OVER 900MB OF SAMPLESFREE AND 3 .5 HOURS OF VIDEO THE IN-DEPTH GUIDE FOR THE CREATIVE MUSICIAN 132 PAGES OF LIVE 9 TIPS & TRICKS 900MB OF ROYALTY FREE SAMPLES! THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO ABLETON LIVE ISBN 978-1-909590-39-7 www.musictech.net Hands on workshops to take you from beginner to expert Produce a track from scratch: huge 21-page guide Music making on a budget – how to produce for less £$€ The best gear for your Live studio tested and rated Packed DVD! 900MB of samples & 3.5hrs of tuition videos 9 781909 590397 ABLETON LIVE 9 2015 THE IN-DEPTH GUIDE FOR THE CREATIVE MUSICIAN ABLETON LIVE 9 2015 Ableton Live 2015 £8.99 Compiled by the Ableton Live experts from MusicTech MTF38.cover.indd 1 18/02/2015 14:46 Welcome MTF Welcome … to Ableton Live 2015, the latest Focus dedicated to (arguably) the world’s finest DAW, and put together by the Live experts here at MusicTech magazine. In this special issue we have two very different, very large and hopefully very useful workshops to help take your Ableton productions up a notch. First up, Martin Delaney’s Ultimate Guide To Ableton Live (starting on p18) takes you on a general Live course, starting at the beginning and then quickly entering the world of basic and more complex programming. It’s a six-part monster that will be useful if you are either a Live beginner or intermediate user. Starting on p74, we also have our Build A Track From Scratch series of tutorials that takes you on a journey to build a complete piece of music over 21 tip-packed pages. It might be specific to dubstep but you will pick up essential advice along the way for whatever genre of music you produce. As usual we have stacks of reviews, general advice features plus tips and tricks and, for the first time, reveal the studios that your fellow Live users employ! Enjoy this special issue and keep that music coming… Andy Jones Senior Editor, MusicTech
[email protected] We’re focussing on two different and very large workshops for all users of Live Contributors Mark Cousins, Keith Gemmell, Alex Holmes, Hollin Jones, Huw Price, Liam O’Mullane MUSICTECH FOCUS MAGAZINE www.musictech.net Anthem Publishing Ltd Suite 6, Piccadilly House London Road, Bath BA1 6PL Tel +44 (0) 1225 489984 Fax +44 (0) 1225 489980
[email protected] Senior Editor Andy Jones
[email protected] Art Editor Debra Barber
[email protected] Digital Editor Andy Price
[email protected] Multimedia Editor Alex Holmes
[email protected] Business Dev. Manager Di Marsh
[email protected] Art Director Jenny Cook
[email protected] All content copyright Anthem Publishing Ltd 2014 and 2015, all rights reserved. While we make every effort to ensure that the factual content of MusicTech Focus is correct we cannot take any responsibility nor be held accountable for any factual errors printed. Managing Director Jon Bickley
[email protected] Please make every effort to check quoted prices and product specifications with manufacturers prior to purchase. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or resold without the prior consent of Anthem Publishing Ltd. Licensing enquiries Jon Bickley +44 (0) 1225 489984 www.anthem-publishing.com MusicTech Focus recognises all copyrights contained within this issue. Where possible we acknowledge the copyright holder. Publisher Simon Lewis
[email protected] Printed by Polestar UK Print Ltd Tel +44 (0) 1582 678900 TEXTING MUSIC TECH TERMS AND CONDITIONS By entering MusicTech competitions you are agreeing to receive details of future promotions from Anthem Publishing Limited and related third parties. If you do not want to receive this information please text ‘NO INFO’ at the end of your message. Texts will be charged at the specified price plus one message at your standard network tariff rate. Distributed by Marketforce (UK) Ltd The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 0SU Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3300 Subscriptions to MusicTech Magazine Tel +44 (0) 870 444 8468 Price (12 issues) £59.99 UK basic annual rate FOCUS Ableton Live 8 Volume 2 MTF38.welcome.indd 3 | 03 18/02/2015 14:54 now! Starts on p18 MTF Workshops Start here… With the Inside Track in Ableton Live… p18 A complete live track from scratch How to produce a complete dubstep track: from beats to bass. melodies to the arrangement – huge 21-page guide. keys. and vocals All the advice you need… p34-42 FOCUS 19/02/2015 08:32 .indd 4 … make beats and process them here p22 & 26 … and add bass.MTF Contents Issue 38 Ableton Live 2015 THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ABLETON LIVE Live expert Martin Delaney’s six-part guide which explores all aspects of Live to help speed up your workflow and help you make better music.contents. Starts on p74 4 | Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. 064 | The 100 Best Music Apps p2 The second part includes some of the more unusual mobile apps… WORKSHOPS: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO ABLETON LIVE 018 | Part 1: The inside track 022 | Part 2: Starting with drums 026 | Part 3: Processing beats MTF Feature 034 | Part 4: Producing bass 038 | Part 5: Keyboard sounds The 100 Apps 042 | Part 6: Recording vocals WORKSHOPS: A COMPLETE LIVE TRACK FROM SCRATCH For making music on the move. TUTORIALS: BLUFFER’S GUIDES… 030 | …to music technology 058 | …to EQ and production Bluffer’s Guides Music technology and EQ explained p30 & p58 MTF BUYERS GUIDES 046 | 6 Of The Best: Monitors 062 | 6 Of The Best: Libraries 124 | 6 Of The Best: Interfaces MTF REVIEWS 104 | Live 9 & Push classic review 109 | AMT The Riser software 110 | iZotope RX4 audio restoring 112 | Fender Focal monitors 113 | Akai APC 25 keys/controller 114 | Modartt Pianoteq instrument 115 | Focusrite Saffire interface 116 | sE RF Space reflection filter 117 | Genelec 8010A monitors 118 | Arturia Beatstep sequencer MTF 6 Of The Best The best monitors.contents. interfaces & libraries revealed p46. or no cash… p6 MTF38 Live 2015 Full listings FEATURES 006 | Making Music On A Budget How to produce music for a little cash outlay.indd 5 |5 19/02/2015 10:39 .Contents MTF MTF Feature Budget Music! How to produce music for less. p62 & p124 119 | Fabfilter Pro-Q2 EQ plug-in 120 | Akai APC 40 & Mini controllers 122 | Tannoy Reveal monitors 121-129 | Mini Reviews REGULAR FEATURES 084 | 20 Tips: Instrument micing 100 | Show Off Your (Live!) Studio 130 | On your MTF DVD FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. and even for free! 048 | The 100 Best Music Apps p1 Make music on the move with the best apps for phone and tablet. revealed right here… p48 & 64 074 | A 21-page workshop on how to produce a dubstep track from scratch using Live. indd 6 FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:31 .cover feat. where possible. do it for free! 6 | Ableton Live 2015 MT143. and with so many temptations around you have to spend your budget wisely. Hollin Jones shows you how to make the most of your money and.MTF Produce great music on a budget! MTF Feature Budget music production Produce great music on a budget! Getting a great sound doesn’t have to cost the earth. as well as time. and making demos on home equipment was how a lot of musicians and bands started out. Some things can be achieved for free or next to nothing.or mid-level DAWs are given away for free with an audio interface. It’s arguably better to have the right kit for a job. and showcasing and selling your music online is simple and inexpensive. similarly. On the flipside it’s not a good idea to skimp unnecessarily either: there is a balance to be struck and you have to understand how best to allocate your resources for the task you’re trying to achieve. A lot of entry. which is great if you can afford it. than to just get the biggest thing with the most flashing lights. The task therefore becomes finding the most cost-effective gear that works for what you need. but if you want your music to sound good you’re still going to have to invest a little money. sample packs. plug-ins and loops can often be found bundled with hardware (or with MusicTech magazine!). The phone or iPad you already own can be used for recording or composition. Now all that has changed. and your computer could potentially be beefed up instead of replaced. but most of us can’t always get the latest and greatest thing as soon as it comes out.cover feat. It’s possible to make and even sell your own multisampled instruments. Gearing up Some people enjoy having loads of kit. while you do need to spend money. If you’re willing to put a bit of time in and look around it’s possible to get some great bargains. A last-generation product might be significantly discounted and still do exactly what you need it to do. and in other cases.indd 7 |7 11/02/2015 15:31 . The cost of recording to a professional standard used to be prohibitive for many people. This isn’t going to be about how to do everything for free. It’s also true that the vast majority of software and hardware is actually very good: poor quality stuff rarely gets released onto the pro audio market. because if you want good results you have to put something in. in it. Get the right kit for the job rather than the biggest thing with the most flashing lights FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT143. you can make smart choices about how you spend it to make it go as far as possible. and to know how best to use it. and you can take simple steps to improve the sound in your studio without spending a fortune. but we’ll show you that you don’t have to spend the earth to produce great-sounding music.Produce great music on a budget! Feature MTF I t’s an indisputable fact that producing music is a far more accessible pursuit than it was a couple of decades ago. Secondhand hardware can also be a good way to expand your setup. A lot of software is well Go mobile Music applications are RAMhungry. Korg’s Gadget and other similar software letting you program and sequence some excellent synths and beats. MIDI in and out. and power by connecting the iPad’s data port to a selection of conventional I/O ports. iOS apps often let you add only the content or features you want via in-app purchases. Music applications are RAM-hungry. meaning you can use them together and don’t have to keep exporting data between them. So any ‘real’ recording that they tend to do can often be a single track at a time. in some ways. Even though they are cheaper you’ll soon be cursing all the waiting around while your machine churns away trying to work stuff out. A lower capacity one can be much cheaper. depending on functionality. Docking station The key with using an iPad for music is getting a good I/O solution. so in most cases a quad-core CPU. Get a dock or an iOS-compatible USB audio and MIDI interface and you can record just as Making EDM on a budget Electronic producers tend to work ‘in the box’ with a lot of synthesized or sample-based instruments. All modern CPUs are pretty powerful. will perform more usefully than a dual-core one in real-world situations. FL Studio HD. but steer clear of the slowest available.indd 8 bundles. a MIDI keyboard or an iPad Dock. There is some good free material out there and developers often have time-limited giveaways. mean you have more control over how your money is used to build your system. Paired with an iOS-compatible audio interface. or if you already happen to own an iPad. and the fact that most iOS apps are really quite inexpensive. a more cost-effective method to build a portable studio setup. As noted. so it’s important to get them right. Virtually all will track audio and MIDI. sample or plug-in 8 | Ableton Live 2015 MT143. Cubasis and Tabletop run the gamut of mobile DAWs from a couple of pounds up to around £40. as long as you pair it with a much more spacious regular hard drive for bulk data storage. especially samplebased instruments. The same goes for RAM and hard drives. Your recording devices are going to be central to your setup.cover feat. you can achieve remarkable productions for much less than the cost of a full computer and a load of software. Technologies such as inter-app audio and MIDI mean much greater routing flexibility. If you are making EDM you might want to look out for free or bargain loop. go for a solid state (SSD) drive for the system partition as this will massively increase the responsiveness of your computer. sounds and virtual effects. You will probably be recording on a computer. such as a guitar or a vocal. stitch them into songs. Your computer is the brain of your whole setup so you need it to work smoothly. but at some point it becomes a false economy to run an ageing setup because it seriously slows down your workflow. or perhaps an iPad (more on that in a moment). then upload the results straight to free hosting services such as SoundCloud.MTF Produce great music on a budget! Choosing recording hardware and software A solid state drive can massively speed up an ageing computer and extend its useful life. As such they may not need lots of simultaneous ins and outs and can get away with a smaller audio and MIDI interface. with great apps such as Novation’s Launchpad. as the majority of the sound is being generated inside the computer. MTF Tech term: Inter-app ● A technology whereby apps inside an iPad are able to pass both audio and MIDI data between each other. as long as you don’t need to have it permanently plumbed in to your setup. so be sure to sign up to relevant mailing lists so you hear about them. Apple’s iOS isn’t a bad place to look to make dance music on a budget. FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:31 . and most are much more advanced than you might have realised. or free with in-app purchases. Whether you are buying a new computer to produce music on or upgrading an existing one there are several components on which to focus your budget to get maximum bang for your buck. and since RAM is now cheaper than it’s ever been you’ll want a minimum of 4GB and preferably 8GB or more. Similarly with hard drives. apps such as GarageBand. making them. Auria. even at a slightly lower clock speed. or even a new CPU where your machine allows. Even when introducing MIDItriggered hardware this can usually be handled by a box with a couple of audio and MIDI ports connected over USB. have effects and instruments. preferably 8GB MTF Tech term: Dock optimised for multiple cores now. One alternative is to use an iPad. either internal or USB. so you’ll want a minimum of 4GB. If your needs are more straightforward. ● An all-in-one device to connect to your iPad that provides pro-level audio. and the platform is increasingly catering to pro musicians. Older computers can have their useful lives prolonged by adding more RAM or an SSD drive. If you’re working ‘in the box’ then you may well be able to get away with fewer ins and outs.com and www. USB microphones are now pretty good and can even save on having to buy an audio interface.Produce great music on a budget! Feature MTF be worth checking out such apps if you’re not concerned about being without a ‘big name’ DAW. scoring and surround support and stuff like that later on. Ableton Live Lite.cover feat.soundation. or go for good all-rounders if you work in different styles. This kind of setup often works for acoustic or EDM producers who work either with fewer tracks or mostly with virtual sounds.indd 9 |9 11/02/2015 15:31 . However there are some good tips for buying kit that apply more generally. you will really want more inputs. They don’t have the advanced features of their full-fat cousins. FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT143. and you can add outboard hardware (as we discuss later on). With the increasing availability of super-fast broadband. online DAWs are becoming popular as well. So now they have lots of cores instead. say a drum kit or a whole band. If you’re after a microphone. Monitoring is one area where it’s advisable to buy carefully because how you hear your music will determine how it’s mixed and mastered. though if you do your research you should be able to find a good balance of price and quality. The MTF Tech term: Multi-core ● Modern computers have given up on pushing Gigahertz counts into the stratosphere because technically it became impossible. Thanks to fast broadband. but there’s always an upgrade path if you decide you need tools such as unlimited tracks. and software spreads processing load across them. You should be able to identify a few MTF Tech term : Online DAW A browser-based system for composing and recording audio and using virtual FX. providing many of the core tools you need to produce music digitally. If you are recording more simultaneous sources.com which are both free and offer a great set of production and composition tools running right inside your browser. ● (Top right) A mobile DAW can be a surprisingly effective solution if the workflow suits your needs. Some interfaces come with a free bundled DAW. percussion and other things so you can avoid buying several mics. audiosauna. pretty advanced and usually offer collaboration features. you would on a computer. online DAWs are popular models by searching reviews and by getting one that can be effectively used for vocals. Some DAWs like Reaper aim to offer a pro feature set and experience at a much lower retail price so it can (Right) Online DAWs like Soundation are generally free. Two of the best are www. all the instruments. Go for powered monitors (often cheaper than an amp/passive speaker combo) and try to match them with your genre. It’s not a great idea to rely on cheap monitoring as it can kind of negate all your hard work. guitars. Cubase and SONAR are all given away in their more entry-level versions by various hardware companies when you buy an interface. and in truth they really can. A good pair of headphones is also essential. go for one that is a good all-rounder. perhaps 2x2 or 4x4 if you only ever need to monitor on stereo speakers and record guitar. vocal or a simple stereo source such as a synth one at a time. The key with using an iPad for music is getting a good I/O solution idea is that they ‘get you started’. Buy wisely Music production isn’t just about computers. provided your workflow doesn’t demand any more I/O. In fact choosing an interface is always central to getting a system right regardless of your recording platform. although you can always compromise by submixing via a hardware mixer and recording to fewer tracks if budget is a real issue. Makes online collaboration particularly easy since multiple people can log in and work on a project. but not nearly as much as repeatedly hiring out a pro studio. and this is easy to do for free. yes. In terms of stuff you can do yourself. Anything that you record with a mic can be 10 | Ableton Live 2015 MT143. Learn to improvise A professional acoustic treatment is ideal. Thanks to modern technology and virtual instruments and effects you can achieve results in the computer that would have seemed impossible not so long ago. maybe a bedroom or a box room. simply correcting some positioning errors is a good – and free – starting point. If even that is a stretch. Your speakers should be placed away from walls if at all possible. but luckily there are things you can do yourself to improve matters. and at the entry-level these can be relatively affordable. When it comes to recording there are some steps you can take to improve things even if you’re not in a proper studio. and this will block out most external noise as well as letting you whack the volume up a bit. Some studios put their speakers on bricks or breeze blocks. You can achieve results with a computer that would have been impossible not so long ago improved by controlling the space around it. Guitar amps are often placed on crates or chairs to get them off the floor and thus focus their sound. or a piano. A lot of people who produce music are doing so in a spare room at home. you can box in the mic that’s pointed at an amp using sofa cushions or even a duvet.MTF Produce great music on a budget! Making the best of your recording space FreqAnalyst is an excellent and free audio analysis plug-in. bass boom and other undesirable sonic imperfections. It costs. and many mics have switchable polar patterns or cut switches to help compensate for different recording situations. One aspect that technology can’t fix so inexpensively is the acoustics of your room. though in a pinch two identical blocks of substantial foam will do a decent job too.cover feat. at a pinch. Duvets or carpets hung on walls can help to cut down on room reflections. various fabrics to deaden sound reflections. Studio hacks Recording drums at home is always going to be tricky FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:31 . Acoustic isolators are excellent for tightening up bass when placed under speakers. and certainly not in the corners of rooms. The process of placing physical materials like foam blocks or baffles strategically in a space to minimise standing waves. which tend to give a boomy effect to the bass end.indd 10 MTF Tech term – Isolation MTF Tech term – Acoustic treatment Creating a dry space in an otherwise imperfect room. A portable isolator such as sE’s SPACE or Reflexion Filter can be used not just to create a pocket of dry space for a vocalist but also for a mic pointed at a guitar or bass amp. This can be done by using specialised equipment or. though still something of an investment. and indeed some hit records really have been made in the unlikeliest of domestic surroundings. you could probably get away with programming and quantizing drums in GarageBand for iPad. A portable acoustic isolator like SE’s SPACE is cheaper than hiring a vocal studio. and is perhaps the one thing you really ought to try to find a budget for. Blue Cat Audio’s FreqAnalyst is a free plug-in for doing just this. but you will need an audio interface with good preamps and zero-latency monitoring for a more natural performance. The tools that may have come with your audio interface could be all you need here. and you probably won’t need anything exotic as far as plug-ins go. but one where your choice of microphone is crucial.Produce great music on a budget! Feature MTF Budget setup for a singer-songwriter This is probably the most stripped-down of all possible recording setups. In truth. A popshield is absolutely essential. FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT143. along with a good quality microphone that can capture the nuances of your voice. In terms of software you’ll be able to get away with something simple as you’re really just tracking. For mixing and mastering it’s a good idea to get an analyser to strap across the master outputs. Can be useful if your mic is neutral but you want to get the sound of a load of classic mics without actually buying them. though if you can borrow a MIDI kit connected to a drum instrument you will remove the need for mics and massively cut down on the disruption for the neighbours. or using loops in Live Lite to back you up. in which case you’ll need a second mic to perform everything live – though still only two mono audio inputs. You won’t need a massively powerful computer and could probably get away with using an iPad. Choose a smaller interface with iOS compatibility if necessary: whether or not it needs a MIDI port depends on whether you have any MIDI gear.cover feat. and perhaps also an acoustic isolator to create a pocket of dead space in your room. You may be using pickups on your acoustic guitar or mic’ing that too. so can be useful.indd 11 | 11 11/02/2015 15:31 . For mixing it’s a good idea to strap an analyser on the master output MTF Tech term: Audio analysis MTF Tech term: Mic modelling Taking a reading of the sonic characteristics of audio before it leaves the computer in order to give you a more accurate idea of how it is behaving. This will show you how your signal is behaving before it reaches the speakers. A decent pair of headphones will be important for monitoring. Using software to emulate the character of specific microphone models. MTF Produce great music on a budget! Found sounds and field recording inexpensive ones available online. After naming the clips and saving them individually you should end up with a bunch of samples for each note, or at least one per note. These need to be consistent in how you record them so that the final instrument will sound coherent. It’s much easier for simple kit, such as old beatboxes, where you have fewer sounds and velocities, and key mapping is simple. For instruments such as guitars, pianos, organs and the like, it can be more fiddly. Environmentally friendly You’ll need an environment in which to build your instrument. NI’s Kontakt is the most popular, though of course it is not free. Logic’s EXS24 and Reason’s NN-XT are also adept at building instruments, though they only come as part of those DAWs. Each also tends to create instruments in its own format, so you may not be able to port them easily to other platforms. The process of actually building an instrument is time consuming, but essentially involves mapping your samples to corresponding MIDI notes, using velocity layering to control which samples play back when keys are pressed hard or soft, and perhaps also using filtering , looping and time- and pitch-stretching to account for different playback methods. Sampling your own loops is easier, but you’ll need to be aware of copyright issues if you are sampling someone else’s music. Loop manipulation is easy in many applications and lets you mash up and randomise sounds, which is an easy way to turn uninspiring loops into something much funkier. Going out and making your own sounds is a good way both to develop an original style and also potentially to make money if you can sell what you create. Recording doesn’t just mean tracking in a studio, it can also mean capturing material while you’re out and about. The microphone in your smartphone can make a decent field mic, though you’ll get better results by adding either a dedicated add-on microphone for £20-£80, or indeed substituting a proper portable recorder with a stereo mic, which cost around £50 and go up depending on what features you need. Any one of these solutions is great for recording ambient sounds, effects and even live performances. The mics on solid state recorders such as those manufactured by Zoom, Yamaha or Olympus are generally excellent. Where a device has a line input you can also take a feed, perhaps from the output of a live sound desk, and record a live mix of a performance. Build your own instruments It’s also possible to create your own sampled instruments, but it does require some skill and the The microphone that’s built into your smartphone can often make a decent field mic investment of a certain amount of time. The actual recording is a matter of capturing each note of your instrument whatever it may be, usually at a variety of intensities such as soft, medium, hard and very hard. This can be done by recording repeated takes into a simple wave editor, and there are many free and 12 | Ableton Live 2015 MT143.cover feat.indd 12 (Top) Build your own sampled instruments using tools like Reason’s NN-XT sampler. (Right) Use a phone or preferably a dedicated field recorder to capture found sounds. FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:31 MTF Produce great music on a budget! Get the most out of plug-ins and samples Virtual instruments, effects and samples are likely to feature in your productions to some extent, and for many people they form the core of their sound library. Thanks to the ubiquity of computers in modern music production and the fact that they are powerful with large hard drives, you can have more sounds at your disposal than would have seemed believable a couple of decades ago. When it comes to getting content, your first port of call will probably be the material that came bundled with your DAW. The included content can vary greatly but you’ll always get at least a basic tool set. If you move up to a mid-level or flagship version you generally get more stuff as standard, and this is true of DAWs such as Cubase, Reason, Pro Tools, SONAR and Live, whose full versions come with a ton of material. Logic is arguably even better value since there’s only one version and it’s inexpensive thanks to Apple’s aim of selling hardware, so you get everything right away. Bundled content The same audio and MIDI interface hardware that sometimes ships with a lite version of a DAW often includes some additional plug-ins and/or sample collections to sweeten the deal. Hardware from AKAI, M-Audio and Novation is good for this, and other manufacturers often throw stuff in with a purchase too, so it’s worth investigating if you can get bonus material when buying hardware. Another good source for free samples and sounds is, of course, coverdiscs of MusicTech, or indeed downloads from user areas of our website (head over to the DVD section of www. musictech.net). There are plenty of developers who give away a few free plug-ins to tempt you into the wider world of their full, commercial lineup, and there are some excellent ones to be acquired. Demo versions are generally feature- or time-limited in some way, so they are perhaps an inefficient way to try to get processing on the cheap. But if a plug-in is a fully functional 30-day free trial, for example, you can get some good use out of it while it lasts – and hopefully like it enough to buy (Above) Even big companies such as NI offer excellent free versions of their heavyweight instruments. (Below left) A number of hardware brands give away generous software bundles with their products. MTF Tech term: Re-sequence The process of chopping up samples or loops, mapping them to pads or keys and then using them as instruments, creating new beats or patterns from them. MTF Tech term: Freemium A term sometimes used with reference to iOS and other mobile applications. Usually denotes an app that is free to download but offers in-app purchases, which is very common among music apps. 14 | Ableton Live 2015 MT143.cover feat.indd 14 the full version! The same goes for Rack Extensions in Reason: they are all free to try for a month, though only once of course. I’m free! New free plug-ins come online all the time but there are some great ones available at the moment. Bluecataudio.com has a dazzling array of tools on sale but also offers the Free Pack, a collection of six plug-ins in all major formats for Mac and PC. There’s a vintage chorus, phaser and flanger, FreqAnalyst, Gain Suite and Triple EQ to be had. If you think free means poor quality you’d be quite wrong, as these are excellent effects that can be of real use in your everyday music-making endeavours. Head over to www.meldaproduction.com and check out their MFreeEffectsBundle, a collection of 24 (yes, 24!) effects processors, ranging from autopitch through to dynamics, EQs and tuners amongst others. They are feature-limited compared to the fully unlocked versions but nonetheless they do a great job. To unlock them fully costs just €49, which is really not bad at all considering that it opens up lots of extra functionality. It’s not just independent developers that offer free stuff, some of the big boys do as well. If you head over to the free section of NI’s website (www.nativeinstruments.com/en/products/free/) you will find free versions of the Komplete, Guitar Rig, Kontakt and Reaktor Player apps as well as the free Mikro Prism synth. These come with a good selection of sounds, effects and features and are intended to be an entry point into NI’s software instrument universe. Of course FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:32 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT143.indd 15 | 15 11/02/2015 15:32 . Waves has started doing this. probably at HD resolution. NI’s Komplete 10 is perfect for this as it includes Absynth. The same can be said for IK Multimedia. ethereal and realistic when required. depending on how the system has been implemented. You’ll be glad you did. Modern tools make this process easier than ever. If you can afford the Ultimate version it will be everything you need for composition. MTF Tech term – Upgrade Free samples MTF Tech term – Bundling It’s less common to find large. Hardware-wise you may not need tons of I/O unless you’re actually going round recording orchestras. Another interesting approach is to get more out of the samples you already have by mashing them up. FXpansion. If your DAW has a beat masher or a drum instrument that’s able to slice up existing samples and let you Paying to switch to a fully featured version of some software. the full versions have much greater functionality and far more content. There are dedicated tools for doing this. but it’s still crucial to choose the right ones for the job in hand. which are also well worth a look. AmpliTube and T-RackS apps for Mac and PC with some good basic content and the ability to add specific modules using in-app purchases. so if you have the DAW you already have this very useful and creative functionality. Your computer will need to be decent too. Voxengo offers the Marvel GEQ for free and so on.com has a free dynamics plug-in called FreeComp. to unlock existing features or to remove adverts. EastWest / Quantum Leap makes an excellent lineup of sample-based instruments for scoring. They are paid-for apps. such as FXpansion’s Geist and Propellerheads’ ReCycle. so you can tailor your system to include only the modules you want. and at the time of writing is giving away its OneKnob Pumper effect for one weekend only. If you’re covering a lot of different thematic bases you will want a good selection of sounds to work with. and sounds that can be cinematic.Produce great music on a budget! Feature MTF re-sequence them. Get much more use out of the samples you already own by mashing them up Other developers have periodic giveaways so it’s worth keeping an eye on their websites as these tend to be for limited times only. but this includes most of the big players these days (and if you’re doing this kind of work commercially you shouldn’t have any problem plumping for the flagship version of your chosen application). though again they do come with a high price tag. Kontakt and a raft of other compositional essentials. which provides free versions of its SampleTank. but as noted earlier these are often included as part of a hardware purchase and can also (sometimes) be made available for promotional purposes. and producing to make the music sound bigger than the room it was composed and programmed in. Budget setup for a film and TV composer You’ll need a DAW that has native video playback. but if you plan on doing a lot of loop slicing they are a good investment. Good monitoring and a great sound library is the key here. so again it’s worth getting mailouts from companies whose stuff you like. or collecting together a number of software products and selling them for a price that is lower than what it would cost to buy them all individually. since a lot of what you do will involve loading sizeable sample-based instruments while running video. Giving away free content with a purchase. In fact there are loads of free plug-ins available that can be found simply by running a web search. but the free versions are still impressive and will certainly help you out in your productions. Reason 8 is able to natively slice up any audio file you throw at it and send it off to a loop player in the rack. you can unleash a whole new lease of life and turn mundane loops into totally new ones.cover feat. quality sample packs available as free downloads. Some plug-in developers offer really impressive free downloads as a way of introducing you to their products. in which case ‘on a budget’ probably isn’t applicable to you. Of course this isn’t to say you should just buy any old stuff – you should have an idea of what you’re going to use something for and not pay over the odds. The same goes for old processing kit. You need to look out for stuff that’s going to materially improve your studio setup and that you really need. Similarly. (Below) Bag a bargain on auction sites. and often don’t cost much in the first place. much less. Upgrade deals are often attractive around new release time too. Be realistic. FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:32 .MTF Produce great music on a budget! Finding a bargain The secondhand arena is one where hardware beats software more or less hands down. drums or synths can sound great after a little cleaning up. But if you get it right you can really bag a bargain. Old tape machines or kids’ toys (like megaphones) can bring a new feel to digitally processed tracks if used correctly. and on the whole it’s not something that people seem to do an awful lot of. whack it through some plug-in delay and distortion and pretty quickly it can sound great. People can be keen to get rid of large instruments so you may have the upper hand when negotiating. It’s still hardware too. but a Boss RE-20 delay pedal is modelled on the same thing and costs a much. Buying classic gear can be expensive. If you have the space. not least because you can actually see Secondhand mixers are often inexpensive and can form the centrepiece of a home studio 16 | Ableton Live 2015 MT143. Although it is sometimes possible to transfer a software license between users it can incur an admin fee. This depends on two things: your being satisfied that the older version suits your needs. but when they have boxed copies they’ll want to shift them. If something is easily fixed it can be a bit of a bargain. Going… going… gone! It’s in hardware where you can really pick up a bargain. When software is distributed digitally there’s often no reason for a developer to keep selling old versions.cover feat. with sites such as eBay and Gumtree being the go-to places for used music kit. Remember also that thanks to digital technology you can post-process a lot of this stuff after it’s been recorded. where possible.indd 16 (Above) Research on sites such as vintagesynth. but spending top dollar is not really our aim here. old instruments such as pianos. and the physical availability of the older version. though: you’re not going to find a real Roland Space Echo for pennies. so this can be something to look out for. So if you record a crusty old synth and it sounds a bit lifeless. Secondhand stores are also a good bet. so you can use it for recording and live gigs. something in the flesh before you commit to buy it. However there is money to be saved in buying an older software version once a new one comes out.com before buying. Secondhand mixers are often inexpensive and can form the centrepiece of a home or project studio. a piece of outboard like a nice plate reverb or delay unit can bring an element of realism to an otherwise all-digital setup. Plenty of sites offer to get your music onto streaming stores such as iTunes and Spotify and each has a different set of charges. and its approach to charges is refreshingly fair. or capturing alternate versions. pictures and often integrate with other sites such as Bandsintown. Only if you want more hosting time and detailed stats do you have to pay to upgrade. Although these sites don’t let you build a conventional webpage they do let you embed a fair amount of biographical information. Can also refer to overlaying whole new parts onto entire tracks. You may also wish to submit your music to sync and licensing agencies for pitches to film and TV. Since a band makes a lot of noise you’ll need a good space to work in – a bedroom might not cut it. contact links. MTF MTF Tech term: Outboard Physical equipment. (Below) Many sites can get you onto iTunes and other streaming stores. but you still don’t need to spend a fortune. mixing and mastering. which is then routed to a mixer or an interface for recording. MTF Tech term: Streaming The process of playing back audio and video digitally over the internet. Even more than the shift from analogue to digital recording. but the actual processes of hosting and making music available for sale are now a piece of cake. most of your sound is going to be coming from the source. You will also almost certainly want some kind of mixing desk but you can just connect straight to an interface provided it has sufficient software-based routing and monitoring capabilities. If all you want is to get online and see simple accounting. the internet has revolutionised the way we go about showcasing music. it’s more or less all possible to do for nothing. which is achievable in a smaller space but potentially at the cost of affecting the vibe of the players.indd 17 | 17 11/02/2015 15:32 . Facebook or Twitter to provide fans with more or less everything they need. They are still a key component of many studios. When you record a band. There’s no substitute for legwork. usually effects processors or mixers that are used for recording. especially if you like making videos to go with your tracks. Although ad-supported it was free to use. and indeed it has upload support baked into many DAWs and other pro audio software. all different. but a neater way to stream and sell is using Bandcamp. so what you’re really focusing on is getting a good sound in the room using mic positioning and level checking. and use various kinds of add-ons such as discount codes and bonus material. MTF Tech term: Overdubs Performing a new or alternative version of a part over the top of a section of a track. Again this is free to use and you can set your own prices. SoundCloud lets you sell music in a roundabout way using widgets. MTF Tech term: DI Direct Input – the process of connecting a microphone or another sound source to an input box. FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT143. offering different levels of service in return. Probably the most widely used audio streaming service is SoundCloud. one-off-only deal to do just this. If you start to sell in quantity the site charges a little.Produce great music on a budget! Feature MTF Showcasing online It’s never been easier or cheaper to get your music out there for people to hear and buy. At a pinch you can record drums first then layer other stuff on top.com. without your own custom-designed site. but crucially this is only when you start to sell – it’s not upfront. and this is still the expectation for most hosting services. in which case latency could be an issue). But just putting stuff online guarantees nothing – you still need to focus your efforts on promotion. which is good news for users. and so forth. YouTube is another great way to showcase your music. Get an audio interface with as many channels as you have inputs. Host for free It’s pretty safe to say that MySpace has had its day but it kickstarted the phenomenon whereby bands and artists looked to the web as their first stop for promoting their music. A good agency will only take a pre-agreed cut when your music sells. Budget setup for recording a band Recording a band is at the more complex end of what you might be looking to do.cover feat. mondotunes. It works across desktop and mobile platforms and its core features are free to use. and Mondotunes is one of the better deals out there. airplay and playing gigs to raise awareness. but read up on them before you sign anything and be wary of any that ask for money up front.com has a cheap. Then it’s just a case of getting a good take and maybe doing overdubs of bits that need changing. one channel for mono guitar and two for stereo. stereo ins for keyboards. There are hundreds of these. Even a fairly modest computer running a mid-level DAW should be easily capable of tracking 20 or more simultaneous audio channels (unless for any reason any of them need to be passed through software FX for monitoring. as well as embedding players and buy links in all kinds of third-party sites. An increasingly popular way of consuming music and film on all kinds of devices. So if you can live (Above) Bandcamp is a great way to stream and sell your music. It really wasn’t very long ago that people were still paying to press CDs and sending hundreds out in the mail in the hope that they would get picked up. so for a drum kit you’ll need between five and ten inputs plus as many mics. including free. This busts you out of the timeline constraints so you’re free to improvise with the material inside the grid. and is a fully functional tool for music creation and performance Live can be easy to learn and it’s a hell of a lot of fun. remaining fresh.MTF Technique The Ultimate Guide to Ableton Live Part 1 Ableton Live The Ultimate Guide to Ableton Live. and so on (though it’s ‘l’ for the Detail View – I guess they ran out of letters!). where the music flows left to right from beginning to end. In/Out View (signal routing) and the Detail View. You’ll see Live on stages and in studios around the world. the Overview. too. For those times you can use Live’s search function.zip files. On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD Live can be easy to learn. but we’ll talk about that another time… 18 | Ableton Live 2015 MT143. but Live Packs are a great way to gather more material. and that’s it. your clips. but you can add more at any time. but sometimes it still feels like the new kid on the block. All in one Live’s single window design contains all of the elements that you need to get going. Return Tracks. Other elements include the Mixer. Live keeps growing in popularity. Actually. (Live also supports dual displays. With other DAWs (digital audio workstations). Sends. So alt-cmd-m toggles the mixer. the Browser doesn’t even have to be open. and on a day-to-day basis this is your one-stop shop for software instruments and effects and their presets. which is a vertically scrolling grid. innovative and deceptively simple to use. and this series will explain why it has become such a force in the DAW world. The keyboard shortcut you need for all of these is alt-cmd followed by the appropriate letter for the element. so now seems like a good time to go right back to the start and write a guide that unearths the reasons for the software’s popularity while exploring its hidden (and not-so-hidden) depths. but it’s not a toy – this is a fully-functional tool for music creation. for example. which is where you’ll see either clip contents or instruments and effects.tut live. appearing in the Packs section of the Browser. you can use both Views at once. alt-cmd-i toggles the In/Out View. (They’re like Ableton-specific . with new users coming on board every year.indd 18 FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:35 . Then use your keyboard’s arrow and FOCUS ON… VIEWS When you’re new to Live. for ultimate power.) You can also create shortcut links to your own folders outside of the Live Library. where you can view Arrangement and Session Views simultaneously. but still hasn’t really managed to. which is useful if you like to keep your full-length songs in iTunes. Part 1 Ableton Live: the inside track Ableton Live’s popularity continues to grow.) The triangle at the top left of the screen toggles the Browser. the first thing that’ll trip you up is the Views. Of course you can record and program your own content. there’s a timeline. Once you have a lot of material in there sometimes it’s faster to search for what you want instead of scrolling through huge lists and sub folders (as long as you have an idea of what it’s called). just hit cmd-f and begin typing the name of what you’re looking for – the Browser will open. as well as audio sample content. as Martin Delaney is here to demonstrate its power… A bleton Live has been around for over ten years now. and most of them can be shown/hidden by keyboard shortcuts to make the best of your available screen space. instruments and effects. Live will install with tons of content anyway. and if you’re a recent convert and want to get a quick handle on it you’ve come to the right place. and a list of results will begin to filter itself as you type. ie. which is where you need to be to load samples. production and performance. Just looking I’ve already mentioned the Browser. and Live Packs from Ableton or other suppliers will install their contents directly into your Library. Live has that too – the Arrangement View – but the most unique thing about Live is the Session View. The Session View and warping are what make Live truly unique – the competition has had a decade to try and catch up. If FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT143. Open Live’s Preferences and select it as Input and Output device in the Audio tab. Click a parameter then move a knob or fader on your hardware to assign it. 01 03 05 enter keys to select and load the item you were looking for. The specifics of setting them up varies according to which ones you have.indd 19 | 19 11/02/2015 15:35 . Install any drivers needed (most controllers are class-compliant. Use cmd-m to exit MIDI Map Mode when you’re done. Anything blue can be controlled by MIDI. Switching sides Live isn’t only picking up new users. Now when you move your hardware control the on-screen one moves too! You can assign one hardware control to multiple objects in Live. Select your controller as a MIDI input source for Track and Remote. but usually my advice is to wait as long as possible before choosing a controller. Connect your controller by USB. and install any necessary drivers. Close Preferences. launch Live and go to Preferences/MIDI Sync. Reason and Pro Tools.The Ultimate Guide to Ableton Live Part 1 Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step Set up your soundcard and controller You probably have a MIDI controller and an audio interface (soundcard) that you want to use with Live. but here are the basics. though). It’s a very fast way to get around! As an Ableton Certified Trainer I spend a lot of time dealing with buying advice to do with soundcards and controllers. I don’t want to be a party pooper. if you’ve got an old MIDI keyboard lying around. So for now. it’s gathering converts from other DAWs such as Logic.tut live. Connect your soundcard while your speakers are turned off. work with that to get started. Click on the Control Surfaces list at the top – if your controller’s listed in there it will have a certain amount of built-in control over Live without you having to configure anything further. and type cmd-m to enter MIDI Map Mode. because your ideas about what’s right for you 02 04 06 will change fast as you get to know Live. com. You can change the clip’s launch behaviour from the Launch box. and it can be frustrating at first. Increasing in price. This is warping (timestretching) at work. Mix and match with different quantization settings from the box below that and you start to see how clips can be quite organic! Change the project bpm at the top left of the screen.indd 20 02 04 06 different features.MTF Technique The Ultimate Guide to Ableton Live Part 1 MTF Step-by-Step The basics of launching clips Open the example Live set on the MusicTech DVD – it’s called TUGTAL1. or on the track stop button at the bottom of the track. If you can’t see it. each version has 20 | Ableton Live 2015 MT143. double-click on the clip and click the small black L button near the lower left of the screen. Make sure you’re looking at the Session View with the grid – use the tab key to move between Views. it’ll be worth it! Live comes in three flavours: Intro. Standard and Suite (currently at version 9).ableton. Experiment with different Launch Modes as you launch and re-launch the clip. and your loop speeds up or slows down without changing pitch or tripping over itself as it loops round. Control the volume by moving the volume fader up and down. Occasionally you’ll find other versions of Live bundled with third-party hardware FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:35 . Live is like those programs in some ways. But be patient. Now it’ll loop forever unless you stop it! Stop it by clicking the square in any empty slot below that clip.tut live. you’ll need to undergo a period of adjustment. which is a drum loop. Click on the small triangle at the left of the clip to launch it. Prices are also lower if you purchase the download versions rather than boxed discs. There’s an upgrade path. Track 1 contains a white clip called Beat. so check the handy comparison chart on www. 01 03 05 you’re coming to Live from another application. so if at any time you want to step up you needn’t pay to start all over again. but very different in others. 1.3. and programming your first beat.2. and clicking in the boxes next to each sound. This is mostly a thing of the past. even though it’s empty. Preview the 808 kit sounds by clicking the preview button (headphone icon) at the top of the list. and cowbells at 1.3. though.4 in alignment with the kick on the left. Draw a snare at 1. FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT143. so be aware that they might have different features as well. or whether you want to buy Live at all.3.2 and 1. Turn off preview when you’ve done this. The grid is numbered with beats and 16th notes. unless you stop it. Let’s add a kick part. double-click in the grid on 1.The Ultimate Guide to Ableton Live Part 1 Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step How to program a simple beat Live also enables us to work with MIDI.3 and 1. Click the Dupl Loop button in the Notes box. Have fun with these first steps – you’re entering an exciting world! MTF Martin’s Ultimate Guide To Ableton Live continues over the page.indd 21 | 21 11/02/2015 15:35 . The notes will trigger as the clip loops. as I believe Ableton has standardised these bundled editions.tut live. Double-click the clip to view the MIDI Editor. Double-click the clip slot at the top of the track to create an empty one-bar clip.4. Our walkthroughs take you through the simple process of configuring your controller and audio interface.2.4.3 and 1. Your Track 1 clip will play too. If you can’t decide which version you want. Launch this. 1. programming our own parts as well as using audio from other sources. download the demo and give it a spin – it’s fully functional for 30 days. 02 04 06 effectively making it the Suite version. Track 2 contains Live’s Core 808 drum kit. launching your first clip. Let’s add some more electronic-sounding drums. then draw another snare at 2. Scroll if you can’t see the entire kit. 01 03 05 such as keyboards and so on and branded with the manufacturer’s logo. While the clip’s playing.1. The left side of the editor displays the names of the sounds in the kit. one that we can work on over a few simple instalments. 