Future Music

In a cover feature we did last year on the 10 best softsynths (FM 363), it was noted that the last decade has seen an arms race of sorts in the plugin realm, with so-called ‘super synths’ competing to outdo one another to offer the most complex set o

> In one of the biggest moves we’ve seen in music tech in some time, Berlin-based Maschine and Komplete creators Native Instruments have joined forces with US software innovators iZotope. The two will now form a new group, backed by investment firms

> You wait ages for one Oberheim 8-Voice synth plugin emulation to come along and then… Hard on the heels of GForce Software’s OB-E comes Cherry Audio’s Eight Voice, another software take on the monster hardware instrument. This combines eight dual-o

> Although it’s no substitute for a high-quality monitoring setup, Sonarworks’ Reference has always been a good option for anyone who wants to get a more reliable reference sound that will enable them to create better mixes. It works by calibrating y

> Ever since live music events were brought to an abrupt halt last year, the search has been on for a digital platform that will let both artists and crowds get the same kind of experience in their own homes. Enter Woov. Promising to “transform the l

> Released in 1991, Roland’s JD-800 was ahead of its time. Like so many synths of that era, it was digital, but with its massive control panel, harked back to the analogue beasts of yesteryear. However, this was way before the analogue revival had us

> Hammer-action MIDI keyboards are usually designed for pianists, but with its wide-ranging set of control and performance features, M-Audio’s new Hammer 88 Pro has plenty for producers, too. Building on the success of the Hammer 88, the Pro version

> We’ve long wondered about the potential for a streaming service that has DJing functionality built into it, and now it’s arrived in the form of Beatport DJ. Released now to all LINK subscribers, and soon to be offered on a standalone, entry-level s

Across the course of three albums and numerous singles and remixes, Lisbon-based producer Luis Clara Gomes, aka Moullinex, has developed his own distinctively deep, hardware-driven take on classic house flavours. He returns this month with his latest

When co-producing their second album, Any Minute Now, the man known as Flood noticed an increasing duality in the Dewaele brothers. As Soulwax, Dave and Steph Dewaele were making indie rock. But, as 2ManyDJs, they were reshaping the concept of the bo

The 15-year anniversary edition of Nite Versions dropped at the end of last year ["I’m so old” – Steph]. Previously out of press (and going for silly money on Discogs), the new digital, and pink and white vinyl versions, include a 14 minute re-rub of

Prolific vibraphonist and composer Masayoshi Fujita takes a stunning new direction on this wonderful new album. The first major change is the highly acclaimed Japanese artist’s move away from the vibraphone, the backbone to his much-lauded triptych t

In the early days of recorded music, effects processing was simple in principle, but often far more troublesome in practice. In theory, applying an effect to an audio source simply involved sending audio in at one end, transforming it somehow, and ca

With music being increasingly consumed via headphones, it’s never been more important to make your stereo synths sound as impressive as possible. While there’s a multitude of great sounding stereo enhancer processors available, using mid/side EQ allo

Digital music production offers a lot of advantages over its analogue counterpart. We have easy automation, infinite recall of files and versions, and many other advantages besides. If one of the worst things about working solely on the computer is a

01 Here we have a setup of Reason devices including the Parsec synth, a delay, a distortion and a stereo width device. Each effect is placed to process in series, as you’d usually see. So far, so normal. 02 By selecting all the devices, right-click

1 Here in Studio One, we can turn any channel’s insert slots into a comprehensive toybox using the Routing Editor. This view starts by showing just the plugins you’ve got in that channel’s insert slots so far – in this case, a compressor and a retro-

01 In an Ableton Live rack, we can call up the Macro panel using the top button on the far left. By right-clicking a control on an Ableton device within the rack, we can map its movement to one of the eight macros. Now Macro 1 will be in control of t

You don’t just have to rely on your DAW’s rack system to get complex jollies out of combining third-party effects. There are a few plugins that have plugin-hosting abilities, and a few offer signal routing to combine those plugins in a rack-style way

Kicking off their careers as purveyors of dirty dubstep on labels like Buygore and Never Say Die, Joe Froud and Matt King AKA Document One have turned their attention to slamming dancefloor DnB in recent years. We caught up with the Oxford-based duo

01 “This project came from Joe, he came up with the idea of the original sketch for the track, which was based around a vocal,” reveals Matt. The stuttered, repeating vocal is accompanied by a chugging eighth-note synth pluck from Arturia Analog Lab.

