Computer Music March 2016

“Ah, a blank canvas for my sonic art!” By my reckoning, the typical modern synth has, ohhh, about a zillion controls. There are row upon row of knobs to twiddle, multi-segment envelopes to design, step sequencers at your command, sliders to be slid, and tons of toggles, switches and buttons. But the one that inspires me the most has to be the humble patch init button that resets the synth to a single oscillator, with filter wide open and no modulation in sight. Ah, a blank canvas for my sonic art! Whether I’m after a basic sawtooth bass or a massive multilayered pad, I know exactly how to find my way there from this most elementary of starting points. What if you’ve never been on that journey, though, or your own attempts…

Enkl CM Unwrap this issue’s free monosynth and find out how to get the most out of it on p10 Samples Over 900 groovy loops that’ll bring personality to your tunes – see what’s inside and how they were made on p14 Tutorial videos High-quality videos to guide you through our tutorials. Wherever you see the icon on the left, there’s a video version to watch See this issue’s entire video content on the next pages Tutorial files A folder full of audio examples, synth patches and project files to help you follow our tutorials CM Plugins Our exclusive collection of free plugins for Mac and PC. See what’s available on p16…

Our fantastic software, samples, videos and tutorial files are now available to download! To get access to this content, go to vault.computermusic.co.uk on your PC or Mac’s web browser. You’ll be asked to register and answer a few simple questions to prove that you’ve got the mag. You’ll then be given access to our content! You can sign in any time to register new issues and download more content. For more info, see our Vault FAQ: bit.ly/cmvaultfaq * Please note that the Producer Masterclass video is not available as a download via our Vault. See page 60 for viewing instructions, or watch on Apple Newsstand via built-in internet streaming.…

SOUND DESIGN Step up to the drawing board and design your best patches ever with these how-to videos from the experts 1 Punchy tech bass with Aalto CM 2 Expressive, analogue-style bass with Reaktor 6 3 Rumbling Reese bass with Spire 4 Quick bass stabs with Hive 5 Heavenly 80s choir pad with Dune CM 6 Custom waveform pad with Serum 7 Classic house lead with FM8 8 Spooky trap lead with Strobe2 9 West Coast hip-hop lead with Strobe2 10 Punchy detuned EDM lead using Dune CM TIP 1 Resonant white noise sweep with Enkl CM TIP2 Designing FX using frequency modulation Read the full article on p36 HANNAH V See how she wrote and produced Andreya Triana’s Branches of Life using Apple Logic in this studio vid Read the full article on p59 ENKL CM Download and get started with this issue’s plugin, a sweet monosynth made…

OSCILLATOR SECTION Change the oscillator’s waveform, phase, tuning and gain FM/AM Apply LFOdriven amplitude or frequency modulation FILTERS Apply both Low Cut and High Cut filters, and adjust Resonance and Attack VOICING Toggle Legato and/or Arpeggio modes, and set Arp Speed and Glide values MASTER VOLUME Sets Enkl CMs overall output level DELAY A stereo ping-pong delay with Time, Feedback, Spread and Mix parameters ADSR envelope Tweak the amplitude envelope EQ A three-band EQ with adjustable crossover points STEREO WIDTH Crank up the knob to spread out the synth PITCHBEND AND VIBRATO Set Vibrato Speed and Depth, and adjust the synths pitchbend range If there’s one thing we at Computer Music know, it’s that our readers love a great-sounding synthesiser. That’s why we’re not only focusing on synthetic sound design in this issue, but also giving away an amazing and exclusive synth plugin: Enkl CM, by Swedish software magicians Klevgränd. Based…

915 EXCLUSIVE SAMPLES 306 Cyclick drum loops 216 Groove Criminals drum loops 10 drum kits with 155 samples 55 individual drum hits 100 drum top loops 83 instrument loops As soon as computers started helping us make our music, the world immediately changed for the better. Those beige boxes were no longer just gaming machines or word processors but began to take on new life at the heart of world-class bedroom studios everywhere. Computers gave us instant instruments, infinite edits, tracks galore, and of course, perfect timing. But there’s a downside to everything, dear readers – you see, as countless 80s electropop bands proved, you can get too rigid. The horizonless world of electronic music started to rely too heavily on that precious on-screen grid, and soon enough, humanity had gone from a Utopian brotherhood of jazz hands…