Table of contents for August 2022 in Computer Music

For many years, since the advent of recorded music, those lacking natural singing prowess would have to work extra hard to lay down their vocal takes – recording again and again until their caterwauling had been strenuously slotted into tonal alignment. The controversial appearance of Antares Auto-Tune in 1997 not only salvaged time back from end-of-their-tether producers and panicking, self-doubting vocalists, but opened up a whole new window on how the human voice can be worked with, irrespective of natural ability. Here in 2022, there’s no shame if you can’t quite reach the high notes, you’re struggling with intonation or just not able to flawlessly imitate the confident character of the stars. As long as you’ve got a clean vocal take (from an audio POV at least), software from the…

Celemony Melodyne 5.1 Mac/PC From £82 The ultimate pitch-correcting software, Melodyne’s very clever DNA technology presents a uniquely detailed way into your vocal recordings, providing the means to carefully nudge the pitch and intonation of your voice, and also create doublings, harmonies and formants. It’s the real pinnacle of vocal adjusting tools. celemony.com Zynaptic Pitchmap Mac/PC £260 Zynaptiq’s real-time wonder allows for the editing of pitch while it’s being played, correcting any tuning issues on the fly. This could be a great choice for live performance assistance, or to use as a vocal-bending instrument for melodic writing. You can also use a MIDI keyboard to define a new musical playing field for your voice. zynaptiq.com Logic Flex Pitch Mac only Included within Logic Pro (£174.99) Logic’s in-built pitch corrector allows…

iZotope Vocal Synth 2 Mac/PC £150 With five bendable, infinitely manipulable modules, Vocal Synth 2 presents one of the most focused ways to re-shape a vocal into something colossal. Its advanced spectral display responds to the characteristics of vowels, and reacts to your effect choices. It’s a sure-fire route to instant vocal splendour, or ragged edge. izotope.com Soundtoys Little AlterBoy Mac/PC £75 Garnering huge respect for their exemplary plugin range, Soundtoys are dab hands when it comes to vocal adjustment. Specialising in formant shifting, pitch adjustment and melodic tweaking, Little AlterBoy is a one-box pathway to a range of cool new vocal worlds, you can even use it as a hard-tuner, and layer your track with authentic saturation. soundtoys.com Klanghelm SDRR Mac/PC £20 If you want your vocal to ripple…

While lead vocals and supplemental vocal chops and stabs are to be treated as individual mix components when marking out your frequency space, when it comes to larger-scale vocals within a track, such as when you’re juggling several backing vocals to craft something akin to a choir, then you’re going to need to be extra careful that your voices coalesce, and don’t sound disjointed, or have wayward tracks spinning off into busy areas of your mix. Typically, backing vocals will always need to be quieter than your lead vocal take, particularly if they’re seeking to bolster or enhance the mood of your song. With this lower volume comes a more broad brush approach to spatial effects such as reverb. Hall or chamber reverbs on multiple background vocals present a quick…

Step by step 1. Enhancing vocals with Antares Auto-Tune 1 Antares Auto-Tune is a remarkably dexterous suite of voice-manipulating software, and is now capable of far more, particularly via the family of sub-plugins such as Auto-Key and EFX. 2 We’ve got a demo we’re working on, with a vocal melody concocted of samples. However the samples are dry and entirely out of tune and roughly in tempo with our track pitch. (Check out the file ‘Sample 1’ at the Tutorials folder downloaded via FileSilo). 3 Opening Antares Auto-Tune, the first thing we do is snap our vocal track to the correct pitch key using Auto-Key. This recent addition to the Antares family intelligently discerns our root key. We can then send the key to Auto-Tune. 4 Setting the Re-Tune speed…

It’s entirely possible to make music on a computer without having the faintest idea of how digital audio works, but a little knowledge can go a long way when it comes to pushing the medium to its limits. For those unfamiliar with the basics of how sound works, let’s start at square one. Some of the following explanations might seem a little abstract out of the context of actual mixing, but introducing these ideas now is important, as they’ll be referenced when we get more hands-on later in the issue. Sound is the oscillation (that is, waves) of pressure through a medium – air, for example. When these waves hit our tympanic membranes (eardrums), the air vibration is converted to a vibration in the fluid that fills the channels of…