A fantastic performance tool. The big keyboard-style trigger buttons are easy to work with, the controls clear and the outputs include 16 triggers and LFOs, as well as accent outputs, and the standard clock and resets. All jacks run across the top, t

1 Sequential switches are massively useful for beat creation. The Doepfer A151, for example, is a solid, dependable option. These modules take a single input, maybe a trigger, then send that as a triggered sequence, to 2, 3 or 4 outputs. 2 Clock di

1 Let’s try a basic four-to-the-floor-style pattern. For this we’ll use a TipTop system, configured to be a drum machine, with a collection of drum voices, two sequencers, some shaping modules and a bunch of One sample players, for more esoteric soun

1 Let’s build a drum patch that mixes the techniques mentioned, to make something with elements of step-sequenced patterns, as well as euclidean. It’ll also use a mix of samples, FM and dedicated drum modules. First, decide on the master clock source

Initially influenced by Underground Resistance founder Robert Hood, techno mainstay Steve O’Sullivan’s slowly evolving, minimal club tracks have been a prescient component of his sound for three decades, on releases under his own name and versatile a

Music consumption in the 21st century is unrecognisable to previous generations, with huge shifts in the spaces we associate with musical styles and their organic creation. In the ’80s the places you’d find electronic music were clearly defined: club

1 Synthwave’s retro production aesthetic relies heavily, as the name suggests, on vintage synths. That’s an unavoidably expensive way to make music these days, as prices of classic instruments have skyrocketed in recent years. For most of us, softwar

CONTACT WHO: Novation WEB: novation.com KEY FEATURES Hardware groovebox featuring two digital polysynths, a four-track sampled drum machine, two standalone MIDI sequencers Back in 2015 when Novation released the original Circuit, we were immediately

Tracks adds a MicroSD card to the hardware, making the process of importing and storing samples more flexible, although some prep is still required. Rather than simply adding loose samples to the card and then importing them into the hardware – somet

CONTACT WHO: Korg UK WEB: korg.com KEY FEATURES Nine synth engines, over 2000 programs,16 track MIDI sequencer, 16 track Audio recorder, 8-inch touchscreen. DIMENSIONS: 1437 x 387 x 139mm (88-key), 1227 x 386 x 116mm (73-key), 1062 x 386 x 116mm (61-

Jon Musgrave finds innovation in this new design from Austrian Audio CONTACT WHO: Austrian Audio WEB: austrian.audio KEY FEATURES Handmade CKR12 edge terminated capsule inspired by classic AKG CK12 design, Microprocessor control of polarization volt

Rhythm means different things to different people and not just from a perspective of musicianship. Clearly there are many types of beats that will affect people in a variety of ways, and this is all good and well but there are just as many tools and

> UVI add to their impressive instrument line-up with another library for hosting in their own Workstation software. This is free to download and usable in both standalone and DAW-hosted plugin versions – and as with previous offerings, users of UVI’

Randomisation is a fabulous way to add some variety to your Live projects, whether you’re involved in production or performance. It’s such a user-friendly, controllable, way to create variations in instrument or effect device settings, or even the st

01 Multiband processing opens possibilities for processing sounds surgically, letting us deal with issues that are hard to fix with typical wideband processing. We have a drum loop that suffers from an overly sharp hi-hat, knocky snare and less-than-

UK-born, LA-based electronic producer Leon Vynehall has always been an artist who shifts, evolves and regenerates in unforeseen ways. The only constants throughout his career have been defying the expectations of people and then the quality with whic

1 Blue Cat Audio’s Patchwork is a plugin-hosting plugin that can create and store new combinations of effects using the third-party tools you have installed. Here we’re loading Polyverse Wider into Patchwork, which is loaded into Reason as a host.

