Table of contents for November 2020 in Future Music

The Future Of Music Is Softube’s Model 72 plugin the perfect Minimoog synth emulation? We think it’s fair to say that no synth has been emulated more than the Minimoog, which might make you wonder why anyone would bother having another crack at it. Softube, though, have taken up the challenge – what’s more, they think that, with the Model 72, they’ve “perfected” that classic monophonic synth sound. More than just a straight synth plugin, Model 72 is described as “a vintage synth time machine”. Based on a 1972 synth in pristine condition, each component has apparently been modelled to the smallest detail, quirks and non-linearities included. That said, there are a few extra features, too: doubling, stereo spread and an expanded control set. What’s more, as well as the…

Moog go back to black with new Dark Series Grandmother and Matriarch Moog’s Grandmother and Matriarch are excellent semi-modular synths, but we can see how their patchwork styling might not be to everyone’s taste (although, for the record, we really like their designs). Fear not, though: both are now available in new Dark Series liveries that pay tribute to the design of the classic Moog modular systems that inspired them. This means, quite simply, that both the monophonic Grandmother and more capable paraphonic Matriarch now come in a sleek black finish, with none of the pastel colouring of the originals. There are downsides to this – the colouring made it easy to see the divide between each module – but we don’t doubt that some prefer more subdued styling. Also…

Add wireless MIDI to your synths, drum machines and PC with Roland’s new Bluetooth adapters Roland are the latest company to offer a wireless MIDI solution: the WM-1 and WM-1D enable Bluetooth-based communication between elements like synths and drum machines and your PC, Mac or iOS device. The WM-1 ($70) is a two-plug device that offers MIDI I/O on standard 5-pin ports. Plug this into your MIDI hardware and it should immediately be able to communicate with your Mac or iOS device via Bluetooth MIDI. The WM-1D ($80), meanwhile, is a USB dongle that adds Bluetooth MIDI support to PCs. It can also be used by Mac and iOS owners who want to benefit from the system’s Fast mode, which is said to reduce latency to 3ms. You can also…

Sequential announce a new Prophet-5, a faithful reboot of one of the greatest synths of all time After months of what’s being described as “clandestine development”, Sequential have announced a new version of the Prophet-5, one of the greatest synthesisers in history. They've also confirmed the Prophet-10, which doubles the voice count. Timed to coincide with Sequential founder Dave Smith’s 70th year, the new synth takes the iconic synth designer back to his roots. “It’s not often that you get to revisit your past, retrieve some of its magic, and give it new life,” says Smith. “The Prophet-5 was one of the most exciting instruments to appear in an equally exciting time for music and technology. It’s gratifying to rediscover that its sound and aesthetics are just as appealing now…

A NEAR LIMITLESS TOOLKIT… UVI Falcon 2 UVI’s Falcon is essentially a beefed-up version of the company’s free modular Workstation. When we say beefed up, we really mean it! This is possibly the most feature-packed virtual instrument around. Falcon 2 has oscs for pretty much every sound generation type, from sampling and wavetable through virtual analogue, drum and organ generators and additive synthesis. It takes the multi-timbral synth to the next level. The overall instrument can load any number or ‘Parts’, each of which can have its own MIDI channel. However, each Part can consist of its own multilayered Program, which itself can be assigned an assortment of layer, zone or keyboard split configurations. You can stack up multiple instruments in this one plugin, complete with their own complex effect…

A SAMPLE-POWERED SOUNDSCAPE MACHINE… Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2 Omnisphere is a synthesiser rooted in sampled material, in many ways a modern descendant of classic instruments such as Korg’s Wavestation or Roland’s D50. Combining a powerful virtual analogue architecture with modern tools and an eclectic library of source sounds to offer some of the most cutting-edge sound design capabilities about. This synth is massive, stocked with a whopping 64GB of material and offering over 14,000 preset sounds in it latest form. For some, that’s the synth’s biggest drawback – it’s certainly hard-drive hungry and, if you don’t pick up a boxed version, an absolute pain to download. That wealth of sound opens up some huge possibilities though; it can synthesise some of the most authentic ‘real’ instruments of any plugin, and Omnisphere’s…