One main reason for the rise in popularity of the EZdrummer series, is the vast amount of control that the user has over the drum and groove elements, supplied with the package or as an additional quotient. There are a few ways to look at this. If you consider the drums to be the backbone of a band or group, it makes sense that when working to a drum template which is played live, as they are with EZdrummer, you can and should lock right in to the groove being played. This is important for certain genres, whether heavy rock or jazz and funk. But thanks to the intrinsic flexibility of the package, you can re-quantise the MIDI to your own template or specification, or change basic elements, such as…

Baby Audio have only been around for a relatively short period of time but have made a big impact thanks to a set of plugins that focuses on what the user wants, rather than blinding you with specs, data sheets and direct emulations of rusty old hardware. With plugins like Spaced Out, they take the concepts behind that hardware (in that case a Space Echo) and transfer them to the 21st Century, putting the controls you want in front of you, and leaving much of the science to the white coat brigade. And we love them for that; it’s putting the music first, and the company’s latest Crystalline reverb takes that ethos along very nicely indeed. It’s an algorithmic reverb in the vein of classic Lexicon hardware and exudes that…

To further accentuate the pack’s reflective USP, a series of plate and spring reverbs can be applied: from the cavernous Dark Chamber with its seemingly never ending tail, to the Abrupt Plate, which oddly makes the already intimate sounding recordings sound even tighter. It’s easy to overkill the reverb, but doing so would erode the intentionally intimate nature of how these instruments have been recorded. However, Spitfire do provide routes to carving your own variations of the pack’s recordings. Of particular note is the Technique Editor, wherein you can build and modify your own instrument presets by melding and re-organising techniques. How much of this you want to do, though, depends on how far you want to deviate from the pack’s, myriad, and already good-to-go presets.…

If singing is important to your songs and recordings then there are plenty of software plugins available to assist your recording and editing endeavours. Vocal processing plugins are many and varied and can be used to help make great vocal recordings, or turn bad takes into recordings that can be used in any mix. Vocal processing plugins include general mix plugins for adding EQ solidity and sparkle to male or female vocals, or classic, colourful compression for a vintage vibe. For vocalists with tuning issues or the contemporary ‘Auto-tune’ effect, there are automatic tuning plugins to help your vocalist hit the right notes or recreate the classic Cher-like jumping effect. Finally there are more esoteric and bespoke vocal processors that focus on specific tasks like de-essing or double-tracking. In this…

TYPE: Pitch and timing alignment software | KEY FEATURES: Instantly match timing and pitch of two or more signals. Great for vocals, instruments and sound effects | SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: AU, AAX and VST3, Audio Suite for offline editing in Pro Tools and ARA2 (Audio Random Access) format. Requires Intel Processor macOS 10.8 or higher, Windows 10. Most DAWs supported bar Reason, Digital Performer and Garageband VocAlign is a long-established market-leading tool that adjusts the timing of an audio file (Dub) so it matches that of a source (Guide). It works well with any audio and is used for many music and post-production tasks. However it’s particularly in demand for vocals and speech, where accurate pitch and timing alignment can be crucial. VocAlign Ultra sits between the affordable but basic VocAlign…

TYPE: Full vocal editing suite of modules | PRICING: Nectar Elements £129 (contains Vocal Assistant and enough modules to carry out most vocal processes); Nectar 3 Plus $249 (adds Melodyne 5 essential and extra Unmask features) | KEY FEATURES: Vocal Assistant: Get polished vocals with AI; automatically set reverb, compression EQ, and more; automatic De-esser cleans up your sibilance | SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: AAU, AAX, VST2, VST3 (64-bit only for Nectar 3 Plus; 32- and 64-bit for Nectar Elements); Mac: macOS High Sierra (10.13.6) – macOS Big Sur (11.6.x; Windows: Windows 10 Nectar has become a go-to plugin for the pro producer looking to easily get vocals of all kinds sounding their best. It uses an array of reorderable modules to apply voice-optimised dynamics shaping, EQ, pitch correction, harmonisation, de-essing, distortion…

