combine technically impressive mixing skills with live 909 jams. Over the past three decades, Mills has applied his visionary aesthetic to film, documentaries and exhibitions. Continuing the collaborative theme,…

Stealing ideas from presets Maschine makes it very easy to apply your own creative stamp to preset sounds. Here’s one easy method Debate rages within electronic music about the legitimacy of making tracks using presets, and we don’t have the time or energy to get into that here. Whatever your opinion on the subject, it’s worth noting that Maschine’s Factory Library comes stocked with a lot of excellent, well-designed Sounds and these can provide a great starting point whether you plan to customise them yourself or not. Obviously, the easiest way to customise presets is to simply find a sound vaguely similar to what you’re looking for and then tweak parameters until you have something that suits your needs. However, as we’ll look at below, Maschine makes it easy to…

MODULAR MONTHLY Exploring logic for audio and CV Mystic Circuits ANA gives us six logic outputs based on two inputs Mystic have made distinctive Eurorack modules for a few years now, pushing unique, sometimes abstract areas of synthesis functions rather than just cloning a classic filter or two. Their new logic module ANA takes two inputs and gives us six unique outputs – MIN, MAX, VCA, MAG, STEP and BOX. MIN computes the minimum voltage value of the two inputs, MAX computes the maxi voltage at the inputs, VCA multiplies the two inputs, MAG gives us the difference between inputs, STEP performs a track and hold based smooth/stepped process and BOX performs a bipolar comparator function giving us a 3-level pulse output. All of these can be used with audio…

QUICK TIPS 1 As a rule, creative input decreases as a track goes through the various stages: the artist and/or producer provide the artistic vision, the mixing engineer sweetens and sculpts the mix’s sonics, and the mastering engineer optimises it for final output. Note – stem mastering isn’t mixing, so respect the artist’s vision! 2 When dialling in master-bus limiting, overly spiky or dynamic elements can trip gain reduction too early, and result in less-than-ideal loudness levels. When stem mastering, simply head to the offending stem and apply limiting earlier down the chain. Multiple stages of subtle limiting give a more controlled overall sound. 3 If a particular stem is getting lost in the overall song, you can easily turn it up. If it’s not quite ‘dense’ enough, try mixing…

FM Explainer Stem Mastering How to approach a stem-mastering session Our step-by-step guide reveals how the process can produce a more nuanced end result 01 It’s time for us to get hands-on and master a track from several stems. In our ‘finished’ mix session, we’ve routed relevant elements into six groups: kick, bass, drums (minus kick), synths, vocals and FX. We then solo each group and export it to a stem file, ensuring that the project’s aux effects are included in the signals. 02 Next, we import our six stems into a fresh project. All the stems align perfectly, and the track plays back as it should. The temptation here is to dive into each channel and start processing, but instead we’re going to head straight to the stereo output…

THE ALTERNATIVES Native Instruments S-Series from £479 Tight plugin and DAW control from NI’s excellent Komplete Kontrol setup, but there’s far less in the way of hardware flexibility. native-instruments.com Arturia Beatstep Pro £219 Arturia’s Beatstep is well-equipped for linking up analogue and digital gear. It’s design is pad-based, rather than keyboard-based though. arturia.com Nektar Panorama T4 £299 Nektar’s controllers offer well-equipped control at a solid price point. nektartech.com…

Reviews Native Instruments Maschine Mikro Mk3 NI Maschine Mikro Mk3 £199 The third generation Mikro is NI’s most affordable Maschine ever. Si Truss searches for the catch… A fast, hands-on tool for sketching beats and grooves Last year’s Maschine Mk3, with its added interface and improved screens, did an impressive job of drawing user focus away from the computer, making it easier to select, edit and play sounds without referencing plugin UI. By drastically downsizing the hardware screen, this Maschine Mikro update actually pushes things in the opposite direction; minimising the amount of visual information that’s provided by the controller in favour of more space for hands-on control. While increased reliance on a computer screen might seem counter-intuitive, it actually does make a lot of sense. While previous Mikros did…

THE ALTERNATIVES Korg Minilogue £431 The Minilogue is very much a modern analogue polysynth, but does manage to feature dual-VCO architecture (with cross-modulation) for each of its four voices. korg.com Doepfer Dark Energy III £420 This flexible semi-modular synth has a lot of potential when it comes to modulation and interfacing with other gear. doepfer.de Arturia MicroBrute £229 Cheap, and more than just cheerful, the MicroBrute adds a keyboard, patch-points and an oscillator section that includes various forms of waveshape manipulation. arturia.com…

Propellerhead Europa Propellerhead Europa £134 Leo Maymind looks at Propellerhead’s first AU/VST, offering wavetable synthesis with spectral filtering and much more… Propellerhead’s Reason was, for a long time, a closed system with a bespoke set of tools, but that changed with the public release of the DAW’s workhorse, the wavetable-based Europa synth, now available as a VST/AU for any DAW (free to current Reason users). So, how does Europa stack up against the big boys? Well, not too badly as it turns out, because Europa indeed manages to stand on its own while bringing a few unique tricks. Starting with the red and white layout, there’s something immediately classy and intuitive about the GUI. Essential knobs are given a more 3D-presence, while lesser-used knobs are depicted with 2D graphics. The…

THE ALTERNATIVES Make Noise DPO £439 Probably the best-known Eurorack complex oscillator with a full modulation section for the final output and loads of vactrols for extra rubberiness. makenoisemusic.com Verbos Complex Oscillator £599 A complex oscillator in the classic style, the modulation section can be used for AM or FM, and the master-out can blend between four wave types under voltage control. verboselectronics.com Endorphin.es  Furthrrr Generator £619 A fully featured analogue complex oscillator that can be expanded with a Strong Zero Core for digital through-zero linear FM. endorphin.es…