Computer Music September 2022

When I first started making music it was all pre-digital (yes, hard to tell from my picture I know – uh hmm – but we’re talking ‘the ‘80s’ here). Back then there was this horrific thing called ‘noise’; you had it coming out of every item of equipment, every cable, every damn output (and input). I even bought a 1/3U box from Alesis, an actual piece of hardware, that was supposed to cut out the noise on my system. It didn’t really work, to be honest, and all my early music was ‘blessed’ with hissy introductions. Fast forward a few years and all of that noise went out of the window as I went ‘in the box’. Around 2004 I was completely laptop only, boasting on these pages how noise-free…

When I first started making music it was all pre-digital (yes, hard to tell from my picture I know – uh hmm – but we’re talking ‘the ‘80s’ here). Back then there was this horrific thing called ‘noise’; you had it coming out of every item of equipment, every cable, every damn output (and input). I even bought a 1/3U box from Alesis, an actual piece of hardware, that was supposed to cut out the noise on my system. It didn’t really work, to be honest, and all my early music was ‘blessed’ with hissy introductions. Fast forward a few years and all of that noise went out of the window as I went ‘in the box’. Around 2004 I was completely laptop only, boasting on these pages how noise-free…

It’s a hat-trick of vintage synths Just when you thought we’d run out of synth emulations, three more pop up > Like us you probably thought that every classic synth had already been emulated, rebuilt, reworked, built again, modelled, remodelled, souped up, dressed down and generally turned into software. Not so because we have not one but three new ones to bring you here! First out of the blocks are GForce Software, developers who are not exactly known for their fast release rate. Like the Bethesda of plugins they rarely release stuff, but you sit up and take notice when they do. So we weren’t expecting much in the way of new stuff since they only relatively recently released the rather great Oberheim OB-E. But hot on its heels and…

It’s a hat-trick of vintage synths Just when you thought we’d run out of synth emulations, three more pop up > Like us you probably thought that every classic synth had already been emulated, rebuilt, reworked, built again, modelled, remodelled, souped up, dressed down and generally turned into software. Not so because we have not one but three new ones to bring you here! First out of the blocks are GForce Software, developers who are not exactly known for their fast release rate. Like the Bethesda of plugins they rarely release stuff, but you sit up and take notice when they do. So we weren’t expecting much in the way of new stuff since they only relatively recently released the rather great Oberheim OB-E. But hot on its heels and just in time…

Pocket Operator If you thought that Teenage Engineering only made dinky, eye-wateringly priced hardware these days, Pocket Operator for Pixel is here to set you straight. Exclusive to Google’s more recent Pixel phones (5 and above), this clever app uses the Big G’s TensorFlow machine learning tech to pluck samples from your videos and place them on a 4x4 grid of buttons so that you can use them to create sequences. Clever, eh? It’s all very slick, particularly as video is displayed at the top of the screen and synced up with the music. Downloadable for free right now. teenage.engineering Koala Sampler On the subject of audio extraction, fans of the Koala Sampler – of which there are many – should be pleased to hear that a recent update introduces…

Pocket Operator If you thought that Teenage Engineering only made dinky, eye-wateringly priced hardware these days, Pocket Operator for Pixel is here to set you straight. Exclusive to Google’s more recent Pixel phones (5 and above), this clever app uses the Big G’s TensorFlow machine learning tech to pluck samples from your videos and place them on a 4x4 grid of buttons so that you can use them to create sequences. Clever, eh? It’s all very slick, particularly as video is displayed at the top of the screen and synced up with the music. Downloadable for free right now. teenage.engineering Koala Sampler On the subject of audio extraction, fans of the Koala Sampler – of which there are many – should be pleased to hear that a recent update introduces the Split Stems feature,…