Loopmasters Howie B Drops Some Trip Hop £24.95 A sample pack with a title as laid back as the beats inside. However, as real heads will know, when it’s made by a living legend with fingerprints on countless seminal releases, you’re going to get well excited by the results. For his debut LM release, the trip-hop architect has teamed up with a close circuit of tight live musicians to add some fly grooves to his signature palette. Dope keys, drums, bass, brass, and percussion make up the eight heavyweight crates on offer. Each one feels like part of a late night jam on grooves that run from 73-123bpm. loopmasters.com n9/100 Sustain Cosmic Deep House £19.50 Intergalactic fusion of black hole deep house business and acid-washed melodies. The rip in this…

cm How did you get into music software? JG “I’ve had a keen interest in plugins for a very long time. I followed the latest developer news and always wished I could one day make my own. Now that is a reality, and I spend a lot of my time (even when asleep) dreaming up some new concepts for plugins.” cm What makes your plugins stand out? JG “When thinking up new ideas for plugins, I have two main goals. First I like to find a way to offer as many features and options as possible, while simultaneously making the plugin easy and fast to use. This balancing act is important to me. Secondly, I try to innovate in some way. Either with a completely new concept or a more…

If you haven’t yet heard Jimi Jules’ irreverent dance music, his latest album should serve as a fitting introduction to his extraordinary sound. Packed with personality, + is an eclectic collection that brings to mind the synth-laced extroversion of artists like DJ Koze and Modeselektor, serving up productions with a wink, a nudge and a wry smile Released through the house music institution that is Innervisions, + forgoes the crisp and minimal stylings that typify the music of label heads Âme and Dixon. Instead the album explores a varied palette that stretches from exultant electro to moody deep house, with unexpected detours into dub techno and experimental hip-hop, making for some of the album’s most arresting moments. We caught up with Jimi following the record’s release to hear more about…

Pitch-correcting and Auto-Tune software can help to massage and sculpt a duff performance into something that shines. But that’s not necessarily something that every track calls for. It’s become a truism that vocal manipulation – be it formant shifting, stuttering/glitching, extreme compression, distortion or rigidly aggressive use of Auto-Tune to replicate a sort of vocoding effect – is so ubiquitous in today’s pop landscape that it’s more unusual to find a track that doesn’t exhibit it in some degree. Creative vocal effects can lift certain moments of a track, bolstering not just the impact of a vocal performance. Effects and treatment can add dirt, space-age surreality, transform the character of the singer entirely, scaling between a sinister-voiced demon or a high-registered chipmunk, or re-imagine the vocal as bendable instrument, leaping…

Oeksound Soothe 2 Mac/PC £119 Oeksound’s smart dynamic resonance suppressor is one of the finest plugins of the last decade. Fact. Using astoundingly programmed clever algorithms, Soothe 2 can isolate problematic frequencies and warring resonances on the fly, and trim them out before you even notice they’re there. It can also take away the harshness of a close-miked vocal with ease. oeksound.com Valhalla DSP Vintage Verb Mac/PC £40 To work with Vintage Verb’s epic room, ambience and concert hall reverb can make you feel like you’re delivering the hefty top-line to a massive power ballad. Taking its cues from the hardware digital reverbs of the 1970s and 80s, Vintage Verb’s incredible range of spatial tones can lift even the flattest of vocal takes up directly into the stratosphere. valhalladsp.com Universal…

Universal Audio Apollo Twin Mk II Mac/PC From £850 One of the world’s most acclaimed interfaces, the Apollo Twin MK II is a real winner for vocal recording, as well as anything else you might throw at it. With internal DSP handling the processing strain, it’s easy to enhance even a dry vocal take with UA’s Unison modelling technology. uaudio.com Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 3rd Gen Mac/PC £175 Focusrite are dab hands when it comes to affordable studio quality interfaces, and the Scarlett series is among the industry’s most ubiquitous I/Os. Now sporting an Air switch – giving more high frequency space and clarity to the vocals that it captures – the 4i4 is an affordable route towards awesome vocal takes. focusrite.com Steinberg UR44C £240 Steinberg’s I/O powerhouse is more than…

One of the defining characteristics of modern music is that it has thicker, richer, fatter bass than anything that has gone before. It’s fair to assume that we, as a species, have always appreciated low frequencies in our tunes, but it’s only in the last couple of decades that we’ve been able to reproduce the kind of ultra-low rumbling depth that used to be reserved for earthquakes and other acts of God. Dance music, in particular, is driven by its bottom end to such an extent that you can get a dancefloor rocking with nothing more than a basic beat and a massive single-note bass. Some of the most recognisable basslines – Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean, for example – are the driving force behind the track, and often the most…