22 | Ableton Live 2015 MT144. it’s creating drum parts! Velocity-sensitive pads.MTF Technique Part 2: Beginning a Live project with drums Ableton Live The Ultimate Guide to Ableton Live. culminating in a more dedicated device such as Ableton’s Push. either click the Preview button that sits just below the Browser. key commands. A clean acoustic kit is also a better way to illustrate MIDI programming tweaks and audio effect usage. A benefit of working with MIDI is that you don’t really have to commit to a fixed tempo until a long way into the production process – and with Live. you’ll still work with acoustic sounds acting as a glorified click track for the recording of live instruments. Now we’re moving on to a new project. building it into a self-contained set that will include all the tips and material referred to in the tutorials. but there’s no need to limit yourself to this as there are many more Live Packs available which feature great sounding kits. programming beats.indd 22 FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:37 . whether you’re looking for acoustic or electronic sounds – you’ll find some on the Ableton website (the Session Drums pack is a good example). if there’s one thing Push is good for. For this. Martin Delaney counts you in… L ast time round we gave ourselves an introduction to the basics of Ableton Live – the interface. instead of one that loads with a lot of effects in place before you start. I’m using one of the standard Live library drum kits for the tutorial. so you DO YOU REALLY NEED DRUM PADS TO PROGRAM BEATS? In a word. step sequencing. Part 2 Beginning a Live project with drums Ableton Live is fantastic for drum programming. clip launching – before programming our first little MIDI drum beat. in the shape of Live’s Kit Core Session Dry. which makes things a lot more simple by freeing you from thinking about structure at this early stage. you can audition each kit without loading it. you’ll still be working with acoustic sounds. We’re going to use an acoustic drum kit. It’s also important to remember that you can automate BPM changes in the Arrangement View if you want your music to breathe a bit. Never mind the funny keyboard-in-a-grid gimmick. even when you’re working with audio. We’ll begin by going back to drum programming. but that doesn’t always get you in the mood. and it’s easy to get started. No matter how focused you are on electronic beats. We can play in drum hits using Live’s computer MIDI keyboard for starters. Get kitted out In the interests of compatibility. no! But a sensible answer takes longer – you can program MIDI beats perfectly well using a computer mouse or trackpad. so you can concentrate on the job in hand: making the best beat possible. it has all the tools you need. device control… it’s all there. customising drum racks and adding audio effects. though you’ll change this on a project-specific basis depending on the part you’re recording. If you forget to enable quantization. you’ve got a lot of freedom with tempo changes thanks to the wonders of warping. to create a beat that’ll be the foundation of our new project. you can use Cmd-U to quantize the recorded notes. as well as through third-party providers. Most music projects begin with a beat. using Live’s Core 808 kit. Along the way we’ll be adding two little samples – just to let you know that this is possible! We set Record Quantization to Sixteenth-Note. and their playing and programming techniques. When you’re browsing the Library drum kits. even if it’s simply On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD No matter how focused you are on electronic beats. we’re working in Session View because the loop-based workflow is ideal for programming beats – at times like this you just want the part in focus to keep looping round while you edit it.TUT Live2. Our tutorial will skim through the fundamentals of Live beat production – including creating clips. or simply right-arrow on your computer keyboard to hear a brief sample of the kit sound (this only works with the Live factory sounds). then the options ramp up after that: from MIDI keyboard to MIDI drum pads. and you can zoom in and out by clicking and dragging left/right at the same spot. or from the triangular preview buttons in each cell in the drum rack. and start typing ‘Kit-Core SessionDry’. with an Amount control that lets you blend in the amount of correction. You 02 04 06 can also expand the editor upwards by mousing over the border at the top. Look at the Session View: a timeline gets in the way when you’re building beats (we want them to loop indefinitely) and there are some clips there! Enter a bpm value in the tempo box near the top left of the screen. as you’ll hear when you audition the sounds from your MIDI controller (arm the track first). which makes it easier to work with. This is an acoustic drum kit. We could use any value from 20-999 bpm. navigate to it with the computer keyboard’s down arrow and hit Enter to load it. We want to add one electronic sound now. This automatically creates a 1-bar MIDI clip. Double-click in the top clip slot in your drum track. you can navigate note pitches by simply clicking and dragging up/ down on the piano roll at the left. Launch the empty clip.TUT Live2. Type Cmd-F to search. where you’ll see the pointer icon changes into a dragging tool – and you can scale the editor upwards so it fills the screen. When you’re working in the MIDI Note Editor. All you’ll hear is the metronome.Part 2: Beginning a Live project with drums Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step Making a beat with Ableton Live Open our example set – TUGTAL2. The way I like to work when I’m creating a drum track is to add variations and breaks in the programming of the FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT144.indd 23 | 23 11/02/2015 15:37 . but let’s agree on 126 for now – a little bit upbeat. Drum racks contain 128 cells. Turn on the metronome as well. so drag the audio sample we’ve called ‘Noise’ on to the Conga cell in the drum rack – that’ll replace the original sample. When you see the kit in the ever-updating list. 01 03 05 don’t have to record them again. Because Record Quantization is on. which is what real (good) drummers do to vary the feel of what they’re playing. Enter the notes by double clicking in the grid. Set it to 10 Go Sixteenth-Note Quantization. Click the Session Record button in the Control Bar. This is part of what Live’s Grooves do as well – you can find them if you look under Packs/Core Library/Swing and Groove. then find the key or pad for the tambourine.1. noise and snare as you see there. 1. As the clip loops around. and 1. This will tighten up the timing when 07 09 Arm the track (the red button lit at bottom).MTF Technique Part 2: Beginning a Live project with drums MTF Step-by-Step Making a beat with Ableton Live… cont’d You should now be viewing the MIDI Note Editor grid. to the Edit menu and find Record Quantization. and even time signature changes can be automated. 12 can impart a ‘human’ feel in your beats. but to use the Velocity MIDI Effect Device for dynamic variations – this keeps them randomising across the length of the track. the clip play button is red. nothing’s overwritten.3.TUT Live2. Refer to our screenshot – draw the hi hats. Now we have enough activity. and playback begins. click the device view selector at the bottom right.3. so don’t limit yourself to the ones that feel safe. Live’s drum kits are usually based on drum racks. They’re overdubbed over the other parts. That’s a 1/16th note grid. Drag our ‘Tambourine’ clip onto the Cowbell cell in the rack. Let’s record the tambourine in real-time.3. We’ll offset the snare hits a bit. but it’s worth remembering that the good ol’ Impulse drum FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:37 . Time to draw the beat. we don’t need the metronome – turn it off. the timing of your tambourine is corrected automatically. Most of us will probably be working in 4/4 time. draw kicks at 1. 11 notes. If not.indd 24 08 we play in our live tambourine part – it saves editing time later! Now you’re recording! As the loop plays. If you use these carefully you 24 | Ableton Live 2015 MT144.3. just for the practice. 1. but don’t forget that Live can easily handle more complex time signatures. add a tambourine hit on each beat. to take the edge off the tempo. so add the Audio Effect preset Reverb/Room/Ambience to the track after the rack. and drag to the drum track. which contains the raw material that we’ve used in this tutorial plus the remaining four tutorials coming up! MTF FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT144. Making tracks Next time we’ll be treating beats more aggressively – taking audio samples of drum loops and slicing and For live-sounding drums you need velocity changes. Set the Dry/Wet mix to 30%. but it’s great if you’re building your own electronicallyoriented kits and you want to limit your options. 15 sound flat unless they’re located in some kind of room 17 Drums space. Set the Dry/Wet to 20% – this gives a little extra rhythmic value to that sound! We can use a compressor to fatten up our beat (we’ll be coming back to compressors later). It should sound punchier… 18 processing them. you get an instant two bars! Add some more kicks at the end of bar 2. but only a tiny bit. And don’t forget to look at our example Live set on the DVD this issue.Part 2: Beginning a Live project with drums Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step Making a beat with Ableton Live … cont’d Press Stop or the spacebar. 13 We can tweak the beat’s timing. so raise Out Low to 110. Drag the snare hits to the right.TUT Live2. These variations are too extreme. 14 the Simple Delay from the Audio Effects Browser straight on 16 Drag to the drum cell that contains the ‘noise’ sample. so they sound like they’re dragging behind the beat. This is a basic beat-making tool. Now we have a 1-bar beat. Find the preset Compressor/Mildly Aggressive and drag it on to your track. and laying that on top of the beat we’ve created.indd 25 | 25 11/02/2015 15:37 . Find the MIDI Effect preset Velocity/Add Some Random. but if you click the Dupl Loop button in the Loop Box. sample player is still there. In part 4 we’ll then be adding bass and keyboard parts to the project to create an entire track. slicing it up and adding different sounds and effects. which is incredibly useful. but now Martin Delaney explains how to dirty it up! I n our last tutorial. but we can also do it with audio samples – a very powerful feature.that’s what it’s all about. ‘Slice to New MIDI FOCUS ON… QUANTIZATION Sometimes Live treats audio and MIDI in similar ways. Having programmed and customised a beat earlier. We added the Resonator effect to our new percussion track. you’ll be working with many drum tracks playing in parallel. natural-sounding kits. We discussed this for MIDI already. YouTube. processed with audio effects. As well as mixing and matching source kits. but these sounds will be customised. we began a new Live project and created a beat using one of Live’s more acoustic. Dance music tracks are typically based on core drum kits derived from the classic drum machines of old.this retains each separate clip within the track. It makes you use different tools in different ways. it has quite a distinctive sound. and also because it’s another interesting creative step you can take. You’ll notice that every clip in a flattened track is double the length of the original source clip . use Shift-Cmd-U to access the quantization settings. then create a group track called ‘Spare’ which I use to contain all of the original versions of my frozen tracks. or you’ve resampled from a little dictating recorder. All good but now we’re going to cannibalise that beat in two different ways . Cool! To change the quantization values. there’s a lot of leeway with sample resolution and sound quality. Mix and match . clean MIDI beat with a few realistic variations. There’s no right or wrong about the type of drum sounds you use. and we’ll also convert that original beat to audio. before slicing it up for yet more processing.this is a feature not a bug(!). 26 | Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. Even when you’re working with something you’ve programmed yourself. we’re now converting it to audio and beginning the process all over again. although that means that sometimes you have to tweak it somewhat to get something different. removing some of the slices On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD There’s no right or wrong with the beats you use as long as they are right for the project completely and replacing them with totally different sounds. what matters is they’re right for the project you’re working on at the time. and often layered alongside more realistic percussion sounds for a richer texture. Just be aware that Flatten is destructive . you can use the crop sample command to put your clip back to its original length.this makes sense because it’s quite annoying to hear a reverb tail cut off and begin again as a sample loops. and make sure it’s pitched correctly to fit in with your other parts . It’s very important to use that Note control though. Loose Beat. designed to accommodate effect tails at the end of loops . you can build a kit that includes nice high resolution drum hits alongside grungy little samples that you’ve grabbed from an MP3. During the tutorial we talk about freezing and flattening tracks . Truthfully in most genres these days. you can give it more of a ‘sampled’ vibe by converting it to audio and slicing it up. We’re doing this because I want to show you the very cool ‘Slice to New MIDI Track’ command. If you’re obsessive about house-cleaning. Double-click the clip to see the waveform – you’ll see it’s not exactly in time and we can fix this. An example of this is quantization.things can get a bit discordant otherwise. You’ll see the peaks in the waveform snap to the grid. combining acoustic and electronic sounds.MTF Technique Part 3: Processing your beats Ableton Live The Ultimate Guide to Ableton Live Part 3 Processing your beats In Part 2 of the Ultimate Live Guide we built a nice. I love the Resonator.your original track is gone! What I usually do is duplicate the track. which I am.we’ll duplicate and process it to create a new tuned percussion part that plays over the top.indd 26 FOCUS 12/02/2015 12:22 .TUT live3. the Roland TR-808 and TR-909. Right-click inside the waveform and type Cmd-U. Try the sample in our example Live set. The correct technical term for the 02 04 06 slices made by this command. It sounds cool. and you want to edit the arrangement. 01 03 05 Track’ is great if you have a beat from another record. Set the Note inside Resonator to E2. then go down to the bottom of the Warp controls and choose the top arrow icon. or tweak or even replace some of the sounds in the sample. This deactivates the Transient Loop mode. then use the Transpose knob at the left to raise it by 24 semitones or two octaves. Right-click the new track. and the FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MTF38.TUGTAL3. Go to the Audio Effects category in the Browser and add the Resonator preset called Berlin to the track. as they’re created and placed in a rack.Part 3: Processing your beats Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step Processing your beats Open our example set . Select the drum track and type Cmd-D to duplicate. Erosion. drag in an instrument. click and drag downwards in the adjoining box to reduce the decay between slices. Or as we touched on here. and Crop Sample command to cut the clip back to the original length. The slice will be replaced. creating an audio version of the track. is ‘chains’. Start Marker. pointing to the right only. While the loop’s running. then try setting the Dry/Wet mix at 35%. choose Freeze Track. Drag right down to 0 for a delicious clicky part. Dragging samples or instruments to replace slices is a big thing.TUT live3. Use the Loop Brace. then right-click again and choose Flatten. Set the new drum audio clip to Beats Warp mode if it isn’t already. which determines how the gaps between slices in Beats mode are handled. putting a compressor on the kick in a sample loop is a good example. Freeze and Flatten makes double-length audio clips – this helps handle effect tails and the like. and Cabinet to dirty things up a bit. I also like to use lo-fi effects such as Redux. you can take a loop from an old record and totally replace the kick or snare with another sample.indd 27 | 27 12/02/2015 12:22 . yes? It’s gating the waveform’s transients. make sure to click on the black buttons at the bottom left of the rack – these will show 28 | Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. effect sends and returns (yes you can have these in a drum rack). Rightclick on it and choose Slice To New MIDI Track. with a different instance of Simpler for each slice. Right-click the track containing that original beat and choose Freeze Track. and of course the macros. with a note for each slice. If you’re ever following a drum rack tutorial and you’re not seeing everything. chains. Crop the new clip down to only two bars.MTF Technique Part 3: Processing your beats MTF Step-by-Step Processing your beats. Choose the 1/8 Slicing option from the new window.indd 28 08 10 12 and hide the various elements that make up the rack. including input/output routing. audio effects… really taking it on to another level. 07 09 11 instrument will play as the clip loops. Perverse. This operation has sliced the audio clip. isn’t it? Launch the clip – it should sound pretty much the same as the original. The MIDI track’s disappeared! Freeze/Flatten is destructive – that’s why we copied the track when we did it before. maybe we’re getting bored with the original beat now – it sounds quite flat against the Resonator percussion track. Let’s put it through the wringer taking it on a gratuitous journey of sonic dismemberment. This is a real FOCUS 12/02/2015 12:23 . and devices. cont’d Now you’ve created a melodic percussion part by tweaking your original beat. You can build really interesting loops by adding soft synths. Uh. This is just a fun way to mess with your parts as we want a different vibe.TUT live3. you can start using automation as well... Now you have a new MIDI track and clip. Right-click again and choose Flatten. Live is great for recycling your audio and MIDI parts! It is definitely possible to make an entire tune from one source sample. and made a new drum rack. It’s also automatically created a MIDI clip. If you really want to go big with elaborate evolving beats. Click on the track name. cont’d Audition the slices from your MIDI controller. That’s it for now. Wow! That’s too much. the first snare in the clip. this is one of Live’s top features! Not only can we reorganise the notes. Turn to p34 where we use the Simpler instrument and MIDI Effect devices to add some bass to our beats. 13 15 17 opportunity to go nuts. to see what happens.. and do that individually for each parameter. Delays are a great way to change the rhythm of your beats. because you can automate every device in every chain in the rack. And of course you can separate the length of the automation loop from the clip length (with the Link button). or enable Preview for the clip (the headphone icon) and click on each note to hear it. We have another sample. Experiment with dragging the notes around the editor grid. we can tweak each slice.indd 29 | 29 12/02/2015 12:23 . type Cmd-R.. Effectively we’ve sampled ourselves. you can take any beat and reorganise it to fit your song. MTF FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. It automatically creates a Simpler instrument to contain it! Doing that automatically replaces the original slice – now you have a bass note hitting alongside the beat. so warn your friends and family that you’re going to disappear 14 16 18 for a few weeks! That’s all we have room for now and we haven’t even mentioned the totally awesome ‘Convert Audio to Drums’ command. 5.TUT live3. Dial the Dry/Wet control down to 30%. Give the kick a little bump by dragging the Compressor preset Brick Wall onto slices 1. called ‘bass note E’. and that can be hundreds of parameters. 9 and 13 in the clip.. Drag it onto slice 7. Drag the Ping Pong Delay onto slice 3. Now we turn our attention to the snare. That will have to wait for another tutorial. or from your computer keyboard (Shift-Cmd-K to activate that).Part 3: Processing your beats Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step Processing your beats. Onwards. and rename the track ‘Sliced beat’. Simply admiring good snowboarders or knowing the general principles of snowboarding aren’t going to be enough. starting at the very beginning… P roducing music is a bit like snowboarding.feat Bluffer's Guide. Rob Boffard guides you through the music-making maze. Open the DAW This may come as a total shock to you. rather than the boards and boots and bindings. In the articles to come we’ll focus on different aspects of producing music. if you will. or exactly what goes on when a producer sits down at a computer to make some music.MTF Feature A bluffer’s guide to music technology MTF Feature Music Technology Guide A BLUFFER’S GUIDE TO MUSIC TECHNOLOGY If you’re bursting with musical ideas but don’t know how to realise them then this is the series for you.indd 30 FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:36 . If you’re just getting started in making music then this is the perfect primer for how it all works. That’s not particularly interesting or informative but you might not know just how it’s done. Now that we’ve got the mangled metaphors out of the way. You need equipment to do it. welcome to our bluffer’s guide to music technology. but in 2015 music is mostly created using computers. If you want to carve up a slope you need to put a little time into working out how it’s all done. but you’re probably going to fall flat on your face a few times. but for now we’re just going to look at the big concepts: the mountain. the centre of the music studio 30 | Ableton Live 2015 MT139. and you have to have a basic understanding of what you’re doing. Back in the day. Logic Pro is Apple’s own program. such as nearfield monitors. and many more… Any DAW is intimidating to learn. even if it is Mac only. industry-standard program. Outside of big studios you won’t find too many enormous mixing desks. It contains a sequencer. a mixer. and after having processing applied to it. Pick the Tech terms one you like best. It’s the process of taking an idea in your head and putting it into recorded form. The place where everything are arranged and edited. though. It receives audio signals (from your computer or your instruments) and tells it where to go (speakers or headphones). powerful. but quite unusual and hard to learn. ● ● MONITORS: A fancy name for speakers. in theory. In many cases it still is. Nobody has ever been able to pin down if you pronounce it ‘Door’ or ‘Dee-Ay-Double-You’. and you’ll need to spend a bit of time figuring out which one you like using. Soundation. If you’re recording something. but it’s not as crucial as it once was. then you’re composing. pan controls and effects on all your tracks. multi-room studio or hunched in front of your laptop. use them all. Logic Pro’s mixer pops up when you press X on the keyboard. you can. panning left or right. put in a lot of time. they all work in roughly the same way. But FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT139. It stands for Digital Audio Workstation. but it’s also finicky and expensive and difficult to get to grips with. and you’ll need to figure out which one you like SOUNDCARD: A piece of equipment that handles the audio signals. Can either be internal or external to your computer. and a whole happens. Composing is the act of making music. create new ones. You’ll find plenty of DAWs on the market. we’ll deal with effects in a subsequent instalment). It requires you to develop a good ear. This is all about adjusting volume levels. Nobody knows host of effects and instruments that you can use to mess with existing sounds or how to pronounce it. This is also pretty simple: you’re taking all the elements of your song and blending them together.m choice – Audition. Ableton Live. and gain a good dose of experience. They come in various flavours. mixing and mastering. the ever-popular dance choice. because once you can use one DAW.indd 31 | 31 11/02/2015 14:36 . No matter what kind of music you make. it all came out the other end. You’re looking to take the separate channels and put them together so that they sound awesome. We’re not going to lie to you: the mixing stage is hard. and applying effects to sharpen up sounds (don’t worry. are their 21st-century equivalent: DAWs. Pro Tools is a big. Doesn’t matter. Then there’s Cubase – a great cross-platfor. it doesn’t matter. Frankly. Then there’s mixing. ● INTERFACE: The box that you plug everything into. Instant access to the levels. But put the time and effort in and you’ll discover something interesting: whatever each DAW’s personality. What you will find. This should be the deciding factor: you absolutely have to be comfortable with the program you’re working with. You’ll find plenty of DAWs on the market. The big three Music production is divided into three distinct segments: composing. where their levels are changed. or creating it.A bluffer’s guide to music technology Feature MTF was a big mixing desk. that’s how it goes. where pieces of audio Workstation. There are several big names and they all have their own strengths and weaknesses. This might happen with an entire band or it might be you and your DAW and a couple of software instruments bashing out a drum beat. Reason is a music-focussed software package with dozens of dedicated instruments – perfect for production. which are smaller and used in home studios. and is versatile and great to use. Realising this is a powerful moment. whether you’re in a big.feat Bluffer's Guide. Every piece of sound went into that desk. and so it pays to audition them before shelling out your hard-earned. and it’s almost always ● DAW: Digital Audio the hub of any producer’s world. Whether it’s a keyboard. But you won’t get good results with a bad hardware setup. it lets There’s nothing to stop you making music with just a laptop and a DAW. it’s just that to use them you send audio to them from your computer and then the effect sends it back all nicely processed. but it’ll be much better if you let a pro do it. It can be done You can master your tracks on your own computer. and how much of anything you’re hearing at any given time. Hit tab.MTF Feature A bluffer’s guide to music technology you can’t skip it. It’s not just the computer’s external soundcard. If you’re an idiot. but there’s certainly an argument for investing in your own. they’ll all eventually come back to the interface. The big. for example) then you’ll be needing a bigger interface with a lot more inputs. Not every desk will do this. and the only way to get good at it is to do lots of it. Imagine you’ve cooked a nice meal.indd 32 you get direct physical control over the parameters of your track. And you might have guessed this already. If you have a lot of instruments (if you’re in a band. They perform in exactly the same way as their software equivalents. That’s the mountain you’re standing on top of. No. The process beefs up the sound. This is essentially an external soundcard for your computer. good one. So. a guitar and amp. You want ones that aren’t going to colour your mix – what that means is that they absolutely have to pump out the sound as it is. the three stages of music making. though.feat Bluffer's Guide. When you’re mixing. By the way: remember those effects we mentioned? They can come in hardware format too. classic desks are renowned for providing a pleasing colour to the sound – a quality that translates as warm and rich when it hits the ear. A much better option is to invest in an interface. 32 | Ableton Live 2015 MT139. Hard and soft There’s nothing to stop you making music with just a laptop and a DAW. not an absolute. It uses a rack system to line up software instruments for you to use. its soundcard is not going to give you the results you want. The easiest bits of gear to get your head around are headphones and speakers. Just you and your DAW? A single input will be fine. A Meet Reason. You don’t just slop it out into a polystyrene kebab box you’ve got lying around. you find the nicest plate you’ve got. DAWs. This is about taking your finished track and putting an extra layer of shine on it. the most important thing is to know exactly how your mix sounds. MTF FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:37 . Mastering is a dark art – you can do it on your own. This is not the place for a pair of Beats by Dre cans. and monitors and headphones that can give you this – known as a ‘flat’ response – are worth spending money on.) Of course. But you’ll be in a much better situation if you can invest in some hardware. they’ll all connect to that interface. will enable you to control your instrument levels. rather than increasing the bass or treble. and the rack flips around to the back where there are cables you can rearrange. Mastering is the plate. makes the volume consistent throughout the track. the main volume. one which you can plug all your equipment into and then connect back to your computer (usually via USB). Next time. That’s not just because they’ll have the best-sounding studio and the most heavyweight equipment. and hardware. and puts an extra layer of polish on it. usually in big rectangular units that can be slotted into dedicated ‘racks’. you could just plug them right into your computer. or a microphone. shaping and moulding the sound. using programs such as iZotope Ozone. or monitors as they’re known in music making. It can be done. Speaking of instruments. pictured here. we’ll take a look at how to get down it. but a mixing desk is just an interface with faders on it. (See p46 for choices. such as the MBox that ships with Pro Tools. it’s also because they can bring a fresh set of ears. Then there’s mastering. particularly when you stop composing and start mixing. No matter how good your computer is. It’s a nice-tohave. blending all these different ingredients together and using the perfect amount of spices. . it doesn’t even have to be a good bass and it doesn’t matter what it sounds like. we’re pairing it with our square wave sound. When you’re working with MIDI programming. so you can quickly end up with thousands of chains buried deep within your rack. but there’s no reason why a sub couldn’t be on a track of its own and subject to a whole other round of editing and effect processing. After drawing in the notes in our bass clip. but on this occasion we don’t need those controls. It’s the same reason we set the Simpler instruments to 1 voice each. and LFO-driven wobble sounds. It depends on what genre you’re working with. We’re going to build our own bass sound and program our own part. I’ll move on to others only if I can’t find what I want in there. doubled up with a little sub to make it bounce. Impressive enough. This is my most common way to create bass parts. It can be almost inaudible in the mix at certain times. to avoid overlaps that will affect the bass part. it makes our bass sound a bit more evolving and interesting. This is because we plan to add other instruments. If I was to do the tutorial using the Operator synth. Here’s his guide… T oday we’re adding a bass part. You should try Operator. They’re all good and they’re all readily available to us these days. We’re using two chains in our rack – that’s two instruments playing together – but you can have up to 128 chains in a rack. so we’ll deal with that issue another time. We use clip envelopes to create repetitive movement of the Auto Filter controls. To get a bass vibe…play bass. because 99 times out of 100 it doesn’t even get plugged in. It’s pretty obvious! 34 | Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. This is because the Simpler instrument we use is included in every version of Live. and there are various tactics we can use to specify which sounds play at what times. It makes it possible to build long. which we’ve already encountered. you’ve got classic electric bass played with pick or fingers. it’s important to resist the temptation to make a huge bass sound right now. ideally one that somehow fits in with our beat from the last tutorial. Simpler sampler Simpler is a very powerful sampler. And remember: FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:46 . though – it’s my go-to synth for bass parts. You don’t have to learn to play properly. As I mention in the tutorial.through real or software instruments and Live Packs. For reasons of simplicity.MTF Technique Part 4: Let’s make some bass Ableton Live The Ultimate Guide to Ableton Live Part 4 Let’s make some bass On the disc Martin Delaney thinks it’s time to add some bass to our beats. This can be a bit overbearing. When you connect a MIDI keyboard or use your computer keyboard to play those sounds. be aware that you can record them in real time if you’re using a suitable hardware controller. but automated filters can be a huge factor in the mix. although it has a user-friendly interface. The set includes all the steps from the last tutorial as well as a couple of samples you’ll need to complete this one. If you don’t like the restrictions and mouse-work of drawing these envelopes. We’re spending more time working with instrument racks as this is a great way to build deep synth sounds that would otherwise require complex routing across several tracks.TUT live4. Lucky us! Maybe we’ll come back and use them later. and sonically there won’t be any room for them if we have a bass sound that’s riddled with effects and covering a huge frequency range.indd 34 Accompanying project file included on the DVD 128 racks inside another rack. Bass sounds change considerably across genres. sustaining notes by loop and crossfading short samples. Refer to the example set included with the issue – it’s called TUGTAL4. but then bear in mind that you can have FOCUS ON… REAL BASS The best thing you can do if you want to program good bass parts is to get your hands on a bass guitar – it’s a great way to try ideas against your drum tracks. noodling away while the drums loop. a lot of mixing problems can be fixed at the programming stage. In many ways they’re similar to drum racks. but we’re only using two today. you might not be able to follow the steps. Also I can’t stress enough the importance of unlinking clip envelopes from the clip length. you’re going to get a massive sound because all of the chains will play at once. We’re using a transposed sine wave to create a sub bass – a low bass fundamental tone which fattens up the bottom end. we went back to shorten the bass note in our sliced drum rack from last time to make sure it didn’t overlap with the new bass part. Resist the temptation to make a huge bass sound because we plan to add other instruments analogue and digital synths. We finished off the bass track with Live’s Compressor. We’ll use this as our sub bass and the saw as our more immediately characteristic tone. creating another chain. shortening the note.4. Load an empty Instrument Rack into a new MIDI track. In the ‘sine’ Simpler instrument. Good. as we’ve done before.1. Arm the track and play your keyboard to audition the sound. If you have the Glue Compressor from the Live 9 Suite. Drag the clip ‘sine’ into the rack’s drop area. Drag the clip ‘square’ into the rack and it’ll automatically appear inside a Simpler instrument. for those times when you want a compressor that purposely adds some character to the sound. and A2 at 1. set the Trans (transpose) value to -12 semi-tones. You might want to rename the chains now. Refer to the screen shot. find the controls for the bass note in the drum rack and reduce the Release to 1.3. that’s one octave down. now let’s draw in some notes. for visual reference – Cmd-R. Double-click in an empty slot to create a new MIDI clip.00 ms.3 then E1 again at 1. Match the note lengths to what you see in the picture. but that’s normal – sines are not so responsive compared to other more complex waveforms.3. which follows on from last time. There’s a bass sample in the drum kit. But.3 and E1 at 1.4. This is perfectly adequate as a clinical compression tool. 01 03 05 each envelope can be a different length.indd 35 | 35 11/02/2015 15:46 . in a low-ish range. It’s just E1 then D2 at 1.3. Now you’ll be playing both sounds together. that’s a good place to start… FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. D2 at 1. 02 04 06 although that’s one area where I think third-party plug-ins or even hardware can step in and do the job better. You might notice that the sine wave part of the bass sound doesn’t react much to the filter.4.TUT live4.Part 4: Let’s make some bass Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step Making some bass Open our example set. our bass clip leaves room for that. 00. Let’s add Auto Filter for some nice filter sweeps. Our simple bass part will be monophonic – only one note at a time – so we can set the voices for each Simpler to 1. and so on. MTF FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:47 . Next time we’ll be working on a keyboard part to layer over our bass and beats. I was starting to feel the Resonator settings were a little bit too abrasive. Let’s raise the sine volume inside Simpler to 0 dB – Simpler and Sampler always default to -12 dB. To fix this you can go to the Resonator in our percussion track and tame it a bit by resetting all of the fine tuning values to 36 | Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. release time.MTF Technique Part 4: Let’s make some bass MTF Step-by-Step Making some bass… cont’d While we’re shortening. Once again we’ll take a shot at building our own instead of loading a preset. set the Sine’s Sustain to -7dB.TUT live4. I guess to protect us from ourselves! You can keep tweaking the levels as you go on. square sound. While working with the bass sound. This means we can’t play or program any overlapping notes by mistake. That should sound better! That’s all for now. when you play the clip. This makes it shorter against the higher. Our samples are long enough that it won’t matter. we don’t have to play with the other Simpler settings for loop/fade. but it doesn’t leave much room for other sounds in the song if the bass is too big. and the Q (resonance) to 2. 07 09 11 As we’re adding more elements to our track. Drag it right after the rack so it applies to both chains and set the filter cutoff to 170Hz. Because we’re using short punchy notes for this. it keeps the punchy low bass hit without cluttering up the mix. we’ve got to make sure everything sounds good alongside everything else.indd 36 08 10 12 0 using the white boxes under each Pitch control. We could add effects to each chain and use the Spread control to make a monster bass sound. Part 4: Let’s make some bass Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step Making some bass… cont’d Sweep time. Inside the MIDI note editor, click the envelope arrow and choose Auto Filter and Frequency from the pop-up choosers. Click the Link button and type a value of 4 bars next to that. Click the left end of the red dotted line in the editor to anchor it. Drag the right end upwards to 1.50 Hz (Cmd-Click-Drag for finer resolutions). Now the frequency changes as the clip plays. Choose Resonance now, unlinking it again, anchor it, then draw an envelope that ends at 2.90. You’ll hear that as well. Look at the Auto Filter and you’ll see red dots marking the automated controls. What sounds cool is if you create different length sweeps for different parts of the song. Once you’ve clicked that Link button, you can set envelopes to any length, even with simple one-bar clips. When you’re repeating these nice envelope sweeps, don’t use the same values every time either – it’ll sound more organic if you vary them a bit. You will hear the difference especially with the Resonance. Drop in Live’s Compressor/Classical Compression preset. Make sure it goes right after the entire rack so it applies to both chains. If you’ve got Glue Compressor from the Live 9 Suite, try that instead. 13 15 17 14 16 18 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MTF38.TUT live4.indd 37 | 37 11/02/2015 15:47 MTF Technique Part 5: Make your own keyboard sound & sidechain it Ableton Live The Ultimate Guide to Ableton Live Part 5 Make your own keyboard sound & sidechain it… Anybody can load a synth preset but it’s fun to build your own. Connect your keyboard and Martin Delaney will show you how it’s done. W e continue our Ultimate Guide by adding a simple keyboard part to our ongoing project, following on from the bass last time. You like the project? Good. You don’t like the project? That’s fine too as it’s merely a vehicle for us to introduce the core techniques of using Ableton Live. If you’re not great at music theory Live has a whole bunch of tools to make parts sound busy Once again we’re using the Simpler instrument device, with a sample that you can load from the provided example Live set. This works for us because there are a few different versions of Live out there – Suite, Standard and Intro, not to mention older versions counting from 9 backwards – so using a synthesizer instrument device at this point could cause compatibility issues with some folks reading this. We’re on safe ground with Simpler because it’s in every version of Live – it has to be, because drum racks in particular won’t work without it! Either way it’s good, partly because we can now say we’re using sample based synthesis, a form of sound design that uses audio samples as well as waveforms generated by the synth instrument itself. Many synths let you combine these techniques in one preset, which really opens up the sonic spectrum. On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD As well as adding a new sample to our set – which again, incorporates the steps from the last tutorial – I’ve taken the opportunity to reorganise, rename, and colour code the tracks and clips. Not only do I get a kick out of organising everything, it helps me recognise what I’m looking at faster and it avoids accidentally triggering or selecting the wrong clip or track. I made a ‘spare’ group track for unused tracks, and put the original beat in there. We mentioned this before – Shift-Click to select the tracks you want to group, then type Cmd-G. You can also drag additional tracks in later. Our keyboard part doesn’t have to be too demanding. All we need for this project is something basic that doesn’t take up too much room, sonically speaking; we’ve got enough going on already. We’re just using one note, then making it move with some sidechaining instead. Whenever we talk about creating instrument sounds, make sure you’re using a keyboard to audition the sound constantly as you work on it. If you already have a MIDI clip and notes in place, you could just keep that playing and rolling round. But if you’re working on a sound that needs to have some velocity sensitivity – some responsiveness to how hard you hit your keys or pads – it’s better to use your keyboard or pads in real time while you’re testing. As I’ve said before, I like to use the computer keyboard as well, and when I’m doing that, I’ll keep tapping on the c and v keys to change through some different velocity settings if relevant – they’ll take you up and down through the velocity range from 1 to 127 in increments of 20. Don’t forget to keep an eye on your track and master volume levels as well as we don’t want to see any red peaks! We don’t use any notes other than E4 for this clip, because we want to start with a drone and then find a way to make it sound a bit more interesting. If you’re not great at music theory, Live has a whole bunch of tools to help you make even a basic FOCUS ON… THE HARDWARE In this tutorial we’re building a keyboard sound based on a sample from a Waldorf Pulse Plus, a hardware, rack-mount, synth first released in 1997 (the range is still going strong in a tabletop format). I used the Pulse for two important reasons: one, because it would give a different texture than resampling a plug-in, and two, because it was nearby! One of the great things about Simpler is that it makes it easy to use almost any sound as a source. Hardware instruments seem to be on everybody’s mind at the moment, so the Pulse it is. 38 | Ableton Live 2015 MTF38.tutorial live5.indd 38 FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:49 Part 5: Make your own keyboard sound & sidechain it Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step Keyboards and sidechaining Be sure to use our updated example set for this tutorial. I’ve added a new sample, ‘synth note’. This is a synth playing a long C note (sampled from the Waldorf Pulse Plus hardware synth). Load the Simpler sample-playback instrument into a new MIDI track, and drag the ‘synth note’ sample into Simpler’s drop area. Double-click the top empty clip slot in the track to make a clip. This should sound familiar, because we’ve done this step before when we made our bass part. Click the Dupl.Loop button in the MIDI Editor’s Notes box twice, creating an empty 4-bar MIDI clip. When you arm your track and play your MIDI keyboard, you should be hearing the sampled synth tone playing across the range. We used a C so it’ll be correctly in pitch with other instruments. Draw an E4 note across the entire length of the clip - launch the clip and then it’ll play just like a drone over four bars. Keep the velocity to around 100 or 110 – it doesn’t matter precisely. To edit the note velocity, unfold the MIDI Velocity Editor (click on the little triangle) below the MIDI Note Editor, then drag the velocity marker up or down until you reach the desired range. 01 03 05 programmed part sound busy i.e. the MIDI Effect Devices. We’re using the Chord device a little bit here, but don’t be surprised if we come back and look at MIDI effects again in the near future. The other thing we do to make it sound more active is to sidechain it, taking the timing of the drum track (or parts of 02 04 06 it) and applying it to the keyboard sound to create a ‘pulsing’ quality. After you’ve loaded the Compressor into the keyboard track, you can choose any sound as a source, digging deep into drum and instrument racks to find the exact trigger you want. However, from a workflow point of view I find it much easier to work with a separate track as FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MTF38.tutorial live5.indd 39 | 39 11/02/2015 15:50 Let’s make some changes inside Simpler. a separate track for sidechaining.tutorial live5. As the clip loops or as you play your keyboard. you’ll hear the extra notes.MTF Technique Part 5: Make your own keyboard sound & sidechain it MTF Step-by-Step Keyboards and sidechaining cont’d So far we have a pretty dull synth part so let’s jazz it up a bit. let’s expand the part with one of Live’s MIDI effect devices. So drag an EQ Three audio effect to the end of the chain and set the GainMid to -12dB. that’s why we’ve copied the drum track here. then turn Snap on and set the Start to 0. 07 09 11 a source for a sidechain. As it says in the tutorial. At this stage if you need to do any volume management for this sound. This thins it out nicely. it’ll go before Simpler.indd 40 08 10 12 going when the drums drop out. Set Length to 14% and Fade to 70%. You could even automate that sidechain track and do very weird things with it. Set Simpler’s Spread to 50. Add the Chord MIDI effect to the track. Now let’s add some interest: because we’ve been lazy with our programming.30%. it enables me to program a totally different kick pattern to trigger the compressor if I want to. Set the Volume envelope Attack to 500ms so there’s a bit more to the tiny little fade-in at the beginning of the sample (as you can see. or even to keep the sidechain feed 40 | Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. Set the Chord device’s first two Shift control knobs to +3 and +5 semitones. remember that the sidechain source can be silent – mute the track and it still works! If you’re a musical type of person. without disrupting your drum beat. The extra notes make it sound very full – too full. it starts quite gradually already). Start by turning Loop on and set it to 40%. in fact. who can play FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:50 . Not only do I then have something that visually helps me keep track of what’s going on. use the Volume control in Simpler. outside of the drum kit. Live is a great tool for you anyway. Bring the Compressor Threshold down to -50. then load the Compressor ‘Brick Wall’ preset into your keyboard track after the EQ Three. duplicate your MIDI drum track by clicking on the track name and type Cmd-D. Next time we’ll be adding our final element – a speech sample – and processing that in a few interesting and different ways. 13 15 17 keyboards and who understands musical theory.0dB and set the Attack to 0. turn on Sidechain and choose the sidechain drum track from the Audio From box. Play your keyboard and sidechain clips and you should hear a new rhythmic pulse to your keyboard part. Yes. If you can only solo one item at a time. Leave the other settings alone. Otherwise. solo chains 1. though. Launch the clip. temporarily override the preference setting by CmdClicking on each item.Part 5: Make your own keyboard sound & sidechain it Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step Keyboards and sidechaining cont’d Now we need to add some movement to this keyboard part – I guess you’d say it’s a pad sound.indd 41 | 41 11/02/2015 15:50 . 5. But if you’re really confident or even conscious in terms of theory. and it doesn’t fail to deliver once you get more knowledgeable. and 13 and deactivate the track by clicking on the yellow track number. Live can really give you a boost with the MIDI 14 16 18 effects we’ve mentioned here. We’re making good progress through this project. Inside the rack. Click on your copied drum track and use Cmd-R or the Context Menu to rename the track ‘Sidechain’. MTF FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. It’s about as novice-friendly as it gets. We have a plan. 9. 3. especially with ‘alternative’ input devices like Push and the forthcoming Novation Launchpad Pro. that’s right.30ms. check your Record/Warp/ Launch Preferences and make sure Exclusive Solo is off.tutorial live5. Click on the small triangle in the Compressor title bar. and combines .indd 42 FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:52 . It has the advantage of two views. To be I record short speech samples into Session View and anything longer goes into Arrangement View honest. Instead of jumping in at the deep end and attempting to record fully-blown vocal or instrument takes. which we use in this tutorial.mp3 files in the same project. but Live does a great job of recording audio. post-everything. and Consolidate – available only in the Arrangement View – combines two or more audio clips to create a new one. In either View. Note. There’s also FOCUS ON… THE MICROPHONE It’s nice to use expensive microphones and recording hardware but you should be willing to work with what you’ve got. Other than that limitation. so two distinct approaches. this is more frequently the type of recording I do with Live anyway – capturing short snippets to use in the Session View. Get mic’d up .tutorial live6. then use it to create three different clips. and I can’t hear what you’re doing from here(!).Martin Delaney will show you how to add some speech samples to our ongoing Live project. it covers some of the basics. you should always try to get a clean voice recording. It might not sway Pro Tools snobs. 42 | Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. because this is such a variable exercise. Although Live isn’t an audio editor. These functions are non-destructive – you’ll find the new samples in the sub-folders inside your Live project folder. anything from your computer’s built-in microphone upwards will do fine. It’s easier for us because we’re recording a simple speech sample here so we’re not tied up in the complexities of recording a sung vocal against backing tracks and creating a headphone mix. straight back into the Live set. mono or stereo. and Live has very On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD thorough and immediate routing options. capture of Live’s output. without distortion or baked-in effects. a ‘soundcard’ and an ‘audio interface’ are the same thing). As a rule of thumb I record short clips like speech samples and effects into the Session View. you can record into multiple tracks at the same time. Then it’s a matter of scaling up from there with a dedicated microphone and soundcard (as far as we’re concerned. and so on.aiff. discards unwanted portions at the start and end of an audio clip. I’ve included an ‘after’ voice track to make it clear what kind of result you’re shooting for. but we haven’t covered how to record our own audio material. Live works with audio samples at different sample rates. let’s make it easy on ourselves by recording a short speech sample that’ll also work inside our ongoing project. What I will say is that unless you have a very specific idea of what you want. too. S o far we’ve used MIDI and we’ve used existing audio samples. so you can send and receive audio freely throughout the application. There’s an ever-growing number of good USB microphones. and anything like a full vocal track for a song.MTF Technique Part 6: Recording and manipulating speech samples Ableton Live The Ultimate Guide to Ableton Live Part 6 Recording and manipulating speech samples Time to do some audio recording. rhythm guitar parts. There’s also the lovely Resampling input option which provides post-master. goes into the Arrangement View. although you lose the flexibility of a soundcard. You can get excellent affordable USB soundcards – look at the Focusrite Scarlett range – and a basic microphone for not much cash at all. you’re more likely to experience problems through user error – choosing the wrong Warp mode for time-stretched material or stretching a clip way beyond what any reasonable person would do (we’ll be coming back to that later).wav. and . Crop Sample. Despite what some say. We aim to record one short sample. . there are no audio quality issues with Live. You probably already have the necessary equipment to record a voice sample – most computers have some kind of built-in microphone. launch Live and go to the Preferences Audio tab.indd 43 | 43 11/02/2015 15:52 . Use Alt-Cmd-I to open the In/Out View. but also boasts a built-in microphone. Click on the Audio From chooser to select your input – Ext. but bear in mind that your set-up might enable 02 04 06 – or require – you to monitor somewhere else along the signal chain. Connect your headphones to your soundcard (watch your volume) and turn your monitor speakers off to avoid feedback. because it’s a whole other tutorial… Well. Exactly how this works will again depend on what equipment you’re using but please avoid red peaks anywhere in the signal chain! 