The 10 Best Software Synths FORMANT LEAD SOUNDS WITH MASSIVE X Since the release of the original Massive a lot of rival wavetable synths have hit the market. To compete, Massive X clearly had to find new and exciting ways to work with wavetable oscillators. With Massive X’s ten distinctive playback modes, which can go from gritty-as-hell to weird and ambient, the developers have pulled it off and then some... 01 > One of Massive X’s headline features are its multiple playback modes, which control how each oscillator scans through its wavetable. Changing these setting can have huge sonic results. To try this, use Osc 1 and add the Additive + FM > Metallic String A wavetable. 02 > To the left of the oscillator is where we change the…

The 10 Best Software Synths A WORTHY COMPLEMENT TO THE V COLLECTION… Arturia Pigments 2 Long before they dived headfirst into the world of analogue with their Brutes and Steps, French brand Arturia were known for their synth plugins. From their all-conquering Minimoog emulation Mini V, to recreations of the DX7 or Synclavier, and the virtual patch-ability of the Modular V, Arturia’s bundle of emulations is a go-to if you want a virtual studio of vintage hardware. Until 2018, however, Arturia had never released an all-new softsynth of their own. Pigments is a multi-engine synth combining sampling, wavetable and virtual analogue sound generation. Naturally the VA elements sound great – offering authentically throbbing oscillators and virtual filters. It’s at its best when combining these faux-vintage elements with modern wavetable or…

The 10 Best Software Synths BUILD A CLASSIC POLYSYNTH WITH PHASE PLANT Phase Plant is something of a ‘sandbox’ synth, presenting users with an empty space in which to build a synth however they’d like. This empty space can feel a little daunting for first-time users, but once you’ve got the hang of how it works, building patches in Phase Plant is incredibly simple. Let’s knock up a vintage poly emulation to see how it works… 01 > Phase Plant’s Generators area is where it loads sound sources. Here let’s start with an Analog, which gives a classic subtractive oscillator connected to an Output module with ADSR amp envelope. This gives us a choice of classic waveshapes, plus controls for sync, PWM and unison. 02 > The next thing we…

MODULE ROUNDUP Instruo Harmonàig £300 & Saich £469 Although these two modules are completely standalone I’ll review them as a matched pair, seeing as they work so well together and I’m pretty sure that the Saich was designed to complement the Harmonàig. To top that off, they look great next to each other in a rack, with the added benefit of short cables needed for what could well be a near permanent connection. I’ll kick things off with a look at the Harmonàig, an 18hp module which has rapidly become a community favourite for quantising. With the new gold on black Instruo livery it certainly looks the part. There’s a heft to Instruo gear that inspires confidence in build quality without making you worry about dragging your rig to gigs.…

SOUNDS & SAMPLES Toontrack Superior Drummer – Legacy of Rock SDX £129 Toontrack are clearly on a roll with their SDX expansion packs for Superior Drummer, and once again legendary status can be attributed to its creator and the environment in which it was recorded. Eddie Kramer is an iconic engineer, mixer and producer who began his career during the heady days of the 1960s, when the established rules for how one was supposed to record a band were being re-written for a louder and more powerful age. The drum kit is of course central to the drive and impact of rock music, and experimentation in mic placement, combined with expanding track counts and greater choice in terms of console, meant that both sound and approaches to its capture evolved…

IN THE ARCHIVE – UPDATED! FM’s Sample Archive gives you over 18GB of carefully-curated, royalty-free sounds to use in your music. Here’s what’s inside... AMBIENT SOUNDS PT.1 ’90s Ambient (562 samples) Ambient Dawn (490 samples) AMBIENT SOUNDS PT.2 Majestic Bells & Mallets (444 samples) Spring Reverb & Tape Delay (533 samples) ATMOSPHERES & BACKGROUNDS Atmospheric Beds (369 samples) Noise, Crackle & Hiss (512 samples) Sounds of the City (371 samples) CLASSIC SYNTHS PT.1 Analogue Polys (625 samples) SH Collection (500 samples) CLASSIC SYNTHS PT.2 Analogue Poly Chord Hits (342 samples) Classic Synths: ’80s, ’90s, ’00s (678 samples) Hardware Arps (511 samples) CREATIVE DRUMS Cyborg Beats (514 samples) Lo-Fi Sampling (555 samples) Obscure Drum Machines (517 samples) Overloaded Beats (889 samples) ESSENTIAL DRUMS 808 and 909 (39 samples) Ultimate Cymbals (503…

