Sommaire pour 04/2024 de Beat English

Microphone with audio interface from IK Multimedia To capture a song idea, record a podcast or for spontaneous streams, a mobile microphone that also houses an audio interface is a great thing. IK Multimedia has developed the iRig Stream Mic USB for such tasks. A gold-coated condenser microphone capsule is installed inside, which enables a resolution of 16 bit and 48 kHz. In addition to the USB interface, a separate stereo mini jack input is available for keyboards, mixers and drum machines. The maximum sound pressure level of the microphone is 115 dB SPL. The directional characteristic is focused on cardioid. The frequency spectrum ranges from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. A high-pass filter can be activated if required. The included iRig Recorder 3 LE software for iOS devices can…

Beat / Modular systems have quite a run. Many developers and manufacturers build their own modules or integrate CV-ports into their desktop synths or audio-interfaces. So meanwhile almost every studio should be compatible to the world of modular synths. Do you feel that, too? Kris / There are a million ways to interface line- and instrument-level gear with Eurorack! Whether it’s built-in CV and gates, MIDI, level shifters, or other utilities, getting signals in and out of Eurorack can be done reasonably simply. I think when considering whether to get into modular, the issue is less a question of compatibility and more one of whether it’s a tool that a user will find useful and inspiring. Andrew / It has been great to see an expanding level of support for…

1 Try out the sounds The AAS Player comes with the free Swatches sound bank, which currently contains 721 of the best sounds in the series. That alone gives you inspiration and fresh sounds for almost every conceivable style of music! And with the two packs of your choice, you can expand the sound palette even further. We opt for 30.8676 Hz and Plastic Pop. 2 Beat & bass We feel like a little track between French House and Electro Funk. Load the AAS Player as an instrument in your DAW. For the bass, we select preset 29 - Monologue from the 30.8676 Hz soundbank. Add a beat from Loopcloud, set the project tempo to 126 BPM and we‘re ready to sparkle! We play a simple bassline. 3 Question &…

1 Select samples First, load Groove Agent SE as a VST instrument to create a drum kit from everyday sounds and define a song tempo of 94 BPM. We use the LoFi_Ambience samples from the Cubase library, but you can also use your own field recordings. Load Lofi_Ambience_21_Airport_LD on Pad 1 and switch to the Main tab. 2 Bass drum Set Sample Start and Sample End so that only a short section of the field recording is played and tune it one octave lower with Coarse: -12 semi. Then, set a percussive envelope on the Amp side. To turn the sample into a bass drum, we use the filter (Type: Low Pass 24) in Hard Clip mode, with Cutoff: 50 Hz. 3 Snare Adjust the remaining filter parameters and the…

1 Saturation Select a simple lead sound and switch off its effects to make it easier to understand. First, we drive the sound into saturation to give it more contour and generate more overtones. In our example, Saturn does this with the Warm Tube algorithm at approximately 70% drive. The sound should not distort. 2 More fullness and width For more punch, we boost the left channel by 4 dB at 7.4 kHz with a Q value of 1.2 and the right channel by 4 dB at 650 Hz and 0.8 for more fullness. This also distributes the sound in the panorama depending on the frequency. We then cut off unnecessarily low frequencies with a Lowcut at approximately 120 Hz. 3 Reverb We need a little spatiality for this. The…

Dua Lipa – Houdini: Pad with Diva 1 Many cooks… With „Don‘t Stop Now“ and the accompanying album „Future Nostalgia“, Dua Lipa broke all records in 2020 and became a global star. Now the British-Albanian singer has conjured ‚Houdini‘ out of a hat to herald her new album. She wrote the song with Kevin Parker from Tame Impala, Caroline Ailin, Danny Harly and Tobias Jesso, Jr. 2 Powerful pads In addition to Lipa‘s magnificent vocals and the driving Disco beat, the synth pad sound in the chorus is a defining feature that just screams Roland Juno-60. There are many emulations, but none sound as real as U-he Diva. The four chords are syncopated, that is, brought forward, in D minor, played at 117 BPM - always during the chorus. 3…