01 03 05 the Apogee One. As I said. you’ll see a level displayed alongside one of those inputs. Choose your soundcard in the Audio Input Device and Audio Output Device lists then close Preferences. Click it. Open our example Live set. It’s a cool tool for the travelling musician.tutorial live6. so frankly. actually! I’ve suggested that you set the track’s Monitor switch to Auto. As you talk into your microphone. which means you’ll hear the mic input when you arm the track. In. That’s your microphone. your controller. You can go into record while Live is already running or enter record to start Live running. We’re still working in the Session View. we’re not singing along to a backing track with this exercise. read our main text for more details.Part 6: Recording and manipulating speech samples Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step Recording and editing speech For this walkthrough we have to make some assumptions about your microphone and soundcard. of course. There are different ways to initiate recording: you can use a mouse or trackpad. I’m not going further into this discussion now. a whole other book. Set up your microphone and mixer so you get a manageable volume level. accurate monitoring is not so critical. which is unique because it has connections for a microphone and instrument. or even your iPhone. Below that is a list of available audio inputs – click to view the list. Record start and stop are quantised so that means if you’re using the default FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. Connect your mic and soundcard. This will display the audio routing options at the bottom of your tracks. Make sure you’re using the updated ‘part 6’ version and use the shortcut Cmd-T to create a new audio track. Press the space bar to stop Live when you’re finished. Double-click the clip to view the waveform if necessary.MTF Technique Part 6: Recording and manipulating speech samples MTF Step-by-Step Recording and editing speech (cont’d) Set the track’s Monitor In switch to Auto. checking for distortion and also checking that you haven’t chopped the start or end off as it’s very easy to do. 44 | Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. then record yourself saying ‘Please be aware’.indd 44 08 10 12 The most important thing when recording is to avoid overloading and distorting your input levels. Click a slot button to start recording.tutorial live6. It’s very ‘rock’ to record to tape with everything in the red. rounded off to bars and more likely to loop in sync with your other content straight off. Live has some great distortion effects. so why not save that fun until later? If you’ve erred on the side of FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:53 . Wait a beat or two. and arm the track – click the small circular button in the mixer. We’ll record a short phrase to use as a one-shot sample and a rhythmic loop. Note the clip length is cropped to the nearest bar. Before you launch your other clips again. Stop your other clips – you’re not singing along to anything for this one! As you arm/disarm the track for recording you’ll see the square stop buttons in each empty Session View clip slot (in that track) transform into circles. it goes red. listen to your voice recording on its own. that means you can record into these. Record ending is also quantised which is great as it gives you ‘pre-cut’ loops. but sadly it stinks when you do it with digital recording. It’s important to remember this and not start talking too soon. Disarm the track so you can’t record anything else by mistake and always save after recording. otherwise you lose the beginning of your sample. recording commences on the next bar. Position the loop brace around the ‘keeper’ part and the start marker at the front of that. and it sounds cool. Let’s discard some of the silence around it. 07 09 11 global quantization of one bar. You can drag to reposition it and grab either end to change the length. Watch the waveform peaks snap to the grid. Quantize the audio-click inside the waveform and type Cmd-U. Grab it and drag to the right. FYI the Loop Brace dimensions and coordinates are MIDI-mappable.indd 45 | 45 11/02/2015 15:53 . That’s it for now. deactivate Warp so it’ll play just once at its original speed. Do this while the clip’s playing. which is why we’re doing it here. Make sure you adjust the length of the Loop Brace to accommodate the stretched waveform. Duplicate this clip to the slot below using Cmd-D. Double-click above the right end of the waveform to add a Warp marker. Make sure the Loop Brace is an even bar length.tutorial live6. it’s fun to over-stretch audio samples and tweak the Warp modes. I can’t resist it with 14 16 18 vocals. A bit of quantization also adds to the unreal effect. Use Cmd-D to duplicate the second clip. 13 15 17 caution and recorded at a low level. plus a looping version. Experiment with Warp modes – the difference between Beats and Complex is very noticeable (but let’s stick with Beats). you’ll see Live inserts yellow Warp markers to achieve this. Select the first clip. doubling the length of your original sample. Right-Click inside the area contained by the loop brace and choose Crop Sample. I hope that over these six workshop parts I’ve given enough tips to inspire and help your music making – happy producing! MTF FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. Now you have a one-shot. From the Sample View at the bottom of the screen.Part 6: Recording and manipulating speech samples Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step Recording and editing speech (cont’d) The Loop Brace is that bar above the audio waveform. use the clip Gain slider to boost the volume. but it can also make a looping speech sample sit more neatly on the beat. though. so you can check for the distortion that arises if you go too far! We’re touching on Warping and audio quantization during our walkthrough. indd 46 Fender Focal Passport Studio F Details Price £2.199 (pair) Contact Unity Audio 01799 520786 Web www. the level of detail and solidity of the imaging is certainly commensurate with the price point.MTF Buyer’s Guide Six of the best Six of the best Hardware Software Mobile Technology Details Price £490 (pair) Contact Fender GBI 01342 331700 Web www. And they sound great according to Huw… “Judged purely as studio monitors. ” 46 | Ableton Live 2015 MT139. Given those caveats the sound quality was absolutely remarkable. Then you simply split them.uk BEST LOOKING Unity Audio The Rock Mk2 T hese are inspiring in terms of looks and. The imaging was also remarkably crisp. The Rocks may not be the ideal choice if you do a lot of location recording but in all other regards these are no-compromise nearfields that slotted straight into our setup.uk or these monitors Fender and Focal have teamed up to produce a set of high-quality mobile speakers.6 of the best. ” BEST MOBILE! Details Price Eris E4. we found the left/right imaging impressive too.5: £169 (pair) Contact Source Distribution 020 8962 5080 Web www. fortunately. but it is possible to detect some roll-off in the lowest frequencies. MT monitor expert Huw Price was particularly taken with the 4. After some experimentation with toe-in.5 T he Eris range is new from PreSonus. sourcedistribution.unity audioproducts. the thinking being that you can mix anywhere. However. “The defining feature is that the Passport Studio system can be locked together and transported without the need to preserve the original packaging or buy a flight case.5s. We kick it off with the most important of studio items: the monitor… BEST BUDGET PreSonus Eris 4. Huw said: “We hadn’t expected that much from them because they resemble computer speakers and are priced accordingly. co. Huw Price says: “The depth of the soundstage is something special. which only weigh in at £169 for the pair. This is a cleverly designed. more conventional competitors might offer an extra degree of user adjustment.” FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:32 .fender. sound as good. Of all three Eris monitors they have the finest bass definition. and although the obvious application may be use with computers we’d have no qualms about integrating them into our studio monitor setup. carefully thought out and affordable product that fills a niche in the market.co.com Samples Welcome to a brand new MTF Buyer’s Guide where we round up some of the best products recently reviewed in MusicTech magazine. set them up and they’re good to go. “These are not expensive monitors but they punch way above their price point. the treble response may surprise you. these may not be for you. and Huw agrees… “The principal reason the twotwo. classic sound is a refreshing change from the unforgiving nature of many modern boxes and it’s equally at home relaying both minimal acoustic recordings and complex mixes of all kinds.6s deliver everything you could ask for. A very well thought-out and sophisticated design.6 of the best.6s from PMC are MusicTech editor Andy Jones’ choice. eve-audio.com FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT139. But if you want a clear and neutral window into what’s going on with your mix. Its delicious. Here’s what he had to say about the company’s latest release… “My Audio Design has created a wonderful monitor with the 1920s. “If you prefer listening to your speakers rather than listening to the music.Six of the best Buyer’s Guide MTF BEST HIGHER END A PMC TWOTWO.350 Contact My Audio Design 020 8123 9789 Web www.1 SYSTEM EVE SC204 & TS107 E ve has released many a good monitor in a relatively short period of time.com BEST HIGH END Details Price 2. full-frequency system with user-friendly features that’s particularly well suited to smaller rooms. the twotwo.” Its delicious. The depth of the soundstage is incredible and left/right imaging is about as crisp as it gets.” MAD 1920s monitors O ur hardware expert John Pickford is a MAD fan (that’s My Audio Design). It’s a superbsounding. SC204 £480 (pair).1 system £879. classic sound is a refreshing change from unforgiving modern boxes Details Price £4192 (pair) Contact HHB 020 8962 5000 Web www. There’s no low-mid hump.6 t the top end of the budget there’s a lot of choice. forward midrange or glassy treble sheen and the balance remains constant regardless of level.com BEST 2.indd 47 | 47 11/02/2015 14:33 .pmcspeakers.” MTF Details Price £2. TS107 £399 Contact Nova Distribution 020 3589 2530 Web www.1 system… “If you haven’t listened to monitors with folded ribbon tweeters before.6s are outstanding is that nothing stands out. Huw Price says of this 2. madengland. but the twotwo. The SC204s are bright but they’re not in the least bit edgy and the overall character is smooth and refined. Korg will be getting a few mentions in these lists but this is like a ‘best of’ – amazing sounding synths and drums and a very easy-touse environment to put it all together.indd 48 KORG Gadget (iOS) Not strictly an all-round studio app as audio is not an option just yet.49 FOCUS 12/02/2015 11:43 . So read on for the first part of our mobile must-have 100… 48 | Ableton Live 2015 MT141.MTF Feature The 100 best apps for music production MTF Feature THE 100 BEST MUSIC-MAKING APPS We bring you Part One of our biggest ever features on mobile music making where we round up the 100 best apps for music production on your phone and tablet… I t’s one of the biggest articles we have ever produced – a mammoth feature on mobile music production.cover feat Apps. we look at the best apps for music making on your phone or tablet and reveal the 50 best mobile synth. vocal. free apps! Where possible we have tried to include different platforms in each category. but how can you resist a package that enables you to combine 17 synths and drum machines.uk Price £27. Web www.korg. In part 1. well. gadgets around? The emphasis is very much on electronic music production and you can’t add audio (yet). best of all. up to 35 tracks (on newer iPads) and some of the coolest looking. DAW. controller and.co. The 100 best apps for music production Feature MTF TOP 10 DAW apps The closest thing to fully-blown DAWS and complete studios for recording or making music… APPLE GarageBand (iOS) Apple is giving GarageBand away free as part of the iOS package or via iTunes. which definitely shows here. If you don’t have it then it’s obviously well worth a download. Web www. It is therefore quick to find your way around – create tracks easily and select instruments and effects in an instant. It also looks great.uk Price £9. Web www. With a nice range of effects.steinberg. the waveforms especially.48. Web www. piano roll editor or a very intuitive step sequencer.99 Web www. Steinberg has been at it for years.image-line. which concentrate more on recording.99 IMAGE-LINE FL Studio Mobile HD (iOS and Android) With 133 instruments. so it makes two of our Top Tens.cover feat Apps. Cubasis is put together by a company that knows its music software. You’ll want to upgrade to get the maximum track capacity but doing so will only cost you a total of £12. Within it you can combine up to six instruments (expandable to 16) including the rather fabulous Eden 16-voice synth. but you really can get pro results and it’s ideal for all genres and musical abilities. but for instant rewards there’s little better.apple. although at just £6.harmonicdog. no experience needed.99 HARMONIC DOG MultiTrack DAW (iOS) With little in the way of compositional options – that is instruments or bundled loops – Harmonic Dog concentrates on recording and does it well. It’s pretty hard not to get some decent tunes going within minutes and this is probably the app to go for if you are new to music making. Sure you can record your own playing – and do this three times per track over eight tracks resulting in 24 playback tracks – but with 900 loops on offer across a variety of genres you’ll be very tempted just to assemble music that way. It’s arguably more for loopbased composers – within electronic or dance genres – than GarageBand. It’s pricey. easy to use and free! BLIP Interactive NanoStudio (iOS) NanoStudio was one of the first music-making apps on the market. It only comes with eight instruments as standard but £2.99 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT141.net Price £34. FL Studio Mobile HD definitely veers more towards quick composition than the likes of Auria and MultiTrack DAW.99 STEINBERG Cubasis (iOS) Like GarageBand. Web www. and could do with more synths.blipinteractive.com Price £6.com Price Free/£2. as it has everything you need on just a few screens. You compose either by using a virtual keyboard.99 gets you the full works. GarageBand features ‘proper’ virtual instruments such as guitars and pianos – although you needn’t be skilled in either to play them – and with 250 loops thrown in you can easily be assembling songs in no time. You can even do a little mastering to make your tunes sound more ‘pro’ should you wish.99 it’s one of the cheapest options to get some quick tunes together.com Price £13. This is an incredibly slick music production app and more like a professional music-making package than many others on these pages.HD (iOS) This loop-based app is aimed at anyone who wants to get ideas and tunes together quickly and who doesn’t mind using loops to do it. There’s sampling and pad triggering via the TRG-16 plus a sequencer that enables up to 64 tracks to be assembled (if you buy the expansion).99 SOUND TRENDS Studio.soundtrends. NanoStudio is well suited to the mid-experienced musician. and what an amazing app it is. All genres covered.indd 49 | 49 12/02/2015 11:45 . and Cubasis also boasts incredibly intuitive touch controls.co.com Price £6. and there are several effect options both per track and globally. There are a decent range of nifty effects that you can use on each channel but there are some limitations in mixing too. Web www. especially with the ‘smart’ options that help you assemble melodies and beats. for example.beepstreet. Auria features quality channel strips on each of its 48 playback channels with effects bundled in by high-quality third-party companies such as PSP Audio (and there are many more optional effects to buy too). But then aren’t they always? Web www. Inspiring stuff. but there are instruments and effects for producing complete in-the-box tunes. Adjust the waveforms. Web www. Meteor is a very rounded music-making package and suitable to slightly more experienced producers in any genre. Web www. a synth.99 50 | Ableton Live 2015 MT141. as it does look pretty daunting and Korg has added a lot. loads of modulation and filtering meaning the resulting sound is right up there with pretty much every mobile synth out there (and way beyond some).99 INTUA BeatMaker2 (iOS and Andoid) BeatMaker was one of the first ‘proper’ mobile apps. route audio and effects in and out or generally just have fun with the sequencer.99 2BEAT Oscilab (iOS and Android) Hard to categorise this as just a synth as it’s really a groove box and more. samples and effects.uk Price £20. a drum machine and 36 instruments. You go into each section and adjust as it loops.4Pockets. Web www. auriaapp. Web www. Jasuto might just have the edge in terms of prettiness.intua. although owners of the highly regarded Roland JP-8000 will be happy when they give this one a go.. iMS-20 doesn’t disappoint but you might be a little overawed at first. There are 28 wave shapers.indd 50 The app market for synthesizers is hotter than ever with emulations of classics synths alongside modular madness.jasuto. and while BeatMaker2 has extensive drum machine action it’s developed into a complete music making package with instruments. It uses SuperSaw waveforms.cover feat Apps. and these are combined with analogue modelled oscillators. so you don’t have to do any work if you are a non-synth head.co. We’ll look at the drum side of things in detail next month… Web www. It might be more dance orientated but the original was slap-bang in the middle of rave. and this pays homage to it while supplying enough sounds for more up-to-date genres. Jasuto comes with more than 75 of these nodes plus (thankfully) 200+ examples.com Price £2.99 BEEPSTREET SUNRIZER (iOS) We’re trying not to do too many emulations of classic synths here but this is a worthy inclusion and not a total emulation.com Price £6.99 JASUTO (iOS and Android) Interestingly with Jasuto and Reactable the Android and iOS platforms are blessed with (at least) two modular synth-type apps where you drag and link modules to create various sounds. But it features so many instant soundshaping and swiping options that it shows a great way forward for hands-on mobile synthesis.korg. the pattern producer and a fantastic drum module.99 FOCUS 12/02/2015 11:46 . There’s little to get excited about on the composing side as this app concentrates purely on high-quality recording – and on that score is the most ‘pro’ app here – and is the ideal choice if you are in a band and want to record gigs or studio sessions.com Price £34.net Price £6.MTF Feature The 100 best apps for music production TOP 10 DAW apps cont. You can patch things together.com Price £13.99 4 POCKETS Meteor Multitrack Recorder (iOS) With a traditional mixer this is more of a recording app. add some beats and then instrument notes to flesh it out. sequences and so on. TOP 10 Synth apps WAVEMACHINE LABS Auria (iOS) One of the first quality recording apps for the iPad and still one of the best. but big fingers on both of these apps could be a problem. Here are our ten best… KORG iMS-20 (iOS) As well as software versions of the MS-20 there are even newer hardware releases including a mini keys and build-your-own! Which all must mean that this is a great synth. Web www.io Price £6.2beat. And some of these really are something to behold: giant bulbous creations all pulsing and shimmering with wave options to adjust parameters in time.. Spend time with it and you will be very well rewarded. transferring the bulk of the power and character of the original into the iPad for some breathtaking sound.moogmusic.99 PROPELLERHEAD Thor (iOS) We love a bit of marketing speak. plus chorus and delay effects and a neat adjustable keyboard. Nave delivers the sonics but might be for the more experienced synth head. With over 1000 presets and a synth engine based around six different oscillators and four filters you really do get an incredible range of sounds Web www.cover feat Apps. hey.com Price £20. with hands-on real-time synthesis. Apparently Thor is ‘simply the most powerful synth ever created. Reactable really does show what touch operation is all about – don’t expect to be making songs straight away but it is great for hours of noodling. With excellent touch feedback and those superb sounds. what Arturia has added is a bonus to the sound overall.’ It’s a shame that lines like that do get in the way sometimes as Thor really is a very good synth. Web www.com Price £6.com Price £6. Arguably it could be more accurate sonically but. We say ‘surprisingly good’ because initially it’s just that – a bog-standard synth – but what it does it does very well.se Price £10. however. equalling a synth that is easy to program. and while Nave may look fairly simple its engine contains some of the finest factory wavetables from Waldorf’s Blofeld and ‘soon to be legendary if they aren’t already’ Wave and Microwave synths. steinberg. There’s a glorious performance page where you can modify parameters in real time using X/Y grids.propellerheads. which was essentially moving blocks over a scanner to synthesise sound. a little randomly ordered at first but then you realise you can load them by programmer and type very easily. easily linked together to produce very interesting results when dragged into a central pulsing area. One was Björk who took a prototype of it on tour. as Nave has a couple of wavetable oscillators and an Uberoscillator to fatten things up. which is both right and varied.99 STEINBERG Nanologue (iOS) If you want something free then we have a whole section of free apps in this issue.waldorf-music. with a front panel that is easy to use.99 REACTABLE (iOS and Android) Originally a research project the Reactable caught the eye of many musicians who loved the concept. Now the blocks have been turned into virtual touch elements. Web www. an unstoppable monster of a sound generator that utilizes synthesizer technology from the last 40 years. If you are new to analogue synthesis you can’t go wrong with this.arturia. it’s a joy to use. successfully combining the visuals (it looked amazing). There’s a shedload of other features as some of the biggest names in modern synthesis were involved. but this one didn’t make it… because we could include it here! Nanologue is Steinberg’s surprisingly good analogue synth emulation.The 100 best apps for music production Feature MTF WALDORF Nave (iOS) Waldorf has a great reputation in wavetable synthesis. It comes with a huge variety of presets.indd 51 | 51 12/02/2015 12:01 . It’s not trying to be clever but it can be big! Web www. Superb. net Price Free FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT141. As such then.info Price £13. including Axel Hartmann. There’s more. Web www. Web www.reactable. cool interface and very easy to use. Big monophonic sounds. Animoog is powered by an Anistropic Synthesis Engine (or ASE) and the idea is to move through an X/Y space to morph between classic Moog sounds using an X/Y pad.49 ARTURIA iMini (iOS) Over a year since its release and this classic Minimoog emulation is still as great-sounding as ever.99 MOOG MUSIC Animoog (iOS and Blackberry) It is refreshing that a company with a track record as good as Moog’s in producing hardware hasn’t just done a software emulation of its synths (but that would be very cool too). Lemur enables you to build any control interface you can think of for software that can receive MIDI or OSC input signal. Install the support files on your Mac or PC and Livkontrol for iOS and Android will discover your copy of Live (8.livkontrol. There’s AutoMix for when you want to go to the bar and a loop surface as well as onboard effects. Now for a tiny fraction of those kinds of costs you can get the same experience.liine. NET TouchOSC (iOS and Android) TouchOSC for iOS and Android is an open programming environment app that isn’t tied to any particular software but instead enables you to create setups to control anything that can accept the Osc or MIDI protocols. It supports both wireless and wired network connections and you unlock access to more of Traktor’s effects via in-app purchases. DJ Rig is a familiarlooking DJ app with two virtual turntables and several modes of operation. You get all the tempo and sync features you’d expect as well as a drift meter.com Price Free. MainStage 3 and GarageBand. Web www. which covers a huge range of applications. Web www. Web www.hexler. Standard and Pro versions APPLE Logic Remote (iOS) As is often the case.ikmultimedia.com Price Free. a scrollable Track Detail. To enable this you have to install a small. Web www. Apple is so big it can afford to give away some remarkably powerful apps in order to drive hardware sales. Live responds especially well to remote input. Fully skinnable.cover feat Apps. and with this app you can control your sessions and actually play and edit MIDI live as well. building unique maps to do exactly what you want.99 IK MULTIMEDIA DJ Rig (iOS) Designed to work in conjunction with IK’s iRig Mix. Greatly expanding on the control available to you using the mouse in Traktor itself. It supports both wireless and wired MIDI and is officially supported by Logic Pro. For musicians that’s a pretty good deal. and Logic Remote is a really excellent app for iPad that works with Logic Pro X. and before iPads and iPhones came out it was restricted to very high-end hardware. full version €17.49 52 | Ableton Live 2015 MT141. flipping between decks and slots and controlling overall dry / wet levels. There’s also MIDI sliders for varying parameters. DJ software.apple.tkfxapp. with in-app purchases LIINE Lemur (iOS) The touch interface is perfect for certain kinds of control. There’s the Launchpad interface for launching clips. it uses MIDI mapping to enable an X/Y grid. You can play any Logic or GarageBand instrument remotely on a virtual keyboard or fretboard. Each of its decks can operate in waveform. There’s a downloadable editor for OS X.MTF Feature The 100 best apps for music production TOP 10 Controller/Performance apps There are a large number of apps specifically designed to control music software and hardware. turntable or CD Digital Jog modes to suit your performance style. it lets you script custom widgets with multitouch support and has complex sequencing objects and an in-app editor (iPad only) to design and edit templates on-the-fly.net Price £17. stage lighting and loads more.99 Livkontrol (iOS and Android) Ableton Live is one of the DAWs that best suits remote control from a mobile device thanks to its clip-launch style of performance. Web www.26 or higher) and give you hands-on control over your sessions. and MIDI pads for composition. A highly advanced system. free app on your Mac or PC that acts as a MIDI server between the two. That includes DAWs. VJ apps. direct cue with multiple cue points.com/uk/logic-pro/ Price Free FOCUS 12/02/2015 11:49 . Web www. Here are the best… TKFX (iOS and Android) TKFX is a controller for Traktor Pro’s effects that runs on iPad and Android devices and gives you remote control of the effects in real time. Navigate projects using transport controls and markers.indd 52 HEXLER. three-band kill EQ and access to the iPad’s music library. You can choose custom sets of controls and make assignments. it’s found fans among some of the leading electronic artists. and you can assign different parameters to both axes as well as holding the effect on. play beats on virtual pads and even strum chords. It’s an amazing and free extension to your studio setup. There’s also IK’s X-Sync feature that syncs the tempo of tracks from the iPad with songs from external sources when used with an iRig Mix. Windows and Linux that enables you to create and customise layouts more easily from your desktop computer. and a Clip Composer to work with MIDI clips remotely.com Price Free.net Price £2. punch recording in and out from anywhere on a network and remotely change patches and trigger key commands. as well as a range of other DAWs and more experimental music packages. and monitor-enable tracks from anywhere on the Wi-Fi network.de Price £3. It’s an inexpensive way to open up your studio setup to wireless control from your Android device and can be configured to work as you wish.net Price £11. Pro Tools. You don’t have to be an experienced DJ to give a great performance and you can even record the output of the app as a regular audio file.neyrinck.steinberg. Web www. Cubase. Logic. and you also get to set up to four individual headphone feeds using Cubase’s control room features. Logic. Web www. Live. Sonar.native-instruments. Web www. groups. a MIDI mixer. You get a bunch of effects that can be controlled via integrated X/Y pads and the whole thing feels really slick. Features like the Superslicer mean it’s more of a performance tool – it’s not just for spinning tracks. DAW control.99 HUMATIC TouchDAW (Android) This Android-only MIDI control app supports Cubase. The results are amazing: incredibly accurate beat detection and sync capabilities. Free demo available FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT141. Remarkably.The 100 best apps for music production Feature MTF NATIVE INSTRUMENTS Traktor DJ (iOS) When NI does mobile apps it tends to do them really well.cover feat page 53. configurable X/Y pads and the app works both over wired and wireless connections and hooks into Apple’s Network MIDI implementation. Cubase iC Pro (there’s also a free version available) runs on iPhone and iPad as well as Android and is beautifully designed. There are customisable key commands and macros. slice freezing and easy library and playlist navigation. Traktor DJ for iPad and iPhone takes the essence of the much bigger Traktor Pro software and places it into a touch environment. Reason. or instead of. It may be among the more expensive apps around but it gives you the kind of functionality from your iPad that just a decade ago would have cost thousands of pounds.humatic. You can mix. You get mixer and transport functionality and the app can send MMC in parallel with. Digital Performer and Reaper among them. Reason and a range of other DAWs. Web www.99 You get the kind of functionality from your iPad that a decade ago would have cost thousands STEINBERG Cubase iC Pro (iOS and Android) Steinberg has been very active in developing a range of iOS applications that tie in with its flagship Cubase software. There’s a multitouch MIDI keyboard and launchpads.com Price £34. transport. automation. And it can also control Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro. plug-ins. There’s a limited free version for testing and then you can opt to buy the unlimited version. and any performer with their own device can adjust their own mix independently. giving you a detailed overview of your project as well as hands-on navigation controls.com Price £2. and you can record. editing and mixing and also provides control of sends.99 NEYRINCK V-Control Pro (iOS) V-Control Pro is a multitouch control surface that supports a wide range of apps running on your Mac or PC. it can connect to almost any music app: Pro Tools.80. FL Studio.indd 53 | 53 12/02/2015 12:08 . It uses Wi-Fi to control transport. I/O assignment and more depending on the app you are controlling. MTF Feature The 100 best apps for music production TOP 10 FREE apps Yes.com Price Free NOVATION Launchpad (iOS) The Lauchpad app for iOS comes free with eight ready-to-play sessions. So if you are out and about or making field recordings you can use your device’s built-in mic and capture the sound around you directly into your account. and features lessons delivered in video and audio format by some of the world’s leading drummers.com Price Free RETRONYMS Tabletop (iOS) Tabletop is a modular environment that lets you mix and match different devices such as samplers. The virtual guitar has chord mode and three model types.com Price Free. key-width adjustment and five keyboard sounds. you can get something for nothing and it can be great. effects. expanding environment. otherwise it costs £2. but also record directly from your device into the cloud. SoundCloud is pretty much the standard audio hosting site for most people these days and also provides some apps to help you sell and market your music. Interactive practice mode enables you to play along with or without a click. and here they are! SoundCloud (iOS and Android) The SoundCloud app runs on your iOS or Android device and not only provides a way to listen to content from the audio-hosting website and curate your own playlists and collections. It’s possible to add more instruments through in-app purchases. There’s a piano-roll editor and pads for programming and editing MIDI. You can add more lessons for not very much money via in-app purchase in the style you want to learn.soundcloud. iMini and iProphet. and musical notation and transcription of each lesson that can be viewed while watching the video. Web www. with support for Tabletop-ready apps such as iMPC.drumguru.99 Drum Guru (iOS and Android) Drum Guru for iOS and Android is a training app for drum enthusiasts of all skill levels. You can perform. and for that it works on iPad and iPhone for a single payment. mixers. auto-playing tools for strumming guitars and playing chords.com Price Free REVONTULET STUDIO Walk Band (Android) This popular app for Android gives you a range of virtual instruments to play on the move.99. and on the iPhone there’s filter. synths and more. categorised by style and skill level. It’s ludicrously cheap considering what you get: multiple virtual instruments. quantization. guitar amps and live recording through effects.retronyms. then share it online or to another app via Audiobus.cover feat Apps. Web www. along with pressure sensitivity.novationmusic. mix and match and trigger loops and record your performance. If you’re after a free way to play music on the move. It’s an advanced but relatively approachable system and up to 43 devices are available.com Price Free or £2.indd 54 APPLE GarageBand (iOS) GarageBand for iOS is free when you buy any new iOS device. MIDI learn and mapping.google.apple.com Price Free FOCUS 12/02/2015 11:55 . Core MIDI support and the ability to hook up compatible MIDI hardware. and there are also five drum kits that you can play using virtual pads. For £4. As such it’s a great way to start an idea on the move then continue work back at home. Web www. Lessons are divided into packs of 8-10. added in-app purchases 54 | Ableton Live 2015 MT141. looped and at different tempos. More devices and features tend to get added over time so Tabletop is an organic. In fact you can get ten somethings for nothing. Web play. and there’s support for external MIDI keyboards over USB MIDI. Web www. a sampler and a cool mixing environment. two-player mode. You can record lots of tracks (though not unlimited) and when you’re done either mix down your file or export the raw project data out to GarageBand on the Mac for further editing. There’s a half-speed option so you can break down what’s actually going on. this could be for you. There’s a virtual piano with single or dual rows. gating and delay.99 it’s probably worth unlocking audio import as it will really broaden the scope of what you can achieve: you get an 8x6 grid for launching up to eight loops at once. stutter. Web www. You can record MIDI and audio and set your recordings as a ringtone. a range of effects on iPad including repeater and synced filters. Bass and synths round off the package. and additional features such as audio import are available after in-app purchases. You can also connect one of Novation’s controller devices via the USB Camera Connection kit. You get 14 devices for free and can add extras via in-app purchases. mix together.The 100 best apps for music production Feature MTF TOP 10 FREE apps cont. There are also seven studio effects including reverb. Connect to other apps or use it as an effect between your mic and computer-based recording setup and create harmonies with ease.com Price Free IK MULTIMEDIA iRig Recorder FREE (iOS and Android) The app is designed to work with IK’s iRig Mic models but will work with any mic.99 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT141. change voice character and play back racks from your iTunes library. and also comes with automatic tuning correction. delay and chorus to process the signal.com Price Free Musical Piano FREE (Android) This free. There’s a single-track recorder. Web www. Choose automatic or manual harmonisation. cab and mix and you can add more gear by purchasing in-app. an amp head.com Price £2. and has multiple scales available for more accurate pitch correction. pitch-bend and a host of other effects including filtering. wireless playback and piano recording. Web www. and Audiobus support along with an audio recorder with a metronome and support for MIDI input devices. reverb and modulation. normalization. It’s MIDI controllable and supports Audiobus for routing vocal parts in from other apps.99 ANTARES Auto Tune (iOS) Antares has been at the cutting edge of pitch correction and auto-tuning on the desktop for years. Web play.com Price Free Hokusai Audio Editor (iOS) This audio editor for iOS supports multiple tracks.indd 55 | 55 12/02/2015 11:51 .virsyn. The idea is that you plumb your iPhone or iPad in between your mic and the mixing desk or your audio interface and make settings on the device for how the pitch is to be corrected. De-Esser and Doubler. It’s Audiobus compatible so you can use it to process vocal parts that you have already recorded. Web www. Web www. The single-track recorder can be expanded up to eight tracks with in-app purchases. ad-supported app gives you a virtual piano and keyboard with various options as well as eight bundled MIDI piano instruments.ikmultimedia. export to WAV or MP4 format and send them to your computer.. Upgrading to the paid version adds audio copy and paste. Use gentle settings for subtle correction or flip into full robot mode to get the well-known ‘stepped’ effect.google. You swipe and zoom to select areas of audio clips. try it now.ikmultimedia. You can pay to upgrade the app.antarestech. grain synthesis. 50 presets are included and the effects include Pitch Fix. so you can turn a female voice into a male one and vice versa. Web www. Web App Store Price Free TOP 5 Vocal apps Five mobile apps designed with the singer in mind… IK MULTIMEDIA VocaLive (iOS) VocaLive gives you a suite of 12 real-time professional vocal effects as well as recording capability that can be combined into a chain of any four at once.com Price £6. You get four simultaneous stomp boxes. DropBox or to another app inside your device.ikmultimedia. and you can edit them side by side. There’s onboard reverb. so it was natural that they would eventually bring that technology to the mobile arena. Morph for formant shifting.. delay. timestretching. which unlocks 128 instruments. There’s full undo support and a set of bundled processing tools includes fades.cover feat Apps. IK MULTIMEDIA AmpliTube Free (iOS) AmpliTube Free for iOS brings a beautifully designed set of guitar processors to your mobile device and it works using either the built-in mic or a connected interface to get sound into and out of the hardware. reverse and basic synthesis. noise gating. Choir (a three-part harmonizer). and live scrubbing means you can hear the sound as you move your finger across the waveform. and a Voice Cancel feature lets you remove the vocal parts from existing tracks and sing along to them. and a tuner and loop drummer module to play along to. again expandable to eight with master effects if you choose. If you want to record on the move and then clean up and upload your sounds.net Price £2. EQ and compression. It works with formants. Inter-app audio and Audiobus are supported for touring sound internally and imported songs can be slowed down for you to learn them more easily.99 VIRSYN Harmony Voice (iOS) Harmony Voice is a pitch-shifter and harmonizer that can add up to four voices to your sung signal based on keys that you play on a keyboard. Web www. It comes with a virtual keyboard and fretboard so you can enter notes yourself. or tap Scales to see the scale charts for that key.com. download it.etudeapp. subscription is £2.com Price £1. then tap Chords to see what chords are being played. You can choose from a range of exercises performed by up to six different instruments.com Price £1. Web play.000 tab tracks) from Songsterr. With these exercises to hand there’s no excuse for damaging your voice by not limbering up first. The easy-to-read scale charts show you exactly where to put your fingers to start sounding like a pro.49 Songsterr Tabs and Chords (iOS and Android) Songsterr for iOS and Android is a tab player with instant access to realistic playback of 90. You can also opt to download extra exercises via in-app purchases at any time. multiple studio effects and a spectrum stroboscope. In fact it has three 24-band live vocoders. You can import vocal files or route sound in from the mic or via inter-app audio. designed by a wellknown vocal trainer.18 Better Ears (iOS and Android) Better Ears for iPad is an educational music and ear training program.49 STEINWAY & SONS Etude 2. Practice is one of the hardest things to motivate yourself to do but it’s an essential part of improving. There’s support for building your own courses and syncing between devices amongst other things. There’s a tuner and background audio support so you can play along using a compatible effect app. Web www.0 (iOS and Android) This app for iPad lets you find a song from the in-app music store. pitch and formant shifter. an onboard sampler. 12 warm-up exercises are included as audio files and you can play these to get your pipes ready for the big performance. shows you everything from hand exercises through basic playing skills and much more. half-speed playback. The app itself is small. offline mode and syncing.99 VocalEase (iOS and Android) This is a portable warm-up studio for performing vocalists and public speakers.mahalo. jazz and modern rock. There’s alternative Chord view. and has four skill levels from beginner through to professional. There are ten different exercises included. 24-band EQ.MTF Feature The The100 100best bestapps appsfor formusic musicproduction production TOP 5 Learn Music apps Brush up on your technique. There are 100 factory presets and you can record and export your performances.com Price App free.com Price £6.99 each MAHALO Learn Piano HD (iOS/Android) This app.voicesynth. a realistic guitar engine and tabs for multiple instruments. onscreen keyboard. Web www. Use the built-in virtual keyboard to control the notes that are generated by the vocoder and even use inter-app MIDI to control it from a different app. There’s a built-in MIDI synth. Happily it’s also all legit so when you access a tab the original composer will get a small royalty payment. and it supports guitar. Web App Store Price £10. but you can download videos through it to greatly expand the range of lessons you have access to. starting from interval recognition all the way to chord progressions. or simply work on your musicality TOP 5 Vocal apps cont… QNEO Voice Synth (iOS) Voice Synth is a nifty tool for real-time vocoding. AutoPitch. You can search tabs by keyword or browse by tags and popularity. adding more styles and scales with the in-app store.songsterr. Several keys and scales are included as well as styles such as acoustic blues.99 per month Guitar Jam Tracks: Scale Trainer & Practice Buddy (iOS/Android) This app for iOS and Android lets you learn guitar scales and solo to five great-sounding jam tracks right from your device.000 songs (500. bass and drums.com Price £1. a multiple voice harmony arranger. Advanced pitch-shifting enables you to change your voice into almost any style.com Price Free. Web www. Warm-ups are a crucial part of any performance and something that a lot of vocalists don’t take seriously. and sheet music or piano roll views. learn a new instrument. as well as looping. and see keys to press at each moment.indd 56 FOCUS FOCUS 12/02/2015 14:42 . solo. which helps you grow your musical skills.cover feat Apps. You can slow it down and even practice each hand separately. with content from piano tutor Peter Darling.49 (offers in-app purchases) Turn to p64 for Part 2 and the next 50! 56 | Ableton AbletonLive Live2015 2015 MT141.google. and this app can really help. Music theory is often overlooked but it can really help you to get a better understanding of how music works. Web www. buy songs for £1. Simply pick a key to start playing the track.ninebuzz. . when mishandled. can screw up your mixes so badly. A heavy or badly managed hand with EQ can wreck a good song. there is no other effect that. think of it this way: a violin has a high-frequency sound. means that the sound waves are packed closely together and hit your eardrum more frequently than sounds with a lower pitch. Expect seriously snappy snares here. if used subtly. right? It’s the part of sound that is measured in pitch. Our node is at about 5kHz. or EQ. but it takes an age to master. The first step in becoming a mix master is getting to grips with the simplest of tools at your disposal: EQ.feat Bluffer's Guide.MTF Feature A bluffer’s guide to EQ MTF Feature EQ Guide A BLUFFER’S GUIDE TO EQ This is what a boost in the highs looks like. That means your eardrum hears those sounds as low-pitched. An EQ enables you to boost or reduce those frequencies. If that sounds hard to handle. A low frequency is the opposite. What’s the frequency? Let’s start with the basics. Give us a few minutes with this guide and we’ll show you exactly what you need to know about this powerful effect. and we’ve got a very high Q. Don’t stress. though.indd 58 FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:53 . You’ll figure out how it works in seconds. You can make the 58 | Ableton Live 2015 MT140. If you know what you’re doing with an EQ it’ll make your mixes sound as if they’ve popped out of a top-of-the-range studio. A high pitch. a bass drum has a low frequency. Sounds have frequency. Conversely. Rob Boffard shows you how to bring balance to your musical force… T he Equaliser. or high frequency. No other effect. where sound waves are spaced further apart. can make such a dramatic difference to your sound. is the Tetris of audio effects. EQ may sound intimidating but in practice it’s not difficult to get the hang of. Then you’ve got your graphic EQs. Raise the Q. bassy boom which will show up at around 200Hz. Instruments can have more than one frequency. each of which can be dragged to any frequency you want. ● GAIN: Simplified. usually appearing as faders instead of knobs. First. This range is known as the frequency pitch. obviously. Now you don’t have fixed frequencies. but you’ve also got the ‘snap’ as the beater hits the surface. you’ve got your fixed EQ. and it’s not uncommon to see the latter abbreviated as 20kHz. don’t talk about bass or treble. ● Q: The width of the space under an EQ curve. or remove some of the high frequencies so things don’t get too sharp. from as low as 20Hz to as high as about 20. violins up high. and (this is the clever bit) adjust its ‘Q’ to change the shape of the curve. You can raise or lower each node to change the gain.A bluffer’s guide to EQ Feature MTF bass louder. the highs higher. It’ll look like a hump. your EQ display will have nodes. the more space there will be under your EQ curve. Each one of them is still locked to a specific frequency and you can still raise and lower the gain as before. usually – each set to a specific frequency. You can also spectrum. You can also cut that bass. The lower the Q.indd 59 | 59 11/02/2015 14:53 . Indeed they have ranges of their own ● HERTZ: The unit used to measure frequencies. In a full song where you have any number of different sounds.feat Bluffer's Guide. What you’re trying to do is lower or raise the volume of these frequencies to bring out. named for Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. they’re a pain to work with. FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT140. can vibrations in sound hear much higher. Think of a kick drum. instead. in it somewhere. and you’ll get a spike. No.000Hz. Instead of the few controls you’d get in the fixed EQ you’ve now got dozens. You’ll want to pay close attention to it. Most EQs go from 20 to 20. which registers much higher in the spectrum at around 2. You usually see this sort of EQ on an old HiFi. all with their own frequencies. the frequencies along the top. Frequencies are measured in Hertz (Hz). and it’s worth going through them all. but what this EQ does is enable you to create ‘curves’ by setting the faders in increments. There are a few types of equalisation. which means more frequencies will be boosted or cut.000 range is that determine its what you’ll see on most EQ displays. mids and lows. or KiloHertz. Note the individual nodes (each of them draggable). with far fewer frequencies affected by the boost or cut. You can’t change that frequency. the most basic of all the types. but you can raise and lower the gain (read: volume) for each one. some of which are more useful than others. Named for Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. or dB. you’ve got the big. Again. or a Instruments can possess more than one frequency. Here’s a pro tip for you: when talking frequencies and EQ. instruments such as bass drums are down low. Dogs. their own. Humans can hear only a certain range of ● FREQUENCY: The frequencies. this is an exceedingly important technique. we don’t know why it’s called Q. Indeed they have ranges of frequency of 50Hz.5kHz to 4kHz. Revert to type So what exactly are you going to see when you bring in your EQ? Well. It can be raised to boost a frequency or lowered to cut it. a sound’s desired characteristics. You’d be hard-pressed to find a music session that didn’t have some EQ Your basic paragraphic EQ. Essentially it gives you a bunch of controls – knobs. that depends. and the decibels on the left. gain is volume.000. it the human voice somewhere in the middle. Talk about highs. Paragraphic EQs are what you want. It’s measured in decibels. has a low frequency. who was the first to Tech terms identify electromagnetic waves. Doesn’t matter. or reduce. Sure. use this as a distinct measurement – as in. but since they aren’t great music fans the 20-20. and frankly. MTF Feature A bluffer’s guide to EQ When it comes down to it that’s all the controls you ever need worry about with EQ: frequency, gain, Q. Go try it out now. Load a track into your DAW and start playing. Like Tetris, you’ll figure it out straightaway. We promise. OK, there are one or two more things to bear in mind. Most of the time EQs will include what are known as high- and low-pass filters. A high-pass filter is a specific type of gain cut that removes all frequencies below a certain point. In other words it lets you eliminate the lows. The opposite is true for a low-pass filter, which gets rid of the highs. This is useful when you’re doing things such as EQing vocals – with so few bass frequencies in them there’s often no need to have any lows at all, and so a high-pass filter will get rid of them for you. Handily, this can also help eliminate background hum. You also get shelving filters. Essentially they’re a stripped-down version of the high- and low-pass filters, which cut or boost the frequencies in far less dramatic fashion. Some EQs provide a subtle colour or warmth to the sound when used. It’s pretty cool. If you don’t want that then consider investing in a linear or transparent EQ, which will do nothing but boost and cut your frequencies without colouring your sound. A high-pass filter. Any and all frequencies under about 700Hz will be cut. This is very useful for elements such as vocals or strings. have all sorts of other noises to play with. Sounds share frequencies, they don’t exist in a vacuum. Your kick drum and your bassline both have low frequencies, and when they combine one will mask the other. When your sounds start masking each other you’ve got problems. You’ll end up with a muddy, disappointing mix. How do you fix this? You use the EQ to carve out a space for each sound. When your vocals start there shouldn’t be anything else dominating those frequencies, so you can use your nifty paragraphic EQ on instruments that conflict with the vocal and lower the gain in their middle ranges. Now, we can’t teach you how to do this. We can Make room So you’ve got your EQ. You’ve loaded it up, you understand how Q and gain work, and you’re ready to go. What exactly do you do with it? On an individual level, when applied to a specific, solo’d sound, you’re going to use it to make things sharper. You’re going to use that EQ to take the sound from where it is to where you want it to be. You will boost the frequencies that bring out the sound’s best qualities and cut the ones that muddle it. A big, booming bass drum will not suffer – indeed, will be improved – if you use a shelving filter to remove some frequencies above, say, 15,000Hz. But that’s not difficult. The tricky part is what happens when you un-solo a sound because then you The only way that you get good at using EQ is by doing lots and lots of mixing See that greyed-out mountain range? It’s a frequency analyzer. It gives you a visual representation of your sound, showing you the dominant frequencies – useful for EQ. 60 | Ableton Live 2015 MT140.feat Bluffer's Guide.indd 60 teach you how it works but the only way you get good at Tetris is by playing, and the only way you get good at EQ is by doing lots of mixing. You need to learn how different sounds work together and which cuts and boosts you need to bring out their best qualities. You need to listen to a sound – really listen – and discover where its most important frequencies are, as well as the ones which you can cut. That being said, there are a few principals to abide by. Cut first, boost later – often, things can be improved just by dropping the gain in a few places. And be gentle. You don’t need big Q spikes; and if you’re boosting or cutting over -3dB, then you’re going too far. Most of all, remember that EQ doesn’t exist in isolation. You’re going to be using a whole whack of other tools to help you along, such as compression, which we’ll deal with another time… MTF FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:54 Want to really learn your music software? Check Out Our FREE Sample Modules 24 HOUR ACCESS INCLUDED WORK FILES FORUM SUPPORT AFFORDABLE ONLINE COURSES BY PROFESSIONAL PRODUCERS COVERING PRODUCTION MIXING MASTERING SOUND DESIGN MUSIC THEORY MTF Buyer’s Guide Six of the best Six of the best Hardware Software Mobile Technology Details Price £119/€149 Contact Best Service +49 (0) 89 45228920 Web www. bestservice.de Samples We continue the new MTF Buyer’s Guide where we round up some of the best products recently reviewed in MusicTech magazine. This time: six of the best instrument libraries. BEST SYNTH Zero-G Epica Z ero-G’s Epica synth instrument is surely one of the best instrument sample libraries ever, certainly the best synth one. At least, that is what MusicTech editor Andy Jones thinks. In the review back in March 2014 (MT132) he gushed: “So you can see I love Epica. I warn, again, that my musical upbringing almost forces me to dive into this kind of stuff like some happy, hippy, electro dolphin, and if you are not like me you might find it a little too ‘electronic’. But if you’ve ever had your heart plucked by the sound of the synth, then buy it, come and find me, thank me and tell me it’s the best £113 you’ve ever spent.” He finally concluded: “Epica is as epic as epic can be. The best collection for synth-heads currently out there.” BEST ORCHESTRAL Sonokinetic Grosso T here are more orchestral libraries around than seemingly everything else, so they probably warrant a ‘Six of the Best’ on their own. Until then, Grosso is the best one that we have looked at of late. MusicTech’s resident orchestral expert Keith Gemmell was direct and simple in his verdict… “Grosso is the most comprehensive orchestral phrase-based composition tool around – great sound, well orchestrated, and if you get stuck for ideas, it’s highly inspirational.” 