IK Multimedia’s MixBox channel strip plugin promises “all the FX you need in one rack” IK Multimedia have cherry-picked some of their finest effects from the T-RackS, AmpliTube and SampleTank ranges and stuffed them into MixBox, a new 500-series-style channel strip plugin. The theory is that, by having all of their essential effects in one customisable rack, producers will be able to mix faster and more efficiently, but without compromising on quality. All processors in the rack are viewed from a single window, with all controls visible at the same time. MixBox includes 70 processors from IK’s back catalogue, plus four brand-new reverb algorithms. In addition, there are more than 600 individual processor and whole-chain presets that cover different use cases, styles and genres. The processors are modelled on classic…

Reason’s Europa synth is the first third-party plugin for Amped Studio, the online DAW Slowly but surely, web-based music production platforms are maturing, and we’re now seeing yet another significant step forward with the release of Reason Studios’ Europa synth for online DAW Amped Studio. Europa is a full-fat wavetable synth that’s also available in Reason 10 and as a VST/AU plugin. It works inside Amped Studio as a WAM plugin, and it’s hoped that it could be the first of many instruments and effects to support the format. “We are very excited to offer this as the first third-party WAM,” says Amped Studio’s Bil Bryant. “To be able to demo the synth directly from the shop – which includes a two-bar step sequencer – and have a learning tutorial…

CLASSIC ALBUM Dynamite MC World Of Dynamite Strong Records, 2004 Words by Roy Spencer © Dosfotos/Shutterstock When it came time for the quintessential drum & bass MC to start work on his debut solo album, he knew he was breaking new ground. Most vocalists, up to that point, had been sidelined with guest spots, single-only excursions, and rocking out live for DJs. For Dynamite MC, it was time to show the world that junglist rappers could, and should, make full length artist LPs. “I believe I was the first one to do a full album,” says Dyna. “Conrad was doing stuff, but just features. Stamina was doing stuff, but never an album. Skibba did Tika Toc with Crissy Criss, but that was a hip-hop track…I was out there. It was…

In the studio with Dynamite MC “My studio was good. It was small. I was making a lot of beats back then. I was using an [Akai] MPC2000XL. I loved that so much. I would sample a lot from vinyl, pitched up. I had the 1210s and microphones set up. It was pretty simple. “The MPC was so user friendly. It was the perfect machine and great fun. I was very influenced by Wu-Tang and DJ Premier. “To record vocals, I would go to other people’s studios like Channel House in Bristol, where we did all the Reprazent stuff. The preamp compressor was a Focusrite RED 7. An SSL desk. The mic was a Neumann. This is what Roni loved. “When I worked with Zinc we used a U-47, so…

A POWERFUL BUT CPU-FRIENDLY WORKHORSE… u-He Hive 2 Berlin brand u-he make a lot of excellent plugins, and realistically you could argue that several of their synths deserve a spot in this round-up. Despite its age, Diva remains the go-to virtual analogue for many producers, thanks to its ability to emulate a variety of hardware classics, and there’s a lot to like about Zebra2, Repro and Bazille. What we love about Hive, however, is how well it balances depth and power with accessibility and CPU efficiency. Originally launched as a pure virtual analogue, over the years Hive has been fleshed out with powerful wavetable oscillators. While the single-window UI and two-oscillator, two-filter architecture remains simple to use, there are plenty of unique tools. Capable of everything from vintage analogue to…