1 Learning instruments In the GarageBand start window, you can complete free guitar or piano tutorials under the „Learn Instruments“ tab. There are various sections here to help you get a feel for the respective instrument. These exercises are a good start, but they are no substitute for a „real“ teacher. But it‘s still fun. 2 Store for exercises You can also call up the „Store for Tutorials“ in the Start Window. Here you will find guitar and piano tutorials to download free of charge. Under the „Artist Tutorials“ tab, well-known musicians such as John Legend and Colbie Caillat show you how to play their songs. You can use your guitar via your interface or your MIDI controller. 3 Exercises The exercises start simply. The guitar tutorials teach you how…

1 The right interface To be able to use your guitar or bass with GarageBand iOS, you need an interface such as the Irig HD 2 from IK Multimedia, which is available for little money. It offers an instrument input with preamp, an output for connecting your amplifier and a headphone output. Recordings at up to 96 kHz are possible. 2 Create track Create a new song or press the Plus Button in the track menu and add an „AMP“ Track. You can use the icons at the bottom to choose whether you want to connect a clean or distorted guitar or a bass. You can also load additional sound content here. New amplifiers and speakers are added regularly. 3 Adjustment GarageBand provides you with various guitar amps that you…

Applied Acoustic Systems is giving you two complete soundsets of your choice. Immerse yourself in a world of chart-topping club sounds or indulge in the nostalgic sounds of vintage analog instruments. The selection is as varied as your creative ideas! For the sound engineers and producers among you, we also have a full version of Bitwig 8-Track, a fully modular DAW. Our 3.6 GB FXplosion II: Supernova expansion pack for the Zampler and MPC delivers unique effects that will make your tracks stand out. Powerful risers, downers and textures are waiting for you here to push the tension to the limit. The brilliant concentrate for the next techno club hit is provided by the 8 GB Techno-Concentrate sample pack from ZTEKNO. Combine these ingeniously with the 900 MB Future House…

Jan Wilking Synthesizers, samplers and drum machines have defined his life for a good four decades. Inspired by the emerging Synth Pop of the early 80s, particularly the first concerts as a budding teenager like Depeche Mode, Nitzer Ebb and Shock Therapy shaped his further development, which led to the founding of the EBM/Industrial project STERIL in 1990, which was successful mainly in the USA. From the simple cassette recorder, Casio keyboard and mono sampler with mini-memory to the modern DAW with almost unlimited possibilities, Jan has witnessed the development of electronic music production, with his personal conclusion: Less is often more! Sascha Blach Passionate music nerd who likes variety as a listener, as well as a singer, musician and producer, because he thinks variety is what makes life interesting…

1 Name the inserts Let‘s get started in the mixer. Right-click on the Inserts and select Rename, Color and Icon. I recommend dividing different blocks into Drums, Instruments, Vocals and Effects and leaving a little space between them in case more samples or instruments are used in a project than planned. 2 Buses To make life easier later in the mixing process, we now route all signals in a category to a Bus. You can do this by holding down the Ctrl key and left-clicking on the individual mixer channels and then clicking on Route to this track only. The bus created in this way is, of course, named accordingly and decorated with color. 3 Effects Certain effects are almost always loaded into the mixer. Be it the Compressor or…

1 How OTT works OTT is a multiband compression technique that uses upward and downward compression simultaneously. This means that the loudest parts of the audio signal are pushed down and are, therefore, quieter, while the quiet parts are boosted. As a result, the sound is compressed and loud because the dynamic range is severely restricted. 2 More glitz & glamor To make a sound really fat, but retain its basic character, load the OTT preset of the Multiband Dynamics into the track. Adjust the upper Threshold, that is, that of the upward bands on the right-hand side, by dragging the band to the right or left at the front, or by selecting Edit Mode A and changing the dB values there. 3 Frequency bands Start with the middle frequency…

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The PO-33 K.O.! Micro-Sampler has always been our favorite among the pocket operators, despite its primarily shape-related niggles. Spontaneously recording whatever comes your way at the touch of a button and being able to trigger it immediately without any detours and record it as a sequence - it is precisely this simplicity and limitation to the essentials that has always led to musical results. The battery-operated pocket operator fit in your pocket and was always there, whether you were on the go or jamming with your buddy and his analog synthesizer machines. That‘s why we were particularly pleased that TE based the EP-133 K.O. II on this pocket operator, which is still available new for just under 100 euros. Hardware problems The hardware of the EP-133 is also more in…