62 | Ableton Live 2015 MT140.6 of the best.indd 62 Details Price €299 Contact Via website Web www. sonokinetic.net Details Price £113 Contact Time+Space 01837 55200 Web www.timespace. com BEST FANTASY Best Service Shevannai W e obviously had great fun writing this review complete with a boxout discussing whether Elvish is a real language (kind of) and what the difference is between Elvish and Elven (the latter is basically Welsh but more drunk), but all joking apart this is a superb collection. Again, Andy Jones was on hand to say… “The soundscapes are excellent and I will be using them and the whispers in projects that need that kind of distant atmosphere. I’m sadly not involved in composition for Elvish projects (but I am open to offers!). As a quality collection for a very specific job, however, Shevannai is excellent.” The final verdict was: “An excellent collection that caters for what could be a small market, but there isn’t much competition out there. ‘Enni e bain’ indeed… Look it up, people!” FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:46 And. Throughout the pack the production value is high and can be adapted as the user needs in a number of ways for variation and general expression. €399.com Web www. €99.com Details Price £125 Contact Time+Space 01837 55200 Web www. It is not strictly a sample library as such – weighing in at just 40MB – but is certainly one of the best instruments out there and with impressive results that match. if not beat. vibe and direction of the whole collection and applaud its recording philosophy. I love the atmosphere.com I love the atmosphere. Hollin Jones said: “Pianoteq is an excellent way to get playable and configurable piano sounds on your computer without taking up space. €249. atmospheric recordings – and turns it into an absolutely stunning collection.Six of the best Buyer’s Guide MTF BEST OFF THE WALL W Big Fish Audio Zodiac e never really thought we’d see an instrument library dedicated to musique concrète but Zodiac takes the best bits of that musical genre – found sounds. size and quality of these sounds from scratch.heavyocity.” MTF Details Price Pianoteq Stage. other libraries.6 of the best. it’s still a great all-rounder. look no further…” Details Price £125 Contact Time & Space Tel 01837 55200 Web www. upgrade from previous version. You’d be hardpushed to produce the mood.pianoteq. Pianoteq Pro.timespace. timespace. while this is one of the older collections here. €29 Contact Via website Web www.” He then concluded: “If you want something organic and inspiring to counter your real or electronic worlds.indd 63 | 63 11/02/2015 14:46 . Reviewer Liam O’ Mullane said… “Overall. Andy Jones said… “One of the most interesting collections I have come across. natural noises. Pianoteq Standard. the preset selection is Details Price $399 Contact info@ heavyocity. vibe and direction and applaud its recording philosophy… BEST PIANO Modartt Pianoteq 5 P BEST CINEMATIC Heavyocity AEON T his comprises two collections: Rhythmic and Melodic.” ianoteq has now reached v5 after impressing us in its previous incarnations. Obviously one for ambient fans and anyone wanting to add some atmosphere.com FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT140. com vast and varied. experimental apps and that final stage of music making. ‘real’ instruments. VJing. we started this.indd 64 n this issue.MTF Feature The 100 best music-making apps MTF Feature THE 100 BEST MUSIC-MAKING APPS It’s the second part of MusicTech’s biggest ever feature! We’ve rounded up the 100 best apps for music production on your phone or tablet: the first 50 are on p48 and now it’s now time for the second half-century… I Part two 64 | Ableton Live 2015 MT142.cover feat. Over the next few pages we’re looking at the 50 best beat making. So sit back and enjoy the best apps for mobile music making… FOCUS 16/02/2015 10:21 . guitars. mastering. on p48. the biggest ever feature in the magazine’s history. We’ve spent months installing and testing the latest apps across as many platforms as we could and have narrowed them down to the best 100 across several different categories. remixing. five speaker cabs and two mic models. There’s a noise gate and a room simulator built in. tap tempo and three unique skins. You can also add more tracks to the on-board sequencer and mixer. There’s a song player as well. Slide. with lots of different controls to help you sculpt your sound. The audio engine is also capable of detecting the current output mode (speaker or headphones) and adjusting the instrument’s sound accordingly. It comes with ten pre-defined songs and the ability to create your own. or use the full ten-string monster along with configurable pedals. It replaces two-handed playing and strumming with a one-touch-per-note approach that enables fast.49 Platform iOS POSITIVE GRID BIAS BIAS has replications of 36 amps that you can tweak extensively. the VocaLive effects and more. Eight-String Console.indd 65 | 65 16/02/2015 10:24 . transformers and even alter a tube’s bias to get the sound you want. Web App Store Price £13.99 Platform iOS 4 POCKETS StompBox StompBox turns your iPad into a flexible multi FX processor and includes 17 effects plus a four-track recorder (after in-app purchase) and media player with time-stretching. as well as quick preset recall for swapping sounds on the fly. There are also some effects supplied. It’s highly tweakable. You can use it as a plain slide guitar by turning on the six-string ‘Lap’ mode and turning off the accelerometer. preamps. Swap out tubes.com Price £13. this is a really pro piece of kit. It doesn’t just cater for electric guitars. You can also layer string and pad sounds together with your guitar for an even bigger sound. virtual foot controller. Although it costs a little more than some other iOS amp suites.com Price €17. scales and arpeggios and real-time control over the pitch of each individual note. the company’s other software. It comes with 11 stompbox effects. and wire up the volume pedal and swell. pick and dip the device to bend. too. You can play automatically and also set different strumming speeds.ikmultimedia. as it has some presets specifically designed for acoustic processing. and you can combine these in any order you like. and a feature called Loop Drummer for playing along to beats. It integrates with JamUp. Web App Store Price £1. There are four effects on board and you can use the separate remote app to control it from another device. and whammy pedal. recording and exporting your performance. so you can jam along to your favourite music. including amps from Orange. precise playing of melodies. and with other iOS apps. You can play up to three different sounds at once on the iPad and there’s inter-app audio. There are plenty of presets but every element is also customisable in remarkable detail. MIDI in and out support as well as audio copy and built-in effects. It’s a guitar and bass processor with 16 types of effects. Web www. including seven types of distortion.ifretless. Web positivegrid. emulating a real hardware setup rather than using lots of fiddly menus. You can select from four guitar models: the Lap Steel. You can chain up to 12 effects at once and there are other handy tools like a metronome and tuner.99 Platform iOS zCAGE Futulele It’s not just regular guitars that exist in app form. Web App Store Price Free Platform iOS IK MULTIMEDIA AmpliTube IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube was one of the first serious guitar processing suites for mobile devices.99 Platform iOS FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT142. but Steel Guitar for iOS is one of the more unusual apps you’ll find.com Price £6. so you can be sliding like a pro in no time. It is approachable for guitarists. Fender. five amps. Futulele is based on 72 high quality ukulele samples and combines and tweaks them to strum the virtual strings. It uses velocity sensitive multisampled instruments and has ten instruments available. or either of the traditional Nashville or Texas setups. There’s a free version and you can also add more models via in-app purchasing. Web www. and it continues to go from strength to strength.cover feat. and up to 12 chords per set with a total of 132 chords available.The 100 best music-making apps Feature MTF TOP 10 Guitar apps If you want to bring the sound of the guitar to your music then there are a surprisingly high number to choose from… YONAC INC Steel Guitar There are many different types of guitar that aren’t particularly well catered for in the app world.99 Platform iOS iFretless Guitar The iFretless app is a guitar fretboard re-imagined for playability on iOS devices. and includes more amps. It’s pretty advanced but if your tech skills are up to it it’s an inexpensive way to build instruments. MetaModule for building your own synths and effects. If you happen to own an AMPLIFi hardware amp. You also get multiple synths and effects including an analogue generator. Web App Store Price £13. distortion. FM synth. There are modes to randomise parameters and clever features such as networked collaboration sessions. reverb and more.ru/soft/sunvox/ Price £3. line-in real-time recording and Audiobus support. As well as sharing your tones with the cloud you can download others.MTF Feature The 100 best music-making apps TOP 10 Guitar apps cont… LINE 6 AMPLIFi Remote 2 Line 6 has always been at the forefront of digitally modelled guitar amps. file sharing online. store and load as many different amp emulations as you like. along with the Jam player. not just to enter notes but also to program all kinds of other parameters. Although it’s one for the more adventurous musician.warmplace. phrase sampler.99 Platform iOS AGILE PARTNERS AmpKit AmpKit Free comes with a Peavey ValveKing amp with two cabs.com Price £6. Web uk. it has a modular interface and multiple synth algorithms as well as supporting up to 32-bit samples.cover feat.99 Platform iOS FOCUS 16/02/2015 10:25 .line6. Web www. EQ. Web www. an FFT-based synth. just on your iPad. along with other nifty features.indd 66 SunVox SunVox is a modular synth with a patternbased sequencer. this free app for iOS and Android will let you remotely control the amp’s parameters. match the tones of songs in your music library and store unlimited presets. Both versions have access to the Gear Store which contains 50 amps. The amps and effects can be arranged with the drag-and-drop interface and you can run up to seven simultaneous models. Using touch and the movement of your device for input. Check out the website for more info on the supported devices.99 Platforms iOS and Android BIT SHAPE TC-11 The TC-11 is a fully programmable multitouch synth for iPad that includes 120 presets and unlimited user patch slots.com Price Free (offers in-app purchases) Platform iOS TOP 10 Experimental apps With their touch capabilities. Just add a USB guitar cable and you’ll be getting great tone in no time! Web play. You can mix and match gear in the app and jam along with your favourite music from iTunes or by uploading your own stuff. There are no onscreen knobs. so it’s a great way to experiment. and audio recording and upload to various online hosting services. pedals and cabs. it has 23 modular synthesis objects and 22 oscillator waveforms. phones and iPads are open to all sorts of experimentation. or sliders. two mics and a built-in noise and feedback filter. echo.google. all synthesis is driven by your multi-touch performance.99 Platforms Android JamUp XT JamUp XT comes with one amp and six effects. two pedals. sidechain compressor. all of which are configurable. the unusual method of interaction makes this one of the most unique mobile synths around. three controller modules and full display customisation. It’s a far cry from having one amp with a few knobs on it – now you can remotely set up.bitshapesoftware. keys. There’s also built-in recording and AudioCopy support.com Price £2. Web agilepartners.positivegrid.com Price Free Platforms iOS and Android usbEffects This app has a guitar tone stack and 13 effects pedals. 26 cabinets and eight mics as well as bundling some content together.99 Platform iOS 66 | Ableton Live 2015 MT142. The app is much more affordable than the hardware and offers a very similar experience. tablets. Here are the best 10 apps for getting creative… YAMAHA TNR-i The Yamaha TNR-i is based on the remarkable Tenorion hardware and works in essentially the same way. The paid version of the app represents better value than buying everything separately.com Price £20. and if you decide to go further you can add lots of other content via in-app purchases. It has multitrack WAV export as well as Wi-Fi and MIDI in and out. Not for the faint of heart. Web www. 30 pedals. and more. It’s a new way to make music by pressing buttons on the 16x16 grid. .piringer. biology. It’s a fun way of generating music on the move.net/apps/glitchmachine/ Price £1.99 Platform iOS PIRINGER abcdefghij klmnopqrs tuvwxyz Incredibly. While you might not be taking this on stage it’s a unique approach to music generation.. mod wheel and the accelerometer in the iPad. continuous morphing between two oscillator sets and real-time editing of up to 128 partials. Unlike a normal sequencer. multiple bass sounds. This oddly named app lets you create and control tiny sound-creatures in the shape of letters that react to gravity or each other and generate rhythms and soundscapes.cover feat. You get multisampled instruments and synths: three complete drumkits.69 Platform iOS MADGARDEN Glitchmachine Glitchmachine is a generative music synth that edits expressions live to produce sound interactively. recording and direct emailing of compositions. Web apps. altering pitches. but also fairly deep. leads. a Rhodes-like piano. synthPond is also suitable for advanced musicians who are interested in generative composition.49 Platform iOS FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT142. fun and physics to create a unique. It’s all about sliding and tapping. bass and lead synths by tapping on XY grids and amount sliders. It has six dynamic wavetable oscillators per voice. dynamic and interactive sound ecology. Web App Store Price £1. You program drums.de Price £6. The resulting chain reaction creates a noteplex song. drag. tempo and intensity of the various parts. crystal clear percussions and realistic human choirs to complex musical soundscapes. you place nodes in a field.com Price Free (with in-app purchases) Platform iOS MODE OF EXPRESSSION noteplex Create music visually with chain reactions in this unique app. a performance tool and an art work where you can play with the lettercreatures and watch and listen to how they interact with each other.php Price £1. A plex consists of a network of nodes. that’s not a misprint. It blends art. Web www. Web madgarden. and each has a tone associated with it. There’s support for non-diatonic scales on iPad and you get to turn your iOS device into a wireless 3D MIDI controller.propellerheads. Web www. So while it’s easy for someone with no musical knowledge to create a complex melody.net/abcdefg. synthPond The synthPond is a relaxing spatial sequencer and generative audio toy. It’s worth checking out the website for an idea of the lo-fi glitchy stuff this app is capable of.virsyn. There’s online sharing of plexes and the app enables zoom. nodes create pulses. The sounds can be placed in a 3D space. strings and more. Web App Store Price £1. It’s also Audiobus and inter-app audio compatible. draw and edit modes. It’s a sound toy. Web www.se Price £0. and a matrix enables real-time control of five parameters using the XY touch pad. It lets you easily create harmonies in any key. Extensive modulation is possible with the four LFOs and envelopes.The 100 best music-making apps Feature MTF TOP 10 Experimental apps cont. occurring around the listener.99 Platform iOS AUDANIKA SoundPrism SoundPrism is an advanced MIDI controller for iOS that connects to your DAW or hardware synth via Wi-Fi or USB (from iPad only) and enables individual MIDI control of multiple instruments at the same time. When a pulse hits a node. and build loops graphically.49 Platform iOS VIRSYN Addictive Synth This dynamic wavetable synth enables you to explore a wide range of sonic territory from acid loops.indd 67 | 67 18/02/2015 08:51 .49 Platform iOS PROPELLERHEAD Figure Figure is rather more experimental than what most big developers would come out with: an app designed for instant gratification and quick pattern creation. It takes a little getting used to but once you do you’re likely to find it both creative and enjoyable to use. it’s approachable and intuitive. It’s pretty advanced stuff and features interactive live code editing and code line muting as well as waveform and data visualisations to do its thing.audanika. New features include ringtone creation. It takes a little learning but it can do cool things. Add your own samples to create an even more unique noteplex. patterns. modulate and transform your beats.finger-pro.cover feat. com Price £2.de Price £13. Web www. You get four X/Y pads to control two effects. and drum machine. Web intua. Has a mixer and you can sync the app up to an external groovebox. DM1 not only looks great. Audition samples while a pattern plays.com Price £2. plus add sound packs (many free) from Google Play.99 Web www. Web www. Web play. There are 11 real-time synth modules covering everything from kicks and snares through cymbals and even cowbells.fingerlab. and full MIDI implementation for incorporating it into your studio. FX trackpads to distort.99 Platform iOS Electrum Drum Machine/ Sampler This lets you load custom (or your own) samples. swap modules and vary the amounts to slice and dice your beats. Web www. Platform Android BEEPSTREET Impaktor A unique synth that uses modelling.49/module Platforms iOS. record a vocal or instrument track. organs. Built-in support for Audiobus.99 Platform iOS FOCUS 16/02/2015 10:30 . mixer and master section with effect slots and parametric EQ.com/impaktor Price £2. but we’ve managed to narrow it down… INTUA BeatMaker 2 A workstation with great beat tools.com Price £2. Choose from different effects. a mixer. There’s bundled content and you can record and edit your own sounds and add up to two effects. There’s virtual.49 Platform iOS SYNTHETIC BITS FunkBox Drum Machine A fun drum machine and old skool rhythm creator. mashing and manipulating beats. vocoders.net Price £2. Import songs/samples or record your own sounds. There are eight effects (+ master). There’s support for WIST. quantization and effects.com Platform iOS SINGLE CELL SOFTWARE Caustic 3 You choose which instruments you want to buy from synths.sugar-bytes. inter-app audio and Audiobus. Web www.singlecellsoftware. It has an effects rack.com Price £1. Web www.indd 68 KORG iElectribe With a pattern memory of 160 iElectribe gives you eight voice parts in total: four percussion and four PCM synths.google. and a song composer to chain the patterns you have created into a whole song.MTF Feature The 100 best music-making apps TOP 10 Drum machines / beats apps Not surprisingly there are loads of apps for beat making. The drum machine section has 128 pads and there’s a multitrack sequencer and mixer. compression. ringtone or DAW. It has a 6-track recorder.99 Platform iOS SUGAR BYTES Turnado iPad Adept at slicing. and is a virtual analogue drum machine with a 32-step grid sequencer. Unusual and unique. tempo-synced delay.korg. There’s a step sequencer for old-skool beat programming. network and external MIDI support. You can import your own samples from various sources and take advantage of the randomiser tool to generate ideas.45.native-instruments. Feels like a groovebox and great fun. reverb and MIDI support as well as an audio looper and a performance recorder. MIDI.com/ Price £2. FM and noise shaping to make beats without using samples. touch drum pads with automatic quantization.net/ products/ Price £6. many sound-shaping parameters. Price £13. This is a nifty drum synthesis environment for any iOS user.99 Platform iOS 68 | Ableton Live 2015 MT142. Comes with classic sounds and 36 preset patterns plus you can create your own. export to audio.99 Platform iOS FINGERLAB DM1 With 99 vintage and produced drum kits. Wave sharing and WIST means you can link it to other apps and you’re also able to expand the preset list via inexpensive in-app purchases. Web syntheticbits.49 Platform iOS NI iMaschine You get four slots in which you can mix and match instruments and audio. Android FINGER PRO MoDrum Rhythm Composer This iOS app uses real-time synthesis rather than sampling to generate its sounds. Web beepstreet. it sounds amazing too. 3D panning. Has automation and sample import. There’s an XY control pad along with velocity sensing of touch for more expressive playability. You can also set up different zones and assign input MIDI channels to receive MIDI from an external controller or from another app. organs. Based on samples.99 Platform iOS IK MULTIMEDIA iGrand The iGrand puts an entire gallery of the world’s finest pianos right at your fingertips with studio-grade quality thanks to high-definition stereo samples across multiple velocities. it lets you play along with songs from your music library and save chord presets as well as recording and sharing performances with others.com Price £13. MIDI in and out are supported as are Audiobus. Web App Store Price £3. video or both and there’s easy import via drag-and-drop.indd 69 | 69 16/02/2015 10:34 . Web www. You can expand the instrument set to over 600 via in-app purchasing. Use the Quadroplay system to simultaneously control Guitarism and up to three additional MIDI-compatible apps.cover feat. You also get a recorder and a metronome.ikmultimedia. You can edit sounds and effects and MIDI is fully supported. The layout is like a nine-string bass guitar with the notes coloured black and white like the keys of a piano. and you can record as MIDI with overdubbing and punch-in. The slots can contain audio. This app is multitimbral. guitars. Audio Copy and inter-app audio. You can play up to 16 tracks and an automatic video composition engine displays multiple videos at once. meaning that you can take an ordinary MIDI keyboard and assign key ranges to the different presets from different soundfonts. it provides you with hundreds of instruments and patterns from a range of ‘real’ instrument categories including pianos.99 Platform iOS TOP 5 VJ apps Matching light shows with music is the easy way to bring life to any performance… vidibox Vidibox lets users create real-time music and video projects from an intuitive drum pad interface. such as GarageBand. Web www. and Audiobus and inter-app audio compatibility.com Price £6.rhism. AudioCopy and Audiobus are supported too so you can integrate with other apps to take things to the next level. percussion and vocals. this app lets you play virtual guitar from your iOS device. A free version is available and you can add more pianos via in-app purchases. live effects using a modulation grid. bass and chords. Web www. It has a good feature set and is based on over 200MB of bass samples. Virtual MIDI is supported and there’s up to 64-voice polyphony on newer devices. Even so.99 Platform iOS RHISM Guitarism With a suite of electric and acoustic guitars and an amp. bass players will find it surprisingly easy to use.The 100 best music-making apps Feature MTF TOP 5 Real apps Oddly named.99 Platform iOS FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT142.com Price £13. but we couldn’t think of another catch-all title to cover the apps available to make acoustic or band-type sounds! IK MULTIMEDIA SampleTank SampleTank is IK’s iOS version of its much larger desktop instrument.99 Platform iOS SoundFont Pro SoundFonts are freely available files that use synthesis and samples to recreate different kinds of instruments. and these include MIDI riffs and grooves as well as just sample-based sounds.ikmultimedia. baby grand. drums. A free version is available for you to test. strings. Web App Store Price £6.99 Platform iOS iFretless Bass The iFretless Bass app is a professional virtual instrument that provides bass and guitar players with an expressive fretless playing surface. Although it looks different from a guitar neck. Web ifretless. in complementary roles: guitar. Quadroplay essentially turns Guitarism into an advanced multichannel MIDI controller.com Price £2. expressive and beautiful sounding grand. upright and speciality piano instruments available on a mobile device. The app brings you the most playable. multi-layered and multi-zonal. audio import from your library with overdub. As well as some effects there’s voice recording capability. You get a four-track MIDI recorder and the app itself is four-part multitimbral and has a built-in master reverb as well as insert effects. basses. This is a more experimental kind of app that lets you explore the relationship between sounds and images. a scratch engine and disc physics for realistic scratching. You can throw in one-shot samples and upload your finished projects to SoundCloud.99 Platform iOS MACHINECODEX SOFTWARE Muon Muon is a music visualisation app for iPad that generates endlessly varying organic animations in time to your music. remixing and producing. The Transmitter converts the low-resolution video (static image or GIF animation) to sound. Using beatmatching technology it lets you make harmonic mashups without key clashes. The Receiver then converts the sound back to video. You can set the colour palette for this video. It’s easy to get to grips with and will have you searching your music library to see what tracks work well together. Bonobo and other respected Ninja Tune acts. This lets you listen to the sound of your image. mash up and remix your favourite tunes.com/muon/ Price £1. It also includes an intuitive control surface editor that makes customising simulation parameters quick and easy.99 Platforms iOS and Android ALGORIDDIM vjay Algoriddim’s vjay transforms your iPad into a mashup machine. If a form evolves that you don’t like. stems and samples. The best part is the material you’re working with has come direct from artists such as Coldcut. create loops and copy and paste segments of a song to create entirely new versions. You can share mixes to SoundCloud.machinecodex. the Evolution Engine ensures that your screen is filled with fascinating.cover feat. and auto mixing. Web App Store Price Free (with in-app purchases) Platform iOS iMashup With this app you can mash up any two tracks from your music library on your iPad or iPhone. You also get on-board effects and three-band EQ.imashup. and it’s also compatible with IK Multimedia’s iRig Mix hardware. so even if you’re on an older device you should be able to get the party started. so you can get really hands-on with their loops. pre-cueing support. skinnable decks. ten customisable sample pads. When left alone. Its system requirements are pretty low too. Mix and scratch your favourite music videos from iTunes or combine songs from your music library with personal video footage. But the main function of the Transmitter is to transmit the signal to the receiving devices. you can do it on the move with these five apps… DJStudio 5 This DJ app for Android lets you spin. recording of your performances with the built-in recorder.google. while switch-bay patch-panels enable you to customise how the visualiser mutates and responds to touch and audio stimuli. pixel by pixel.99 Platform iOS HEXLER TouchViZ TouchViZ lets you play back and mix two channels of video with independent playback speed control and ten different blend modes.99 Platform iOS TOP 5 Remix apps Whether you want to remix your own music or mash up other people’s. It’s a really well-designed app and has a more unique approach than just letting you cut up stuff that’s already in your iTunes library. a single tap or shake generates a new mutant universe.indd 70 Ninja Jamm This app from legendary record label Ninja Tune combines aspects of DJing. Thanks to its clever features you’ll be able to make some awesome mashups.99 Platform iOS FOCUS 16/02/2015 10:32 . It provides two virtual turntables with a crossfader. use the on-board visualiser. tilt and shake to cut sounds or to effect. and record it to an animated GIF file. Web www. It’s a simple and fun cross-platform application that consists of two parts: Transmitter and Receiver. Web App Store Price £6. ever-changing animations.MTF Feature The 100 best music-making apps TOP 5 VJ apps cont… PixiVisor PixiVisor is a clever tool for audio / visual experiments. Web warmplace. Touch.com Price Free Platform Android 70 | Ableton Live 2015 MT142. Web play. You buy a sound pack of your choice from your favourite artist then use the device to remix it.net/software/touchviz Price £6. Web www. You can also use the iPad’s two cameras to integrate live footage Web hexler.com Price $2. glitch and mix them. and access to your music library. You can adjust the loudness of various elements of a track and also export high-quality WAV versions of the end results back to iTunes or send them to Dropbox.ru/soft/pixivisor/ Price £1. Pro-Q and Pro-L. You can also connect one of Novation’s controller devices to get the full hands-on experience. mix. multiband dynamics with four independent bands of compression / limiting. co.com Price £34. routing the output of one or more apps into another for processing.uk Price £4.blogspot. With as many audio and MIDI tracks as your device can handle along with a 32-bit. Crucially.cover feat. gating and delay.com Price £13. stutter. multiband EQ and compressor. Web www. reverb.and post-linear phase EQs each with eight bands and five filter types. dithering and noise shaping. The results are amazing: incredibly accurate beat detection and sync capabilities. Web www. slice freezing and easy library and playlist navigation. 96kHz audio engine you can record up to 24 tracks at once and trigger over 70 virtual instrument sounds. You don’t have to be an experienced DJ to give a great performance and you can even record the output as an audio file. Auria supports plug-ins which you can add via in-app purchases.The 100 best music-making apps Feature MTF TOP 5 Mastering apps TOP 5 Remix apps cont… NOVATION Launchpad The Launchpad app comes free with eight ready-to-play sessions.com Price Free Platforms iOS NI Traktor DJ When NI does mobile apps it tends to do them really well.com Price £2. match and trigger tempo-synced loops and record your performance to share it online or internally to another app via Audiobus. and there are further mastering effects such as limiting on the master channel strip.99 Platform iOS As the final stage of music production is mastering we’ve left this category until last! POSITIVE GRID Final Touch Final Touch is one of only a small number of dedicated mastering apps for mobile devices and it’s arguably one of the best. from the perspective of mastering. just on the move! Web auriaapp.99 Platform iOS Audio Mastering Studio This app is remarkably powerful to use. As well as mastering it’s basically a supremely capable all-round music production app.99 Platform iOS FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT142.novationmusic. Audiobus is also supported. Or more importantly. and additional sound packs and features such as audio import are available as in-app purchases. this is well worth a look. You can perform. Web audiob. Use Auria like you use a desktop DAW.us Price £2. Features like the Superslicer mean it’s not just for spinning tracks. You get a bunch of effects that can be controlled via integrated X/Y pads and the whole thing feels really slick. offering up to 24 simultaneous tracks of recording.99 it’s worth unlocking audio import: you get an 8x6 grid for launching up to eight loops at once.steinberg. 48 of playback with 24-bit sound. To add to the pro-level lineup of tools there’s stereo mid-side processing and a full waveform overview. Web uk.net Price £34. a stereo imager.native-instruments.99 Platform iOS STEINBERG Cubasis Cubasis is Steinberg’s version of Cubase for iPad and it’s surprisingly powerful. For mastering you might want to look at Fabfilter’s Pro-C.indd 71 | 71 16/02/2015 10:30 . There are ten effects processors that can be assigned both to individual tracks and to the master channel for mastering.99 Platform iOS Audiobus Audiobus provides a way to link apps together on a device. Traktor DJ for iPad and iPhone takes the essence of the much bigger Traktor Pro software and places it into a touch environment. If you’re looking to get a professional master of your iPad projects. Each of its channels in the mixer has an expander. all of which can be added onto Auria and used to master process your project. maximise. Web audio-mastering-studio. You get pre.positivegrid. a range of effects on iPad including repeater and synced filters. Using a series of modules that can be dragged in or out of the signal processing chain you can fine-tune your master with incredible levels of control. and Core Audio and MIDI are both supported for getting sound and MIDI in and out.99 Platform iOS WAVEMACHINE LABS Auria Auria is one of the most advanced DAWs on the iPad platform. Web www. For £4. and on the iPhone there’s filter. 02.indd 1 11.2015 09:19:25 .MusicTech. 2015 09:19:36 .02.indd 2 11.MusicTech. Excision and Flux Pavillion to name a few. 74 | Ableton Live 2015 MT136.MTF Technique A track from scratch part 1: Dubstep bass Technique A track from scratch: Part 1 Dubstep bass Liam O’Mullane and Christopher Pearson begin a massive tutorial to guide you through the process of creating the harder edge side of this contemporary genre. Over the years and more recently in the mainstream. This is key. Though less common in use today. whilst offering a variety of techniques you can use to create something original. If we break down the elements that form to make a dirty bassline. artists such as Burial.indd 74 FOCUS 11/02/2015 12:59 .. We’ve then layered synth drum sounds for that much needed weight and impact using Tremor. a louder and more aggressive influence has taken hold. there are rules that apply across the board in terms of composition and production. a single bass sound can be the singular feature of a track. their first point of call being the fundamentals of bass design… D ubstep is a genre that’s morphed from its dubbed-out form over the years and since splintered into two distinct camps.GUIDE DRUMS Though we’re starting our track off from bass-design onwards.. but this does require a huge amount of creative programming to give it the variation it needs to hold the listener’s interest. Our hi-hat has been chosen simply to be clean and minimal. Although a sub bass is used to pin various instruments and sounds together – so they have an even sense of low-end weight – what people consider to be the bassline can be a large range of musical. sticking to the genre’s original principles of a mix with depth. Keeping things simple we’ve used a quick double layering technique with an acoustic sounding drum kit from BFD edited to add a sense of space and texture. as a lot of the best ideas and sounds will come from happy accidents and a pursuit for originality. this is the musical style we are focussing on in this five-part feature. It would be pointless to give you a full how-to on today’s sound as the leading artists will have moved on by the time you’ve learned your trade. This is all we need to then start creating our first bass elements. it’s good practice to get some basic drums in the mix for a guide as you go. Zomboy.tut genre pt1. The driving force behind this new breed of dubstep include Skrillex. they still need to be appropriate for the genre. space and general musicality. noisy. Although terms like EDM and brostep are often frowned upon due to their buzzword nature. For the more meditative and deeper experience.2aj. These aspects will be highlighted when relevant. The more common approach today is to work between at least three separate sounds with contrasting timbres. but our real aim here is to educate you on the standard tools for crafting a heavy dubstep track. then after FOCUS ON. On the disc Accompanying example audio files included on the DVD Set your tempo to 140bpm and let’s explore the components of the dirtiest of basslines Like any bass-orientated electronic genre. So set your tempo to 140bpm and let’s begin by first defining the essential components for the dirtiest of basslines. there are no set rules and this is why experimentation is so important. Bass: defined The word ‘bassline’ when used in bass music may differ to your own definition. Although today’s sound is of importance. do try to keep an open mind and fully explore our suggested practice in your own way. The basic requirements are a kick and snare with some form of cymbals/percussion to add a further sense of rhythm. Anything busier than this could be too much information at this stage and influence your choice of sounds. so it’s important to understand what it means in the context of a dubstep track. so remember to try to keep it simple Though your first drum sounds can be sparse. discordant and SFX sounds. Phaeleh and Mala fly the flag. raise the 32nd to add a new fifth octave pitch to the triangle’s shape.A track from scratch part 1: Dubstep bass Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step Vowel bass foundation with FM synthesis Not all FM synthesisers are equal and some techniques might translate differently from one to the next. or group them up in this way from the start. Sytrus is one of our preferred options because it allows control of individual partials (harmonic frequencies above the fundamental). are the same.2aj. so do treat this as an essential part of the initial creative process. or you can program them within your sequencer through automation or MIDI CC data. let’s look at the standard options we always consider when creating a bassline sequence. Even though the sub bass may stay in the same frequency area. The sine is pitched to E1 or 41. Though dirty bass might be fierce and in your face. 03 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT136. 01 Dynamics When designing a bass sound. When balancing parameters of a synth or subsequent creative audio processing. but slight detuning can be used to create movement. use internal modulation and automation to twist and take their tone into different areas for maintaining listener interest.2034Hz – this will sound much higher when we apply frequency modulation. Bass design is about building the right sounds. If you can control oscillator partials. This imposes new harmonics which thicken up the sine wave. The fundamentals however. make use of macro options within the instrument itself or your DAW so multiple parameters can be controlled at once. 02 Moving the modulation amount for the second oscillator will now create a basic vowel sound. Sines are a clean source meaning frequency modulation is easy to hear and therefore control in finer detail. establishing an initial idea. you need to be thinking ahead for how you’ll create bass dynamics. a constant barrage of a singular distorted synth will lose the listener’s interest quite quickly through monotony. you’ll soon find yourself swamped with confusing movement data. be mindful of your options for twisting and turning a sound. The more common approach now is to use at least three sounds for you bass In the interests of workflow. Otherwise. If you don’t decide on the best parameters to modify. take note of parameters that create either a subtle or severe timbre shift. These can then be either internally modulated within your synth or sampler so they respond to MIDI note information as you play. but before you lay down a single note.indd 75 | 75 11/02/2015 12:59 . a lot of dynamics can be created by Our second oscillator is set to modulate the frequency of the first oscillator using a triangle wave. The second oscillator’s pitch is the same as the first. Pitch a different oscillator (we’ve used a square) up by 64 semi-tones and add modulation depth to taste. This will always cause problems when it comes to arrangement and further editing of your track.tut genre pt1. The first choice is what register you want a sound to live in. add a 3rd triangle oscillator up by five octaves to modulate the 2nd. Next add another oscillator to create high information for a sense of air. asides from the technical starting points we’ll discuss next. As the parameter combinations of synths and audio effects are infinite. Our first oscillator begins its life as a sine wave-based sub. defined musical pitch. EQ’d and mastered as a unit. slightly and very harmonically-based respectively. On its own. Image-Line’s Maximus and iZotope’s Alloy 2 are good examples for their sonic quality and uniqueness in character. This will help unify them and put them in their own space within the mix. This is a big reason why FM and additive 76 | Ableton Live 2015 MT136. one sound can be very low-end orientated which leaves space in the mids and top-end of the mix.e. So rather than grouping everything musical to a single ‘music’ group.tut genre pt1. not processing the sub-bass) the options for creative processing are endless. For instance. If you’ve got too much grit.2aj. For example. but get the rate above 20Hz and you’ll hear a distortion that creates edge with a soft characteristic As long as you’re processing the mid to high frequency part of your bass sounds (i. we wouldn’t group pads and guitars together as they’re so different sonically. allowing other groups to cut through around these main bass elements. The sub is essential as it carries the weight of the track and the frequencies you want from sub woofers to rattle the audience’s nose cartilage. a sub instrument can be nice but our examples throughout the article contain sub. we use a sine wave based oscillator. think about dividing them by their transient and timbre nature. we can then accentuate frequencies that are plucky with EQ and add transient processing if required. but they will be a point of contrast against other. Uneven clusters of harmonic content that are static or move over time are all used against each other to create the type of textures the older generation often dismiss as noise. Amplitude modulation is a popular choice at the moment and can be achieved through a tremolo effect or LFO controlling a synth’s amplitude. When experimenting with audio processing. but they consist of odd harmonics which means they sound big and hollow. Not just for aesthetics and housekeeping but mainly to give groups of sounds their own identity and colour in the mix to help them stand out as a unit.MTF Technique A track from scratch part 1: Dubstep bass synthesis are used so much in today’s production for dirty-sounding bass. FabFilter’s Saturn. If picked instruments are grouped. guitar distortion and glitch-like effects are tools which feature in dubstep on a regular basis. Creative processing can be a fundamental part of a sound or punched in on occasion to create a timbre shift for dynamics and variation. mid and high range information. Dry/Wet reverb control. all bass sounds will go to a bass group and be compressed. triangle and saw waves – are pure. The nature of each sound’s frequency content is another element to explore for dynamics. The harmonics are even so they create a pleasant. it’s worth trialling a sound to see if it works better when re-sampled into a sampler or kept live. FM synthesis seems to be the main staple for Experiment with different processing on your grouped bass sounds to fill or create space to all sounds as a whole.and high-pitched instrument. but it’s entirely possible to create large and complex patches within a single synthesizer. Sometimes we’ll achieve each bass instrument with more than one layered source. the better. it has nothing but its fundamental frequency to impart. Fundamental waveforms – sine. abrasion and a generally up-front energy that still retains a sense of movement and depth.indd 76 To start with a solid foundation. much less musical components. Mix processing involves the use of EQs and dynamics processing to balance each sound to fit comfortably within the track. This solidifies its range and defines its space. FM design Bass Processing There are two different categories you can put audio processing into when it comes to bass: creative and mixing. Playback speed alters when playing a sample higher or lower and this adds a character of its own to a bass idea. and therefore most powerful wave we can create and being infinitely smooth. This allowed us to firm up certain areas of the frequency spectrum and add harmonic information per-band or mid and side plane as required. But it’s this contrast of tuned and none-tuned sounds that are essential in creating aggression. For EQ balancing you shouldn’t need to do any major removal work to remove brash frequencies. At slower rates you’ll hear a detectable rhythm. Bear in mind that it’s always good practice to pick out similar sounds. FOCUS 11/02/2015 12:59 . For example. We generally used multi-band processing that also includes an element of saturation. Another sound can have lots of mid and top info so it’s a fuller-sounding part and the third sound could be scooped in the mids by being a sub with a thin sound that plays towards the top-end of the mix – very much akin to classical music. A pure sinusoidal waveform is the most clean. or any onboard synth modulation. In this particular genre. Square waves also carry pitch clearly. These instruments are a counterpart by being non-musical and noise like. go back to source and find what element of your synth or plug-in chain is creating it and tone it down! Wherever possible we like to group ‘types’ of sound together. The sub is essential as it carries the weight of the track and frequencies you want… alternating between a low. These waveforms can be used in modern dubstep. strong phasing. So the more you experiment with the less common options. but let’s not get too committed at this stage. or use slip editing to move the start position of the audio within the audio clip. After exploring some strongsounding parameters to automate. Though we’re focussing on FM synthesis for most of our bass design. it becomes very simple to create complex. even when basses are created in other types of synthesizers.A track from scratch part 1: Dubstep bass Technique MTF Re-sampling and Slip Editing A good way to get creative with an existing idea is to re-work it as a new sample. NI’s Massive. Sweeping the amount of modulation being applied is key to achieving the FM bass sound used countless times in this genre. additive synthesis is a great option for different textures. To find the sweet spots of where the X and Y best overlap. Once bounced. a few of our bass sounds use ImageLine’s Sytrus with internal modulation amounts being used for movement. snares and even where cymbals are expected to fall.indd 77 | 77 11/02/2015 12:59 . You can test this phenomena by running reference tracks through a spectrum analyser to study where their keys lie. After all. Because of how FM synthesis works. bass genre artists have naturally fallen into using the keys of around E. Even individual sounds are becoming standardised to frequency so mixes tend to have a unified and equally musical sound. going too high can leave your track lacking in any low impact information when compared to other music in the mix.tut genre pt1. waveform choice. This means we have all elements of the sound available to play in one instrument. On the opposite side of this. We’ll next explore where our bass ideas can go while also designing our principle drum sound. although subtractive. All DAWs can bounce audio and this is the simplest way to re-sample. MTF Turn over the page for part 2 of Liam and Christopher’s dubstep guide. FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT136. This can be done in various ways depending on the tools available in your DAW. FM synthesis allows us to create warped tones – a sine wave adds more harmonics… FM Synthesis allows us to create very warped tones by using oscillators to modulate other oscillators. then fine tuned the automation until we achieved a groove and interesting timbre shift against our varied drum track. you can chop and re-edit the sample. we’ve covered the very essence of what this genre is about – bass! You should have the tools and basic understanding of FM synthesis to explore or use to try and mimic our example sounds. waveform phase and additional oscillator routing to move away from the norm. it will venture into noisy and unpleasant timbres. A sine wave set to modulate another will impart new even harmonics which in turn create a new waveform at the synth’s output. re-sampling them. Musical keys In this first instalment. F and G. But detuning the modulating oscillator. Food for thought bass creation. Also bear in mind that sound systems are EQ’d to sound pleasant for their environment and genre.2aj. This is good way to encounter happy accidents and is most commonly used on long pieces of audio recorded when jamming with a synth and its parameters. it’s usually an FM technique that will make the sound fit the genre. But it’s the unique approach it takes to synthesizing sounds and its interface that will encourage unique results. Due to the sound-design biased nature of the more extreme end of dubstep. kicks. or changing its wave type. we then mapped them across an X/Y controller within the synth. For instance. But an important factor is the choice of root notes that you base your sub bass around and its closest harmonics. So be sure to explore tuning. often venturing into non-western scales and microtuning. boosts and cuts will be applied in the expected sub area. In some cases this means you’ll hear no sub at all if your choice of key is too low. Most club sound systems have a bass roll-off of around 40Hz which means pitching your sub bass any lower than this can cause a less than universal translation from one venue to the next. These X/Y parameters are then mapped to our host software as two automation lanes to keep life simple. uses phase modulation to create similar-sounding effects. set to sine and keep it modulation free. This changes the content but the clip itself stays in place on the grid. we can simply enable another operator. Pitching sounds. In fact. pitch-bending etc can result in the end result. we haven’t explored musicality or thought about song structure and flexibility is a gift at this stage in the process. For all of these reasons. musical keys are difficult to decipher and follow. To underpin an FM instrument with a clean sine wave to emphasise bass. we started with random automation data. For example. It allows complex waveforms to be built from many sine waves just as real sounds are in the natural world. You can explore different styles of guide drums at this stage to help expose new potential vibes. warped sounds. These first two techniques give us a contrast of sounds to mix due to their opposing approaches of being acoustically and synthetically rooted. At the end of this processing chain we’ve added a limiter. which then ran through a shaping device to smooth out the harsh transients. In this instalment we’ll explore the use of drum synthesis. individual drum sounds also benefit from being grouped to a single channel and being processed as a unit. We’ve chosen to delve a little bit deeper into the actual design of drums for this tutorial. respectively. be achieved through the careful use of samples. After using the Dangerous BAX EQ and Maag EQ4 plug-ins to add some colour to our drums. so you’ll soon be armed with more than just the simple skills of grabbing the same. This may still need a bit of work but. 78 | Ableton Live 2015 MT137. of course. It could simply be a case of inserting an EQ. it can also be the On the disc Accompanying example audio files included on the DVD Soon you’ll have more than just the basic skills of grabbing commonly used samples perfect ingredient to inspire a track to be taken into a unique direction. it can be difficult to understand what and why you should choose unless you have grasped the basic aesthetics of dubstep drum production.tut genre pt2. You first need to have an idea of the drums’ role: will they be a lead element. Let there be drums Although the blind pursuit of searching for drum samples can be a fruitful event for inspiration. Liam O’Mullane and Christopher Pearson now delve into the art of programming and producing drum sounds that tick all the boxes for the genre. Our own project drum sounds make use of a variety of techniques simultaneously: acoustic-based drum samples with FXpansion’s BFD3. the groove aspects of both drums and bass can now intertwine and move forward together. or will they serve as a backing track to support a leading bass or melodic line? These types of questions need to be addressed in your choice of both sound source and programming FOCUS ON. groove. and home-made. commonly used samples that many aspiring producers reach for today. Creating your own drum sounds is not only satisfying. specifically for colour. standing forward in your mix and providing constant interest. which is just tickling the signal with a few decibels of reduction to keep dynamics options open for the mixing stage. which in turn helps them stand apart from the other mix elements. making it feel a little lifeless and over compressed. as long as it can unify the group as a whole by adding some form of unique tone. synthetic drums using FXpansion’s Tremor for some simple physical modelling techniques. quantization and the hows and whys of each. but we’ve chosen to use sources that give us more flexibility over dynamics and tonal shaping if it’s needed later in the mix.indd 78 FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:26 . I f you’ve absorbed the first part in this series (over the previous pages) you should be joining us with a solid bass idea. For instance. sampling.MTF Technique A track from scratch part 2: Dubstep beats Technique A track from scratch: Part 2 Dubstep beats Following on from the building blocks for bass design within the harder side of dubstep. as you’ll see. or at least a good starting point to tweak later. This is the point when you might insert various processing devices to add character to all drum elements as a whole. rather than enhance them..GUIDE DRUMS Like our bass elements from the first part in this series. These techniques can. inspiring each other as you go. the Transient Master by Native Instruments enabled us to soften any harsh transients.. So after a bit of trial and error (which we can’t encourage enough) we settled on using a combination of two EQs. ambience. we did try to use compression to glue our elements together but this suffocated the group. when it comes to drum design and programming. saturation or compression device. group all elements except for the kick and snare. 