Inhoudsopgave van December 2017 - Computer Music

If you hadn’t already guessed from the gleaming cover, there’s something extra-special about this month’s . Yep, it’s issue two hundred and fifty, folks! Since 1999, we’ve stayed true to one mission: to bring you all you need to make great music on your PC and Mac. That’s the mantra we still stand by, and it’s what motivates us to create the best magazine possible. So what better reason to celebrate than with a giant tips extravaganza? No matter what music you make, your Digital Audio Workstation is your creative home; the place where discoveries are made, tears are shed, and dreams are born. Hence why we’ve got 250 premium tricks, covering the major DAWs out there! It wouldn’t be an anniversary issue of without some great freebies, of course.…

250 DAW POWER TIPS Get better with your DAW and discover what the others can do with our technique-filled videos Read the full article on p20 Bitwig Studio 2 Pro Tools Studio One 3 GarageBand Reason Renoise Ableton Live Cubase Logic Pro X Reaper Maschine cm Producer Masterclass MJ COLE Get schooled in his production techniques, and see how he handled the making of his track Pictures In My Head Note: this video is only available using the link on page 57 Read the full article on p56 CAKEWALK SONAR HOME STUDIO Get started with Cakewalk’s $49 PC DAW, yours for free this issue Read the full article on p64 CAKEWALK RAPTURE SESSION Learn how to tweak this huge Mac/PC instrument Read the full article on p68 SINEVIBES FLOW…

“Hosts within hosts are between the hammer and the anvil!” Blue Cat Audio Guillaume Jeulin cm Last time we interviewed you – about ten years ago – we asked if the DirectX plugin format had a future. Do you have any idea what proportion of users are using it? GJ “Actually, we released our latest plugin, Late Replies, without DirectX support. Apart from a few people using antique sequencers, nobody needs DirectX plugins anymore! This will be probably completely dropped in the future for other plugins, too. We’re also in the process of dropping RTAS, because maintaining older machines to support Pro Tools 9 and earlier is becoming more and more complicated these days – even if compatibility remains extremely important for us, it is important to focus on the…

Back in 1998, this magazine was the very definition of niche. Few even entertained the possibility that the computer would be a viable part of music production, let alone the centre of the modern studio. And yet, here we are! Everyone from Zimmer to Zimmerman counts the computer as an essential tool for pushing the frontiers of music, and we’ve been here championing this rise of a new era the whole time. For this special 250th issue of Computer Music, then, we’ve decided to push the boat out, bringing you 250 power tips to get the most out of that vital part of your setup: your Digital Audio Workstation. We’ve busted out secrets, shortcuts and hacks from contributors and experts across the globe to bring you these definitive DAW nuggets…

01 The plugin database is comprised of just a couple of folders on your HD, so you can add, move, rename, and copy entries just using Windows Explorer. They’re only presets, and you can save over them to define your new favourite load-state. You can nest folders into folders, too. 02 Consolidate your sound by resampling! In FL Studio 12.5 and later, you can right-click Channels and use Create DirectWave instrument – even with huge sample libraries – to cut them down to size for the road or when sharing projects. 03 Finding the perfect loop points in a sustained sample is a daunting task, but Edison makes it a snap. Make a selection, then Alt-L to create loop points. Ctrl-L to bring up Tune Loop options. 04 You can…

01 While it’s not unusual for DAWs to have the ability to export effects chain presets, Studio One goes a bit beyond the norm by allowing you to capture effects chains for any and all mixer channels in one go by dragging-and-dropping all selected mixer channels directly to the file browser. 02 Disabled tracks are a great way to streamline the process of preparing large instrument sets without using too many of your system’s resources, making the loading of large templates much faster and more efficient. You can take, say, a 70-track orchestral template project, preconfigured with effects inserts, VCA channels, send effects, and arrange folders, and get it to load almost instantly by disabling all instruments in the template by default. Rather than waiting for all those large instrument…

01 Do you ever feel like you might have lost your way when mixing a big project? When that happens, it’s often best to simply start from scratch. Fortunately, Sonar makes that easy – simply use Mix Recall to reset a mix. This will remove all FX and reset all automation. 02 It can be quite confusing when your clip names don’t correspond with your track names. Thankfully, Sonar has you covered. In the Track View, you can quickly get your clip names to follow the track by using the Track and selecting Copy Track Name(s) to Clip Name(s). 03 Soup your workflow up in a couple of ticks by committing these keyboard shortcuts to muscle memory… > C – open/close Control Bar > I – open/close Inspector > D…