OK, so we’re at least a decade or more past the peak point of wobble bass appearing in popular drum & bass and dubstep tunes – but hear me out! Although this tutorial is aimed at recreating the wobble synth bass that you’ve heard in these genres, what I’m going to walk you through will hopefully inspire the type of experimentation that will help you come up with your own unique sonic qualities. After all, at some point the wobble was an innovation rather than a recreation. Experiment, understand the techniques, then go off and forge sounds of your own. Although the wobble (or wub as some people called it in the ’90s) is thought to go back to the acid house scene, the first notable track that I remember…

Tracktion Waveform Pro is a music focused DAW that over time has gradually combined its innovative object-based rack environment with more traditional DAW elements to create a quick yet powerful production system. It works on OS X (including Apple Silicon), Windows and Linux and, as we have mentioned before, is one of the most cross-platform-capable DAWs available. There’s also a very decent Free version and 90-day trial of the Pro version should you want to try before you buy. Building Blocks We last looked at Waveform Pro at version 11.5, and although this was only a point update, there were substantial improvements, including much slicker menu systems, more shortcut options, improved scripting and better mouse implementation. The most significant change was the option to try an in-development audio engine, so…

The central area has a Start slider which sets a time for the reverb to take effect – a great effect on vocals, leaving the sound dry for a determined time before the lush reverb comes in. The End slider is useful as you can set it so the reverb ends at a point so that your mix doesn’t become too carried away and washed out. Finish it at a bar, for example, or before the next beat comes in. Beneath these, a Ducker also introduces time-like effects where the reverb is released after the attack of the dry signal – great on kicks and vocals. Finally a Reverse button does just that on the reverb and a Freeze option instantly freezes the effect. The best option with all of…

We all strive to achieve perfect mixes, but with so many considerations and judgements that are unique to the music you are creating, achieving this perfection can be an uphill battle. Many tools and techniques have been developed over the years aimed at making life easier at mixdown time, but these often assume you’re working with a full-featured studio console and don’t translate so well to mixing in the box. With this in mind, Sonnox have developed ListenHub, a blend of input switcher, monitor controller and audio toolbox. This is all geared towards helping you compare and contrast your mix with other recordings, and identify problem areas within your mixes. It also encourages a “best practice” approach to monitoring levels and loudness, and protects your speakers from inadvertently high signal…

TYPE: EQ plugin with up to 24 bands | KEY FEATURES: Filter shapes include Bell, Notch, High/Low Shelf, High/ Low Cut, Band Pass, Tilt Shelf, Flat Tilt; Dynamic EQ mode, EQ Match, spectrum analyser, external spectrum visualization, per-band mid/side or left/right processing and many more features | SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: VST, VST3, Audio Units, AAX Native and AudioSuite formats (all both 64-bit and 32-bit) While not a dedicated vocal processor, Fabfilter’s Pro-Q is one of the best EQs on the market, and every producer dealing with vocal recordings needs a great EQ to tame all those frequencies around a vocal. There are many reasons why Pro-Q has become the number one choice, but the main attractions are its sound, features and beautiful display. Double-clicking the spectral display creates a new EQ…

TYPE: Vocal processor plugin | KEY FEATURES: Real-time monophonic voice manipulation, zero latency, LFO, SEQ, Amplitude and Pitch modulators, ‘Flatten’ feature, Mix knob | SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: AAX/AU/VST2 & 3 (64-Bit), Mac OSX 10.13.6 or later (Intel only), Windows 10 64 bit (version 2004 and above); 8GB RAM, 8GB free disk space | CONTACT: Waves Audio (waves.com) Waves have some great plugins for vocalists – particularly in their bundles which include the classic De-Esser and Doubler. However Vocal Bender is all about the pitch and formant editing, vocal processing that has remained enduringly popular across many genres. There are two knobs, Pitch and Formant, controlling the central tone of the human vocal and the resonant frequencies that shape the timbre of the vocal. A Flatten button allows you to force the…