Planet Mu are currently on a rich vein of form, releasing music from some of the most interesting and innovative electronic music artists around. None more so than the wondrous new Obstacle Scattering EP from Yorkshire’s Rian Treanor. The new tracks

Club culture didn’t take hold of Sam Lewis until he studied sound engineering at university in Liverpool. Already possessing a keen interest in production, his eyes were soon opened to a world of dance music styles that eventually led him to secure a

Full Review: FM365 | opsix is packed with unique character, and – rarely for an FM instrument – it’s fun and accessible. Another top-class digital synth from Korg. Review FM360 An impressive first release from a new brand. Hydrasynth looks and sound

1 This plugin from New Sonic Arts hosts other plugins within itself, letting you split and route signals between them. You can load instruments and effects, and set up macro control over parameters from multiple plugins. You can save your setup for l

> There’s a time for most modular synth users when the mixer module gets to feel like it’s not quite enough, or the need for more than one mixer becomes all too apparent, so that you can get your music into the computer in a way which allows for reco

01 Studio One has a great way of combining multiple instruments into a rack system. By dragging a new instrument onto an existing one’s channel and choosing to Combine rather than Replace, you’ll end up with a flexible ‘multi-instrument’ setup. 02 H

Like a macro control on a synth, on a rack or chain macros can have multiple targets, controlling them all to different extents, in exactly the way you set it up. The power comes from the fact you’re using a single control to command multiple control

01 Using effects that boast a sequencer, or LFO generator lets you add complex texture and movement to synths, drums and any other static sounds. Add ShaperBox 2 to a mid-bass layer, with the Filter shaper loaded. Set cutoff to 1.4kHz, then choose th

CONTACT WHO: M-Audio WEB: m-audio.com KEY FEATURES 49 velocity sensitive semi-weighted keys (with aftertouch) and pads (with Note Repeat), 8 assignable knobs, 9 assignable faders, Preset and DAW buttons for auto-mapped DAW and plugin controls, Smart

CONTACT WHO: Vector WEB: vectorsynth.com KEY FEATURES Compact desktop form factor, Multiple voices of mono or polyphonic output, Hybrid synthesis, 7” touch screen I’ve seen a lot of synths in my time, however few offer anything truly unique, which i

Traditionally step sequencers have been the go-to for pattern generation but there are more and more opportunities to play with rhythm in different ways. Chance-based patterns can be really fun, so take a look at modules like Mutable Instruments Marb

Sequencing, especially by step, can take a fair amount of space, so ask yourself if you need it to be module-based? Save yourself some valuable hp by moving this task to a different space. You could use a small MIDI-to-CV module like Yarns, or ALM’s

1 The Effect Rack bundles up 14 of Soundtoys’ top tier effects such as EchoBoy, Decapitator and FilterFreak into a powerful multi-effect rack used to make endless combos of processing, ideal for all kinds of creative sound design tasks. Once you’ve c

1 One dilemma is whether to add dedicated drum voices to your rig, use sample-based options, or shape your own voices with regular modules. There are clearly pros and cons to each but let’s start with sample players. A big pro is limitless sample opt

CONTACT WHO: Make Noise WEB: makenoisemusic.com KEY FEATURES Fully analogue and patch programmable, no menus or modes. Sequence and Control the Pitch, Strength, and Time of your synthesizer voice, per step. Voltage control over Stop and Direction. I

This is an extremely simple tool to emulate the sound of a vinyl record and turntable, which is an incredibly sought-after sound in the world of sampling. This Kontakt instrument (full version) includes a variety of knobs capable of changing the soun

> Split-processing plugins usually involve multiband ideas, where the extent and type of processing changes per frequency. There’s also straight parallel processing, where two signals are processed differently and then blended or balanced together. M