01 To give a good push-and-pull groove to your drum sound. Alternatively you can add a tiny snippet of noise or distortion. and driving rhythms and sounds can be explored. We needed something to give us a very simple part that wasn’t precious. Firstly we’re hitting a surface with a stick or a brush. 02 to help guide our bass creation process and govern an initial vibe. can be used to give your kick a tone to set it apart from the stock 909 kick that’s too commonplace. etc. During our initial bass-design stage. each individual drum element can be thought of and broken down into stages. techniques. adding more bite to the front end. or a fraction of a bright sample at the start to give it a more aggressive tone. Moderation is advised. Now we have our outlined bass. we can start to build our drum section to fit the project’s more focused direction. so sine and triangle waves are commonplace here. we hadn’t spent countless hours creating and processing drums that could’ve been wasted due to the bass creation taking us down other paths. 03 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT137. If your track is going to be quite sparse you’ll have more room in the mix to make each sound big and interesting. The groove can be shaped using the compressor’s attack and release times. The main oscillator should be fairly clean unless you want to go into a more hard-style tone of kick. and this is where you can be quite experimental and give your kick a unique body tone (as long as you use EQ shaping to keep this new sound in balance with your track).indd 79 | 79 11/02/2015 14:26 . As it is. guide drums were thrown into the project using a simple break sample or two You need to have an idea of the drums’ role: will they be a lead element or backing? With the weight aspect of your kick taken care of it’s time to consider adding some character. Various sounds such as toms. This will involve an oscillator having an immediate and severe drop in pitch created by an envelope. when using a more minimal bass section such as a dub-like sub or less manic-sounding synthesis for the bassline this opens up the opportunity to be more detailed. it didn’t matter. gated reverb tails. the drums need to provide space by being made sparse and infrequent in events. For instance. Set a compressor on this group to listen to the kick and snare on its side-chain so all surrounding sounds duck when these two play. Let’s think about the physics of hitting an object and how each stage affects the next. this kick can be given a more rounded tone by carefully increasing the attack time on the amp envelope. if the lead instrument is to be quite frantic and given the limelight in your track. ensuring there’s a focus of power in the right frequencies rather than overcrowding the mix with details. The science part Regardless of the style of drum sounds you have in mind for your project. If these drums didn’t fit how the bass was starting to sound. For more knock. start the kick at a higher pitch before its descent or add curve to the envelope. Alternatively.A track from scratch part 2: Dubstep beats Technique MTF MTF Step-by-Step Synthetic kick drum design The first element we usually deal with when synthesising a kick drum for dubstep is the fundamental impact sound.tut genre pt2. mass and volume. but creating drums with these factors in mind can help you produce very rich. and on the top end (to avoid harshness). Just program or record a filter sweep to minimise the drum sound so it has more impact when coming back in. A good trick to get a nice ping here is to set the pitch of a higher. which creates yet another reverberation. Their fundamental pitch will trend towards lower frequencies because our bass is full in frequency content and occupies much of the higher register. firing part of the sound into the air whilst the rest reverberates internally to its shell and casing dependant on its material. cymbal crash. As we’re working with electronic music it’s actually preferential to use something synthetic in nature for this initial transient hit as it keeps it pure.MTF Technique A track from scratch part 2: Dubstep beats MTF Step-by-Step Synthetic snare drum design For variation. rather than programming fills don’t forget that effect processing can also be quite useful too. To reiterate here. clear and up front.indd 80 Like the Kick Drum Design example. tonal layer to ascend so the pitch goes upwards when the impact goes down. deep sounds prominent mix space available is around the lower mids. around 100-300Hz. We’re not expecting you to get too scientific here. This means the only real Creating drums with these factors in mind can help you produce rich. We’ve made good use of low-pass filtering to create the odd spot of variation at the end of a musical phrase before a new section begins. stiffness. We shaped our acoustic drum sound in BFD3 by bringing forward the ambient mics and utilising their width and contrast with the synth layers to fill the stereo field. In our example the two synthesized hits for kick and snare are intended to represent the first impact strike or transient of a drum’s surface along with a little of its own ambience. to mimic the natural ambience from the skin and the shell of a drum in a real room. then high-pass it so any lower frequencies don’t clash with your existing impact sound. ride or even adding a large reverb tail to a trigger sound. Something to keep in mind for the mixing stage later down the line! Finally. deep and more natural sounds. A classic drum machine sound can also be achieved using white noise samples. We’ve tightened the body mic sounds with amp envelopes and tuned them by ear to help them gel with the synth layers. Similar tightening can be achieved through synth envelopes or careful volume control of samples. 01 The impact noise aspect of the snare itself can come from a noise oscillator by adding ring modulation or distortion to an existing synth hit. though the former is beyond the scope of this tutorial. 02 When working with a sparser drum track like our own. All of this then radiates out into the room. a long noise source can create a huge ambient type of sound when thinned out with a high-pass filter to avoid any mid-range clutter.tut genre pt2. This will hit higher in the frequency register from around 180Hz to 250Hz. but more tone can come from using an open hi-hat. add a very short 80 | Ableton Live 2015 MT137. 03 FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:26 . But however you add noise keep a close eye on your envelope duration (so it’s a tight impact sound). Again. in this particular genre a note of importance is that anything too high-frequency-based in the main drum hits may get lost in the mix due to being masked by our synth basses. Although we’ve chosen BFD3 for our tonal and ambient layers you can continue with synthesis or break samples to complete your drum tones. it’s usual to start designing a snare from its impact sound onwards. The body mics have been tightened with amplitude envelopes and tuned to be more ear-pleasing when layered over the synths. the skin then vibrates. or by using a sampled snare sound. white noise can work. We did. which helped highlight its punch. Compression and EQ Processing is always a subjective craft. Here we’re adding a rhythmic effect to a pad sound for one of our fills. in fact. That said. can fill out any uncomfortable gaps in bass or melody parts and help fill the space with new points of interest and tonal dynamics. A different use of width or panning on the reverbs can give a greater impression of size. mid-ranged element we have pulled back the mid frequencies on our synth layers in favour of allowing BFD3’s acoustic timbres to come through in this region of frequencies. These are great to fine tune the start and end points so transients don’t mask each other and to make fade outs as smooth as possible. especially in our example track. dynamic elements can also be born from the use of empty space.A track from scratch part 2: Dubstep beats Technique MTF FOCUS ON.indd 81 | 81 11/02/2015 14:26 . amount of distortion built into the synth. Your choice of percussion is quite open and can be made from any source. say that bass can take on the roll of percussion in this genre! But percussion.PERCUSSION TRICKS In most cases. therefore actually increasing apparent dynamics. Groove and bass Everyone associates an infectious groove with drums.tut genre pt2. percussion leans towards being used for creating fills and phrase endings in the harder side of dubstep rather than being a constant element used to drive the rhythm section forward. and wide reverb to the appropriate layers individually. This is best used as a shaping tool on your kick and snare groups individually with custom settings as required. so a healthy amount of experimentation in this area is always advisable. and it’s often easy to fall prey to thinking that this is the FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT137. This too can help to feed the feel and groove of your track. tend to be all-consuming in respect to the frequency range used and how rhythmical they can be.. when used wisely. A more airy sound can be achieved by only compressing the impact transient layer per drum. Even using rhythmic tools such as a tremolo device on non-drum elements in your track can be a percussive tool. however. add overdrive to produce some sizzle in the top-end of our impact layer using a very slight Although we’ve talked a lot about synth envelopes. and silence can be golden in these circumstances. In our case. because the bass sound is the aggressive. This is mainly down to the fact that basslines.. roomy reverb which can have a brighter timbre. don’t forget that most DAWs have audio sample volume envelopes as well. You could. Though compression tends to have a reputation of destroying dynamics it can be used with a slow attack and heavy gain reduction so that only the tail after the transient is reduced. The main difference is the impact synth layer should have a dampened sound in the high end so that it maintains its thud-like character and the shell sound has a slightly longer. but some basic guidelines are always a good place to start. Sometimes the music just needs to breathe. as it leaves any additional layers or ambience effects free and open sounding while the transient layer is still slightly enhanced. to highlight the fact? This kind of thinking will give more power and energy to a mix. MTF Turn to p88 for part 3 of Liam and Christopher’s dubstep guide. Moving forward Now we’ve outlined the steps we’ve taken in creating our bass and drum tracks you should be in a good position to move forward towards completing your track (in its rough form. For example. Groove can also be explored through the use of delay lines. dynamic hits in-between. a traditional dub beat will give a sense of sounding like 4/4 hard-style music even though the third beat of the pattern is a snare rather than a kick. at least). Using triplet tape delays on some drum hits can add to the groove and work in place of drum fills at phrase endings. and left lighter. but be sure to experiment as sometimes you’ll find it can bring a track together. Whether your track will benefit is entirely dependant on the song. Some beats will simply have a thin crash-cymbal-sounding layer alongside each drum to create a large. it can be a simple matter of just placing a bass part slightly before a beat. Then. They can even be used to add rhythmical ghost notes to a pattern. These grooves are instantly recognisable as they are commonly used in commercial music as a base rhythm or a means for variation. explore adding cymbal hits slightly earlier on the grid for a sense of immediacy or slightly later for a lazy. sparse sound. But this doesn’t have to be the extremes of placing a bass sound in the biggest gaps between drum hits. 03 FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:27 . and this works especially well when turning off quantization from the delay unit and using your ear as a guide for tempo instead. laid-back feel. there are emulations available which offer non-sync’d timing settings in milliseconds and dulled-out delays over time.tut genre pt2. Our crash and rides also fall on the beat for a more driving feel. Alternatively. and the groove now feels much more natural and less grid-static and sterile. It’s important to be mindful that each new element added works at its best to enhance the song. We’ve used velocity changes and side-chain compression to emphasise the main drum hits. When added. in time with the bass part. Classically. 82 | Ableton Live 2015 MT137. Next time we’ll be looking more closely at developing our existing ideas towards an arrangement and adding melodic content. each new element in a track can either be placed to work alongside a drum part or create a new feel by working rhythmically between drum hits. leaving space for the bass to breathe in the mids. bar getting your hands on a real tape delay device. only aspect involved in creating it. 02 use of delays and this carried through to current-day dubstep. The fact is. 01 The feel of your pattern can also be dramatically changed when you explore either swing or triplet quantization. In the meantime be sure to explore what can be achieved with the tools we’ve demonstrated so far. This can be roughly emulated by low-pass filtering a delay that runs in parallel and automating its cut-off to go low over time. the roots of dub relied heavily on the Every sound in your track can enhance or destroy an groove you’ve created The simplest of beat patterns can have a rock feel to them as the kick falls at the start of each bar and the snare in the middle on the third beat of the bar. every sound in your track can enhance or destroy an existing groove you may have created. This is something to stay vigilant of when adding any new elements to your track.indd 82 If you’re aiming for a more pounding movement in your track. creating a more human feel and a more classic dub delay from a time before ‘Sync’.MTF Technique A track from scratch part 2: Dubstep beats MTF Step-by-Step Pattern sequencing For an authentic dub delay. why not let the kick drum hit early here. 99 with free DVD. Digital version £5.LOGIC PRO X On sale now £8.musictech. Available at WHSmith (UK). Canada.indd 1 11/02/2015 09:21 . Barnes & Noble (USA) and all good bookstores in Australia. Or order online at www.99.net/tag/focus MTF37. and throughout Europe.ad. 02 02 LESS IS SOMETIMES MORE Drums are probably the most technically difficult of all instruments to record properly. but a more lo-fi kind of garage guitar track might sound better with just a few well-placed microphones picking up a grungier sound. This usually offers a good. as this will result in a cleaner sound. well-balanced sound. or fewer for a trashier one (right). Get the inside track with our essential advice… RAISE YOUR AMPS UP It can be a good idea where possible to place combo amps on a chair or a stand to isolate them from the floor.MTF 20 Pro Tips Instrument mic’ing Instrument Mic’ing Tips It’s the most vital technique to master. firing at the join of the neck and body. If you’re dealing with amp cabs and heads they’re usually too big to place on top of something. Also try placing amps away from walls or the corners of rooms. This also means fewer drum 03 Getting your amp off the floor will eliminate unwanted dirt (above). moving the mic gradually further up the neck will increase the high frequencies captured and lessen the bottom end. though you could consider a couple of crates. 01 84 | Ableton Live 2015 MT139. lots of ambient room mics and so on. If the space you are recording in isn’t perfect you can try boxing the amp and mic in using sofa cushions or. like you sometimes use at gigs to raise amps up to direct more sound at the crowd. as capturing a great sound is key to producing a top-notch mix. With any live recording. Placing the mic closer to the guitar will create a more intimate and dry sound. at a pinch. Moving the mic further away from the guitar will create more ambience but perhaps at the risk of losing some definition.indd 84 More mics for a cleaner sound. 03 FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:40 . experiment with moving the mic around to see what works best for your particular situation. and though it captures some of the power coming from the sound hole it doesn’t dominate the signal. whereas moving the mic closer to the sound hole will add warmth and depth if your sound is overly bright. as this tends to reduce the likelihood of a booming effect that will be picked up by the mic and colour the signal. As a general rule. ACOUSTIC GUITAR POSITIONING A good starting place for recording acoustic guitars is to use a cardioid mic placed around 40cm from the guitar. but your approach should reflect what you’re trying to achieve. a duvet. A slick pop record might well call for upwards of ten drum mics.Tips. This will have the effect of creating a kind of acoustic shielding that should remove unwanted room ambience from the recording if you are having problems with reflections. with the possible exception that you would never really record bass amps in stereo because bass almost always has to sit at the centre of the stereo field. MAN… Recording an acoustic piano can be particularly tricky and you will almost always want two microphones to capture the full range of the instrument: one nearer the bass end of the body. Moved off centre. A cello is played at a different angle so you will find that pointing the mic more or less at 90° towards the bridge should capture it pretty accurately. Mono mic’ing is often sufficient for many tracks.Instrument mic’ing 20 Pro Tips MTF tracks to juggle in the mix. and moving towards the edge smooths it off and introduces more bass. Some people even place a mic around the back of the piano for a slightly different effect. which you don’t want if you’re trying to get a nice deep sound. This can result in reduced bass capture. Recording from a little further away captures a similar sound to that which the listener hears (below left). 07 USE MICS AND PICKUPS If you want a close mic’ed acoustic guitar sound but also some room ambience you could either try an omni pattern mic. To get a better ensemble effect when recording several players. In the case of smaller instruments such as the violin. the strings and sound holes are facing upwards. or using two separate mics. Use multiple microphones for more options (below right). one placed close by and one further away (being sure to listen for phasing problems). You can even try recording strings with stereo mics for a little more flexibility at the mix stage. positioning it around 6-12in in front of the speaker in the cabinet. You can also try adding a second ambient mic that you blend with the first. For an upright piano you will probably need to open the top lid. and one nearer the top. 06 PIANO. Another thing to bear in mind is that a lot of general purpose mics have a bass roll-off built in to deal with the proximity effect caused by close mic’ing vocals and some other sources. 04 ATTACHED 05 STRINGS When you record any kind of stringed instrument such as a violin or cello. so it’s best to angle a mic from slightly above. try a few mics placed in more ambient positions a little further away. Bleed can be minimised through careful placement and also reduced using EQ after recording. but it’s not the only option you have. Positioning a single mic correctly is 08 08 IT’S ALL IN THE POSITIONING A mic pointed at the centre of a speaker will give you a brighter sound. HOW LOW CAN YOU GO? Recording bass is much the same in terms of technique as recording guitars. As ever. though you’re always likely to get some signal leaking between them. and moving back a little will soften things. but it’s usually not a huge problem if a little signal has bled between some of your drum mics. think about where the sound is actually being generated. presence and so on. though also less overall control of the drum sound. Any phasing problems should become apparent as you monitor. rockier guitar tone when the mic points straight at the speaker. If it’s switchable you can always turn this off but it can be a good idea to use either a non-vocal dynamic mic that has a flat low-end response or a dedicated bass or kick drum microphone. Distance will affect the 06 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT139. Mics positioned closer to the floor will generally provide a bit more low end. Bleed is something that some producers get obsessed with and it can be lessened by using very directional mics. adjusting the distance from the player to control the balance of direct sound and room ambience.indd 85 | 85 11/02/2015 14:40 . but if you remove the front panel entirely you should be aware that this dramatically alters the way the air resonates and fundamentally changes the sound of the piano – even though this can sometimes be an interesting effect to go for. You may want to angle two mics in from above. the tone softens a little. moving each around until you hit the precise spot that works for you. close mic’ing will give a more intense and intimate feel. or place one near the ear level of the player so the sound they’re hearing is what gets captured. 05 Mic positioning can be crucial when recording guitar amplifiers (above). Close mic’ing an amp is the most common technique for capturing a harder.Tips. if you have someone to play guitar while you arrange the mics. At the very worst. an inexpensive microphone and a staple of many studios. If you do. 12 QUIRKS OF AMPS AND SPEAKERS 10 THE On a multi-speaker guitar cab not every cone will sound the same. Ideally you would want to have someone to move the mics for you until you find the best position for the microphone you end up choosing.indd 86 PERCUSSION TRICKS When recording percussion such as bongos or a djembe you will get very different results depending on your mic placement. Some are different sizes. Combine it with some acoustic treatment like an isolator and some clever positioning and you’re able to achieve a lot with a fairly simple mic. but the truth is that a well-chosen all-round condenser mic can fulfill a wide variety of studio roles from vocals and electric guitar recording through to percussion and acoustic guitar. and of course each has its own characteristics. stand in front of the amp and move the mics until you get the right sound. But recording it won’t affect the mic’d signal and it costs nothing to record an extra audio track. mic them up and then feed the signal to the player through headphones. Royer R-121 and Neumann U 67. This way the sound gets captured accurately and the guitarist can play with feeling. CLASSIC MICS The classic mic for recording electric guitar is the Shure SM57. but having two mics in different places sometimes gives you greater flexibility when it comes to mixing. you can just not use it if it doesn’t sound good. Other popular microphones include the Sennheiser MD 421-II. crank it up. remember that its sound may vary between cones (above). set up several mics 3-6in from the grille of the speaker. And while you can fix some of this stuff in the mix with EQ and gating it’s better to try and stop it happening in the first place. listen to them at a sensible volume and audition each one. Your drummer should ideally have some kind of isolation from other players since drums are so loud. If you don’t have an assistant then put the guitar in the headphone mix. A bit of hi-hat leaking into the tom mic isn’t a huge problem but lead guitar getting into the bass recording definitely is. blending a little of this signal with the mic recording can add weight and body when balanced correctly. One tip for guitars is to place amps in a different room. Then. If you are able.Tips. 11 THE CHALLENGES OF PLAYING TOGETHER If you are recording multiple musicians in a single space. Another interesting idea is to mic the front and back of an openbacked cabinet. Retaining each mic’s recordings on separate tracks will enable you to wait until the mix stage to balance them properly. so it’s better to record people at the same time if you can. A mic firing at the top of the skin will capture the 14 FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:40 . bleed can become a real issue. 11 Using acoustic isolation like sE’s SPACE can help you get the most out of your mic and the space you’re working in. t. This is all much easier. The DI’ed sound produced by piezo pickups captures only the sound of the strings. of course. or there may be some A well-chosen all-round condenser mic can fulfil a wide variety of studio roles 10 KEEP IT SIMPLE People obsess about microphones sometimes. very little of the body and none of the room.MTF 20 Pro Tips Instrument mic’ing fine. but there’s little or no bleed in the room itself. They are often used in combination with a second mic and the two channels either recorded to a single track or double tracked and layered together later. 13 When an amp has more than one cone. 12 IT’S JUST A PHASE Check stereo mics for phase cancellation by panning them to the same spot and listening in mono. 09 stereo effects in use that are modulating the way that signal is directed to different cones. be sure to start by placing the mics at an equal distance from the speaker itself and reversing the phase of the rear mic. In some situations. Sometimes.bone RB 500. recording everyone separately really kills the vibe of a track. 86 | Ableton Live 2015 MT139. and so tends to result in an unnatural-sounding recording. Taking a dry feed from an amp’s direct out gives you more options when mixing guitars (below left). 15 THE LID 16 LIFT Simply raising or lowering the lid of a grand piano can dramatically alter the way sound is picked up. If you want one to be further away for a specific kind of sound you can phase align the two parts in your sequencer afterwards. then flip the phase back and you should have a nice thick sound. 17 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT139. Bring the mics up on the desk and route them both to one track on tape or in your DAW. Flip one out of phase and balance the two channels until the sound is really thin.indd 87 | 87 11/02/2015 14:40 . 18 CLIP-ON MICS Some instruments are particularly hard to capture with a conventional mic: flutes and some other brass. Some people use both mic positions at the same time and then balance the two in the mix for a really percussive but meaty overall sound. which can produce a sound much more like what guitarists hear while playing. For serious studio recording you’ll want to spend a bit of your budget on one of these. 19 ONE DIRECTION Directionality can be crucial. With a Get a more consistent sound with certain instruments by using clip-on mics (right). as can moving a microphone closer to the strings or further away. MTF 20 20 17 DON’T BE AFRAID TO DI When recording anything through an amp it can be a good idea to take a feed from the direct output of the amp. A mic pointed up inside the drum body from underneath will capture the booming from inside the drum. such as trumpets and saxophones. Some mics have switchable polar patterns and others are just directional. An omnidirectional mic will generally offer a more roomy sound. Record both at the same time and balance them afterwards.Tips. as the DI will give you all the bottom end whereas the speaker might offer more character. This is worth trying if your guitar amp is smaller. WORK THE ANGLES One common guitar amp mic’ing technique is to point one mic at the centre of the speaker and angle another across the face of the first mic towards the speaker edge. remembering that you may need to reverse the phase of one of the sources. 18 USE STEREO… CAREFULLY If two acoustic guitar mics are different distances away from the guitar you can encounter phasing problems. A mic pointed up inside the drum body will capture the booming from inside lower lid you’ll get a more intimate sound. and with the lid raised. Dynamic mics such as the SM57 are often used to record amplified instruments thanks to their directionality and high SPL tolerance. more percussive slapping motion of the hand. Get creative with dynamic mics (below right). a bigger effect and more room ambience. but it will be worth it.Instrument mic’ing 20 Pro Tips MTF harder. if it has one. where the players move around. There are categories of clip-on mic and they remain fixed to the instrument rather than the performer having to play into a static mic. If you want to get really creative you could try placing one mic about 30cm from the neck and another firing over the player’s shoulder. Since grand pianos have huge soundboards you will almost always need to place one mic near the lower strings and one higher up to ensure you capture all the signal properly. but a directional mic should reject sound from the back and sides and just record what you point it at. so many producers make sure they are equidistant to avoid the problem. to record on a separate track and then blend in with the mic’d takes. or just the compositional style and feel. There’s a lot of creative potential in working with sounds at their most fundamental level. thereby altering the groove to emphasise the bass. synthetic equivalent. often classic. Feel free to start wherever the track takes you. Great for when you need quick inspiration. For example. Liam O’Mullane and Christopher Pearson share more tips on creative exploration and the important decision making required when shaping initial ideas into full song sections.e.or 16-bar fills to break up each phrase of your bassline. O ur first two instalments have taken you through being mindful of various production techniques and creative possibilities when carving your own sound in the dirty dubstep business. and it is open territory that’s well worth exploring. Zomboy’s Survivors shows influence of techno and metal. encouraging heavy use of synth arps. open up your preferred music resource and have a listening session on a particular genre. fills & fx Rome wasn’t built in a day.indd 88 On the disc Accompanying example audio files included on the DVD work you’ve done already. This can help create a distinct musical element for the listener to latch onto. Electro swing is a great example of fusing new and old. and good craft takes time and patience. But if some sounds are good but not right for the track. Then look at emulating the style of sounds available. Our next process is to develop these ideas and extend their playable duration. be efficient with your efforts and save them out as presets to use another time or bounce them as audio to store as samples. Whereas parts one and two of this series have focused more on the technicalities of music production. our bass idea might be completely re-worked by the final part in this series. The only thing tying these elements together is the unified focus on a heavy bass drop and a snare on the third beat – aside from this you’re free to explore new musical hybrids as you like. 88 | Ableton Live 2015 MT138.MTF Technique A track from scratch part 3: Riffs. But this all goes to show that experimentation can not only work for a song. If you’re not sure on where to take this. This type of editing instantly changes much more than just the kick FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:31 .tut genre pt3. fills & fx Technique A track from scratch: Part 3 Dubstep riffs. Skrillex has used obvious dub reggae influences in tracks such as Make It Bun Dem and Ragga Bomb. their notes. genres. hard distorted lead synths and triplet rhythms. replacing older sounds with a new-age. as the drum changes can be enough to keep the listener engaged. This could be a genre already proving successful in musical charts around the globe or a nod back to older times – whatever it is. it’s possible and sometimes favourable to revisit simpler and often overlooked techniques. just go with it and do what you must to get all other elements up to this new standard. The influences of trance and hardstyle are very popular right now. so whether it’s an instrument sound. don’t be afraid to throw away bad ideas if they simply don’t do justice to the There are many approaches you can take when it comes to expanding ideas BLURRED LINES Much like the sample-based melting pot that was jungle in the 1990s. some techniques can quickly become quite complex and place a fair amount of strain on your computer if you’re piling on effects or using various sound sources. and using endless effects chains will degrade the quality of your sound source. i. so don’t be afraid to dig out music that hasn’t glimpsed the mainstream for a long time. If a new idea works. dubstep is also a musical genre that constantly borrows the vibes of other. So take note of the simpler things in life where possible and put to use our tips on musicality and further editing your initial ideas. but we’ll focus on drum patterns first. Aside from adding the usual eight. you can find inspiration by listening. dense musical-sounding pads. it can be good practice to edit the groove of your drums in a repeat of your initial pattern to alter the feel of the drum and bass combination already established. In our example track we changed the position of the kick drum for our second section to hit in unison with the bass instead of a beat later as before. it can also be the seed to start the next new sub-genre. so be prepared to take your time and be open to a change in direction if you create something that raises the game of your song. If you’ve been with us so far you should have a balancedsounding song section for both drums and bass. and it’s impossible to avoid the scourge of trance and chip-tune influenced tracks in any mainstream charts these days. If you’ve done this several times already you’ll be piling up your own arsenal of sounds to cherry-pick the next time around. We’ll then look at exploring other foreground and background melodic information to take the song elsewhere and aid arrangement while musically guiding the listener. so we’ll start with the least CPU-hungry options. or an over-laboured pattern you’ve programmed. We’ll continue to develop our sound as we move further towards the final stage of mixing but remember that things can change. Open your mind There are many approaches to take when it comes to extending your initial ideas. When exploring variation. This technique works well when the bass plays a second repeat of itself. Multiplying this patch and creating chords across tracks can lead to you creating your very own. if you’re keeping your instruments live. This editing technique can be applied to automation as well and works particularly well when altering the placement of rhythmic data. more ambient sounds. Our example track sports a main lead sound that is very simple in its creation – just saw waves in a synth that have been detuned and distorted with soft saturation and embellished with reverb. driving bass drops to the slightest of ambient sections. From here. write new parts around them so there’s a mix of new and already established material for the listener to latch onto. Dance music as a whole is based around sounds being looped and stuttered in a variety of ways. This can help create a new layer to embellish what’s already there.A track from scratch part 3: Riffs. fills & fx Technique MTF placement – it has the power to change the groove of the whole track when done with care and is a very simple edit to implement. they need to have some musical relationship to each other or they just won’t gel. After the reverb. Even seemingly disassociated FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT138. start the pattern from beat three rather than beat one. This technique is best used when melodic content isn’t overly complex. and riser sounds and other effects can carry forms of musical pitch to help the listener get a sense of key without even realising. Even when a track appears to be made of purely horrible sounds and noises. or even programming a sampler from sounds you’ve committed to audio already. Drums can be pitched musically. as it allows time for the reverb to be heard. Keeping all automation intact helps to gel new layers together. Copying automation from other areas of your song can also be handy for recreating certain sweet spots between parameters to then edit and move on from. duplicate it to a new track and then edit it to take it to another timbre. compression really helped to give a sense of size to the patch by emphasising and swelling over time. In addition to large leads you might want to consider backing and overlaying them with delicate arpeggiated synths and other lighter. i. explore the extremes of high or low octave notes to dramatically change an instrument’s timbre. MIDI clips can be edited to small quantized-sized lengths. Remember: MIDI should not be overlooked in favour of effects chains. try to change the position of bass notes around the drums to get a feel for how they can play off of each other and create new rhythms or to extend the section in focus. and from there subtle automation edits can start to give even more movement between layers. Take time to think about these contrasts and how they can complement each other. as this can soon result in tens of instruments with processing chains being active at the same time. so we always advise the use of macros to group particular parameters together and make them much easier to manage effectively. It’s pretty much like playing around with the triggering and speed of an LFO or envelope on a synth – copy a highlighted portion of data from here to there. especially if you use panning and/or mid/side processing to place each string in its own space. When it comes to bass parts. inserting and reversing are all techniques you’re probably familiar with when working on audio files.e. Chopping and changing Though cutting. A simple way to create strings is to use a monophonic synthesizer with a relatively simple sine. A bass will often break-up below a certain pitch and this effect can be used as an occasional accenting tool as it has a differing power when compared to the instrument playing in its strongest area of pitch. As well as trying to vary the notes of an existing riff for musical change as it progresses. extend its duration (if your DAW supports this) and so on. Again. LEADS. Higher pitched notes can be a good way to add a dynamic too. there’ll be a handful of new sweet spots to discover through the exploration of pitch and parameter manipulation. Re-edits can apply to the instruments themselves as well. so try slicing them up and re-ordering them as you would an audio Musicality plays a big role in even the most seemingly unmusical dubstep tracks file. Don’t forget that too many automation lanes can be a real headache to deal with. Just be careful. change its shape. and we often take an existing instrument.indd 89 | 89 11/02/2015 14:31 . triangle or saw wave pitched up high to emulate a bow stroking a string. moving. Repeat some of these smaller parts for a looped effect. which will put a lot of load on your computer. rather convincing. For example. this seemingly simple technique can help your elements progress through a track without getting too complex from the production side of things. adding a long-tailed reverb as an insert or send with around 75-80% wet on the mix can give a quite realistic single-string sound. string ensembles. and you can copy the automation from these sections to new ideas so you’re starting from the same tone. look to approach your MIDI patterns in much the same way. Add a little movement from a modulation wheel or slow LFO for vibrato to add more depth to the final result.PADS AND AMBIENCE From intense. and this should therefore be how you see your MIDI patterns. Next. The knowledge Musicality plays a big role in even the most seemingly unmusical-sounding dubstep tracks. or try moving a small number of notes from part of your existing idea to paste into a different location within a new clip. you might have two or three distinct timbres that you’ve created Although we only used two layers to create our choral pad sound we managed to create a sense of depth and movement by picking the right sounds that would modulate each other through phase when detuned. Although some songs will go for a heavy musical section that stands apart from the bass drop there’s also room for some musicality to aid the bass section no matter how ugly it may appear to be on the surface. or even help you find a completely new instrument that might complement the first when not over-layered. through automation for one instrument. as the instrument that is usually more bass orientated can suddenly gain a lot of midrange information and a dramatic shift in character. Similarly. music needs dynamics.tut genre pt3. When you have an interesting pattern going. We want to sequence an interesting rhythm first. Remember that less can be more. Like all aspects of heavy sound-design. but the type of effects you choose is completely fair game. You want something that’s musically interesting here. EQ and some master buss-like processing as well. and we do this through further effects processing. bounce.MTF Technique A track from scratch part 3: Riffs.tut genre pt3. Don’t introduce sounds that need major mix correction. so be mindful of There are no set rules when it comes to adding musical layers to accompany your bass where you place each new sound. Come together On listening to our track’s basses. Experimentation is key to finding complementary parts that help inspire progression. this can yield large timbrel shifts and get you into the ‘alien voice’ territory as well. The main requirement is that you can sequence individual slices and then move the start point of each slice’s content. If you have the option to also play with the formants of your sound through your available transposing tools. The chords you hear on the intro are actually the initial ideas we developed. We’ve also used heavy sidechain compression from the drums. which again began its life as a continuous sequence while we figured out the best notes to use. we stripped it back to play less frequently. When it comes to vocal manipulation. This is why some tracks. so you might want to edit pitch to create a melody line of sorts. musical notes are divided by frequency. which are generally left to be heard in the state the performer intended. as this will give you more to work with. so for instance. as vowels can take on a completely different tone when reversed. We highlight this by changing the drums’ groove in some sections to match. The idea here is that you should be able to hum along to your track through most of its FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:32 . The latter approach requires quite a lot of trial and error but the fruits of your labour can result in a critical hook line for your track. and we’ve kept things pretty sparse in our example track – we have a prominent lead synth of a few chords tied together. Musicality is also an important aspect of the mix process. The key element here is to try and get as much timbrel range out of your vocals as possible. Also make good use of pitch and direction. and fall into two main camps: fully performed vocals and lyrics. This is quite handy when we need to remove the embarrassment factor of hearing our own voices! We like to add mix processing here too. To 90 | Ableton Live 2015 MT138. process. and this will then be rendered down to audio. giving it more impact when it does play. later in the arrangement. Groove is an easy thing to lose if you don’t stay focussed and keep that bin handy for dropping ideas if they don’t aid the track.indd 90 IMAGE BOX When extending your bass ideas it’s easy to assume this needs to be done with editing alone. keep the timing interesting we’ve used a less-thanpredictable point for chord changes. and this can be done on an audio track or after slicing it into a MIDI sampler if preferred. first explore pitch transposition to see if the vocal recordings slot better into your current production aesthetic when pitched up or down. explore pitch alongside the start point of each sound. although well produced on the surface. We’ve also added an arpeggiated synth part over our lead. Next it’s time to chop the audio up. still don’t seem to sound completely in the pocket – a common occurrence in electronic genres. as our ears need this to make sense of it. cohesive musical phrase. fills & fx FOCUS ON… VOCAL MANGLING Vocals are a common feature in dubstep tracks these days. the better. just explore the potential pitch of each sound (trial octaves too) and then decide which sounds best. Musical elements can have just as much interaction with your drums as bass parts do. The more creative you can be here. then move the content of each event to find the best place for each vocal sound to start – with audio tracks this is called slip-editing. You can punch in certain effects to be sequenced as part of your pattern using automation. You can search for vocal samples from a variety of sample packs to begin these techniques. bass parts and melodic content all interact with each other for a sense of sonic and musical dynamics. so it’s often time well spent. so we confined the busier content to the intro and breakdowns to help fill things out. so choosing the right pitch will mean you’re letting the mix take care of itself to a certain extent. lead and arp as a whole sequence you’ll notice that all of the separate elements work together to create a single. so don’t just fill up each bar in your pattern with a constant barrage of vocal edits – leave space for other sounds to come through the mix. follow this process until you have something of interest – edit. and repeat as necessary. Once your audio is ready to use. Then. So we’ll add compression. it’s not often that we’ll stumble across a good pattern and idea straight away. You don’t need to understand music theory to pitch your sounds in the right place. This makes the drums. but there’s no reason why you can’t continue to make use of your instrument’s sweet-spots through a controller to jam out new ideas for where your sounds can go. singing. or heavily manipulated vocal parts that sound nothing like the original recordings. and something to keep an ear out for. Use dry/wet controls to balance out your processing if you want to retain some of the original vocal character for an overall consistency in timbre between samples. Its notes help to highlight the lead further whilst also creeping into the upper register of the mix. bass sounds should have a harmonic relationship with each other. or general weird noises which on their own won’t sound like much to work with. a ring-mod only turns on for one slice of your overall vocal pattern. especially if these vocals are home grown. etc. so although they are long and sustained they actually only play at full volume for a very brief moment in time. and just moving the start marker for each slice in a sampler creates the same effect. These can be anything from spoken word ideas. and be wary of building up frequency conflicts in the mix – key is key here! Anything goes There’s no set rule when it comes to adding musical layers to accompany your bass. The idea is to make this vocal sound like we’ve sampled it from elsewhere so that it has that richness of sound from the outset to work with. after all. Once you’ve established an idea that seems to work in your track it’s time to add more texture. but it made more sense to keep them sparser in the main drop to simplify and create space. Also explore the duration of your sounds so you have a few variations to work with. but we prefer to get the mic out and do a continuous recording session while we explore different vocal ideas to use. though. This took quite a while due to experimenting with a mass of editing techniques. try to map parameters to macros or snapshots so it’s easier to automate them. employing simple techniques such as tuning the drums and finding musical content through your choice of FX can help to really solidify a track into a particular key. Our example is quite progressive in terms of the song sections we have so far. This makes a big difference to whether or not listeners find a track engaging. flip and the ability to re-scale the duration of a highlighted number of notes. A good place to start replicating this type of arrangement can come from copying an earlier section and making edits. 02 Destination anywhere… We’ve covered drums. This new section is used as a prelude to the breakdown.A track from scratch part 3: Riffs. Sections like this can often be used by DJs to mix out of tracks – another thing to keep in mind. breakdown. We prefer to get stuck into a few instruments at parameter level and explore automation editing in much the same way as we work with MIDI.tut genre pt3. and adding any other sounds required to aid the arrangement. and something we’ll cover more in depth when looking at finalising our arrangement. All of this experimental play gave us a slightly percussive vocal element that we could carry through to the breakdown. insert. It’s important to note that without this ‘hum’ approach you might find an audience to be disengaged. For instance. 32 or 64 bars. paste. We have an intro section. though. Even though these methods may be subtle. fills & fx Technique MTF sections. Cubase (pictured here) has some of the most comprehensive tools for this task. bridging song sections with effects. stretch and edit automation and you’ll be surprised by how much range is available from each instrument. 