JMG Audio Hyperspace is a highly creative and rather unique reverb plugin that combines typical reverb parameters with some deep control over the core algorithms. We are very lucky that the developer, Jason Gibbins, in conjunction with United Plugins has created a special Computer Music version of this plugin and are super honoured that he’s continuing to support us with this new version 2. Hyperspace CM2 (VST, VST3, AU and AAX) is a slimmed down version of the parent plugin, but still has loads of tweakable parameters. Features include nine regular reverb controls (including reverb Time, Early/Late balance and high pass/low pass Filter), three algorithm Modes (Classic, Modern and Cosmic), and further dynamic and effect processing (Resonate, Inertia, Focus and Duck). The Modes can also be adjusted using the Character…

Kilohearts update ecosystem to v2 A free update to existing users and an attractive world to enter for non users If you are not familiar with the Kilohearts world of effects and synths, it’s a place of joy that can be experienced in a ‘standard’ DAW way or in Kilohearts’ own modular way. And they’ve just upgraded the whole shebang to version 2 for free for existing users. First up, before we look at the update in more detail, let’s take a look at the concept as it requires some explanation. Kilohearts produce many fantastic individual effects (VST/AAX/AU) that can be run within your DAW just like any other plugin. Load them on a channel, tweak and enjoy. They also produce the excellent Phase Plant, a semi-modular softsynth you can…

Regardless of how tightly in-tune your lead vocals, or how bizarre and idiosyncratic the treatment you apply to it, if a colossal synth lead is daubed all over it, or if pounding sub-bass renders it a mere distant echo in your mix, all that hard work will ultimately still lead to a disappointing, ineffective vocal. Therefore, it’s critical we take the time to listen to our vocal within the overall sound of our mix. A primary question we need to ask ourselves from the get-go is whether we want our vocal to be the top-line element – as is traditional in most contemporary genres. We’re going to assume that this is the case, though we’ll also look at effective mixing of vocals-as-instrument later in this ‘mixing’ section of our vocals…

Aston Halo £205 A portable vocal isolation booth without peer, Aston’s Halo re-imagined the concept from the ground up, creating a supremely effective tool for isolation, absorption, diffusion and 360 degree filtering. Its PET felt design and ease of mounting make it a no-brainer if you want completely isolated vocal capture. It looks pretty cool, too. astonmics.com SE Reflexion Filter Pro £158 SE really established the benchmark when it comes to portable vocal isolation, and their Reflexion Filter Pro is still very much a top-tier vocal isolating solution to this day. With its multi-layer acoustic fabric design, it works to eradicate intrusive room noise and keeps everything squarely focused on your vocal. seelectronics.com GIK Acoustics VISO Booth £175) Harnessing their many years of experience as acoustic treatment specialists, GIK’s…

Synth pads are among the most iconic elements of electronic music production. What we find most interesting about synth pads is how they can so easily morph from one sound to another, depending on the style of music and production you’re trying to work within. In one genre, you may have a brassy-sounding stab, which overtly sounds like a throwback to the ’80s, but in another setting, you may find yourself with a more subdued and mysterious sound. This is definitely one of the calling cards of the production styles employed by Richard D. James, also known as Aphex Twin. Nestled amongst a seemingly often chaotic soundscape, you will often hear a relatively subdued synth pad or two in there, which is the audio equivalent of a pad that’s had…

In what feels like a very long time ago, but not necessarily in a galaxy far away, Toontrack created the original EZdrummer package, to provide DAW-based musicians the ability to combine great drum performances in a MIDI format, with ultra realistic-sounding drum samples. Back then, there were some very pessimistic musicians and producers, questioning exactly how good this concept could really be. That question was answered very swiftly, with a fully resounding “it’s unbelievably good!” EZ now! As the years pass, the EZdrummer ecosphere has grown to huge proportions. With a vast array of sample expansion and MIDI groove packs, EZdrummer has proven to be a monster hit for many styles and genres of music, from pop, funk and jazz, to the heaviest of metal. The latest addition to this…