1 Create a song Download the free GarageBand iOS app from the App Store. After opening it, you can load various virtual instruments such as „KEYBOARD“, as well as guitar amps, tracks for external instruments, sound packs or the audio recorder to get started with your song. Let‘s create a keyboard track with the Alchemy synth. 2 Autoplay If you have done everything correctly, you will see a keyboard in front of you. You can make settings for the playing style using buttons. At the top right is a slider symbol that provides sound settings for the respective instrument. The „Autoplay Function“ is particularly helpful. This provides four rhythms that play in a loop at the touch of a button. 3 Sound settings If you click on the inverted pyramid…

Black Nail Cabaret: Chrysanthemum The Hungarian pop-noir outfit lets their new album shine under the sign of chrysanthemums, the daisy family flower that is widespread in East Asia and is etymologically said to have the status of a golden flower. There is also something noble about the eleven songs on the duo‘s sixth album. They offer a mix of Dark Pop music, Dark Wave and sophisticated Electronica, tailored to the warm, soft vocals of frontwoman Emèse Árvai-Illes, who also gives the music a certain sexiness. Whether melancholic and introspective or danceable and with grand gestures - Black Nail Cabaret show that they have mastered the fine art of songwriting and arranging, because the record sounds consistently of a high standard. Or to simply put it in a nutshell: Black Nail…

The common thread: Beat issue 04/2024 For many years, Beat has been inspiring its readers not only with practical and musical topics, but above all with the tight integration of editorial content. From the very beginning, Beat has been about creating, about the structured building of ideas and the common thread – in the magazine as well as in the tracks. This navigator shows you the highlights of this issue andallows you to see the big picture. Portrait: Chelsea Wolfe With her new album “She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She” Chelsea Wolfe has embarked on an exciting journey into more electronic realms. The versatile American artist, who has already covered genres such as Post-Rock, Gothic, Drone and Folk in her discography, is venturing into new territory and…

Modular synthesizers are becoming increasingly popular. There are many reasons for this: Many musicians would like to work on sounds with two hands and without a screen and experience analog sound. There are also more and more and better modules that you can put together to create your own individual modular synthesizer. Last but not least, software modular systems are also becoming increasingly popular. Some manufacturers publish software versions of their modules that you can try out and learn to use. What are modular synthesizers? In modular synthesizers you can access parts of the sound generation directly, whereas in a classic synthesizer they are firmly connected to each other. This has advantages and disadvantages: If you buy a simple synthesizer, you can quickly play sounds with your keyboard. With a…

Click here for the live recording of Daniel and Marco The guys from 1010 Music have taken their Bluebox from the desktop into the Eurorack, which brings a mixer with up to 12 channels and effects into your setup on a relatively small 30HP, including a recorder. Daniel and Marco have therefore incorporated the box directly into their weekly jam sessions. You can listen to a live recording via the QR code if you feel like it. What is the bluebox Eurorack Edition capable of? The bluebox is a multi-track recorder that integrates a 12-channel mixer and can record up to 12 individual tracks, stereo sum and FX channels onto a micro SD card. With the touch display and the existing controls and buttons, the bluebox offers extensive tone adjustment…

Beat / Image is incredibly important in popular culture. It seems to be pretty important for you guys as well. How would our world be different if we paid less attention to looks and listened more instead? Chromeo / In our conception of what a band should be, looks are equally as important as music. All our favorite bands have a look: The Strokes, Wu Tang, Prince … What would The Ramones be without their look? What would The Rolling Stones be without their tongue logo? Our biggest musical influence is probably ZZ Top and it’s not for what their music sounds like: it’s for their look, their vibe, their consistency and, most important of all, their commitment. Sure, making music can be about hearing. But being an artist, a…

powered by TASCAM LISTEN IN! WHERE AND HOW YOU WANT! The BEHIND THE BEAT Podcast is home on all popularplatforms: www.beat.de/podcast For many, Moses Schneider‘s recordings are simply insanely good. But there is a method to this insanity. The Moses Schneider method, to be precise. It has taken the engineer and producer almost four decades and projects to develop it. From Hip-Hop (Dendemann) and Indie (Tocotronic, Pixies) via Metal (Kreator) and Punk Rock (Beatsteaks) up to Electro-Pop (Bobo in White Wooden Houses). The Moses Schneider method is not a strict step-by-step manual of technical specs or production steps. Rather, it‘s all about the best possible drum sound. Moses‘ microphone set-up provides for instant shivers and pure, naked emotion. So it‘s no wonder that equipment manufacturer elysia considered Moses the ideal…