01 Traditionally in trackers, samples that were triggered before the pattern you were currently editing wouldn’t play unless you returned to the pattern they were triggered on and listened all the way through that pattern again. To mitigate this, Renoise has the Autoseek button, which can be found in the Sample Properties. 02 Unleash your inner Brian Eno and introduce an element of randomness to your music with the MaYbe command. Using the Y Effects Command, you can set the probability of whether any particular note will play. Using the command with the probability set to 00 is employed across multiple lines to force only one of a number of pre-defined notes to play. 03 Inside the Sampler tab, you can uncover Renoise’s built-in Slice tool, which lets you divide…

ISSUE 249 November 2017 • Sound Design Inspiration: get the sounds in your head out into the DAW • FREE modulation plugin • Rhythmic Synthesis • Spaced-out sound design • Secret Cinema studio vid ISSUE 248 Autumn 2017 • Sound Design Inspiration: get the sounds in your head out into the DAW • FREE modulation plugin • Rhythmic Synthesis • Spaced-out sound design • Secret Cinema studio vid ISSUE 247 October 2017 • The Art of Remixing: the skills you need to interpret tracks in your own way • FREE granular effect plugin • Studio monitors guide • Create a plugin with HISE • Goldie interview ISSUE 246 September 2017 • Learn the music theory behind 13 different genres • FREE Reverb worth $49 • Practical Psychoacoustics • Reaktor Synth…

“I’m a geek, basically, and a musician, and that’s really where I get my thrills” cm: Presumably it was hardcore DJs who were cutting your dubs in the early days. MC: “Yeah, we used to go to Innersense at a place called Lazerdrome. It was a Lazer Quest place in Peckham, and that ran for years into the early 90s. We kind of knew the guys who were running it. My mate Matt used to do the video projections there, and there was a guy called Joe Lawrence who used the DJ under the name Nut-E-1. He cut the plate of something, and around that time I went to the studio for the first time with Matt Quinn [Optical] and did a remix of an Intense tune with him: Babylon…

1 In 1996, Steinberg celebrated their brand new plugin format with a massive update to their flagship DAW. Cubase VST 3.0 offered up to 32 tracks of digital audio and an effects rack that could manage four of the bundled VST plugins: Espacial (reverb), Choirus (chorus, natch), Stereo Echo and Auto Panner. 2 Not satisfied with turning the world of effects processing upside down, in 1999, Steinberg followed up with a massive update to their VST technology that allowed for the use of virtual instrument (VSTi) plugins. As a proof of concept, Cubase VST24 3.7 included Neon, a simple two-oscillator virtual analogue synthesiser. 3 The VSTi format would prove a popular money-maker for many a developer following the path laid out by Steinberg, who themselves would launch a never-ending stream…

When discussing traditional Western music theory, we use the term ‘harmony’ to describe how a melody works with the chords that accompany it. For the most part in this Easy Guide series up to this point, we’ve been exploring what’s known as ‘tonal’ harmony – the kind of thing relied on heavily by composers from 1700-1900 or thereabouts, and from which the vast majority of modern pop music is derived. We’ve been talking about chord progressions that move in a particular direction, are based mainly on three-note chords or triads, and have a general tendency to gravitate towards the tonal centre or ‘tonic’ chord. There’s another type of harmony, however, that can also be used to great effect, and that’s ‘modal’ harmony. The type of modal harmony I’m talking about…

All-Star Collection This pack of A-List samples takes in a gathering of Loopmasters’ most celebrated artist packs and team-ups > Step by step Crafting a rolling 135bpm groove with cm250’s samples 1 Let’s dive in and put together a fast-paced 135bpm track using the Essential 808, 909 Overdrive and Loopmasters sample packs that come free with this issue. We’re kicking things off with this inspiring 808 kick and snare pairing. The kick’s excessive distortion gives it more of a chiptune-like synth timbre, as opposed to a traditional punchy kick sound. 2 Time for a TR-808 closed hi-hat pattern to accompany the kick and snare. 808 hats are synonymous with trap, and to embody the spirit of that ever-popular genre, we’re using an arpeggiator to control the hat’s repeats. By automating…