There’s no doubt MIDI options get a big uplift in Waveform 12, and we found both regular and advanced features add considerably to the user experience. There are simple additions such as the Event List Editor, Drum Grid, and a particular DAW favourite of ours, MIDI fold. This allows you to view just the used notes or those in the global key. They’ve even added a MIDI knife tool for quick position specific note splitting either in the MIDI Editor or within MIDI clips in the Arrangement Panel. As you would expect, this follows the selected snap value. More powerful new features include a Randomize option for velocity, pitch, start point and note length. Also in the MIDI editor you can set the MIDI controller data to follow notes, which…

What is it about certain film, television and video game scores that can move us so much? Is it some alchemic combination of melody and tone, in simpatico with the ups and downs of the characters that we’re rooting for, which makes them so frequently affecting? Or is it something deeper? Some textural quality within the music itself, that if you could somehow bottle, would form a never ending repository of heartbreaking cues and themes. Spitfire Audio would certainly plump for the latter notion, and with the intricate, honest sounds of Heirloom, the company have sought to build such an emotive storehouse. “With the intricate, honest sounds of Heirloom, Spitfire have sought to build an emotive storehouse” Recorded at the atmospheric environs of The Church Studios, Heirloom compiles an array…

A key feature of ListenHub is that it lets you make swift and accurate comparisons between different sources. For these comparisons to be accurate, the sources need to be level-matched, otherwise you’re just comparing apples with oranges! ListenHub deals with this for you by automatically measuring and matching the loudness of the input signals. Also important for making accurate comparisons is the output volume level and, more relevantly, how the position of the monitor volume control translates to the actual acoustic decibel level spat-out by the speakers themselves. Pro studios deal with this by choosing a “standard” position for the output volume control and matching this with a specific acoustic decibel level. This creates a consistent “normal” monitoring volume, and lets you become familiar with how that “normal” volume actually…

TYPE: Dynamic EQ/resonance suppressor for removing harsh frequencies | KEY FEATURES: Soft/hard mode, Attack and Release parameters, frequency graph, optimised performance and lower latency, external sidechain input | SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: MacOS 10.10 (Yosemite) and newer as 64 bit VST, AU, and AAX, Intel-based Macs; Windows 7 and newer as 32/64 bit VST and VST3, 64 bit AAX (PT11 and newer); iLok account and iLok License Manager installation required Soothe is an automatic dynamic frequency editor, and designed to remove harshness from instrumental and vocal recordings. It uses spectral processing to detect unpleasant resonances, and dynamically attenuates them via numerous level-sensitive notch filters. You might think this sounds like an EQ, but the band nodes control the reduction sensitivity dynamically within their specific frequency ranges. If you raise a node on…

TYPE: Vocal pitch and format editor | KEY FEATURES: Pitch and Formant, three Mode options (Transpose, Quantize and Robot) and Drive and Mix | SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: AAX Native, AAX AudioSuite, VST 2, and Audio Units 64-bit only; macOS X 10.10 or later; Windows 7 or later If there’s one plugin that comes up more often than any other in our producer interviews as an all-time favourite, it’s Soundtoys’ Little AlterBoy. This simple but cheap plugin only boasts a few controls but can deliver wide-ranging results on any audio, and is specifically aimed at vocals for both pitch and formant editing. You get three main modes: the main controls for Pitch and Formant, three Mode options (Transpose, Quantize and Robot) and then a Drive and Mix area. The Pitch control alters…

Ultimate Vocals In case you’ve missed it, we’re going a bit vocals mad this issue, with a huge feature on how to get great vocals… without a vocalist! What better way, though, than just using samples? Luckily we have you covered with a mega vocal samples collection originally put together by Robbie and Oli from Cyclick Samples and Groove Criminals… We’ve gathered our best ever vocal samples, all in one place (OK two places, including the bonus collection opposite). In the first of these collections, the Ultimate Vocals pack, you’ll find five folders of Female Vocals from some of the best singers in the business. Secondly there is a folder of FX and Processed sounds with over a hundred vocal effects. Then there are three packed folders in our next…

As great as computers are, the pristine instruments and effects they bring us – not to mention all of that high resolution processing – can result in, well, too digital a sound. So next month we’re going to show you how to add distortion, analogue glow and, most importantly, absolute filth to your sound. Get ready to get grubby… PLUS! Filthy samples! To go with our cover feature we’ll bring you some audio dirt Reviews Nicky Romero Kickstart 2, Cherry Audio Minimode and more! More how-tos Guides to metering and creating cinematic beats…