5 GREAT iOS SYNTHS As Apple’s iOS devices have become more and more powerful, the quality of mobile synths has kept pace, to the point that now plenty of iPhone and iPad music makers can now give their desktop counterparts a run for their money. Want to design cutting-edge synth patches on the go? Look no further than these must-have apps... KV331 SYNTH MASTER ONE 1 The little sibling of KV331’s classic SynthMaster, SynthMaster One uses a similar semi-modular wavetable format albeit with a simpler, easier-to-use interface. Compared to its desktop counterpart, the iOS version has just 16 voices of polyphony rather than 32, and the number of presets has been reduced to 500 from 800. Other than that, though, this is pretty much all the power of a desktop…

The 10 Best Software Synths THE ONE TO BEAT… Xfer Records Serum If any synth of the past decade stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of its sheer popularity, it’s this one. The reason? Its simplicity, its immediacy, its power and its sound quality. Serum’s dual wavetables give a huge amount of sound-sculpting power alone, with unique warping controls alongside the usual WT Pos, Unison and other parameters. Serum’s filter is definitely no slouch, and when all that combines with three envelopes, up to eight custom LFOs and four macro modulators, there’s a lot of immediate possibility on offer for even the greenest of n00bs. Those wavetables go incredibly deep, with custom editing on-hand for all sorts of formulations. Is Serum the most powerful synth in the…

The 10 Best Software Synths 5 FREEWARE MUST-HAVE PLUGINS A tight budget shouldn’t mean you’re shut out from making electronic music, and thanks to the wealth of excellent freeware tools on the internet, there’s no reason you can’t make release-quality tracks without having to shell out for the latest ‘power synth’. Looking for synth power without the financial outlay? Here’s where to start... DIGITAL SUBURBAN DEXED 1 Yamaha’s DX7 is undoubtedly a classic synth, but boy was it fiddly to program! Thankfully, these days we have Dexed, a free recreation of the DX7’s 6-operator FM synth engine in handy plugin format, with a far easier-to-use interface. You can even import and export your favourite DX7 patches too, and share patches with modern FM tools such as FM8 or Digitone. DISCODSP…

The 10 Best Software Synths A MULTI-LAYERED SYNTH PLAYGROUND… KV331 SynthMaster 2 SynthMaster 2 is one of the oldest plugins on this list, with v2’s original 2009 release date predating the likes of Serum, Omnisphere 2 or Pigments by years. What makes it still relevant in 2020? Well for one thing, developers KV331 have kept up a consistent schedule of significant updates, which have helped to keep SynthMaster’s features inline with many of its rivals (even if its interface looks a touch dated now). Combining wavetables, virtual analogue, additive and more, SynthMaster remains a ‘desert island synth’ for many users. Its sonic breadth is hard to knock, and the dual-layer, semi-modular synth engine is capable of everything from modern percussion to rattling basses, arena-sized leads and dense synth pads. SynthMaster…

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 Joachim Pastor – Right Now The classically-trained French producer breaks down his latest laidback, summery house jam DON’T MISS: Shadow Child, Mars Simon Neale takes us to the stars, and then behind the scenes GLXY – She Sings for Me ft. DRS Rising stars Jonathan Campbell and Thomas Alston make liquid DnB gold Pablo Nouvelle, Milambi The Swiss artist joins forces with Beninese icon Angélique Kidjo Pythius, Auxiliary Learn about the Dutch drum & bass producer’s granular approach Top producers show you the world of Steinberg in our monthly…

ROUND-UP KONTAKT VOCAL INSTRUMENTS Five virtual voiceboxes for your creative usage… but which vox is the most populi? FM | STUDIO ESSENTIAL! Supreme Samples VoxChops Synth £22 A huge selection of vocal phrases – with a separate NKI for each. There are whole phrases, “Let the bass drop”, “Put your hands up” and the like, plus ‘keys’, ‘pad’ and ‘lead’ patches fashioned from vocal samples – granular synth style – and a few individual ‘Shout’ samples to mess with as well. The main tab lets you access amp, pitch and filter envelopes, basic mixing, and some macros, but there’s more besides. In the Effects Engine, you can dial in chorus, delay, reverb and convolution processes. These can be keyswitched on and off too. Then there’s the Rhythm Engine, with its…