AUDIOLOUNGE AL 9000 Experience the Linn 9000 without the crashes or costly add-ons! Available for both OS X and Windows in VST and AU formats, the 32/64-bit AL 9000 provides 39 drum sounds splayed across as many virtual drum pads, each with sliders for level and pan. There’s a built-in reverb, but the hi-hat decay slider is AWOL. www.audiolounge-pro.com ARTURIA SPARK VDM Arturia’s software and hardware hybrid beatboxes include virtual recreations and samples from a number of classic drum machines, including those made by Linn. Specifically, their Spark VDL provides a number of samples from the Linn 9000, adding such modern niceties as reverb and other effects to help shape your beats. www.arturia.com JUNN JM-1 DRUM COMPUTER Just one of many sample-based LM-cm1 clones, this freebie for 32-bit Windows hosts…

THREE CHEERS FOR WAVES Waves, one of the original plugin developers, have just turned 25 years old. They celebrated by reissuing three ‘vintage’ effects – Qcm10, AudioTrack and Lcm1 Ultramaximizer – which some of us are old enough to remember when they were new. WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITY Apple do it, and now it appears that their great rivals Microsoft might fancy the idea of developing their own music software. The company were recently advertising jobs as audio software engineers and program managers, so something’s got to be coming, right? THE SINGING KEYTAR Yamaha’s Vocaloid software has taken on a life of its own in Japan, so much so that the company is now launching a keytar with the ‘singing synth’ technology built in. It’ll probably never be released in the…

01 Right-click the title bar of a track or device to make those settings the default. Go to the File/Folder tab in Preferences to make the current Live Set the default. Save a Live Set to User Library » Templates to save it as a template. Create new defaults for a variety of actions by placing devices in the folders within User Library » Default. 02 Live’s Browser allows you to quickly find anything. Access the search function with the shortcut Cmd-F on Mac or Ctrl-F on PC, then start typing. Live will narrow down the results as you type. Press the down arrow to highlight what you want, and hit Enter to load it to the selected track. 03 Find a piece of music with a groove you’d like…

01 By default, Logic Pro X won’t play back a MIDI note unless the playback bar passes through the start of the note. This can be annoying if you’ve set up a loop in the middle of your track that excludes notes triggered before the loop actually starts. To fix this, go to File » Project Settings » MIDI and click Chase. Click the Notes checkboxes at the top and in Chase on Cycle Jump at the bottom. 02 Sometimes, it can be interesting to experiment with the structure of your piece by ‘jumping’ from one part to another. You could delete all of the notes in the section you want to omit, but this is pretty drastic if you’re still making up your mind. Instead, loop the section you…

01 If you’re worth your salt, you’re probably using the NN-XT sampler over the older NN-19. But if you’ve realised what the NN-19 can do that the NN-XT can’t, you’re truly a master sensei of Reason. Right-click or Alt-click almost any parameter on ’19 and you can automate it, giving you access to controls for the LFO, Filter, Pitch, Portamento, and more, including the Sample Start control for some retro stretch techniques! It’s pronounced “n-n-nineteen”, by the way, after the Paul Hardcastle track 19 – bit.ly/NNNN19 – betcha didn’t know that. 02 Like most DAWs, you can control Reason with a connected MIDI controller, but Propellerhead’s rack also takes a variety of commands from your QWERTY keyboard if you let it. Head to Options and tick Keyboard Control Edit Mode,…

01 Pro Tools has a great feature in its EQ3 1 and 7 EQs which automatically transforms an EQ band into a bandpass filter, allowing you hear the area in isolation. Hold Shift-Cmd on Mac or Win-Shift on PC, then move an EQ node to temporarily switch the EQ band to a band-pass. This allows you to find those troublesome frequency areas with ease. 02 Click tracks can be great for recording, but they’re not always welcome during playback. You can set Pro Tools’ click to only sound during recording, which saves you constantly clicking that mute switch. Head to the Setup menu, then Click/Countoff and select Only During Record. The click will now automatically mute during playback, and come on when you’re recording. 03 We’ve all zoomed in on…