1 Our song We loaded a Pop Ballad that consists of a vocal track and a piano track. The vocals are a little out of tune, but we are very happy with the feel of the recording. We would like to make the song sound a bit more modern and, therefore, realize an audible pitch correction. But first we have to prepare the vocals. 2 The preparation Before we start with the Pitch Correction, there are two things we want to work on. Unfortunately, the recording has a bit too little headroom, which is why we reduce the signal by 3.5 dB using the gain plug-in. Next, we load the Channel EQ and set a lowcut at 110 Hz to clean up the bass range and make room for the…

1 Waveforms galore! Unzip the waveforms and sounds from the Issue Downloads to your hard disk and you‘re ready to go! Drag SampleOne XT from the browser into your project and load one of the audio files from the „Tones“ folder of „Polyend Tracker Waves and Tones by Michael West“ into the sampler. Activate the Loop Mode, Sustain, so that the waveform is looped. 2 Feed SampleOne Use the arrow buttons above the waveform display to switch between the samples in the folder. We select the overtone-rich Herald Mids waveform to create a bass from it. First, activate the Mono playback mode. Then, select the LP24 Ladder type in the filter section, turn Cutoff all the way to the left and turn Env up to about 3/4. 3 Building a…

Valhalla DSP Supermassive 3.0 With Super Massive, you get the coveted Valhalla sound in your DAW for free; and the new update to 3.0 offers even more possibilities for extraordinary Reverb and Delay effects. Supermassive links multiple feedback delays in a network that is controlled by the large WARP knob. Simply switching between the different modes causes extensive changes in the decay behavior and the interaction of the delays. Density and stereo width can be adjusted as can modulation of the delays. You can get a good start by turning down the modulations with Depth and then trying out the various algorithms. The new Leo Mode lives up to the name of this plug-in. After a slow fade-in, it goes into a super-massive long decay phase, which can sound dark…

Industrial Strength Nu Groove Disco Feel the groove and immerse yourself in the Disco feeling with the 1.2 GB Nu Groove Disco loop collection. Here, timeless Disco sound is cleverly combined with modern Funk/Soul. The basis is formed by five construction kits consisting of loops with drums (53), basses (45), guitars (30), keyboards (23), synthesizers (23), vocals (19) and one shot samples (151). Each of the kits contains between 20 and 30 loops that can be used to create a good song structure. Powerful, pounding kicks meet wonderfully growling basslines here. Thankfully, the drums are largely present with no effects. These are perfectly framed by the relaxing Rhodes and piano sounds. You can also expect nice short licks from the Guitars. Verdict Nu Groove Disco is first-class modern Disco House,…

1 Preparation When creating a musical bed, it is important to pay attention to a few things. For example, the instrumental shouldn‘t be too hectic and should leave enough space for the voice. We record a test intro that we let run in the background while we tinker. 2 Sorting You can adjust the song tempo to your taste at any time. We press [O] to open the Apple Loop overview. We recommend sorting the loops either by genre such as Jazz, Funk and Indie or by instrument. In our intro, we would like a relaxed piano and find what we‘re looking for with „Beginning Tonight Acoustic Piano“. 3 Percussion We use a percussion instrument that complements the beat halfway through. We also add the „Air Pressure Blast 1“ sound…

1 Concept Live Loops are ideal for arranging and processing ideas in real-time and playing them back flexibly and in sync. You can choose between cells arranged vertically (sound generation) and horizontally (timeline). You can either start with an empty grid or load one of the many templates from different genres such as EDM. 2 Recording There are various track types available for your production. You can load drummer tracks, audio tracks or software instruments. If you press and hold a cell with your finger, you will be taken to the recording mode of the respective track. You can start recording by pressing the record button. 3 Editing There is a pencil icon at the bottom left that you can use to process all tracks. Select the respective track, press…