TESTBENCH DiscoDSP OB-Xd 2 Oberheim OB-X synth emulation plugins are coming thick and fast this month (see Arturia’s OB-Xa V and Synapse Audio’s Obsession). But DiscoDSP’s OB-Xd was there first. Not just competing with the new entries on sound, which we’ll explore a little below, OB-Xd also competes well on price – it’s totally free. And DiscoDSP reminded the world about its free entry by updating it to version 2, and later version 2.1. So what’s new? Truly, there’s not a huge amount of new sonic functionality, with the v2 update adding features like MIDI CC, macOS Catalina support, and a particularly lovely new interface design. But if this update is a reminder, consider us reminded – here’s a closer look at OB-Xd. The oscillators OB-Xd’s oscillators stay quite true…

Teenage Engineering’s “magical” new product is the OB-4, a $599 radio and “media instrument” Back in early September, Teenage Engineering set everyone's pulses racing by teasing a new product that the Swedish company described as a ‘magical apparatus’. Naturally, the internet went into overdrive speculating on what that could be: A synthesiser? A drum machine? The OP-2? Well now the new hardware has been revealed and it’s… a £600 radio. Of course, this being a TE product, the OB-4 isn’t just a radio. It’s a magic radio. One that features two four-inch bass drivers and a pair of neodymium tweeters that promise crystal clear stereo sound and 38 watts per channel. As well as the FM tuner, you also have a line input and Bluetooth connectivity. So far, so not…

Elektron’s Analog Four and Analog Rytm have been “refined, rewrought, and reborn” When a company says that two of their products have been “transformed, refined, rewrought and reborn”, you’d think new versions were being launched, but for Elektron’s Analog Four MKII synth and Analog Rytm MKII, that’s not quite the case. Yes, these machines have been updated – both now come with a black (as opposed to grey) finish, backlit colour palette and new factory content – but, to be clear, they’re not MKIII models, Just refreshed MKII ones. The new content comes from the likes of Eraldo Bernocchi, Lucifer’s Aid, Spit Mask, and (d)glitched, and more, with fresh patterns and kits; whether the content will also be offered to existing Analog Four MKII and Analog Rytm MKII owners isn’t…

AOM’s Nu Compressor is 56 dynamics processors in one It’s amazing how many different spins have been put on the plugin compressor. We’ve had emulations of hardware models, new forward-thinking designs and one-knob processors, and now comes AOM’s Nu Compressor. The USP here is the ability to choose from 52 compressor programs. Divided up into categories – Clear & Smooth, Drive & Saturation, Snare, Vocals, Instruments, Kick, Bass, Special, Bus and Unplugged – these are laid out on a collapsible panel to the right. Each of these programs is said to feature a set of more than 90 hidden parameters, though you do have access to standard compressor controls (Input, Output, Threshold etc) to the right. There’s a sidechain input, too. There’s plenty here to get your teeth into, then…

A SONIC POWERHOUSE… Vengeance-Sound VPS Avenger The natural conclusion of the synth arms race, VPS Avenger lets you command up to eight oscillators at once. Wavetables, traditional analogue shapes, a sampler, and more (plus full drum machine). The excesses continue as we gaze upon Avenger’s bulging innards, which let us set up four LFOs, four shapers, four filters, four amps, eight pitch envelopes, eight mod envelopes, eight step sequencers, eight arps… still conscious? How about 30 types of effects module? Each of these can be housed as an oscillator insert effect, send effect or master effect inside the respective rack, and the routing of oscillators’ paths through the various effects is completely customisable too – you could send one oscillator through all the effects and another through a subset of…

THE FOLLOW-UP TO A CLASSIC… Native Instruments Massive X After months of teases and leaks, the follow-up to the original Massive – the synth that launched a thousand genres – was finally released in 2019. The idea wasn’t for Massive X to be a sequel, exactly, but it was certainly built in the same spirit as the original. Two wavetable oscillators kick off the sound generation with a suitably huge choice of ‘tables getting their signals massaged by circuits such as ‘Formant’, ‘Wrap’ and ‘Gorilla’. There are plenty of filters and two effects trios to process the sound from there. Following in those Massive footsteps, X has lots of modulators, each type taking up a whole tab at the bottom. Although Massive X was a little shy on presets at…