01 It’s easy to get stuck in a jam with automation when trying to create a lot of different tones from a handful of synths. MTF Step-by-Step Three steps to better instrumentation Time to face the change In dubstep it’s common to make fundamental changes to sections after 16. Here we added a new main arpeggiated synth in the same key but altered the melody to fill the frequency range and kept our bass elements minimal. such as cutting all musical elements to let the bass lead the track for a while. bass and musicality through parts one to three. MTF Different DAWs offer different levels of MIDI editing functionality. You can also go for an A/B format that moves between one main bass idea and another while editing each repeat to give them unique variation. but most DAWs will offer features such as reverse. and part four of our dirty dubstep series (over the page) will look at the arrangement. we might later develop this by overlaying percussion to highlight this section further. but we ended up with an interesting-sounding alien vocal part. and breakdowns.indd 91 | 91 11/02/2015 14:32 . delivering a softer entrance to the upcoming ambience. Try not to get too distracted with the idea of having a vast range of instruments to work with. do still aim to create a full musical phrase with them by using different sounds and sections. but this doesn’t mean it needs to be directly obvious. Copy. then copied the drums over to a new section. second edit and a middle-eight section to change the feel of the track and introduce a new focal element. It seems people need some form of musicality to connect with. 03 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT138. but this could change. There’s still much to do before we reach the finishing post. and you should now have at least a rough idea of where your track is heading or even what it will sound like on completion. If you can. Alongside the new melody line we recorded and mangled some vocals to add a new texture to the track. which can be used to manipulate your existing ideas for variation. To create the latter we studied the musical notes used throughout our intro and main sections. no matter what style of sounds you’ve used. main drop. Then we’ll finally look at mixing and pre-mastering (p96). build-ups. In fact. a simple duplication of the parts when laying your arrangement out is a good start. This unified TRANSITION EDITS Once a track has a fuller form you can step back and listen to it as a whole before making decisions on what might need to be nipped and tucked for further improvement. There is a reason for this over an apparent laziness – a focal or memorable motif from the main drop in some form can help an audience identify the upcoming FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:41 . So whereas the traditional club mix might have a long. and so on. Although the second repeat of the drop may not be strictly identical to the first time it’s played. sweeping sound to cover the transition.e. this format is traditionally six or more minutes in duration and extends the ideas from a shorter three-minute ‘radio friendly’ version. The surrounding sections are then designed around it to guide the listener on their journey. though. but with this comes the need to have strong ideas that will catch the listener’s attention from the very outset. Because DJs tend to play mix-friendly tracks and shun the trickier side of dance music. instead introduce the sweeping sound before the next section begins. over time this has forced producers into more simplistic arrangements to be sure their music is playable. or musically associated with.tut genre pt4. Intros are obviously a precursor of what’s to come later in the track. This will create suspense by stripping down the track’s drive for a moment to have another sound sweep through before a new section starts. but we’ll get to that later on. or removing some complex content so there’s a sense of breath in the song’s density. especially with dubstep. Bearing this in mind. this penultimate part in our dirty dubstep series will focus on taking our meat and turning it into a full. Many dirty dubstep tracks these days only last around four-and-a-half minutes. Though the format for a club mix hasn’t changed that much the duration has. from intro to ending.indd 92 approach is down to how DJs have increasingly become centre stage in the industry over the last 30 years. song arrangements are becoming more and more universal these days. This shorter duration also means that the songs are more radio friendly. In the beginning (Above) Here we’ve borrowed parts from the breakdown section and teased them in beforehand through simplifying their content and fading them in to smooth over the transition. drop. breakdown. These can both be used. To achieve this you can play with a few techniques such as using a slowly creeping. alternative drop. Classically termed a ‘club’ or ‘DJ friendly’ mix. multiple breakdowns or none later on. but leading sounds tend to be borrowed from. i.MTF Technique A track from scratch part 4: Arrangements Technique A track from scratch: Part 4 Dubstep arrangements Ready to lay it all out? Liam O’Mullane and Christopher Pearson guide you through the twists and turns of a successful dubstep arrangement and get you one step closer to your final product… I f you’ve followed us from part one you’ll be aware that there are many ways to start a track from scratch. for clarity’s sake we’ll talk you through each section in a linear fashion. Regardless of how you go about the task of composition it’s a rarity to write in the order that the song plays. On the disc Accompanying example audio files included on the DVD It’s a rarity to compose all the parts in the order that the song plays The ‘stock’ format Although there are distinct sonic and rhythmic differences between this sub-genre of dubstep and other forms of club-friendly dance music. now it needs to get to the point pretty quickly. It’s more likely that you’ll write from the meat outwards. alternative drop. but instead you’re borrowing parts from the section to come. outro. for instance. Although it’s rare to carry out arrangement work in the running order a track is built. which inevitably means they cut to the chase quicker. This is especially useful to help smooth a drastic change that’s about to happen by preparing the listener to some degree. Transitions between song sections are one of these decisions and they need to be smooth and unobtrusive. drawn-out introduction that enables the DJ to mix the track in for a while before anything major happens. 92 | Ableton Live 2015 MT139. Another approach is similar to how you can borrow parts of a main drop to tease in an intro. from the first bar to the last. but you should get the idea of the order in which each section is introduced. The DJ uses this section as a metronome for mixing and also helps the audience stay in sync with the track should it be played from the beginning – rewind! Introductions usually include some unique sonic elements. First let’s break down the format above and separate each part into their respective functions. This isn’t a strict rule as there may be a breakdown before the drop. you could simplify drum editing a bar or two before the end of a section. and where a drummer may play a fill. drop. a main drop’s hook. You might start with a musical idea that inspires a song or maybe a bass hook that’s just begging to be written around. A typical arrangement format goes like this: intro. You’d usually expect an inclusion of some light rhythm work provided by perhaps some sparse hi-hats or a catchy percussion phrase. as this is where most ideas happen. delicious meal. bass melody and full body of other musical elements live here. Start breaking down Regardless of where breakdowns live in your arrangement their purpose is to both let a listener take a break and The intro is at its fullest before a drop or breakdown. as it introduces new timbres. For instance. This creates a sense of excitement and anticipation for the listener. if you wish to go for a common 32-bar section. volume or other audio effects processing that can mask a sound. MTF Step-by-Step Reverse engineering an intro Dropping science The drop is the part of a song that people recall when they think of a track. The alternative drop in our example isn’t as drastic a switch as some songs have. variation is something to focus on to sustain interest over time. Bearing this in mind. The drop and alt-drop in our example track consist of the same 32-bar bass sequence. bringing a third party to the conversation. so we have little to discuss here for the elements you might choose to include. doubled. or teased through the use of filtering. another element can be added. so bass is usually removed and drum tracks have less content. the drop may consist of two main bass ideas that interact and play off each other. In part three of this series (p88) we discussed how you can choose to unite or offset sounds such as your bass and drum parts while programming a drop to add variation. 02 Another trick to introduce a musical section is to create a looping-like effect where you duplicate a short first section of the phrase for a section before it plays in its entirety. which can be joined by another. This technique is referred to as ‘Q&A’ and is how our bassline has worked when adding the second element in our alt-drop. For further development. Intro content should always create a slightly lower energy level than the drop. making sure they appreciate the second drop by arrangement dynamics. This works especially well when used in conjunction with filtering for a DJ-like effect. but we’ve inserted new sounds in the alt-drop half and edited it to change the rhythm as well. and another. Musically associated ideas can be anything from leads and SFX to strong rhythmic motifs.tut genre pt4. to tease in what’s to come. the rest of the song is almost superfluous to a dancefloor – it’s all about guiding the listener to this point in your song and then guiding them to the second iteration. the intricacy. it’s good practice to create these sounds over the drop at first to build them in context. It’s where all the energy lies and what all the excitement is about. These work as a less obvious way to guide the listener to the drop but they do need to have a melodic or rhythmic association with the main drop. partially edited down to be more sparse. so start here and work your way backwards while chopping content away. and so on. Just try to use a few core elements to lead the musical phrase throughout for continuity and musicality for the listener to latch on to.A track from scratch part 4: Arrangements Technique MTF track during a DJ mix (providing they’ve heard the track before. However. then move them to earlier in the song over the intro to create a sense of build or lead-in. such as filtering. 03 FOCUS MT139. This most commonly surfaces through a form of effect variation.indd 93 Ableton Live 2015 | 93 11/02/2015 14:42 . 01 Paste a new copy of all content before this section and then mute parts to audition what can be either removed entirely. This section has probably been the core focus of your composition from the outset for this very reason and it makes or breaks a track. but finding The drop is the part of the song that people recall – it’s where all the energy lies some other occasional sounds outside of those for accenting can be a good trick for variation too. of course). In dubstep. the pre-breakdown in our example track replaces the main bass parts with a floating synth line and new vocal edit. Switching the accenting on your drum groove to a 4/4 style can lift the drive of your track. These elements can help establish new song sections by introducing a new sound that hasn’t been present in a song up until that point. after all. there are two schools of thought on how this should be approached. or any device capable of audio capture.tut genre pt4. remember where the peaks and troughs need to be to guide the listener. Rinse and repeat When you’re considering where to add or remove layers of information in your track to enhance arrangement dynamics. additional interests that surround the main elements in a track can really help to let a record shine. most DJs these days rarely allow a second drop to be heard before they’ve mixed into FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:42 . and although key changing is often associated with cheesy boy bands. These smaller details can go a long way and are a great excuse to get creative in or out of the lab. To truly understand arrangements we recommend you grab a small selection of your favourite dubstep tracks and start slicing them up into sections. a stripped-down song section can benefit from flutters of sonic interest to give them life and a little ear candy. Trying to recreate and record them is a very creative process and gives you an excuse to escape the mouse and keyboard for a while if you’re computer-bound with your music. As the drums are now mostly absent it gives us the room to explore expressive musicality. The first is to simply copy the earlier sections and just repeat them. 01 IMAGE BOX Though they’re not at the forefront of your track. DECORATIVE SOUNDS From chopped vocal ditties to foley sounds or synthetic effects. if you love your mouse and keyboard. or into a pre-breakdown where the aggressive midrange of the bass dissipates in favour of a melody or other inoffensive elements. Alternatively. From this you can stumble across happy accidents that can then be re-sampled. 02 heighten the impact of the drop that’s to come by lowering the energy level from the section that’s come immediately before. decorative sounds should be given close attention. This introduces some breathing space into the DJs rarely allow a second drop to be heard before they’ve mixed into another song track before it slowly filters out to an ambient breakdown prior to the second drop. leave the studio space in the search for sounds. which we’ve achieved through the use of ambient pads and delicate tones. when done well it’s a powerful tool to keep building up energy levels throughout your song. In this genre the main sections tend to lead into a single breakdown. as this is where you can work on another level for unique timbre and textures. If you have a portable recorder.MTF Technique A track from scratch part 4: Arrangements MTF Step-by-Step Creating a second drop When it comes to your second drop. Alternatively. effects processing and any other audio mangling techniques you may not normally go for. think about what sounds that theme might entail. For instance. If you like to write songs with a theme.indd 94 When it comes to other repeated sections like the second drop and alt-drop. edited and generally taken further through experimentation to achieve unique sounds to augment your song. explore combining different layers of samples from your arsenal of instruments. 03 94 | Ableton Live 2015 MT139. This will help you identify how many sections there are and how much is repeated. phone. explore being bold – a memorable first and second drop will make your track more desirable and likely to be played for longer in a DJ set. or any other parameter to help amplify the effect of this sound in the mix. Then draw in a held note over 4. a strong. don’t believe that this section has to simply be a repeat of the first drop at all. 02 The end is nigh Before we move on to our fifth and final instalment in this series. so musical freedom is entirely yours. a more traditional approach is to remove track elements one by one to filter out density over time. This is short. Or perhaps increase saturation on a distortion unit while keeping the output level controlled so there’s an increase in frequency content over time. An effect that generates stereo width such as chorus can have its dry/wet control automated so a sound goes from mono to stereo as it grows in intensity. but it will teach you the hardest part of the music making game – completing your work! We’ll see you next time for the mixing treatment… MTF As well as parameter exploration. Yes. 8. For an increase in intensity add an LFO to amplitude and automate its depth of modulation so the volume fluctuates faster when the pitch is at its highest value. and automate MIDI pitchbend from zero to its highest value.A track from scratch part 4: Arrangements Technique MTF another song. Adding a thin-sounding ride or crash cymbal layer to play on the beat is a common yet still effective practice in the genre. independent second drop. If you’re feeling brave. Any synth with a fundamental waveform can be used like a saw wave for clarity. The ultimate goal The outro is quite open-ended in terms of its execution. Make sure the pitch-wheel is set to a musical interval such as one or two octaves. it mightn’t even give you a track to play out for yourself.indd 95 Ableton Live 2015 | 95 11/02/2015 14:42 . By simply copying a short portion from an intro or breakdown with no elements of crescendo you can MTF Step-by-Step Creating risers and descenders At its most fundamental level. Outros are usually the last piece of the puzzle and can be relatively straightforward. it’s time to recap where we’ve been and what we expect you to have achieved before it’s time to mix and pre-master our dirty dubstep track. etc. the value of seeing this song through to the end outweighs waiting until you have a perfect song to mix. But if you want your tracks to have a bit more musical merit and also increase the chance of a full play in a club. So. A simple yet effective way to raise energy levels is to alter a sonic or rhythmic aspect of the drums. complementing the song as a whole. fundamental reprogramming of the drum pattern and bass parts from the first drop can create a drastic switch for this second drop. and a quick exit. we mean even if your ideas aren’t chart topping at this stage. Alternatively. 16 bars. an outro can be another opportunity to explore even more artistic flair – there aren’t any set rules here. This has been a lot of work so far and we encourage you to follow us through to the end. 03 FOCUS MT139. Much like our advice to be bold when creating a second drop. has the ability to make your music stand out and be more than the flavour of the week in a DJ’s crate. though it’s not commonplace by any standards. We’ve worked on bass. it may not get you signed. try effects as well. If done right. 01 An outro can be another opportunity to explore artistic flair in your track achieve a passable ending to your song. a synthetic rising or descending sound can be used to help get to or from one song section to the next. make a significant change to this second drop to distinguish it from the first and further increase the track’s energy levels. By this. sweet. This could also be an LFO controlling pitch for a wobbly tone. and if you’re here you’ve already experienced the ups and downs of production along the way. drums and groove production while sharing various methods to expand ideas and craft a final arrangement.tut genre pt4. but with width comes a loss of power. as every track you complete is a worthwhile lesson for the skills you’ll gain for the next project.indd 96 Physical phatness Now that we have an initial to-do list of fixes for our mix.and idea-building process. it’s good to smooth off the top end for a warmer sound. then back off. stick with us and sit through the entire process from start to finish. Stereo width control and possible enhancement are a consideration too. These can also be muted or you could choose to re-program them to work in unison with the new idea instead. and hope that you are too… MIX BUSS PROCESSING arrangement details that could prevent our main ideas from coming across in their best light.TUT Genre pt5.MTF Technique A track from scratch part 5: The perfect mix Technique A track from scratch: Part 5 The perfect mix In the final part of this epic series Liam O’Mullane and Christopher Pearson guide you through the hardest part of music production: finalising your mix and finishing off your track… W ell. 96 | Ableton Live 2015 MT141. Although this is a classic technique to help your music translate better to vinyl. After listening to our own song with fresh ears it’s immediately obvious that our track is a little too dense in the top end and that the kick and snare are often being masked by other sounds in the mix. and a little of version should always be available when delivering your work for the two will have a cleaner loudness than too mastering. to get a quick playout version beforehand try one limiter and lower the threshold until you hear crackles and Mix buss processing should be used with caution. Even if you feel that the track you’ve created isn’t that great. When creating fills at the end of a section. Although this needs to be left off for mastering. Or maybe the ideas are all there but in some sections they’re sounding cluttered due to an overload of events. let’s look at how we can achieve some basic tasks. Last in the chain is limiting. Trimming the fat The first rule about evaluating your current mix is to listen with your ears and not your eyes. A bad mix won’t get the ideas across clearly. so be sparing and keep it in the higher frequency range. When assessing your track it’s important to start creating your end goals for completion – this is where writing a list is important. This is a time to explore muting out specific parts that may distract the listener from the main ideas happening at any moment in time. (See the Completion List boxout on p54 for an example and check out the audio files provided on your MT DVD. resulting in an inconsistent feeling of power. listen with the computer monitor turned off. and add a high-pass filter to cut below 35-40Hz to clear out sub frequencies that will only eat up the headroom and therefore the potential maximum volume your track can achieve. applied with a slow attack and release to keep the transients intact. reference to work from as well. So for the first few evaluative plays. but sending your processed version can give them artistic much being squeezed out of one. Here are a few tips for heading in the right direction when mastering dubstep… Use a linear phase EQ for the most transparent adjustments. but it’s useful to make artefacts. Choosing muting rather than deleting means you can always un-mute later. so with that in mind let’s make some mixing decisions and compile our completion list.) Processing on the mix buss will help to sculpt your work. This secret of the pros is often overlooked yet it highlights parts of your song that need further editing. It’s important to drum in all of these skills and not get too caught up on one part of the process in particular. but regardless of how good things may seem to sound at the end of a creative songwriting session there are many problem areas that are much easier to detect when you’ve given yourself a break from the project and listen with completely fresh ears. A second limiter with a the track ready to play out on the day of completion. and we hope you are too. Perhaps some sections need improving as they aren’t in keeping with the established flow of the track. On the disc Accompanying example audio files included on the DVD Patience is a (dubstep) virtue We’ve waited a good few weeks before re-opening our project for writing this final instalment and can immediately hear a variety of problems with the mix and finer We’re at the last stage of our dirty dubstep track. We’re talking 2-3dB of gain reduction. One advantage of stripping back some elements in your track is that they’ll FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:08 . newly programmed elements are often blighted by competing layers of sound that may still exist from the song section that’s about to end. it’s been a long road but we’re finally at the last stage of our dirty dubstep track. Also limit the top end with a low-pass filter around 16kHz. Experiment with gentle compression but be careful not to get too squash-happy or you’ll ruin the dynamics. and this is better than having to undo or load an older project version. A non-processed different algorithm can be added. Remember that your song is a story and your mix is there to sell it to the listener. A big part of this stage is to be brutal and decide what aids the song and what needs cutting back so the ideas can breathe. We’ve been crafting our ‘mix’ throughout the sound. 03 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT141. This will duck the reverb when the source sound plays and the reverb will swell up in volume in-between the notes. The kick and snare have plenty of size in terms of ambience and weight for lower-end impact but they don’t come across as aggressively as we’d like. or the whole drum group. and then using its frequency bands to pinpoint where the main impact and mid-range frequencies of our kick and snare are via a combination of positive gain settings and sweeping the frequency of each band to find and boost the key frequencies. Saturation is a good option here as it can be used to increase the density of mid-range frequencies while also compressing the signal to become a little louder and more up-front sounding. plug-ins such as iZotope’s Ozone or Alloy make it easy to create dense. A great way to tighten up your mix without losing its ambience is to add a compressor after your auxiliary ambience FX. there are other options out there to create width. short release time to be triggered by your drums. Group all non drum-based sounds and drag the same EQ over for subtractive reduction of these set drum-orientated frequencies. and then set up a compressor triggered by the kick and snare with a fast attack and release to duck this ‘all but drums’ group.indd 97 | 97 11/02/2015 15:08 . We also thought about the key frequencies within our drums and how we don’t want too much overlap from other parts.TUT Genre pt5. If this is the case. it’s important not to overlook the dynamics available through the manipulation of the stereo field. as this could result in almost nothing being left and we don’t want to lose the epic. A variation to the stereo width of different mid-range bass sounds can really help your basslines have a stereo dynamic as a whole. MTF Step-by-Step Effective side-chaining A good way to ensure your drums will always cut through your mix is to group all other sounds that aren’t drums. Though this isn’t the cheapest method. trance production-like sound we’ve gained so far. This can be as subtle as five or so decibels in reduction. which will cause masking. with some saturation-based plug-ins. send them to a hugesounding reverb on an auxiliary channel. 02 It’s important not to overlook the dynamics available through stereo field manipulation of your sound design. but these notches in all non drum-based sounds will help the drums to cut through the mix better and therefore have more impact. But before you splash the cash.A track from scratch part 5: The perfect mix Technique MTF bring the remaining sounds to the fore. A drawback of this approach is that we could soon be chasing our tails by beefing up the drums too much in relation to our other sounds. In the case of our drums being lost in the mix. Then add a compressor after the reverb and have the original sound trigger it with a fast attack and a slow. a simple stereo width plug-in can help you pull in or slightly widen the stereo field on a per-sound basis. A simple trick that can be very effective here involves adding an EQ to the drum group. 01 Stereo dynamics Though we’re about to discuss loudness and dynamics. Some of your upper bass sounds may be stereo from source or from effects you’ve processed them with as part If you want a massive sound for leads or pads. making them seem more present even though you’ve not technically made any changes to them. but with a snappier. as in the last step. If sounds are mono or only slightly stereo in nature there are a few ways to process them to become wider sounding. One option is to process single drum sounds. stereo sounds. and then ramping up other elements and ending up with a louder but just as cluttered mix. this needs more attention than simply stripping out other conflicting elements. musically set release time. Now ambience FX will duck in sympathy to your drums so the heavier sections sound tighter and breakdowns fill out with louder FX. The first and most common way is to use dedicated stereo enhancement tools. For pads and mid-range bass tones. then solo each track to hear where all the current sounds are coming from. 03 98 | Ableton Live 2015 MT141. • Slowly introduce duller kick and snare on intro with low-pass filter and add tape delays to create more rhythm. You can go for slow. created after a few fresh listens to our project at the start of the day. jot down how you think you’ll fix the issues as well. You may have already utilised modulation effects in your bass design. but a good starting point is to loop around the fill with a bar or so either side for context. Just set one slightly to the left and the other to the right and your drum sounds will suddenly start to sound wider while your kick and snare still drive down the centre of the mix. though. flanger and phaser are excellent tools to stereo-ise a variety of sounds. • Slowly introduce main pads at intro with volume automation. this is a valuable tool. subtle modulation rates and a liberal amount of wet signal. and whereas a hi-hat doesn’t need to be up front. • Minimise other sounds alongside the vocal stabs before the drop to make the vocal more prominent. Special effect Now start muting out parts that detract from the main elements. If sounds have a decay to them you’ll have to automate either a mute or a fade to create complete silence. as you can start to hear a slight flamming effect on transients at higher ms values. This involves delaying one side of the signal by a short. so although you can’t detect the delay as a separate event you do get a sense of stereo. as reverb tails and delays will also shift the focus. maybe through filtering. • Create more stereo movement and interest for middle-eight vocal part. but chorus. As well as noting down points of concern. sub-50ms value. or go for more extreme tonally altering settings and only feed a slight amount of wet in with the dry signal to achieve width. Stripping down your mix for short fill sections really helps to tighten up your sound and create more dynamics in your track. using this method will at least help you get started in the daunting task of finishing your music. • Give arp synth part more textural interest and movement when playing. • Process the Obnoxious bass sound to sit better in the mix so it’s less wide sounding and overly up front. You can also do this with layered pad sounds so the layers are panned across the stereo field. This can also apply to your auxiliary FX channels too. so exercise caution with leading instruments.TUT Genre pt5.indd 98 percussive sounds. maybe EQ out clashing frequencies on all other sounds in the mix. This will give another dynamic to the track at this point and is brilliant to help the sound seem unique to the rest of your potentially wide mix.MTF Technique A track from scratch part 5: The perfect mix MTF Step-by-Step Creating tight micro edits COMPLETION LIST EXAMPLE Below is our own completion list. The trade-off with FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:08 . Even though more areas needing attention will become apparent as you start working through each task. 02 The Haas effect is one of our favourite methods to widen any non-percussive sounds. This isn’t great for bass. But its delay-based nature means it doesn’t work very well on Your drums sound wider while your kick and snare still drive down the centre When stripping things down to one or two sounds. 01 • Get kick and snare to cut through better. • Clean up pad ambience and other background sounds on various bass fills for a dryer sound. but does work very well on percussive drum parts such as two hi-hats that alternate between each other on a regular basis. a bass generally does. experiment with going from a wide stereo sound to mono using a stereo width plug-in. The first method is to use slightly opposed pan settings for two related sounds. This will help create a list that you systematically have to get through. • Process middle-eight vocal riff more towards end of phrase for more interest and make it the main feature just before the breakdown. • Add filtering to main melody riff on intro and outro. This is quite a time-consuming task. Be careful because width substitutes power. loudness increasing harmonics to sit while leaving the other frequencies untouched. but this smoothing side-effect is often more beneficial than being a hindrance. which you’ll want to get rid of. Just remember to experiment with these settings in the context of the whole mix so you can correctly tune your new harmonic content to sit in a non-congested area of the mix. is that sounds become a little smeared and will step slightly further back into your mix. though. We wish you all the best with your efforts and don’t forget to see each project through to completion when possible. you can use the attack and decay or release stages as fades to smooth out any clicks and pops. 01 Experiment with settings in the context of the whole mix to tune harmonic content When it comes to saturation. don’t forget our tips on experimenting with your ideas to discover something unique.and Massive-based bass sounds that the masses will not. solo the track and use crossfades to smooth out the transition from one slice to the next to even out the resulting waveform. striving to achieve the same FM8. If they are at the start or end of a piece of audio use fades to smooth them out. Start with at least a slightly stereo-ised sound so some side information exists. vintage gear emulations. but you’ll need to figure out how to do mid / side processing within your specific DAW to achieve it. a multi-band option over broad or whole-band processing can let you selectively choose where you want the new. Achieving tasteful loudness Our last focus is on maintaining a level of volume dynamics while also achieving a competitive level of loudness. To solve this. You can move the start point with a ‘Snap To Zero Crossing’ setting enabled. Saturation is particularly useful here as it adds compression and new harmonics. We like to use a variety of tonal.A track from scratch part 5: The perfect mix Technique MTF these effects. then add compression or saturation to the side signal only. In short. Though you will of course aspire to produce to the standard of your heroes. This attitude is what will continue to push the scene forwards. 02 Final thoughts If you’ve made it this far we want to say ‘well done’ for sticking with us on what’s been quite a long pursuit.TUT Genre pt5. This happens from jumps in the waveform cycle position between edits. or. and the sides are all the information that is unique on one side of the mix from the other. Over this series we’ve covered a lot of ground and hope you’ve picked up some useful applied technique for the filthier side of dubstep. go for little and often so the effect isn’t so obvious to the ear. MTF Step-by-Step Unwanted pops and clicks While you’re performing micro edits you’ll start focussing your hearing at such a high level that you’ll potentially start to find problem sounds and clicks. as it’s the final tasks that are the hardest skills to master. 03 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT141. Our final technique can achieve similar results to the purpose-built enhancing plug-ins already mentioned. which is great for that super-wide sound whilst retaining mono compatibility.indd 99 | 99 11/02/2015 15:08 . like audio parts. Another problem area can arise from clicks in consecutive heavily edited pieces of audio. especially if you’ve been heavily re-sampling bass from your own creations. compression or limiting to a sound or group of sounds. As dynamics are coming back into fashion it’s important that you don’t just slam the hell out of your sounds for a perception of loudness. If you add saturation. pushing the sound a little bit with each one so the tonal sum of each tweak is texturally interesting to the ear. the mid signal is the mono centre of the mix. MTF Sample-based MIDI instruments may also benefit from some de-clicking. Korg SP-250 to record MIDI. you just need something to record sounds.indd 100 producer launching clips or writing in loops but having every tool the DAW offers is the key that makes Live so intuitive. And every native plug-in is just amazing: great quality. Flat response.venegoni@gmail. forget headphones. No more endless menu searches. I downloaded the demo just for fun and it blew my mind. I discovered Live while trying to leave Logic and learning how to use Performer. Plus we love the chair… Kooza Production Studio Interviewee: Loris Venegoni Contact: loris. I don’t like to ‘just to see if something comes out’. you know what to do. I cry just thinking about it. which in this room sound big and expensive. They give you all the bottom end. How often are you in your studio? Depends. Nord Lead 2x. very proud. Access Virus B. I’m not the kind of 100 | Ableton Live 2015 MTF38 Show off your studio. Hammond l-100 with original Leslie in the other room and upright piano. hundreds of bounces in place to edit audio clips. I’m working on making it available for bands or electronic producers who need a simple and smart place to work in. The control that it gives you is amazing.MTF Show off your studio – Live special Show off your (Live) studio We asked MusicTech readers to show off their Ableton-based studios and got a fantastic response. That is why I said the BM12s are like new monitors here – I can use them further than 1m of nearfield. Yamaha Motif XS7. Every time I have a job or I want to produce something I stay all the time I need to. There’s nothing like one. How do you use your studio? For music for my project Kooza and sometimes I write soundtracks for short movies. Spend the money you have on great monitors. One piece of advice? If you have the money. TLA 5051. great on bass and guitars.32s. sharp tools with true sound design. Why do you use Live? I own Live 9 suite.com Key components in your studio? An iMac 27” with orchestral/ cinematic libraries. build the best room. Korg TR rack. Here are some of the best Live set-ups out there… It’s smart. FOCUS 16/02/2015 10:17 . Ableton Push is my best friend. plus a Novation Nocturne and sometimes Impulse 49. Next on your studio shopping list? I think a second distressor will be the next friend. If you are a genius. If not. He planned the Radio Deejay studios and Matthew Bellamy’s studio here in Como. Empirical Labs Distressor with British Mode. neat and perfect. a UAD Apollo Quad interface plus a lot of UAD plugins. it ends in frustration and wastes precious days of sun when I can go outside and see the world. I study psychology in University and I’m a dancer too. Favourite part of the studio? Definitely the room. Your studio begins with your ears. It’s the best room I’ve ever heard and I’m very. the longest tail I have is about 0. Dynaudio BM12. I use the Arrangement view just like a classic sequencer. What is your dream piece of gear? I’m afraid it’s not gear but a real orchestra. so give them the best conditions. the best engineer I could have met in my life. For vocal fx a TC Voicelive 2. It was designed by Michele Cucchi. try DIY. We have a wonderful little studio in Cape Town where we record our band and other artists. GoodLuck. it’s studio time! List GoodLuck’s key components… Eve SC407 monitors. iPads with Traktor. but I am interested in iZotope’s RX4. Such a great team behind the brand. Nord Next on your studio shopping list? I’m improving my skills first. Perfect or room for improvement? We could improve the mic collection and get more outboard gear. most desolate place on earth. I believe in pushing artists to perform beyond their expectations. even though it’s one of the most advanced DAWs on the market. Electro. occasionally popping out to go surfing when the waves are good. matched pair of AKG 451s. Yamaha mixer and S03 synth. Korg Kaoss pad. Technics DJ turntables and Kontrol X1. Finally. Favourite piece of gear and why? I love my new Eve SC407s – the definition is astonishing. Movin’ Music Academy’s main production area… What are the key components of the studio? A Mac running Ableton. Røde K2. too – they listen to feedback and are brilliant with support. ART ribbon mic. Novation Launchkey. the quietest. Dave Smith Mopho synth. We packed up a quarter-ton of studio gear. It also allows me to work really quickly and twist and tweak sounds and loops to do what I want. Why do you use Ableton Live? Really because of its flexibility and ability to handle anything I throw at it. MTF FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MTF38 Show off your studio. Roland TD-12 kit. Dream piece of gear? Thermionic Culture’s Culture Vulture. Focus on how to get the best out of your gear and room. It is also a great program to teach music production with.com Movin’ Music Academy Interviewee: Jonny Delaney E: theboytheycalljonny@gmail. Invest in an sE Reflexion Filter – a miracle cure for recording vocals. MiniNova synth. Kaoss Pad. NI Maschine and Maschine Kontrol. We needed massive inspiration and that meant stepping out of the confines of our studio. Not a bad start. DJM 800 mixers. Any advice to people starting out? There isn’t one piece of gear that will ‘make’ your mixes better. then… We got in touch with Ben Peters because he sent an interesting shot of a desert recording. But for now. Get the artist to nail the take. Akai APC40. to record our album. five of them number one. We were coming off the ninth single from our first album. Logic. Unfortunately it’s tricky to use some of the synths comfortably because of a lack of space in the studio. and I swear by it. AKG C414 mic. Mackie RM8 monitors. solar power generators and headed out to find inspiration and crazy sounds. How long do you spend in the studio? Every day from 10am til midnight. but we needed to push the boundaries for our latest record.Show off your studio – Live special MTF GoodLuck Music Interviewee: Ben Peters (producer) Web: www. Recording in the Namibian desert Why do you use Live? It has the best workflow and is the most intuitive.goodlucklive. DJ gear includes Pioneer CDJ-2000. It also looks pretty incredible! Any advice? Take your time and only buy the equipment you need to get started.indd 101 | 101 16/02/2015 10:17 .com Nine singles from one album. Learn how to use it before buying more otherwise you’ll waste a lot of time and money. Kaossilator. Korg R8. Roland RD-300d digital piano and a bass guitar. Waves plug-ins and our family piano. and after five number one singles (in SA) we were at a loss as to how to top such a ridiculous start. remember that you can’t polish a turd. If you’ve recorded a rubbish take there’s no point trying to fix it in the mix. Reason and Massive. Jen SX-1000 synth. Apogee Ensemble and two Fireface UFX interfaces for touring. What is your dream piece of gear and why? An RMI harmonic synth – it has a really unique sound. Perfect yet? The main thing I intend to do is to make sure that all hardware can be reached and used from the DAW. EMES Pink monitors. So interesting is the story that we’ll feature it in MusicTech soon. Focusrite LE card. So we took the band and a sevencamera crew out into the Namibian desert. He replied saying: I am a producer in electronic band. 00 USA . details will be passed electronically to my Bank or Building Society. Signature(s) Date YOUR DETAILS Title Forename Surname Email address** Address Postcode THE BUNDLE SUBSCRIPTION.Print & Digital £84.1db..99 Print only £49. special offers and promotions via email or free text messages. 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CO.50 AN ISSUE 3 EASY WAYS TO SUBSCRIBE ANTHEM.IBE CR BS SU TO Save 35% ADD A DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION FOR JUST £1.MTFBUN (BUNDLE) MTFPDF (PRINT ONLY ) MT144.SUBSCRIBEONLINE. This is a controller that Ableton describes as an ‘instrument’. It’s very much the reason why many people turn to Live even if it’s not their primary platform. is a looporiented mode. feature for feature. These ‘part-time’ users often believe that Live isn’t up to the task of full track creation and mixing. The feature set gets Choice deeper as you move up to the next two versions. there are some other significant differences between Suite and Standard. Making introductions Live 9 comes in three flavours: Intro. a maximum of 16 audio/MIDI tracks. 9/10 9 9/ 10 included in Suite – far too many to list here. 40 effects. compositional tool than an audio/MIDI workhorse for the studio.MTF Reviews Live 9 Suite & Push: the original review MTF Reviews Hardware Software Mobile Accessories For PC & Mac ABLETON Live 9 Suite & Push To those of you new to Ableton Live 9 and Push. Arrangement View enables you to work from left to right in a linear fashion. 9 instruments.review live9 & push. Standard and Suite. Various genre styles and instrument types are It’s evident when looking through the library that version 9 is more complete than ever outputs.com Key Features LIVE 9 SUITE ● 54GB of content.indd 104 Excellence 10/10 to compare them in such a literal way. FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:59 . which sounds promising as Live itself has long been seen as more of a creative. letting you focus on musical ideas or sketches without needing to think about the arrangement stage. Standard comes with the same three sample-based instrument devices as Intro. Max for Live ● Enhanced mixing devices and new Glue Compressor ● Improved Browser layout and functionality ● 32-/64-bit plug-in support ● Session View automation PUSH ● Solid build (weight 2. But that’s missing the point: Live isn’t the same as other DAWs. here’s Liam O’Mullane’s original MT review… Details Price Push & Live 9 Intro £429 Push & Live 9 £668 Push & Live 9 Suite £863 Live 9 Intro £69 Live 9 £299 Live 9 Suite £519 Contact Ableton +49 302 887 630 Web www. see Ableton’s website full details – but they cover most bases and alone justify the difference in cost between Suite and Standard – and that’s before we’ve even looked at the other Suite-only features. and just two audio inputs and and for the rest of this review. it’s evident from browsing the library that version 9 is more complete than ever (the complete package can be installed piecemeal if you prefer). automation curves have only just been added. but it offers much more in terms of factory content. These include a small number of ‘idea spaces’ in Session View (Scenes). After the 54GB install of Live Suite (Standard is a 12GB install). the features discussed relate to these versions only. you do get a perfectly respectable. Live 9 is finally here. Live’s primary appeal has always been its two distinct approaches to workflow and the way in which they interact.ableton. colourful RGB pads ● 4-row LCD display ● Touch-sensitive encoders ● Velocity-sensitive pads with aftertouch A fter an incredibly long wait since version 8’s release. the entry-level Intro has limitations that reflect its price. and you still can’t take the classic approach of recording lanes of audio for compiling together quickly afterwards. meanwhile. production centre including drum devices and sample-based instruments along with Live’s flexible real-time audio warping. probably because Live has been slow to incorporate certain features that users of other DAWs take for granted.99kg) ● Bright. However. though small. Session View. As you’d expect. A full suite Audio content aside. For instance. For structuring tracks. so it’s wrong to try 104 | Ableton Live 2015 MT122. accompanied by an Ableton-developed controller called Push. It isn’t a flawless process. which enhances the LCD screen’s function as it displays relevant material as you work. which will otherwise be add-on purchases. The facility to sing an idea into Live or drop in a file recorded on your phone (perhaps captured during a moment of inspiration) is a huge time-saver and enhances workflow a great deal. These aren’t quite as in-depth in terms of features and flexibility. but the most unexpected results come from the usual suspects of dense. It offers two main advantages to the Live user. Other comparable software options are FruityLoops Signature Bundle ($299) from Image-Line and Propellerhead’s Reason (£349). the second is the ability to create your own devices. layered or noisy material. though. the Glue Compressor and some well thought-out overhauls of other mixing devices. In Note mode you can move left/right between tracks and up/down to move between scenes and launch them immediately. It’s also useful for adding that human feel to your drum work – record yourself tapping or beatboxing a rhythm and turn it into a drum pattern. Sensitivity and velocity curves can be user-defined. Electric pianos from Electric and string modelling from Tension. Live 9 could be purchased alone and used alongside Novation’s Launchpad S (£150). is a lot more comprehensive. a healthy library of sounds and instruments. limited only by your imagination. These provide guitarists with sonic textures on tap. The first is access to the wealth of Max-created devices already in existence. which is always difficult for a computer to decipher. for us the real deal-sealer is the inclusion of Max for Live. envelope followers. and are easy to pick up and learn. however. Hit this button to record changes. Note Box now has reverse. Audio to MIDI lets you analyse an audio file and turn it into a drum pattern. These are all a solid choice for performance control. legato (to modify notes end to end) and duplicate loop. both NI’s Maschine (£483) and AKAI’s MPC Studio (£350) may suit your needs. melody or harmonic content for chords. Corpus is another effect that can create something unique as it adds simulated acoustic resonance. We NAVIGATION BUTTONS In Session mode these let you navigate around your session. though.Live 9 Suite & Push: the original review Reviews MTF Alternatives For hardware control of software with visual feedback on the device itself. Suite’s instrument collection. In most cases. Max is a graphical programming environment that was previously a separate purchase from Live 8. or taking a drum pattern to make your own. Highlights include Audio to MIDI. Glue Compressor does the job that a good buss compressor should – making individual elements sound cohesive as a whole when processed as a group. the results are very usable. which doubles the loop brace and its content. or combine with [Shift] to revert to clip automation. Note Echo (for re-creating that classic MIDI sequenced effect) and API tools that enable you to map LFOs. These all help speed up workflow and encourage creativity. Other uses could include transcribing material for covers. randomisers and more to any parameter within a Live project. but they don’t cater for expressive musical input in terms of notes. mimicking a part in a track for remixing purposes. Standard has quite a few more effects than Intro. These both have very intuitive GUI designs. For the MTF Navigation Push control AUTOMATION Moving an encoder will override any automation for that parameter in a clip.indd 105 | 105 11/02/2015 15:59 . a uninitiated. though they can be applied to pretty much any sound in need of a new sonic identity. clips and scenes. Operator caters for FM synthesis and Sampler offers a professional level of sampling that can accommodate multiple sample key-mapping and layering. While it’s not a real-time option. ENCODERS All encoders are touch-sensitive. d c c a b PADS The main 8x8 grid of pads are very firm and take a while to get used to. rich-sounding percussion from Collision. Max(imum) benefit While Suite’s comprehensive features make up at least 50 per cent of its attraction. The newcomers Both Suite and Standard have some other fantastic new features. In terms of processing. invert. AKAI’s APC 20 (£170) or APC 40 (£290). Max for Live is attractive to technical nerds as well as musicians or engineers who just want to access more practical and creative tools. b d FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT122. The Max for Live library now includes some excellent devices including Convolution Reverb Pro. comprising analogue-style synth sounds from Analog.review live9 & push. though Suite boasts the excellent Amp and Cabinet devices. switching to Note Mode allows you to create MIDI. The Glue plug-in is amazing. Sun. as mentioned in the box to the upper left. MT: What do you plan to explore next when you have time? RS: Push is a game-changer for me. and an Adaptive mode that adjusts the EQ filter’s Q width as you change the gain amount. MIDI editing has also had some useful improvements. which now have graphical feedback on bizarre. Streamliner Before we look at how Push may redefine how you interact with Live. There’s one I’ve just started on Max For Live so I’m beginning to ‘break the crust’ so to speak. which can be used to push the signal into the red if you want to introduce some character. the incorporating of a spectral analyser into EQ Eight is a welcome practical step. EQ Eight has had its most significant overhaul since Live 8. input and output levels and thresholds. I’ve been using the Cymotic plug-in for a few years now – it’s great to have it so integrated within Live. sea and sound: Rik working on his own material on the edge of the Indian Ocean. MT: Have you explored any Max For Live devices yet? RS: To be honest I’ve mainly been playing with the Max For Live presets up until now. I’ve got the Live 9 tutorials by MacProVideo which are great. Session and Arrangement Views are finally truly united. It actually does what so many other controllers over the years have failed to do: it feels and reacts like a real instrument. MT: Your website describes Live as ‘A DAW that makes you think differently’.indd 106 software makes it hard to pin down. MT: What in Live 9’s new features represents the biggest sonic improvement for you? RS: That would have to be the oversampling option in the EQ Eight and Glue plug-ins – they add a lovely fidelity. Live’s new browser layout makes it much easier to navigate the included library.review live9 & push.MTF Reviews Live 9 Suite & Push: the original review also like its saturation stage. Two other devices to undergo updates are Compressor and Gate. Partly due I think to its tight integration with the software but also because of the feel of the pads which are tactile and responsive. I’ll definitely be delving deeper over the next few weeks. We caught up with him to hear his verdict on Ableton’s new combo. What feature has changed how you work with Live? RS: Live 9 seems snappier than 8. Pushing on Other new additions include an Audition mode for helping you to hear the frequency band you’re working on. The new browser is really speeding up my work flow – it’s much more intuitive than before and searching for files in the search field is considerably quicker. which at first glance appears to do much the same things as other Live controllers on the market – launch clips. EQ and Gate plug-ins. We never really got on with Live 8’s Spectrum device as you had to put an instance on every track if you wanted to do track-by-track analysis while EQ’ing a mix. we’ll take a moment to cover improvements to Live 9’s workflow from a programming point of view. for example – but haven’t really got in that deep yet. I’ve come up with riffs and shapes that I wouldn’t normally gravitate towards – it’s opened up a new area for me. by the way. FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:59 . But while Push does offer this type of control. resulting in a much more musical sound. Since you’ll almost certainly use an EQ per track anyway. with automation that works between both Views for audio and MIDI clips. control devices and generally navigate around Session View. which was always counterintuitive considering the otherwise close integration between both Views. It may sound Session and Arrangement Views are finally truly united with automation for audio and MIDI basis. I’ve downloaded a few fun devices – ultraGlitcher and The Granulizator by Design the Media. Its very nature as an open-ended piece of 106 | Ableton Live 2015 MT122. audio or return MTF Power User Q&A Rik Simpson From Coldplay to Jay Z. Rik has produced and written for an impressive array of big-name artists. yet accurately. This makes them much easier to set up quickly. It’s also easier to move between user-defined locations as they are now situated on the lower left-hand side rather than in a dropdown menu. but this wasn’t implemented before. A close second favourite new feature would be the visual feedback you now get from the Compressor. Automation can now be recorded in Session View as well and the global Back To Arrangement button – which stopped all Session View clips in order to return playback to Arrangement View – can now be controlled on a per-track For the second part of this review it’s time to turn to Ableton’s Push instrument. which also makes it quicker to get a result. particularly in respect to the new spectral analyser. I’m more interested in eventually making my own stuff but Max has a such a steep learning curve. It seems to be part of the these building blocks rather than just cool DJ-friendly features.review live9 & push. I also love alone in a very short time by creating drum patterns. When it comes to mixing. another EQ for mix-shaping and a Limiter or Saturator at the end to catch any stray peaks. I compose by fiddling with MIDI sequences a different chords or scales. as updates are released. The new tools and features certainly improve its capabilities and should keep users happy for a good while to come. we’re sure users’ needs will be addressed. as you may have gathered from the online promo videos. FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT122. playing chords and melodies. Once you have an audio or MIDI track as you would like your defaults to be. an Undo button gives you the same flexibility of undoing and redoing your work.indd 107 | 107 11/02/2015 16:00 .Not aimed at loop importing and loop-based creativity . London.Live 9 Suite & Push: the original review Reviews MTF MTF Power User Q&A Felix Martin MT: Do you have a favourite sound design tool in 9? FM: Now that Max For Live is included in Suite. which are stored as Scenes within Live – and it can all be done without looking at your computer. It’s flexible enough to let you switch keys from minor to major. Hotchip member and one half of New Build talks to MT while he’s on the road away from his own Lanark Studios. but we look forward to new features in the future. it’s a good idea to store them as a default for any new track you create in the future. As I have no formal musical FM: I’ve been using Live for so long that I’m still unlearning the training its really handy to transcribe chords or a melody of interest habits I’ve gained. Considering it’s the first screen is brilliant. Compressor. 