The 10 Best Software Synths CREATE A PPGSTYLE SOUND (IN SERUM) Synth historians know that Wolfgang Palm’s PPG Wave 2 started the wavetable phenomenon, so as an homage to Palm’s original innovation, here’s a quick way to recreate the general character of the PPG sound. The overall approach is to create a series of additive waves that become progressively more complex as the wavetable evolves. 01 > Open the wavetable editor (in an initialised patch, sawtooth will be the default) and raise the volume of two lower-numbered harmonics. Here we’ve selected the first and fourth bins (harmonics). 02 > You’ll immediately see the results in the wave view and in the tiny lower window for the first index. Click on the plus sign to edit the second index. Note that…

The 10 Best Software Synths A TRUE SYNTH SANDBOX… kiloHearts Phase Plant Just when you thought digital synthesis was unlimited already, this sonic playground shows you just how rigid it was. Phase Plant was born from kiloHearts’ previous effects plugins, Multipass and Snap Heap, which use a collection of smaller processor devices called Snap Ins to build full virtual signal chains. Applied to a synth, the result is a hugely expandable setup, like a modular environment, but with the immediacy, control and recall of a digital system. The parts you get to pull out of your Lego box include Analog, Noise, Sampler and Wavetable osc sources, and 32 Snap Ins that are also available as plugins in your DAW if your version of Phase Plant includes them. Pricing starts at…

The 10 Best Software Synths THE BEST MPE TOOL… FXpansion Cypher 2 Unlike many of the synths in this feature, FXpansion’s Cypher 2 doesn’t make use of wavetables, samples or granular synthesis. At its core are three virtual analogue oscs feeding into a pair of analogue-modeled filters. This is more than a simple analogue emulation though; what sets Cypher apart is its modulation capabilities, in the form of both audio-rate osc mod – which can generate FM, ring mod and waveshaping, among other effects – and complex parameter movement routed through the TransMod grid, via an eclectic array of modulators. FXpansion were bought by Roli a few years ago, so little surprise that Cypher 2 also uses ‘5D’ MPE control. With 500 well-designed 5D presets and the ability to route…

TEAM THE ONE WITH… Eurorack modular 1 The Moog One has an array of CV ins and outs, which means you can hook it up to a modular rig with ease, assigning the ports using the controller section. You will need 8th” to ¼” patch cables however. Logic, Live or any DAW 2 The MIDI connectivity works well but I’d opt for using USB. It integrates extremely well and allows you to not only control the One via your DAW but also to use the One’s lovely keys to play any softsynths in your music. Powered monitors 3 You may have a DAW-less setup, or might just wish to play the One as a standalone instrument. Either way, having decent speakers is a must, to really allow the complexity and…

LIBRARY AND EXPANSIONS Maschine+ comes pre-installed with an 8GB factory sound library, as well as offering access to five pre-selected Maschine expansion packs, along with a voucher to pick up two more of your choice. You’ll need to hook the unit up to a Wi-Fi connection to initially register it, but when you do all of these sounds can be downloaded using a slick on-device library. The selected expansions cover a decent range, touching on hip-hop, R&B, melodic club sounds and moody techno. On the whole, the quality of NI’s expansion packs is high and, while they’re a little pricey, they’re well curated and tend to include plenty of usable and inspiring sounds. Once purchased, these are available to download through NI’s Native Access application, and can be used with…

GEAR GUIDE STANDALONE MUSIC MAKERS NI Maschine+ £1,099 Full Review: FM363 | There are some limitations, but Maschine+ delivers the core Maschine workflow in standalone form: inspiring and fun in the process. Polyend Tracker £449 Full Review: FM357 Less esoteric than it first appears, this is a well-designed sampler that’s both fun and inspiring. Worth a look whether you’re experienced with trackers or not. Roland MC-707 $999 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. Akai MPC Live II £1,040 Full Review: FM358 A truly go-anywhere production experience – and now better equipped than ever. The Live II remains the high point of the current MPC range.…