9 /10 Method Spot When you’ve got a feel for Live’s new go-to mixing tools. Push is a great first foray into hardware. I’ve put together a couple of tracks with Push implementation of the tool. tracks. I’d always loved this type of function in Melodyne so to use third-party plug-ins. Gate and new Glue Compressor really up Live’s game in terms of mixing and controlling your sound to microscopic levels of detail. ongoing work from Ableton to smooth the interaction between audio and MIDI – really useful when working between synthetic MT: How have you found Push in terms of workflow? tones and textures and acoustic ones. The heavy focus on MIDI doesn’t open up full access to Live’s creative capabilities. I think it works really well. The choice of scale style can also be changed via an encoder. which in turn leads to a more varied approach to arranging functions as a musical keyboard with visual aids when set to and selecting sounds. Drum parts can be recorded in using the lower-left quarter of 16 pads. The pads are velocity-sensitive and include aftertouch. just as you can onscreen.keeping (making use of its new steep low. You can also step-sequence drum patterns. Within minutes we were creating The learning curve is incredibly gentle and the Scales approach certainly opens up new ideas the classic Note Repeat function on AKAI’s famous MPCs. or instruments can be modulated while the pad is held down with varying pressure. We’d recommend having all tracks begin with an EQ for general frequency house. musical elements. and we can see a bright future for the company’s bold move into hardware. Parts can be quantized and throughout your use of Push. We discuss his favourite new Live 9 features and how Push opens up new avenues. play in melodic parts via its intuitive Scales interface. 10 /10 MTF Verdict PUSH + Gentle learning curve + Offers true hardware-only control during the compositional stage of music creation + Can be powered via USB or mains power supply (included) . Live 9 builds further on the already solid foundations of Live 8. We found the learning curve of Push to be incredibly gentle and the Scales approach certainly opens up new ideas. adding the improved browser as it’s much quicker to access everything I modulation effects. Gate and FM: The Audio To MIDI tool is the first feature that caught my Compressor have improved to the point where I’m not so tempted attention. MT: What’s the most striking new feature in Live 9? variation to sounds. then a dynamic device. This opens up new composition options lot. the overhauled EQ Eight. though some minor functions have not been implemented as yet. Functional tools like EQ. right-/[Ctrl]-click (PC/Mac) the title bar of the track and select Save As Default MIDI/Audio Track. I like the way it have. so the improved editing tools are also very welcome. However. It’s nice that Ableton has put focus on having it integrated into Live is great. add Audio devices for further processing and generally shape your sound using the eight encoders and touchstrip for tweaking and automation passes. The latter is like Scales is the most unique aspect of Push. But the concept of being able to turn off the to then pick apart and analyse. step-sequenced using the upper portion half.and high-pass filters). composition-focused hardware controller. and switch between six keys immediately so you can jam between them. Live functions more like a huge modular synth.Doesn’t act as a central hub for other controllers A promising start for a wellintegrated. MTF MTF Verdict LIVE 9 SUITE + Excellent value for money + Extensive library content + Max for Live + New device enhancements and additions really help craft a mix + Session and Arrangement Views better integrated Live 9 is an excellent example of how a company can radically update its software while retaining the familiarity and ease of workflow that made it so attractive in the first place. to someone who’s pretty ignorant in music theory. or sequenced in real time using the Repeat tool. I like grabbing the Max LFO device and applying it to any Felix Martin: getting creative with Live 9 and Push in very parameter – a simple but textured way to get life and short order. so dynamic parts can be created with Repeat for elements such as hi-hats. 1db.imsnews.exacteditions. which will be sent to you once you have set up your subscription and will be included on the covering sheets of your subscription copies each month. in your hours and pay in US/Canadian dollars.su bs U cr S ip A tio n of fe r! SAVE 48% When you subscribe to MT If you’re reading Music Tech from the USA. *You can access your digital subscription at www. SAVE 48% On the shop price and get the next 12 issues for just $99 DIAL TOLL FREE 800 428 3003 QUOTE CODE DPSPR141 FREE digital subscription for all * b su scribers ORDER ONLINE AT www.com/print/musictech using your unique WEBID.US subs. Call at local rates. If you require confirmation of your WEBID.25 an issue.indd 5 11/02/2015 09:20 . we’ve got a special offer just for you! Take out a subscription today and pay just $99 for 12 issues – that’s just $8.com/musictech QUOTE CODE DPSPR141 Music Tech magazine’s subscriptions are now handled in North America by IMS News. please call us on 800 428 3003 MT144. Although it has a complement of fully tweakable controls it also comes with 300 professionally designed presets grouped by category and style such as rises and falls. and ‘Pumper’. so you can map hardware controllers to sections in order to change pulse settings or effect levels in real time. and although there are a fair few sections. For the producer. pulsing sound out of it. mod or atonal character as well as swells and fades. You can also use samples for transitions but these will limit how flexibly you can alter them.Riser. You can also vary the effect blend.5 or higher 2GB RAM Key Features ● Transition designer ● Three editable oscillators ● Three LFOs ● 23 filter types ● 300 presets ● Randomizer ● MIDI learn ● Onboard delay and reverb ● AU. You could well find that the bundled presets contain everything you need. and there are appropriate effects built in. And although they can be programmed by hand. you can get even more creative by slowing things down and getting a more ethereal. and I’d also suggest that it will save producers a lot of time automating LFOs and pitchbend CCs. so for a more generalist synth. Panning and width controls also let you position the sound more accurately in the stereo field. This is really easy to do. these are essential to create dynamics within the track and let listeners know when the drop is coming.airmusictech. com Needs Windows 7 or higher OS X 10.indd 109 | 109 11/02/2015 14:55 . rate controls. tempo synced. the blend of oscillators and the depth of the effects with just a few clicks. plus a distortion stage with variable distortion modes to add crunch and bite to the sound. It does this by generating sound from its three oscillators: sweep. VST and AAX formats O ne of the key compositional tricks in many kinds of dance and other electronic music is the use of sweeps. it’s described as a transition designer optimised for electronic music production. The effects you tend to use most on these kinds of sounds are delay and reverb. This software instrument is similar to a few we’ve seen recently in that it aims to give you a shortcut to a type of sound that gets used a lot in certain kinds of music. MIDI learn is supported too. it’s quite fiddly to do over and over again. The beauty of The Riser is that it’s a dedicated and fully tweakable transition instrument. rises and falls in your electronic tracks? Hollin Jones finds out if AIR Music Technology has the answer… Details Price £47. The Riser is an interesting instrument in its own right.Rev. or vice versa. MTF MTF Verdict + Excellent for all kinds of electronic transitions + Easy to learn. but is based on synthesis and not sampling. from filtered swells to whooping sirens Choice 9/10 9 9/ 10 and everything in between. though they do take time to create. Pump it up There’s a second filter stage with 23 filter types available and control sections for cutoff and resonance. pitch. In this case. Each also has a configurable filter so you can control the shape of the signal as soon as it leaves the oscillator. The patches are designed to provide various different kinds of transition. Some people will no doubt ask why they would buy a synth that ‘just did transitions’. with configurable depth and. and remix work. the noise oscillator adds texture and grit. so the learning curve is quite gentle. where applicable. each with multiple editable characteristics. and these effects help the synth sounds to sit comfortably in your tracks. Enter The Riser. with extensive tempo-sync options available for the delay section and four reverb types with controls. fun to use + Saves a load of time + Could also be used for sound design + Very affordable + Beefs up your electronic tracks . so the affordability definitely helps here. There’s some clever stuff to help you out too.99 Contact Via website Web www. such as a randomizer to generate whole new patches at the touch of a button and an Invert mode that instantly changes the direction of the current transition to provide you with a ‘down’ to your ‘up’. but you may also want to tweak the settings to better suit the particular track you’re working on. look elsewhere Even if you’re doing experimental stuff it’s well worth a look for the creative possibilities it offers.It’s best at transitions. rises and falls to build up to a change in the dynamics of a song. you interact with them all in much the same fashion. from German developer AIR Music Technology.AIR Music Technology The Riser Reviews MTF Alternatives If you’re willing to spend the time you can program these kinds of effects using various different software synths and your DAW. noise and chord. So although it is perfect for electronic transitions. Three LFOs are available: free running. The sweep controls the direction of the transition. Innovation AIR MUSIC TECHNOLOGY The Riser Tired of programming endless sweeps. or indeed any key you specify. Although targeted at the many people making uptempo electronic music. 9/10 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT140. scoring. so you can quickly change or automate the level of modulation. for example.7. and finally the chord oscillator can be used to match the synth’s structure to your song’s key. audio regions can be transferred directly to RX 4 (via Pro Tools’ AudioSuite menu). including: Declip. but the fact that it so effortlessly straddles both plug-in and standalone operation has meant RX could fit into a variety of different workflows with relative ease. others based on an off-line audio editor – but like Native Instruments’ Kontakt dominance of sampling. defined from its earliest version. RX 4. One distinct shift that’s come with the introduction of RX 4 is the new RX Connect plug-in. RX is proportionately more transparent than other non-spectral alternatives. For those that prefer working solely in their DAW. though. or a complete slice of the frequency range. though. RX then lets you tweak your audio using a number of processing modules. the ability to work in the spectral domain is what makes RX so effective. was Key Features ● Dialogue Denoiser ● Spectral Repair ● Leveler & Clip Gain ● Loudness ● Ambience Match ● EQ Match the idea of spectral editing. but it certainly contains some new treats that you won’t want to be without. though.RX4. One central philosophy. with the system seemingly at its best in Pro Tools. there’s been a variety of audio restoration solutions – some in plug-in form. Choice 9/10 9 9/ 10 Details Price £729 (RX 4 Advanced). Its success can be explained in a number of ways. and you’ll see that iZotope has 110 | Ableton Live 2015 MT140. Rather than selecting and modifying sound purely based on time. transformations are rendered to the audio clip.com Restoration home As with previous versions of the application. which attempts to provide a direct bridge between your DAW and RX 4 as a standalone application. At first glance. especially those working in the field of post-production. While this isn’t entirely unique. it’s worth noting that there’s a big difference in the pricing (around £500. Exact integration varies between DAWs. there’s no need to fear that you’ll permanently damage the file in any way. RX 4 isn’t graced with a dramatic facelift or an endless list of new and glamorous features that might grab your attention. £215 (RX 4) Contact Time + Space 01837 55200 Web www. Over the years. In truth. Denoise. RX lets you lasso parts of the audio spectrum. rather FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:57 . to be precise). More than just being a gimmick. which in the world of audio restoration makes a big difference to the quality of the end result. but with the introduction of RX 4 iZotope is keen to retain RX’s position as an essential post-production toolkit. whether it’s a small breath noise. RX has always provided a number of plug-ins that replicate many of the key modules used in the application.Rev. putting RX 4 distinctly in the ‘professional tool’ price bracket. With the Connect system active. Before you get too excited.izotope.indd 110 thoughtfully evolved RX in a way that closely matches the needs of many audio professionals. the fact that RX was designed from the ground up as a spectral audio editor lends it a distinct Photoshop-like quality to its operation. therefore. By being selective. where you work with sound both from a visual and aural perspective. it makes the process of moving between the two applications more seamless. and Spectral Repair. so it might be worth a detailed look at the features comparison list before you make your choice. can iZotope really improve on the prowess of RX 3? Mark Cousins finds out what version 4 has to offer… O ver its last three generations iZotope’s RX has developed an enviable reputation among many sound engineers.MTF Reviews iZotope RX 4 Advanced iZOTOPE RX 4 Advanced Adding a host of new modules. it’s certainly not short on features. ZX spectrum With the spectral editing concept in place. RX 4 may not be a game changer. Time & Pitch. though. therefore. RX seems to have become the go-to solution for many audio professionals. either for analysis purposes or as a ‘round trip’ for audio restoration tasks. Look more closely. therefore. For the purposes of the review. it doesn’t seem that long ago since we reviewed RX 3. As an off-line audio editor. RX 4 comes in two principle flavours – the standard edition. Dereverb. Ultimately. and a feature-rich version called RX 4 Advanced. we’ll be concentrating on RX 4 Advanced. While RX 4 lacks some of the tools of RX 4 Advanced. enabling you to direct the correction to a specific segment of the audio – both in relation to time and frequency. but thanks to a stepped undo history (that can even be recalled after you’ve saved the file). For newcomers it’s well worth noting the key points of RX 4’s design and workflow. Given the wealth of what’s included in the standard RX 4. New features such as the Clip Gain really transform RX 4’s usefulness. especially in relation to increasing the levels of quieter parts of the mix. and for that fact alone it’s a tool few professional users will want to be without. Working in conjunction with Clip Gain is the Leveler module that lets you apply a form of automated gain control. (which uses a limiter rather than the gain adjustment approach of Leveler). especially in relation to the newer dynamics modules such as Leveler and Loudness. you can see how many of the new features specifically relate to dialogue restoration and editing. it’s clear that iZotope has priced the application competitively. but it does demonstrate iZotope’s intention to provide the ultimate fix-it tool for a range of audio dilemmas. Ultimately. there’s a variety of new modules and audio enhancement features introduced in RX 4. Other new modules seem largely directed at the post-production fraternity. but in situations where this isn’t available you can use RX 4’s Match Ambience to synthesize new background noise. Leveler. Usually a small amount of ‘wild track’ is recorded to cover these issues. MTF MTF Verdict + Leveler and Clip Gain really aid workflow + Connect system improves DAW integration + Perfect for a range of postproduction tasks + Spectral-level precision and transparency . Even though the standard RX 4 misses out on many of the new modules there’s still a wealth of creative and technical possibilities that RX 4 has to offer. used as a means of balancing out the dynamic range of tracks. certainly makes it all the more tempting. few other tools can rescue irrevocably damaged audio like RX 4 does.DeClicker. Method Spot Differing levels of background noise can cause problems between dialogue takes. so will fit in well with your workflow.RX4. where the software ‘learns’ a fingerprint from a source recording. One interesting development from a workflow perspective is the non-destructive Clip Gain. including some spectral analysis and editing features. though. The hard decision for potential customers. It’s a simple feature. is reconciling the price difference between the two versions.5 (£448). The suite is comprised of three plug-ins . Knowing just how many professionals have come to use RX’s powers on an almost daily basis it’s clear to see that the new improvements in RX 4 will be a welcome addition to their workflow. Loudness. Leveler also proved to be a real winner and a viable additional means of controlling dynamics that contrasts well with traditional tools such as a compressor and upwards expander.Rev. although the addition of Insight.indd 111 | 111 11/02/2015 14:57 . but one that makes a big difference to the workflow in RX 4. it was also interesting to hear the Leveler applied in a music production context. although given the inherent versatility of RX 4 their application can extend across a wide variety of sonic surgery tasks. The Like Kontakt’s dominance of sampling. Beyond the obvious dialogue applications. iZotope’s comprehensive metering suite plug-in (itself worth £295). EQ Match and Ambience Match. making it a justifiable purchase for those who want to dabble in RX’s spectral-based audio RX 4 can be used in plug-in or standalone mode.New modules biased towards RX 4 Advanced . RX seems to have become the go-to solution for many audio professionals refine the gain changes as you see fit. including a Loudness module The Dialogue Denoiser is great for cleaning up vocal takes. which enables you to create a series of nodes to control the amplitude of your audio clip. RX 4 Advanced is a more significant investment. The Noise Fingerprint is then used to generate the required wild track. Ultimately. especially when you’re working with problematic dialogue. Match Ambience works in a similar way to Noise Removal.195) is well worth closer investigation. The unique slant here. Clean sweep RX 4 may not be a gigantic leap on from the features included in RX 3.Connect integration varies between DAWs iZotope’s RX 4 continues to lead the way as the most versatile audio restoration tool around. letting you tweak and If you’re principally interested in audio restoration using your DAW. then Sonnox’s Restore (£1. though. New modules As you’d expect. EQ Match and Ambience Match.iZotope RX 4 Advanced Reviews MTF Alternatives than having to choose the plug-in route. much like a compressor or expander. is that the output is in the form of a re-drawn Clip Gain curve. including non-destructive Clip Gain. An alternative for Spectral editing is Steinberg’s WaveLab 8. In the case of Ambience Match it’s worth noting that the ‘Ambience’ isn’t reverb but the residual noise floor between different audio clips. making RX 3 seem surprisingly limited when we stepped back to compare the older version. which is a good all-round audio editor. editing. DeBuzzer and DeNoiser – so it doesn’t cover the breadth of RX 4. saving countless damaged audio files from a one-way trip to the bin! 9/10 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT140. Compared to the standard edition. The 5in woofer does have certain Focal features because its Polyglass cone is made by applying molten glass microballs onto a cellulose pulp cone to combine excellent paper damping with glass rigidity.indd 112 Focal. However. Then you simply split them. respectively.6cm x 21cm ● System weight: 8.MTF Reviews Fender Passport Studio Alternatives This is one of those rare occasions where we can’t suggest any direct alternatives because the product is fairly unique.Rev.7cm x 35. you could consider more conventional monitors such as the ADAM ARTist 3 (£230 each). the inverted dome aluminium/magnesium TNB tweeter is the same unit that is used in Focal’s CMS range. Like many computer-style monitor speaker setups. although we did suspect there was a bit of resonance around the 1K region. and three-way The bass end packs a lot of punch and there’s plenty of it when you consider that these are medium/small nearfields. the level of detail and solidity of the imaging is certainly commensurate with the price point. Even so. the Passport Studio can’t match the CMS-40 for openness. which seems to suggest that the same drivers are used in other Focal monitors. MTF MTF Verdict + Quick and convenient portability + Real-world features + Ample power + Smooth sound .5 dB at 75Hz and 7. What’s more.fender. These days many pro engineers and mixers tend to work out of their own studios.Slight midrange colouration . the amplification is contained in the left enclosure and the right speaker links up via a TRS jack cable. which can be carried in one hand. Lock and load FENDER FOCAL Choice Passport Studio 9/10 9 9/ 10 Is this monitor system. switches for frequency adjustment. Despite sharing the same tweeter. and the woofers and tweeters get 50W and 25W each. We contacted Focal to ask for clarification and were told that the woofer was developed by their R&D team for Fender and it’s an ‘exclusive technology’. Drive time According to Fender UK the amplifier and driver technology comes from 112 | Ableton Live 2015 MT138. Interestingly the Focal CMS 50 is available in pairs with a dedicated carry bag. However. This is a cleverly designed. So you could split the output of a preamp and connect one side to the Passport Studio’s aux input for zero-latency monitoring. if the portability aspect is less of a priority and you don’t mind boxing them up for transportation. but Fender obviously believes that enough of us are still nomadic to justify the development of a fully portable monitor system. Many of us would box up our preferred monitors and drag them from studio to studio to get some sense of continuity from an endless succession of control rooms. they have collaborated with one of Europe’s most respected studio monitor manufacturers to do it. set them up and they’re good to go. the perfect lightweight solution for engineers on the move? Huw Price checks in… Details Price £490 (pair) Contact Fender GBI 01342 331700 Web www. The back panel of the left speaker accommodates balanced inputs for left and right as well as the link output and power switch. It’s claimed that the rigidity index exceeds even that of single-skin Kevlar and is almost ten times superior to polypropylene. Judged purely as studio monitors. The defining feature is that Passport Studio system can be locked together and transported without the need to preserve the original packaging or buy a flight case. There’s also a pleasing absence of port chuffing although some roll off can be detected below 50Hz along with a slight lift in the upper bass. The spare space that’s available in the right enclosure accommodates the power and link cables when the speakers are not in use and each enclosure gets a rear cover plate that’s held in position magnetically. but the bundle costs £870. carefully thought out and affordable product that fills a niche in the market.Fender Focal.4kg T his is the product that would have been perfect back in the days of the jobbing freelance sound engineer. Protected by a recess under the speaker baffle there’s a volume control plus two mini jack sockets for auxillary input and headphone output. Avantone MixCubes (£387 pair) or Focal Alpha 50 (£200 each).5KHz ● Midrange: 5in Polyglass cone ● Tweeter: 1in TNB inverted dome ● Dimensions: 45. 9/10 FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:29 . more conventional competitors might offer an extra degree of user adjustment. However. The literature states that the ‘Passport Studio houses a world-renowned Focal driver’.Lacks airiness in the treble An interesting concept that’s well executed and priced – and they sound pretty good too. The phones socket mutes the speakers and the aux and left/right inputs can be used simultaneously.com Key Features ● Frequency response: 50Hz20kHz ● Input: TRS jacks and/or stereo mini jack ● Total onboard power: 75W per channel ● Onboard equalisation: +1. and the treble sounds a little muted even with the treble boost on. the Passport Studio system has a smooth and easy-going sound with full midrange. Under these are some more performance controls including octave up and down. There are also two synths. The keyboard comes with some software too. And its tiny footprint means it’s also good for those pressed for space. It doesn’t have the faders of the APC Mini but it does have eight knobs which can more or less be deputised to perform a similar function. You get 25 synth action mini keys. A perfect choice? The APC Key 25 is a really cool little controller for Live. and the Shift button provides access to a bunch of alternate functions for many controls.5 or later Windows XP or higher 2GB RAM USB port Small is beautiful The first thing to say about the Key 25 is that it is very compact. There’s enough travel in the keybed that note presses register convincingly.99 Distributor InMusic Contact Via website Web www. though its all-plastic construction. though you’ll want to check with Akai exactly how well supported your particular choice of third-party software is.Rev APC. producing a number of Ableton Performance Controller (APC) hardware units in close co-operation with the software developer. The only omission is a sustain pedal input. greatly expanding the usefulness of the hardware. It comes with some iOS apps but not with the software you get with the APC. the only APC model with a keyboard. and while you won’t be playing any sonatas on these they are perfectly decent for basslines.Lightweight build means being careful when transporting A surprisingly versatile Live controller considering its extreme portability. The knobs are of good quality and move fluidly but with just the right amount of resistance. Even though the keys are small they’re still perfectly fine for synth melodies. It’s even smaller and also has 25 keys and eight knobs. to play with. so you can play beyond the physical 25-note key range as well as play. filters and more. or for working on the move. so with the Key 25 you’re killing two birds with one stone. Despite being small they’re well-designed and will certainly do the job of letting you input clips accurately. As is usually the case. The rest of the front panel is taken up by the Live controls. com Minimum System Requirements Intel Mac with OS X 10. volume. A lot of people who use a Live controller will also have a MIDI keyboard connected. though you do get a sustain button which kind of takes its place. It’s pre-mapped for Live and you’ll find that the controls map across beautifully. melodies and simple chords. basslines and beats. It can be used as a Key Features ● Live controller ● 25 mini keys ● Eight assignable knobs ● 8x5 clip control grid ● USB powered ● Navigate projects and record MIDI ● Bundled software and samples generic MIDI controller too. Details Price £99. they do have a different focus. means you’ll probably not want to throw it around too much. 8/10 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT142. The three clip status modes (loaded. Hollin Jones streamlines his setup with the APC Key 25… A kai has really gone all out on its collaboration with Ableton over the last few years. To the right are eight assignable knobs and you can toggle their function easily between pan. and Toolroom artist launch packs available for download after registering online. There’s a single USB port on the side that you use to connect to your Mac or PC. The company’s latest is the APC Key 25. Hybrid 3 by AIR and SONiVOX Twist. It’s insanely portable and very light indeed. the software displays which section of a project is currently being controlled and you can move this area around using the arrow keys on the keyboard for better navigation. and a sustain button for manually entering sustain values in lieu of a pedal. You can also control rows of clips at a time using the Scene Launch buttons.akaipro. with red outlines appearing in the software to denote what you’re currently controlling. including a version of Live Lite. Having a keyboard is a great bonus. and the grid feels just right with button sizes and spacing ample enough that you don’t accidentally hit one while aiming for another. MTF MTF Verdict + Incredibly portable + Keyboard is surprisingly usable + No setup required with Live + Excellent Live integration + Control sessions remotely + Workflow is good + Decent bundled content . and it’s class compliant so no drivers are required. and crucially it has the keyboard. though its 16 pads are aimed more at generic MIDI control than the APC’s more targeted grid of Live buttons. as you might expect. As mentioned.Akai APC Key 25 Reviews MTF Alternatively The most direct competitor is Novation’s Launchkey Mini at £79. while solid. though.indd 113 | 113 11/02/2015 15:20 . they’re better suited to synth or beat-style playing than anything too complex. such partnerships are able to achieve integration that isn’t possible by simply bundling MIDI maps for other people’s software. So although they are both tiny keyboards. so it will certainly be of interest to Live users. It manages to fit a surprising amount of functionality in too. Value AKAI €£$ APC Key 25 Take two controllers on stage? Not if Akai has anything to do with it. Power and MIDI are also handled by this connection so there’s no need for a power supply. So even if you have nothing else before buying the Key 25 there’s enough bundled content that you can be making music quickly without having to spend more money. Most prominent is the 5x8 multicoloured grid that lets you launch clips. sends and device control as well as effect levels.A sustain pedal port would be a bonus . pause and record controls for clips. playing and recording) are displayed using different coloured backlights. and having a keyboard in such a compact unit in addition to all the other controls is a real bonus. as we have always found with Pianoteq.pianoteq. Pianoteq works by modelling the sound of a piano and all the complex interactions of the resonances of the strings and the body in real time. glockenspiel and celesta you can also choose vibes. RTAS or AAX plug-in for Mac and PC. A ‘Random’ button helps out here by dialing in a bunch of settings at random. PC and Linux ● Bundled instrument packs ● Expandable ● Onboard effects ● Multiple sound tweaking controls ● Load external reverb impulses ● Per-note edit in Pro version ● New microphones section P ianos were among the first instruments to be accurately reproduced in digital format. and the process of mic placement is intuitive and powerful. but a detailed feature comparison can be found on the website and you can use this to decide which version is right for you. soundboard behaviour. Although these add slightly to the install size we’re only talking tens of megabytes. Given that the upgrade to version 5 of the Standard or Pro models is just €29. xylophones. The interface in the Pro and Standard versions provides you with a number of sections for tweaking a patch in incredible detail. and they even have tweakable polarity and proximity effect settings. from tuning through hammer hardness. so it’s still a very lightweight app. EQ and effects.MTF Reviews Modartt Pianoteq 5 you’re up and running quickly. stereo or binaural output for a while. We reviewed the full Pro version. As such it’s easy to add or remove intimacy or room ambience with a couple of clicks. You may not need to fiddle with these. but Modartt might just have the solution. Hollin Jones tinkles the virtual ivories of the Pianoteq 5… Details Price Pianoteq Stage. Under the Output section at the base of the window you’ll find configurable velocity settings. Each model of piano comes with its own presets and these sound excellent. What you get Excellence 10/10 MODARTT Pianoteq 5 Not everyone has space for a massive sample library. all with multiple presets. and separate control sections for action. It’s been Alternatives Native Instruments makes a range of Kontakt-based sampled piano models. €99 Pianoteq Standard. Weighing in at just 40MB its footprint is tiny compared to most other piano instruments and. for around £59 each. They’re not all just pianos either. In the mic section they can be added or removed. It’s worth noting that there are three versions available at different prices and with different feature sets. but you needn’t worry about them because it’s very much a musician’s tool with an emphasis on playing and sound tweaking rather than the mechanics of sound generation.com Key Features ● All major formats ● Mac. but it’s a fact nonetheless. defining a ‘fourth era’ of piano instruments. there’s loads you can achieve. believable acoustic piano and similar sounds on your computer while using hardly any space. and it works as a standalone application or as an AU. €249 Pianoteq Pro. this space saving can be very appealing. €29 Contact Via website Web www. In the reverb section you can even load a WAV impulse to tailor the character of the reverb very precisely. and there’s the ability to add more instrument packs to Pianoteq via online purchases. Powerful and playable. ranging from uprights to concert grands.review Pianoteq. As a new buyer. Pianoteq is an excellent way to get authentic. in which case the entry-level version might be your preferred option. clavinets and more. the addition of the tweakable mics seems like enough of a reason to go for it. as the developers put it. possible to choose mono. with the physically-modelled piano. and as well as some very old models of harpsichord. The idea of virtual mics isn’t new but it’s beautifully implemented here. strike points. MTF MTF Verdict + Excellent piano sounds + Very playable and easy to use + Great depth of sound tweaking controls + New mics section is very useful and creative + Extremely small footprint + Easy on system resources + Expandable with more instruments + Create almost any piano sound + Up to 192kHz support in Pro version . attached together. a ‘condition’ area that lets you ‘age’ the piano sound.indd 114 All three versions include two instrument packs of your choice and the bonus Historical Instruments pack. but if you do want to get in-depth with the Standard or Pro version. multi-gigabyte sample libraries to recreate the nuances and playability of a real piano. 10/10 FOCUS 11/02/2015 13:00 . refining the way the sound is generated. and although they have sound tweaking controls they’re overall a little heavier on your system. so it’s possible to place mics some distance away from the piano and at different heights. and they can now be rotated in all three dimensions. With all these tweakable controls it’s possible to do anything. In the Effects tab are three effect slots plus reverb. VST. electric pianos. New in Pianoteq 5 is an expanded configurable mic section.2aj.Entry-level version is relatively feature-limited Still the best way to get authentic. Pianoteq came along and changed all that. There’s a level of authenticity and finesse to the sounds that’s hard to square with the resource-light nature of the app. string length and many more. though this was almost always achieved by using large. €399 Upgrade from previous version. plus there’s a Linux version. playable and configurable piano sounds on your computer without taking up valuable space. in an age where many people produce music on laptops. steel drums. mallet bounce. from making minor tonal changes to altering a piano into something completely alien. but now there are 15 mic models available which can be manipulated more fully. You can expand the view too. The algorithms behind this are surely fiendishly complicated. These have a somewhat different approach since they do use samples as the basis for their sound generation. The other major changes from version 4 are in the physical model and these are applied across all the instruments. their levels set. After unlocking the software online 114 | Ableton Live 2015 MT137. sturdy desktop unit + Can be used for both projects and mobile recording (just) + Easy DAW set-up + Good software bundle . cup of tea in hand.4). I had issues with needing to reboot my DAW whenever my computer PRO 26 is solid. Now there are no problems whatsoever and I quickly had PRO 26 up and running and my hardware synths talking happily to Logic. Saffire PRO 26 feels like a trustworthy old friend coming around to your house. two for high-impedance instruments. One final point of note with MixControl is to make sure you download the latest version (as I write. while five and six are line-ins. sitting down with you. and not forgetting the rather great original BassStation soft synth – nice. Front panel controls are smooth to use and it’s great to have total control on my monitoring right next to my laptop rather than reaching down to my rack as I have done. I’m instantly at home with the 26’s layout – different inputs and outputs on the front and back panels with a useful meter display and rotaries to control levels.com There is enough going on (or. It enables you to configure which audio tracks on your software are routed to which physical ins and outs on the interface. There are six line outputs plus a couple of headphone outs and additional inputs by way of an ADAT optical interface (offering another eight inputs). and I’m struggling for the correct word here.You might need to buy a Thunderbolt cable . It’s not rack-mountable but just light enough to be a usable mobile interface (although you might want to consider the PRO 24 for an even more compact solution). 8/10 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 | MT137. which is essentially your routing environment.focusrite. Details Price £299 Telephone +44 1494 462246 Web uk. in and out) for a smallish project studio set-up – say. but after a call to Focusrite’s very good technical support staff the latest version solved the problem. Novation’s BassStation synth plus 1GB of Loopmasters samples unnecessary? What it does is something that you should be able to do in your DAW – the last thing I need is another layer of complication when it comes to computer music making… But. a gig of Loopmasters samples. three and four are combination mic/ line/XLRs. many other Saffire configurations to choose from depending on your connectivity needs.I know why MixControl is needed but I’m not a huge fan Versatile. the company states. so how does Focusrite’s new model stand up? Andy Jones gets connected… W e’re generally very positive when it comes to Focusrite interfaces. It lacks some connectivity. Focusrite’s Midnight and Scarlett plugins. Having used a Saffire interface extensively. two headphone outs. If I’m honest. just like a good piece of interfacing gear should. Focusrite’s own plug-in suites. Thunderbolt. cost-effective and non-melodramatic ways. although you will need to buy an adapter for the latter which is a shame as that’s £25 and a couple of days’ wait you might not have accounted for. simply recognise Saffire as a new interfacing option and instantly bring the included Saffire MixControl software into the frame. The interface itself is solid and compact – I like the feel and look a lot – and it’s ideal for a desktop studio set-up where space is limited. eight extra inputs via ADAT optical) ● 5-Segment LED meter ● Software Bundle includes Ableton Live Lite. The company seems to have a sense of what we need in our studios – often before we do – and supplies solutions in practical. if a little starkly. is not as compact. the company is taking away the main responsibility of the unit – rock solid interfacing – away from the DAW producer to make sure that it properly does what it says on the tin. FOCUSRITE SaffirePRO26 A good interface should be reliable and unobtrusive. Am I just getting lazy? Yes. MTF MTF Verdict + Rock solid. compact. a singer-songwriter with guitars and mics or someone like me with a soft synth set-up and one or two choice hardware synths. There’s just room to mention a fine suite of plug-ins that ships with the unit: Live Lite. Here there are six physical inputs: one and two can be line (at the front) or mic (round the back). then so be it. Easy boy When you get up and running (now a pretty seamless operation) your software should. It’s easy to select and route audio and control levels. So we have another fine unit that plugs a gap in the company’s range. And it does it very well. v3. The interface itself is solid and compact. ready to solve any studio interfacing problems you have. I’ve used it in the past and thought it a little.review Saffire. compact and will sit on your desktop unnoticed and quietly getting on with its job. although the latter task is something you’ll prefer to do on the unit and largely what those front panel rotaries are for. should I say. and ideal for a desktop studio set-up Key Features ● 24-bit/96kHz FireWire interface ● Four preamps ● 18 inputs and eight outputs (four mic/line pres. It’s been around for a while but the PreSonus FireStudio Project is still available for the same price (street). And if that means using a layer of software in addition.indd 115 115 11/02/2015 14:17 . of course. like Logic Pro X with me. six TRS line outputs. slept between sessions which turned out to be an issue with the (then new) Logic Pro X. but does have more rotary control. easy and reliable. The Saffire range is largely FireWire and.Focusrite Saffire PRO 26 Reviews MTF Alternatives We’ve already mentioned the PRO 24 as being another compact solution and there are. seeing it from Focusrite’s side. and we’ve often used it for exactly that reason. MTF MTF Verdict + Blocks reflections in poorly treated rooms + Improved stand mechanics . It still wasn’t as dry as the controlled room with the RF SPACE. as opposed to the obviously live version without it. having large baffles on hand when you need to close down the reflections is not an easy option. without it. the figure-of-eight capsule sounded more like a cardioid but still had all the gorgeous qualities we’ve come to love of ribbon mics.indd 116 mounting mechanism. The final frontier The RF SPACE does a great job of cutting down room reflections. dry. which shows you that even with the filter in place the room is still going to have an impact. though. with a more direct. the option of being able to angle the RF SPACE made it easy to place and angle the mic at the guitar without too much hassle. focused sound than without it. making it easier to use the SPACE as a filter around instruments as well as on a vertical stand for vocals. However. intimate emotion. alongside the vertical diffusion pillars. The original RF Pro sought to ease this problem by creating a portable solution that could be quickly set up and positioned to reduce room reflections while capturing a stunning clean. sE has taken another look at the Reflexion filter and come up with the SPACE (Specialised Portable Acoustic Control Environment). because of the nature of putting the enclosure around the back of the microphone it still works best with side-address mics (which hang vertically) rather than end-address units. Even in great-sounding rooms engineers will likely pull out a bunch of baffles to control the ambience as they are recording. the ability to quickly switch the acoustics makes this a great addition. These pillars deepen the air gaps.Not easy to fit end-address microphones in the enclosure The RF SPACE is an easy-to-use solution that will improve poorly controlled rooms. We’re often telling you the importance of room treatment with respect to mixing. com C ontrolling the ambience on a signal is one of the key jobs of any tracking engineer. With the RF SPACE the signal we captured was clean and clear. The design uses ten layers of sE’s patented Multi-Layer Air Gap technology material with seven vertical pillars. The clamp can now be tilted and locked at an angle. The difference was subtle but still noticeable without any processing on the vocal. Choice 9/10 9 9/ 10 sE RF SPACE Is sE’s new version of its multi award-winning reflexion filter out of this world? Mike Hillier prepares for lift-off… Details Price £299 Contact Sonic Distribution 0845 500 2500 Web www. and it became more apparent as we started to apply a little compression to the signal. We like to use sE’s RNR1 Rupert Neve ribbon mic on acoustic guitar.Rev. But even in studios with fantastic treatment and portable baffles.MTF Reviews sE RF SPACE Alternatives There are several alternatives to the sE Reflexion Filter range. placing our vocal just a touch further back. This. No-one can hear you scream We started our testing with a vocal in an already fairly well-controlled room. especially when you add the XLR connector. however they are all simply based around a sheet of acoustic foam and none have the layers of material and air gaps that block not only more of the reflections but also over a wider frequency range. If you record in a project studio where the room acoustics are less than perfect this is an almost essential purchase. Because the filter prevents signals from hitting the walls and bouncing back onto the rear of the ribbon.Space. In order to make SPACE a more useful and easy-to-use tool than the previous models. But for many small studio owners. Switching from our treated control room to the kitchen – a very live room with a tiled floor and plenty of flat wooden surfaces – the difference between recording with the RF SPACE and without it became more obvious. it did take much of the life out of the room and would have made it easy to place as a dry vocal. and you can see that sE has really put a lot of work into the Reflexion Filter range. gives the RF SPACE a huge advantage over competitors. just as we’ve heard of other engineers using bathrooms or purpose-built stone rooms for similar effects. which usually consist of nothing more than a sheet of foam. 9/10 FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:30 . the compressed signal brought up the room. with the RF SPACE the room took an altogether different vibe and we were impressed at how much the room was controlled. capturing more low-end material and adding some random diffusion. Rocket science Key Features ● Ten layers of Multi-Layer Air Gap technology ● Seven vertical pillars to aid diffusion ● Newly designed clamp ● Three-year warranty The SPACE takes the basic concept of the RF Pro’s multiple layers and air gaps and extends the surface area to envelop more of the microphone and prevent a greater degree of room reflections from reaching the microphone. but the tracking environment is important too – arguably more so. which tend to start poking the back of the chamber. dry performance. However. Compare this with many of the alternatives. eight years later. which has a figure-of-eight polar pattern. However.seelectronics. sE has redesigned the 116 | Ableton Live 2015 MT138. Now. With the RF SPACE in place the compressed signal retained its close. Switching to acoustic guitar. The live room sound can be a great trick. but can still find a use tightening up well-treated spaces too. but we’ll get on to that later. Size matters GENELEC 8010A Excellence 10/10 It may look like the 6010. while the 8010A displayed the more airy and open treble that many would associate with Genelec. the 8010A occupies a class of its own. Huw Price downsizes. 10/10 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT139. Switch on takes about half a second. Genelec also promises that the 8010A is an accurate monitoring tool. the sound belies the actual size. but owners who find this hard to live with can disable the ISS function. the bass extension isn’t exactly bowel troubling but we have used monitors with enclosures two or three times the size that would struggle to convey quite as much bass energy. It’s also interesting to note that the 8010A is compatible with Genelec’s 7050B subwoofer. The promotional shots showing a user putting a pair of 8010A monitors into a shoulder bag are entirely plausible.indd 117 | 117 11/02/2015 14:39 . Another feature is Genelec’s Intelligent Signal Sensing (ISS) circuitry. There are no fiddly link cables and each unit has its own Class D amplification and controls. Placed on a desktop either side of a computer screen the results were still impressive. -4dB and -6dB at 100Hz. For instance. it’s The 3in woofer gets 80W of power and the ¾in metal dome tweeter gets 50W. Details Price £259 each Contact 020 8962 5080 Web www. but we opted to augment the desktop filter with a -4dB bass tilt to tighten the low end (your experience may differ depending on the resonance of your desk). Frequency response adjustment is next up. you could check out the Adam A3X (£138 each) or the Focal CMS 40 (£284 each). a relief to discover that it get its juice from the mains rather than a wall wart. To summarise. Alternatively the 8010A can be mounted on a bracket or stand. Admittedly our listening room isn’t especially large. Just like the pictures. This might seem a bit like dropping a V8 engine into a Fiat 500. Although somewhat larger. the word that springs to mind is ‘extraordinary’. It’s a simple and elegant solution that ensures the tweeter is always directed towards your ears. The Focals were a touch softer and smoother. Designed to enable “professionals to work in compact studios and on the move” they’re so small that you could probably use them in a cupboard. With that in mind. In addition the Desktop Control switch activates a 4dB cut at 200Hz.com Key Features ● Max SPL: 96dB ● Frequency response: 67Hz 25kHz ● Power: Bass 25W Class D/ Treble 25W ● 3in bass driver ● ¾in metal dome tweeter ● Dimensions: 195 x 121 x 116 mm ● Weight: 1. but the 8010A filled the space with crystal clear and wide open sound. Genelec protect the woofer and tweeter with metal covers and all the connections and switches are tucked neatly out of harm’s way. which switches the monitor to standby when no audio input is detected.Rev. but with newly designed amps and XLR inputs the Genelec 8010A promises to be a proquality monitoring system that you can carry on the bus. Another dipswitch sets the input sensitivity. Then we placed them on our desktop and aimed them up.High volume exposes enclosure limitations A remarkable set of monitors that provides a professional quality reference at medium listening levels in an effortlessly portable format. Fired up next to a pair of Focal CMS 40s we had to touch the cones on more than one occasion to determine which monitors we were listening to.genelec.5kg ● Connections: XLR input A lthough clearly described as ‘extremely compact’ the bijou dimensions of the 8010A still came as something of a surprise when we took them out of their packaging. The CMS 40 also comes with removable mesh grilles for the woofer and tweeter. The manual includes a very useful chart with suggested settings for various working scenarios. Genelec advises that you choose the setting that provides the desired playback level and resolution for your system’s volume control. MTF MTF Verdict + Sonically transparent + Impressive bass handling + Frequency adjustment switches + Fiendishly clever swivel mount + Effortlessly practical and portable + Versatile placement options + Auto standby + Steady off-axis response + Genelec carry bag is available . When set up as conventional monitors we felt quite happy mixing on the 8010s right away.Genelec.Genelec 8010A Reviews MTF Alternatives As a tiny speaker with professional audio quality that can be carried anywhere. As well as being portable. the recommended Bass Tilt settings are -2dB for reverberant rooms. Only this time it’s way bigger than you would ever expect. Although the 8010A physically resembles a computer speaker more than a conventional studio nearfield. Full tilt Genelec’s four-cornered rubber base is one of our favourite features. but it’s all about headroom rather than sheer volume. As well as providing anti-slip decoupling. Bass tilt provides three levels of attenuation: -2dB. The default setting is ‘Normal’ – predictably enough – and the dipswitch changes this to -10dB. -4dB for proximity to walls and -6dB if the 8010A has to be placed in a corner. The input connector is a balanced XLR input but it can be connected to an unbalanced source using a suitable adaptor. Granted. We started with the 8010A placed on top of our usual monitors and aimed them down. a clever metal clip attachment enables the 8010A to fire upwards and downwards as well as straight. and switch between them. though this makes it reassuringly stable when in use. plus there’s the Controller Editor software for making assignments. or control Logic’s transport. CV and Gate outputs ● Internal and external clocking ● iPad compatibility ● Standalone operation possible A rturia has made a number of successful inroads into the hardware market after many years of developing its range of classic synth emulations. These are marked on the faceplate and include scale type and playback resolution. and it also works as a MIDI hardware trigger and sequencer via its more old-school outputs. as well as a data dial that can control both level and rate parameters. hooked up to any MIDI-capable instrument as well as more advanced devices that can receive control voltage signal.and CV-out ports on the side. This applies to non-computer based controls such as CV as well. but there are also outputs for a conventional MIDI jack as well as Gate. BeatStep is a great choice for anyone working with MIDI-triggered instruments. or from an optional USB power adaptor if you’re using it in standalone mode. At this price. all the outputs can be used at once so you could be triggering 118 | Ableton Live 2015 MT139. BeatStep is an excellent little MIDI controller. Although it has no onboard display. then another to control a Logic project and so on.indd 118 some MIDI hardware and then switch modes and use BeatStep to launch clips in Live. the French company is now going compact with hardware synths such as the Micro and Mini Brutes. as well as playing beats you can use the pads as switches or to send program and bank change messages. Hollin Jones road tests Arturia’s BeatStep… Details Price €99 Contact Via website Web www. MIDI channel select. NI’s Maschine Mikro for £299 comes with the full Maschine software and is physically larger. and now also the BeatStep MIDI controller. Designed to cater for the modern mobile producer. For triggering in software it’s intuitive and fun to use.MTF Reviews Arturia BeatStep Excellence 10/10 ARTURIA BeatStep If you thought triggering MIDI hardware and software meant using two different devices. MTF Verdict + Very sturdy and well designed + Gentle learning curve + Control hardware as easily as software + Use all modes at once + Tiny footprint + Flexible setup options via software + Class compliant + Makes MIDI triggering fun . Going in the other direction. The scale function also means you can ensure only the correct notes for any given scale are available to you. external sync button. It has a MIDI mode too. Thanks to the straightforward layout this is very intuitive to do: simply press the control / sequencer button to toggle between modes and the light scheme changes too. It does take portability to the extreme.7 or higher 2GB RAM Dual core 2GHz CPU or better Key Features ● Controller or sequencer modes ● 16 velocity and pressure sensitive pads ● 16 encoders ● Onboard sequencer ● USB. When you’re working with a computer you will be sending MIDI over the USB connection. Where some of its other hardware has been physically quite large. but then flip modes to use the knobs to start tweaking synth parameters. It has rubber feet and a Kensington lock port. Plugged into a Mac.Rev. using the knobs to set pitches and the pads to assign notes on or off. it has a few more tricks up its sleeve than may at first be apparent. Look and feel The hardware has 16 backlit pads and 16 knobs. Best of all these can be used concurrently by switching modes on the fly. and the unit itself is sturdy and fun to use. and receives power over mini USB from your Mac or PC. preset store and recall and a shift button which enables access to a secondary function for all the pads. This means it can work independently of a computer. and for that you sacrifice the full complement of pads and dials. and indeed it’s a fun and powerful music creation tool in its own right regardless of your working methods. BeatStep was able to control any MIDI instrument I pointed it at including those in Reason.arturia. Underneath this are play and stop commands. The setup software is well designed. but Arturia has done a good job with the workflow and it’s all pretty friendly. So you might be using the device’s internal sequencer to trigger a pattern. MTF Alternatives Akai’s LPD8 is even more compact with just eight pads and knobs and is available for around £35. It’s so small and portable that it would definitely suit anyone making music on the move or with limited studio space. and in Step Sequence mode you can enter 16-step sequences easily. though it’s easy to make all the assignments in the software then use BeatStep in standalone mode. 10/10 FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:38 . mode switch. It’s best suited to beats or monophonic parts like basses or synth leads. you can manage all its settings and customise templates using the free MIDI Control Center software. So for example you could set up a map for your favourite VST. MIDI.Beatstep. It’s class compliant so no drivers are required on either platform and it also works with iPads via Apple’s Camera Connection Kit. Logic and Live. so it can be used for more generic controlling.com Minimum System Requirements Windows 7 or higher Mac OS X 10. With a bit of practice it’s easy to pick up. but the addition of the knobs means it’s also good for synth parameter tweaking and DAW control. Physically the box itself is small but sturdy and a little heavier than you might have expected. This gives you control over all assignable parameters on the hardware and the ability to store them as presets. think again. Sometimes this kind of stuff can be a bit fiddly to use. In MIDI controller mode. red for controller and blue for sequencing. Interestingly.Nothing at this price An excellent MIDI controller that unites the worlds of software and hardware at a price that’s hard to ignore. be they in hardware or software form. as it enables budding engineers to see what EQ can and cannot achieve. Zero Latency mode compromises a little smoothness in the phase response for an EQ that can be used with no latency issues at all. In Pro-Q2 however you can hover over the frequency chart and freeze it. There’s a new Tilt shelving filter. but ensures maximum phase coherence when working with multiple mic’ed sources. Little did we expect that nearly five years later Pro-Q is still the first EQ we turn to. it’s the ease-of-use. Absolutely brilliant. which allows it to capture not only the spectrum. while Linear Phase has a huge latency (around 5. When applied to a standard bellshaped filter. using the new EQ match function. This makes it very simple to quickly find and remove unwanted resonances.5 or higher. A real-time spectrum analyser is laid underneath the EQ frequency chart. subtractive or additive.000 samples at 44. however. This has the effect of letting you scoop big chunks out of the frequency spectrum without any processing to the signal at either side of the bell. or to quickly get to a sound you like by matching a sound you already have from elsewhere. shape your own signal to match that of the incoming one.indd 119 | 119 11/02/2015 15:25 . AU. natural sound. but also the dynamics of each band. For a slightly different take. AAX. The EQ options have been improved too. up to 24 bands. Depending on how close you want the sound to be when matching you can dial in more. We used this to match an unmastered instrumental to the mastered full version of a track that was sent to us. 10/10 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT142. or broad brush enhancing. It could also be used to match signals from different recording sessions in the same track. while sharpening the sides. It is worth noting. for just about any task. Adding and altering frequency bands can be done directly from the frequency chart. that the sidechains will be a mono signal. In addition to these new usability features. We have no doubt this time that Pro-Q2 is set to be our ‘go-to’ EQ for some time to come. when we predicted that it would become a staple of our music production process. leaving only a little compression and limiting for us to do to finish the instrumental master and the client unable to tell the difference. FabFilter has also updated the EQ algorithms themselves. Each of these has a very different response with Natural Phase having the most pleasing. enabling you to quickly see what frequencies are present and how your EQ decisions impact on that. whether mixing or mastering. The new version can be set to Linear Phase. Natural Phase or Zero Latency. RTAS or VST host Mac Intel processor.fabfilter. Pro Audio DSM V2 does matching using dynamic EQ. or jump to full-screen mode. Whether it’s detailed carving out of problematic resonances. and some pre-ringing issues in the low-end. With such a great EQ already in their collection what did FabFilter think could be done to justify a new version? Not just a pretty UI Key Features ● Up to 24 bands ● Three latency/ phase modes ● Up to 96dB/oct filters ● EQ Match ● Spectrum Grab The most striking feature of all FabFilter plug-ins has been the incredibly intuitive user interface. Nothing here has been designed to look like an old analogue processor. or fewer EQ bands. MTF MTF Verdict + Easy-to-use + Great educational tool + Powerful EQ options + Great natural sounding filters FabFilter Pro-Q2 is sure to be the first plug-in we add to almost every channel on every mix we do for the next few years. and great sounding results that make us keep coming back to this over many of our other EQs. Pro-Q2 is more than up to the task. while cutting the other. which boosts at one side of the tilt point. In Natural Phase mode the bottom end has enough weight to stand up alongside any Pultec-clone/emulation. so you may want to process the left and right sides separately. Vista. while the top-end is so smooth that it is easy to boost here without much of the harshness that is often associated with digital EQs.1kHz). the 96dB/oct option squares off the response at the bottom of the bell. We have also found the EQ match very useful as an educational tool.com Web www. with more detailed options available from a pop-up window as you click on the icon for each band. FabFilter Pro-Q 2 FabFilter has quickly become many digital engineers’ favourite brand. Everything has been done to take full advantage of the digital plug-in paradigm and in Pro-Q2 you can even change the plug-in size. Mike Hillier explores its new plug-in EQ.com Minimum System Requirements PC Windows XP. and what bands are important for what task. OSX 10. Desert Island EQ For all the eye-catching new features in Pro-Q2. RTAS or VST host W e first used FabFilter Pro-Q in early 2010. Details Price £124 Contact info@ fabfilter. then click Excellence 10/10 on any spike in the chart and Pro-Q2 will automatically add a new EQ band with the centre-frequency and bandwidth (Q) already set to match that of the frequency spike. AAX.Rev Fabfilter. Furthermore you can grab the frequency curve from a sidechained signal and then. And the existing filters now have a selection of shapes from 12dB/oct up to 96dB/oct.FabFilter Pro-Q 2 Reviews MTF Alternatively EQ matching is starting to become a little more common with many plug-ins providing the feature. including Match EQ in Logic and iZotope’s Ozone. 7 or 8. £289. Liam O’Mullane finds out what these have to offer compared with other dedicated Live controllers. The APC Key 25 is a keyboard variant of the range. so it’s more of a ‘finger from above to move’ type of situation than a fader you can grab and rag around. its rectangular body shape being one of the biggest. Two other APC products have also been released around the same time. hands-on parameter control. which offers a squareshaped grid at the cost of having no faders or other form of continuous. But it does have nine low-profile faders. which we’ll also be exploring here.akaipro. a crossfader. which is generous for the price. which both Akai and Ableton developed. The unit’s height is also now very low-profile. The original APC40. £77. This is due to a new. The APC40 mkI had nine faders. But the majority of potential users will intend to use the pads for just clip launching. was the first of its generation of purpose-built Ableton Live controllers that included these clip launching grids.99 APC Key 25.indd 120 Choice 9/10 9 9/ 10 expect for the huge difference in price compared with the APC40 mkII. so this change in shape may exclude them from these newer products. however. Details Price APC40 mkII. Slick and slender At first glance there are many noticeable differences between the APC40 mkII and the mkI. Push offers much more in terms of integrated hardware control of Live. There have since been various competing products released for Live control and each one takes a slightly different angle with their choice of features. They are. which makes it more bag friendly than the mkI (which also suffered from having easily bendable fader stems). very short-throw faders and quite recessed.99 APC mini.com Key Features APC40 MKII ● 5 x 8 multicolour RGB clip launching pads ● Logical layout ● Crossfader assignment buttons ● Low profile fader stems ● Bundled software includes Live Lite APC MINI ● Nine short-throw faders ● Tri-colour lit 8 x 8 clip launching pads ● Bundled software includes Live Lite ● Compact design C ast your memory back to early 2009 and you may not have been familiar with the colourful LED grids we are now used to seeing in live electronic and DJ shows. The APC mini’s clip launching grid is much more compact than Novation’s Launchpad. But they’re handy nonetheless and not as cheap feeling as other low-profile faders we’ve experienced in the past.Rev. it offers a lower level of control. There isn’t a huge range of comparative options to the APC40 mkII. as it offers all the 40’s features aside from the fader controls and crossfader assigning. A huge bugbear with the mkI was its requirement to be run off mains power. the whole unit is very low-profile and we can imagine both units could easily fit into a medium-sized laptop bag. FOCUS 11/02/2015 14:38 . But if those aren’t an issue. but times have moved on and so have the competition. and as the name suggests it includes 25 mini keys for more traditional music control.MTF Reviews APC40 mkII & APC mini AKAI PROFESSIONAL APC40 mkII & APC mini The iconic APC40 Ableton Live controller gets a revamp and gives birth to new offspring. an 8x5 launch grid and various knobs and buttons to navigate around your session. one being the APC mini. the mini seems to be a very similar product. which allows space for the nine faders. Stage presence Focussing on the APC40 mkII alone there’s some clever revision going on with how Akai has approached the design of certain buttons. offering an 8x8 grid for more clip access at any one time. Sessions can be navigated to some degree. Buttons you really don’t want to accidentally trigger Alternatives The APC mini is most comparable to Novation’s Launchpad Mini (£79). Though the APC’s never had velocitysensitive pads we’ve seen quite a few finger drummers using the mkI for performances. The crossfader feels the same as the mkI with light action and minimal sidewards play for dextrous fader work. which is now solved as the mkII is buss powered via USB. or you can budget for a small fader controller to go with it. Macro and track control knobs are the usual solid build that we expect from Akai but they’ve slightly revised the knob style to a tapered shape. as the crossfader is quite a unique feature alongside a clip launching grid. These are a welcome feature as they’re essential for quick channel level access or expressive mapping within Live. Throughout the new range the most noticeable difference to the older APC 40 and APC 20 is the choice to ditch square clip launching pads and maximise space by going rectangular.Akai/2 minis. Existing owners of Live 9 may want to consider upping their investment for Push (€499).99 Contact inMusic 01252 896040 Web www. but as you’d 120 | Ableton Live 2015 MT139. Much like Novation’s response to the APC40 with the Launchpad. £99. Still to this day it’s a very good-quality and well thoughtout controller. and for that purpose they are perfectly fine. Like the APC40 mkII. The mkII has rectified this issue by slightly recessing them. so the mkII is a welcome update. and instead of the mini’s faders it sports eight knobs. more logical layout of track knobs now being in line with each track. It’s also effective on some of the leads – the Gamma preset is particularly good and cuts right through in a very in-your-face way. even though the pads are smaller. Among the revised layout to fit the rectangular body shape.Quite expensive when compared to Push . track mute and solo buttons aren’t also recessed as they are also undesirable for accidental triggering. IK boast of the iLoud’s ‘studio style’ fidelity and although it’s better than most mobile speaker systems we’ve tried it doesn’t quite live up to that assertion. So the basses.Rev. In general.Akai/2 minis.ikmultimedia. mute. making it much easier to colour code your sounds for visual clarity in a live situation. Bass could be heavier but that’s unsurprising given the small woofer. The first eight faders can also move from volume control to pan. cross-fader assignment. basses. It’s a shame track arm. 8/10 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT139. the navigation control to move around Session View is now just above the crossfader for easy access (and while on the topic of easy access the pads now have RGB lighting.com W e’re a bit late to the iLoud party. electronic shoegazing music and maybe even dirty dance. The new APC range is definitely worth considering and may put Akai back on top of the affordable Ableton Live control marketplace.Not enough buttons recessed to avoid accidental triggering .APC40 mkII & APC mini Reviews MTF We tested the RGB pad colour against the colour variations in Live and they matched incredibly well. 8/10 IK Multimedia iLoud Lots of features for such a small and fairly priced device.com Price €199. Add in 50 MIDI files and it’s a fine little collection.Very recessed faders . 8/10 ode Audio has done something quite unusual here in that it has programmed some analoguesounding presets (well ‘vintage’ anyway) for an FM8 synth regarded for its warm sheen. We recommend all APC40 mkI users to check the mkII out. send and device control. There are only 50 sounds but it is only 12 quid. IK Multimedia is primarily known for mobile-based recording peripherals and the iLoud ostensibly continues the trend by being a portable Bluetooth studio monitoring system for iPad-based mixing. for example. track select and record arm. which means they mimic different colours and shades to clips in Live). while all other rubberised pads stand proud of the unit for easy access. These pads feel just as solid as the APC 40 mkII and shift functionality gives you MTF Verdict APC40 mkII MTF Verdict APC mini + Slimline profile + Slick crossfader feel + RGB pads have great colour matching to Live + Slimline profile + Very compact considering the feature set + Great value . with surprising clarity for such a small unit. 9/10 Curved Horizon Manufacturer Mode Audio Price £12 Contact Via website Manufacturer IK Multimedia Web modeaudio. MTF Key Features ● 15 pads ● 10 basses ● 10 classic synth ● 5 chord presets ● 5 lead synth ● 5 pluck synth ● 50 MIDI loops (bass.Rectangular buttons may not suit finger drummers This is a good example of a follow-up release outdoing the original as it answers most mkI user’s gripes. We recommend checking this out for a practical yet highly portable Live controller. but we’ve recently been using these in the office and thought they deserved a brief review. the mini is also worth a look. synths and chords) MTF Verdict If you want to dirty your FM8 synth up a little and add a bit of vintage warmth this is a great preset pack.99 M Contact Via website Web www. and for those looking at a clip launcher with tactile control at a low price. the unit just makes a bit more sense to move around. The mini doesn’t feature RGB pads but it’s just as easy to work with for launching clips as its bigger brother. and it’s also quite cheap.indd 121 | 121 11/02/2015 14:38 . MTF access to solo. MTF Key Features ● 40W power ● Bluetooth and stereo analogue line input ● 10-hour battery time ● iRig input for guitars and dynamic mics MTF Verdict The iLoud is pretty great. in the heat of a gig are recessed. synths and chords often with a little bit of ‘analogue’ variability thrown in. and what is here would suit a surprising number of genres from ambient to soundtrack. and the play/ stop button for Live’s transport is now on the top of the unit rather than with the mk1 when it was so close to the crossfader that accidental triggering was a potential hazard. Our go-to tracks for monitor testing all sounded great. The sounds on offer are a selection of pads. might come with a bit of phasing movement or noise. and certainly holds its own against larger mobile speakers. despite a few niggles. Rev Tannoy+minis. low-budget near-fields with front ports. aux link mini ● HF EQ settings: -1. Speak up Although designed to be used as studio monitors. but it’s pretty much in line with what you would expect from small.8kHz rather than 2. You may notice a peak around the 120Hz mark. if we’re honest. FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:29 . 122 | Ableton Live 2015 MT142. unbalanced ¼in jack. Sure you can pick them up on some deficiencies here and there if you want to be hyper critical. Huw Price tests the 402 and 802… I t’s not often that the first thing that catches our eye when reviewing a new set of monitors is a relatively minor feature. with 75W going to the woofer and 25W to the tweeter.8kHz and both monitors have indented volume controls. The idea is that if a blunt object accidentally presses into them they will spring back rather than remain caved in. The bass remains solid and even down to 50Hz or so. We had expected some wind noise too. aux link mini ● HF EQ settings: -1.8kHz ● Dimensions (mm): 390 x 254 x 300 (HxWxD) TANNOY Reveal 402 & 802 9/10 9 9/ 10 The new Tannoy Reveal series comprises active monitors of varying size and power levels that can be used as studio workhorses or convenient computer speakers. the Reveals do have some features more commonly associated with computer speakers. there’s a stereo mini jack input for mobile devices. unbalanced ¼in jack. but to Tannoy’s credit they have managed to The 402 has ample power. Not something that’s usually a concern of ours. but they are also ‘poke resistant’. below which there’s engineer out any port chuffing. We managed to resist the urge to test this feature until we had completed our listening tests. 802: £189 each Contact TC Group 0800 917 8926 Web www.5dB HF/ Neutral/+1. There’s also a monitor link socket and a 16ft cable to join one speaker to the other with a position switch to determine which is left and right. Besides the balanced XLR and unbalanced jack inputs. imaging and clarity of them create a very good overall impression. But with the new Tannoy Reveals the woofers are not only described as being ‘custom high-efficiency’. With everything set flat the midrange did sound just slightly too fat and fulsome in our semi-damped listening room. The treble sounds smooth and un-hyped.5dB ● Crossover frequency: 1. The only downside worth mentioning is a slight sluggishness to the bass. The 802 has 100W. com Key Features 402 ● Frequency response 56Hz48kHz ● Max SPL: 101dB ● Tweeter: ¾in soft dome ● Woofer: 4in ● Total power output: 50W ● Inputs: balanced XLR.8kHz ● Dimensions (mm): 240 x 147 x 212 (HxWxD) 802 ● Frequency response: 42Hz43kHz ● Max SPL: 114dB ● Tweeter: 1in soft dome ● Woofer: 8in ● Bi-amp output power: RMS ● Total power output: 100W ● Inputs: balanced XLR. so we experienced no sense of fatigue while working with the 402s. You know things are getting a bit silly when you can get speakers as good as the 402s for so little money. The 802’s a fairly rapid roll-off. great looks and impressive sound quality for its price crossover frequency is 1. so we decided to try the treble boost and preferred the result because the midrange sounded clearer and the solidity of the stereo imaging improved. but the frequency balance.5dB HF/ neutral/+1.tannoy.5dB ● Crossover frequency: 2. but we can report that they function as described. The 402 has 50W of bi-amp power distributed evenly between the drive units.indd 122 Choice Equalisation adjustment is restricted to a three-way switch with Hi Boost/Neutral/Hi Cut settings.MTF Reviews Tannoy 402 & 802 Details Price 402: £99 each. Then again. MTF MTF Verdict An incredibly useful plug-in for controlled sidechain ducking and more. MTF Big brother The most obvious differences between the 402 and the 802 are loads more volume and loads more bass.95 Contact info@loopmasters. Apple Loops. 9/10 T his pack features a mix of drum and bass. These models represent a lot of speaker for the money. You can also take the LFO speed up into the audio realm for bit-crushed style distortions. allowing you to create tempo-synched gates. and transient shaping. cloud preset sharing. to slower and more spacious dubstep and hip hop style patterns.Power switch on back .Rev Tannoy+minis. although it’s slightly less noticeable because the 802’s hump is spread over a wider frequency range.com Web www. HALion and Kontakt Choice 9/10 9 9/ 10 MTF Verdict A versatile and expertly played pack of blistering drum loops and superb fills.de V olumeShaper 4 is an LFO-driven modulation effect that lets you draw up to 40 points on top of an oscilloscope display. and trigger via MIDI. and very low basslines don’t track quite as well as they might. Every loop here is super tight. great looks and impressive sound quality for its price point. VolumeShaper 4 Price €30 Contact contact@cableguys. Live pack & ReFill. There are also 11 kits with accompanying sampler patches. overall this is a highly useful and creative tool. AU & VST ● 3 Adjustable frequency bands ● Up to 40 point drawable waveshape ● Cloud preset sharing ● Trigger via MIDI 402 9/10 802 8/10 Michael Schack Hybrid Beats Session Publisher Cableguys Web www.de Fine sounding monitors with a range of connection options and plenty of power. You’ll find 18 complete drum tracks with breaks. The 802 also has much to recommend but it is considerably more expensive. Mackie MR8 Mk2 (£195 each). and having a sonic character that is perhaps more entertaining than it is accurate may not suit everybody. 9/10 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT142. there’s no mistaking the fact that these speakers come from the same series.Slight upper bass hump . and the extra volume that they produce makes it easier to overlook the MTF Verdict + Impressive sound quality + Plenty of power + Professional look + Connectivity options + Indented volume control . Publisher Loopmasters Price £29. KRK RoKit G3 (£195 each) and PreSonus Eris 8 (£337 pair). Meanwhile the 802 mixes it up with the Fostex PM 841 (£189 each).indd 123 | 123 11/02/2015 15:29 . Deeper bass goes along with the larger cabinet.Tannoy 402 & 802 Reviews MTF Given the diminutive cabinet size it’s certainly deep and powerful enough. slightly vague stereo imaging. and 488 MIDI files that match up to each of the audio loops. plus a new multiband function that lets you have different volume shapes on up to three bands. This allows you to do both frequency specific ducking and control.loopmasters. with the addition of MIDI loops adding greatly to the flexibility of the package. or more wild and creative effects. or just below. MTF Key Features ● DnB.com Choice 9/10 9 9/ 10 be nice to see a dB reduction meter.Soundstage lacks depth Alternatives The 402 goes up against the Yamaha HS5 (£121 each). Other than that. 90 178bpm ● 98 One-shots and 11 drum kits ● Wav.No bass control . plus NNXT. yet still retains a live feel through the use of expertly recorded and processed acoustic drums.99 each) and the KRK RP5 RoKit G3 (£239 pair). You can select the crossover frequency and slope in the bottom left of the GUI. dubstep and breakbeat grooves by in-demand drummer Michael Schack. This latest version features a streamlined interface. Although it would Key Features ● LFO-driven volume modulation effect. The roll-off starts around 50Hz. we’re comparing the 402’s performance with speakers costing two or three times more. with a spectrum in the background to help your decisions. jazzy shuffles and spacious DnB grooves. variations and fills ranging from fast.No auto standby/power saving . but the upper midrange hump does seem to slow things down. EXS24. Samson Resolv SE5 (£119 each). dubstep and breakbeat drums by Michael Schack ● Over 1GB of 24-bit audio ● 488 Loops plus MIDI. highly-flexible sidechain ducking. PreSonus Eris 5 (£124. The new multiband mode offers greater flexibility and the streamlined GUI makes it easier to use than ever. Rex. These speakers will effortlessly fill a small-to-medium-sized room with sound. The 402 has ample power. but the slope is far more gradual and the 802s continue to push air down to around 35Hz. Once again we have an upper bass hump around 120Hz.cableguys. cup of tea in hand. the Alesis does have its pluses. the iO Dock II is competitively priced and it’s certainly a clever way to expand your iPad into a more rounded audio and MIDI environment. This time we look at a humble but important studio item: the audio interface… BEST Thunderbolt Resident Audio T4 Details Price £399 Reviewed MT141 Contact Synthax Audio on 01727 821870 Web www. the company has just about something for everyone in the market for a FireWire unit (plus Thunderbolt for an additional connector).” 124 | Ableton Live 2015 MT142. been costly.alesis.uk T hunderbolt is the current beau of connectivity but has. However.” He concluded: “A really solid and well-built audio and MIDI interface that has all the benefits of Thunderbolt in an affordable and portable package.focusrite. until now. It’s well engineered and has some nice touches such as the secondary headphone out and Smart Monitoring. including 30-pin lightning connectors. Saffire PRO feels like a trustworthy old friend. Reviewer Andy Jones was impressed and said: “Versatile. compact. in the Saffire range.indd 124 Details Details Price £119 Reviewed MT141 Contact InMusic via website Web www.MTF Buyer’s Guide Six of the best Six of the best Hardware Software Mobile Technology Samples We continue the MTF Buyer’s Guide where we round up the best half-dozen products we’ve looked at in recent issues of MusicTech.synthax. coming round to your house. which is arguably more future proof and for newer iPad owners. two combo XLR inputs and the fact that it supports iPads going back to version 1. At a shade under £400 the T4 changes everything. easy and reliable. ready to solve any interfacing problems you may have.” BEST Flexibility Focusrite Saffire PRO 26 F ocusrite certainly knows how to put interfaces together and. Reviewer Hollin Jones said: “The T4 is a great solution for portable recording and performance.co.6 of the best.” Price £299 Reviewed MT137 Contact +44 1494 462246 Web uk.com BEST iPad Alesis iO Dock II T o be honest there is little to split this and the Focusrite iTrack Dock. A great way to record music on your iPad.com FOCUS 11/02/2015 15:17 . offering a truly mobile interface solution for those who don’t need a ton of I/O. Hollin Jones said: “Considering what you get.. dual headphone outs. Dynamic Duo £899 Reviewed MT135 Contact Source Distribution on 020 8962 5080 Web www.uaudio. it definitely punches above its weight.” MTF FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT142. DSPpowered effects and software accessible mixer.Six of the best Buyer’s Guide MTF BEST Portable Steinberg UR44 T he UR44 looks initially to be quite simplistic – a 6x4 USB audio and MIDI interface. For anyone serious about audio fidelity. Comparing it to its smaller brother (the UR22) Hollin Jones said: “The UR44 is almost as portable but offers a lot more in terms of power – not just the extra ins and outs but also the Class Compliant mode. Great monitoring and DSP features combined with top-class sound quality and easy set-up. FireWire 400 and USB 2 connectivity and sophisticated monitoring software for PC and Mac.com computer’s processing abilities and opens the door to the world of UAD plugs.” Details Price £284 Revewed MT133 Contact Steinberg via website Web www.indd 125 | 125 11/02/2015 15:17 .steinberg.169 Reviewed MT140 Contact Synthax Audio on 01727 821870 Web www.6 of the best.” BEST Power RME Fireface 802 Details Price £1. It is a hassle-free 1U audio interface offering an impressive number of analogue and digital channels. as Huw Price says… “It’s thumbs up on the sonic side and the RME Fireface 802 certainly qualifies as an upgrade from entry-level and semi-pro interfaces.” He then concluded: “An excellent interface that is just as suitable for the studio as the iPad. Reviewer Hollin Jones said: “This is an exquisitely made audio interface that also happens to expand your Price Han Solo £699.rme-audio. But with both Steinberg and Yamaha’s input there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface.de D escribed as a full-blown studio in a 1U space this was always going to be against its own marketing hype but. actually. Universal Audio’s Apollo Twin offers a suite of high quality software.net Details BEST Package UA Apollo Twin A s well as being a great interface. Excellent recording and monitoring capabilities as well as access to UAD’s plug-in universe. the 802 does the job where it needs to. net MT .indd 1 11/02/2015 09:23 .FIRST WITH REVIEWS FIRST WITH NEWS HAVE YOU CLICKED? Powered by Magazine www.net ad.musictech. udggear. especially without a reliable rhythm section. the SL600 being the top of the range. 8/10 here are many advantages to being a solo performer. making it ideal for those quieter moments. plus some fairly low-rent models under £20 (which we’d mostly avoid for serious audio work).thomann. cables and other studio tools MTF Verdict It’s a mobile case that you didn’t realise you actually needed. Particularly the Cajon sound. We’ll look at the company’s other bespoke offerings soon. We’re still getting to grips with blending this with out own compositions so we wouldn’t take it out on the road just yet. Like many we baulk at the sound of our own voices but the SL600 adds a surprising amount of depth. Key Features ● Switch for two sounds ● Velocity sensitive ● AC or battery operated ● Anti-slip mat The device can autoplay too. which enables you to set a basic rhythm it will then follow. The case comes with a USB interface. we feel when fully grasped this could be a highly useful little box.95 represents great value. MTF MTF Verdict Does exactly what it says on the tin/box: a fine stompbox to enhance an acoustic or electric set. Overall this is a very solid-feeling mic with a great. Now you can carry all the bits that don’t go anywhere else in a handy.67 Contact via website Web www. Indeed Logic picked it up straight away and we were very quickly recording our vocal tracks. perhaps with a touch of bass enhancement (which in this instance we preferred over accuracy!). MTF Key Features ● Hard case for most accessories ● Comes with USB interface ● Transport interfaces. At a shade under £200 it’s quite an expensive option.99 Contact via website Web www. however. warm sound and quality feel. aimed at owners of any accessory. But if you’re a singersongwriter then going out there alone can sometimes also be tough. Recently we’ve seen the SE X1 scoring well in MusicTech. and the drum sound was fairly authentic. 9/10 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT142. It’s completely plug ’n’ play so no software is needed – your Choice 9/10 9 9/ 10 Key Features ● Mac and PC USB microphone ● 34mm goldplated diaphragm ● Microphone gain and output control ● Headphone jack ● Low cut and -10dB sensitivity switches computer should just pick it up as an input source automatically. all price points being catered for. which can safely carry items including headphones and audio interfaces. as ours did.Mini Reviews MTF Studio Series SL600 USB mic Manufacturer Editors Keys Price £199. making the results less middle-y. On power up the mic lights up with a blue glow. MTF MTF Verdict Great USB mic package and currently an absolute bargain with £50 off.95 Price £122. especially pleasing against the unusually orange-coloured grill. and you probably could get away with dropping it on occasion (although we’re not guaranteeing this!). making it a steal. Other controls include switches for low cut and -10dB sensitivity. giving the feeling of quality and chunkiness. Grab it while you can! 9/10 UDG Creator DIGI hard case Finhol Kick Box Mark III Manufacturer UDG Manufacturer Finhol Price €79. It’s a simple to use digital unit that comes pre-loaded with two drum sounds (selectable with a toggle switch) and an input/ output jack connection.com T he world of the USB microphone has exploded of late with just about every manufacturer getting in on the act. We’ve chosen the DIGI hard case. vocal booths and three USB mics. There is a gain control on hand and a rotary for overall input gain. The mic comes in a compact and sturdy case along with shockmount and USB cable. Other useful features include a headphone socket. The mic itself is quite weighty.indd 127 | 127 11/02/2015 15:26 . It’s velocity sensitive as well. so there’s no worrying about having to reach around the back for your usual connections. We’re finding that just having a case ‘for all that other stuff’ is worth the money in itself – throw anything in it as it’s pretty much a portable solution to a problem we didn’t know we had. The company produces a range of audio equipment including speakers. and at just €79. but at the time of writing there’s a whopping £50 off. compact and sturdy case. Studio Series is relatively new to the pages of MusicTech.com T T ransporting your gear around can be a massive pain but UDG seem to have solutions for pretty much every studio item – you can even search for a hard case on the company’s website according to the gear you own. In tests we found it to be remarkably straightforward to use. The sound quality is particularly good with far more warmth and bottom end than we were expecting. and everyone from Audio Technica to Røde offering models. This stompbox from German manufacturer Finhol may be the solution.de Web www.editorskeys. It might be distracting to some but we quite like it.REV minis99+101. not least less organisational stress and ego-management to deal with. indd 1 11/02/2015 09:16 .99 Search Music Tech magazine and download your FREE app today MT App ad A4.Read on any device. anytime! Download your FREE app today FREE PREVIEW ISSUE SINGLE ISSUES JUST £2.99 SUBSCRIBE FOR JUST £16. though. the interface contains all the controls within a single screen for both organs. perhaps this is one person we should keep the Cliphit away from!).2. This is what anyone with too much rhythmic energy in their fingers or feet needs. through rock and pop. and created a playable virtual instrument called The Carnival. The kits are good enough. just about every instrument on earth has been sampled and made available at a reasonable price. synths. The mod wheel-operated major and minor trills are rather nifty. The ‘anything else’ bit is important here as you can attach those clips to the The Carnival (Barrel Organs. but the size and nature of Cliphit means that you are never going to be playing at massive volumes or huge quality. It’s constant beatmaking on anything he can tap. Great fun to play and perfect for adding a fairground atmosphere to your compositions. a wellused. which provides a choice of major. still remain hard to find. though. to literally anything that you can attach a croc clip to. Today. As well as reverb there are controls for bellows and tempo-synced trills and runs. Decent enough for busking. You Innovation Key Features ● Drum module with four trigger inputs. let’s say an accordion solo.korg. A ‘melody double’ function is also available for easy octave doubling. We particularly liked the pitchwheel-operated runs function. keyboards. ● Three clips plus footpedal supplied ● 11 drum kits ● Headphone jack ● Battery or mains operated know the fellow: he sits at his desk thumping away on his thighs. pentatonic major and pentatonic minor scales. Some. MTF MTF Verdict Love the idea. Fairground Treasures) Choice 9/10 9 9/ 10 Manufacturer Sonokinetic Ltd. but also attach a (supplied) kick trigger for your feet to play the kick drums. four registers ● Octave doubling ● Automatic tempo-synced trills (major and minor) ● Tempo-synced runs.net B ack in the days of purely analogue recording if you had an unfinished track that required a touch of extra magic. 8/10 music. But what he really wants is this: Korg’s Cliphit. and also three (supplied) trigger clips which you can attach to any loose clothing – or anything else – and hit with any remaining limbs. all great stuff. ranging from standard. The beauty is that you can beat it like a drum. 850 samples ● Big and small organs. battered and sometimes unplayable instrument would be likely to turn up at the studio with a hefty price tag attached.Mini Reviews MTF Korg Cliphit Manufacturer Korg Price £99 Contact via website Web www. but this is a bit of a different one from Korg. The real thing isn’t a playable instrument but a mechanical device that’s driven either by clockwork. this instrument is good for writing and recording music outside of the obvious genres. MTF MTF Verdict A joyful and authentic-sounding recreation of two Dutch barrel organs. Your annoying office percussionist will suddenly go from irritating mono tapper to annoying full-on drummer (on second thoughts. a typical feature of barrel organ aforementioned desk. It’s the ideal device to unleash your finger and toe beats.REV minis99+101. but a visit to Sonokinetic’s website will turn up a few rarities. the odd guitar products. and we love Korg for coming up with this leftfield gear. With a little experimentation some startlingly original sounds can be conjured up with this highly enjoyable instrument. too. build-your-own classic synths. but we’ve seen and reviewed cheap analogue synths. If you did the latter. 9/10 FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MT142. five scales ● Bespoke reverb ● Sampled bellows noise yourself. There are 11 drum kits to choose from with a wide variety of sounds.4 or 5) and is not compatible with the free Kontakt player. chromatic. to boxes. Price €85 Contact via website Web www. large and small. desk and anything else that makes noise. It runs in the open Kontakt format (4. Korg Cliphit is basically an egg-shaped electronic drum that is ideal for your office percussionist. Sonokinetic sampled two of them.sonokinetic. and playing and shaping a convincing performance is very straightforward.uk T here do seem to be more gadgets than ever in the world of MusicTech which we love to see. Kaotic devices and now this. In true Sonokinetic style.indd 129 | 129 11/02/2015 15:26 . There are dozens of sampled organs around but few will have anything close to the authentic fairground sound of The Carnival. a busker’s dream. The final EFX kit is a bit annoying and we’d have preferred the ability to play different sounds by hitting different parts of the main unit – perhaps adding just a couple of trigger points for kick and snare? Otherwise it’s another great curveball from Korg. minor. But for the last few years Korg seems has gone pretty bonkers when it comes to new releases.co. having such a unique sound. For authentic sounding music of this type The Carnival does a brilliant job. Here is a company that for years just knocked out pretty standard – but very good – products that did the job. Also. We’re not saying that is a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. Like the barrel organ. an electric motor or manually with a handle. you either employed a session musician or hired an instrument and played the part Key Features ● 470MB sample pool. how to create complex polyrhythms. Minimal DnB. Latin Jazz Guitar. freeware plug-ins. which see veteran producer Elite Force using effects sends and cymbals to add details to a track. Ghetto Funk Hype Vocals.MTF On Your DVD Ableton Live has gone from strength to strength and it’s no surprise to regularly see it being used by highflying producers and newcomers alike. Dope Ammo & Marvellous Cain DnB Fusion Vol 2. Etch Rave Warfare.5 Hours of pro video tuition Groove3’s massive collection of pro videos taken from its latest Live 9 courses. synths. Bleep Bloop Trap. how to create big rise FX using Live’s native plug-ins. drum rack chains. It includes chapters on sends. Hip Hop Instrumentals Vol 3. strings and beats to use in your tracks.COM 03 06 FOCUS 11/02/2015 16:11 . LOOP+ Loop+ has supplied four Ableton Live related videos. MTF On the disc 3. basses. There’s 3. programming beats and bass. Hit Maker’s Paradise. plus all the files you need to follow along with the workshops. Whether you’re just starting out with Live or if you’re more experienced and trying to find ways to improve your tracks. and finally. including exclusive racks.5 hours of masterclass videos and pro tuition. vocals and more taken from David Seaman Electronic Underground. LOOPMASTERS SAMPLES A hand-picked library of royalty-free samples in 24-bit WAV format. automation and sidechain tricks for mixing dance music. Topics include how to recycle MIDI loops into new material. the latest software demos. and promotional videos showing off cutting-edge synths. including beats. 01 GROOVE 3 04 130 | Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. Samples are taken from Analogue Witchcraft 2. and World String Loops. convolution reverb. effects and controllers. Producertech’s Rob Jones takes a look at setting up and using sidechain compression. Smooth RnB Kits.your disc. You’ll also find plenty of royalty-free loops and samples to use in your own productions. and Zen Ambient. a look at using Plugin Boutique’s BigKick instrument to create dubstep kicks.indd 130 02 05 LIVE-COURSES. returns and busses. we’ve got a massive range of content to help. synths. POINTBLANK MUSIC SCHOOL Course tutor Anthony Chapman takes a look at a range of mixing tools in Live. There are also two modules from the Secrets Of The Mashup. You’ll also find a video on how to program glitchy exponential rhythm patterns. Dream Vocals Vol 2. SAMPLEPHONICS SAMPLES An eclectic mix of high-quality guitars. using macro controls and MIDI controllers. Moog. You may not. classic processors. tutorial and samples files are supplied compressed (‘zipped’). Be sure to copy all the files to your computer before opening a project. please return it to: Disc Returns. we’ve got a host of Live workshops to help you improve your programming and mixing skills. TUTORIAL FILES The software tutorials that feature in each issue of MTF are almost always accompanied by files and audio so you can work through them on your system. synths.com). EQs. Download them to your hard drive and unzip them to access the individual files (remembering to eject the DVD to prevent your computer from slowing down).On Your DVD MTF MTF Your Disc MTF DVD38 Ableton Live 2015 PROMOTIONAL VIDEOS We’ve got over 760 MB of videos showcasing the latest plug-ins and hardware including a range of cutting-edge hardware synths and software instruments from iZotope.indd 131 | 131 11/02/2015 16:11 . to analogue modelled. Suite 6. and powerful FX. DEFECTIVE DISCS To help get your productions moving. plus top of the range software effects and processors from Fab Filter. PC users may need to download a utility such as WinZip (www. the video. live jazz guitars. In the unlikely event that your disc is defective.your disc. MISSING YOUR DISC? If your disc is missing. then why not try out the latest plug-ins? From innovative synths. contact us at editorial@anthempublishing. Where appropriate you’ll find hi-res images. project files and audio on the disc so you can follow along at home. glitchy beats. These files are zipped to reduce the space they occupy on the DVD. London.musictech. samplers. warped. endeavour to supply you with a replacement disc immediately. Mac users should be able to decompress ZIP files simply by double-clicking on them. thunderous breaks. and Novation. Niche Audio. Sonic Faction. we’ve rounded up a top-notch collection of Royalty-free samples from Loopmasters. You’ll find plenty of creative effects. chopped and manipulated to your heart’s content. Bath BA1 6PL. SOFTWARE DEMOS If you’re looking to spice up Live with some extra tools. Zero-G. we’ve rounded up a range of demo and freeware software for you to try. Native Instruments. and Roland. All files come in 24-bit WAV format and are ready to be imported. smooth strings. and UA. Piccadilly House. Sound Radix. chunky drum hits. resell these samples in any other form. compressors and more to help you compose and fine tune your tracks.net for any known problems. Anthem Publishing. Akai. however. plus genre workshops on creating heavyweight dubstep tracks.winzip. We will FOCUS Ableton Live 2015 MTF38. You’ll find an eclectic mix of deep synth sounds. filters. USING OUR WORKSHOPS Whether you’re totally new to Live or a seasoned pro.com with your full postal address and the issue number. Please note that we’re unable to provide technical support for the software on the MTF DVD – please check our website at www. ROYALTY-FREE SAMPLES On the disc YOUR DVD CONTENT FILES ZIP FILES To maximise the amount of content we can bring you on each DVD. You’ll also find highquality monitors and hardware controllers from Tannoy. MeldaProduction. and Equinox Sounds. WHAT IS ROYALTY-FREE? Any MTF DVD content marked ‘royalty-free’ can be used in your own original compositions (even commercial ones). dark and dirty basses. Samplephonics. Overloud. .
[email protected] Digital Editor Andy Price andy. In this special issue we have two very different. Piccadilly House London Road. Hollin Jones.holmes@anthem-publishing. 110 Southwark St.com MusicTech Focus recognises all copyrights contained within this issue. general advice features plus tips and tricks and. starting at the beginning and then quickly entering the world of basic and more complex programming. It might be specific to dubstep but you will pick up essential advice along the way for whatever genre of music you produce. Distributed by Marketforce (UK) Ltd The Blue Fin Building.com Multimedia Editor Alex Holmes alex.anthem-publishing. Texts will be charged at the specified price plus one message at your standard network tariff rate. London SE1 0SU Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3300 Subscriptions to MusicTech Magazine Tel +44 (0) 870 444 8468 Price (12 issues) £59.indd 3 | 03 18/02/2015 14:54 .musictech.price@anthem-publishing. No part of this publication may be reproduced. As usual we have stacks of reviews. reveal the studios that your fellow Live users employ! Enjoy this special issue and keep that music coming… Andy Jones Senior
[email protected]@anthem-publishing. the latest Focus dedicated to (arguably) the world’s finest DAW. If you do not want to receive this information please text ‘NO INFO’ at the end of your message. Huw Price. It’s a six-part monster that will be useful if you are either a Live beginner or intermediate user.99 UK basic annual rate FOCUS Ableton Live 8 Volume 2 MTF38. Bath BA1 6PL Tel +44 (0) 1225 489984 Fax +44 (0) 1225 489980 editorial@anthem-publishing. Licensing enquiries Jon Bickley +44 (0) 1225 489984 www. Martin Delaney’s Ultimate Guide To Ableton Live (starting on p18) takes you on a general Live course. Publisher Simon Lewis simon. very large and hopefully very useful workshops to help take your Ableton productions up a notch. all rights reserved. MusicTech andy. Manager Di Marsh di.com Senior Editor Andy Jones andy.welcome.cook@anthem-publishing. Managing Director Jon Bickley jon. Liam O’Mullane MUSICTECH FOCUS MAGAZINE www.net Anthem Publishing Ltd Suite 6. First up. Keith Gemmell.com All content copyright Anthem Publishing Ltd 2014 and 2015. While we make every effort to ensure that the factual content of MusicTech Focus is correct we cannot take any responsibility nor be held accountable for any factual errors printed.com Art Editor Debra Barber
[email protected] Printed by Polestar UK Print Ltd Tel +44 (0) 1582 678900 TEXTING MUSIC TECH TERMS AND CONDITIONS By entering MusicTech competitions you are agreeing to receive details of future promotions from Anthem Publishing Limited and related third parties.jones@anthem-publishing. stored in a retrieval system or resold without the prior consent of Anthem Publishing Ltd. Where possible we acknowledge the copyright holder. for the first time. Alex Holmes. and put together by the Live experts here at MusicTech magazine.Welcome MTF Welcome … to Ableton Live 2015.com Business Dev. Starting on p74.com Art Director Jenny Cook jenny.com Please make every effort to check quoted prices and product specifications with manufacturers prior to purchase.com We’re focussing on two different and very large workshops for all users of Live Contributors Mark Cousins.jones@anthem-publishing. we also have our Build A Track From Scratch series of tutorials that takes you on a journey to build a complete piece of music over 21 tip-packed pages.