01 Maschine 2.7 introduced Bass Synth, a quick and easy built-in monosynth with a beefy, squelchy 303-esque sound. Like its stablemates Drum Synth and Sampler, Bass Synth has been designed with hands-on tweakability in mind, the main page offering control over oscillator waveform (morphing from sine to square via saw and triangle), filter (including envelope modulation) and distortion, and Glide on/off slipping into page 2. It also comes with a decent list of presets (in the browser’s Sounds section), complete with effects chains. The tip here, then, is: don’t overlook Bass Synth! It may not be a particularly flexible or versatile instrument, but when you need a cone-rattling b-line in a hurry, it’s a fantastic option. And if you’re sequencing Bass Synth with Maschine Jam, you can use the top…

“I was always messing around with my dad’s hi-fi and recording stuff off the radio” Son, can you play me a memory? In the late 90s, Matthew Coleman, aka MJ Cole, helped bring the sound of two-step UK garage into the mainstream consciousness with the luscious Sincere . Since then, he’s worked with a veritable who’s-who of artists, including Mary J Blige, Mariah Carey, Amy Winehouse and Wiley. We caught up with Matt in his Clerkenwell studio to witness him break down his latest track, Pictures In My Head . cm: How did you get into music? MC: “I grew up with music – my dad used to sing in musicals and was constantly playing the piano at home. I started playing the piano…

1 Discontinued in 2005, Propellerhead made ReBirth freely available before offering an iOS version in Apple’s App Store. Though they gave the original their blessing, Roland changed their minds shortly after the release of the iOS version, as seen here. 2 The desktop version is still quite usable, although it’s been all but aged out by OS upgrades. However, if you paid for the iOS version, you should still be able to use it on your pre-iOS 11 devices. Here, we’ve tapped in a basic four-to-the-floor kick drum beat on the 808. 3 Next, we go down to the TR-909 and add snares on the backbeat, then dial in a bit of Delay in the Mix panel just to the right. Using the top TB-303’s Step button, we walk through…

The Plugins collection is a suite of complete, limitation-free instrument and effects plugins. It’s an incredible resource, boasting more than 75 pro-quality plugins that you won’t find anywhere else, all for PC and Mac, in VST and AU formats. All of the included software is created exclusively for us by respected commercial developers such as D16 Group, u-he, AudioRealism, Ohm Force, KV331 Audio, Cableguys, XILS-lab, AudioThing, Vengeance-Sound, Rob Papen, zplane and more. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Enough talking! Where do I get these plugins? You can grab them all on the cover DVD with out print edition, or as a download from FileSilo (see p5 for instructions on how to access). How do I install Plugins? It depends on the plugin. As with all software instruments and effects, some have dedicated…

Secure and safe online access, from anywhere Free access for every reader – print and digital Download only the files you want, when you want All the downloads from all your issues, in one place Get started 01 Register your FileSilo account and log in. Even if you have a subscriber ID, you’ll still have to unlock each mag separately or migrate your old Vault account (see step 3). 02 Head back to the Computer Music page (filesilo.co.uk/computermusic) and choose an issue to unlock. You’ll need to answer one question to prove you’ve purchased the issue. 03 You can migrate your old Vault account over to FileSilo to retain the issues you’ve added – head to filesilo.co.uk/vault and enter your Vault email address. Reset your password via the email you…

The iPad version of IK Multimedia’s Syntronik offers sounds from 37 instruments, including tones from Moog, ARP, Roland, Yamaha and Oberheim synths. There are also effects and the option to create four-part multis. The standard Syntronik app is actually free, and comes with 25 sounds, but if you want a fuller experience you can either buy all the app’s content for £38.99, or choose individual modules for £9.99 each. www.ikmultimedia.com You can do some pretty serious and complex music making on an iPad, but there are times when you’d rather keep things fun and simple. Samplebot, a new app from A Tasty Pixel (creators of Audiobus) that enables you to record or import samples to the grid of pads, them play them back and create sequences. You couldn’t…

“We thought it would be a good wheeze to check into a Gatwick hotel for 12 hours” In hindsight, it sounds like an idea that Alan Partridge might have pitched when he was trying to get himself back on the telly, but in December 2007, we thought it would be a good wheeze to check into a Gatwick hotel for 12 hours with the intention of creating a track. The theory was that the self-imposed deadline would be conducive to getting something finished – and that we’d be able to rinse the mini bar and pocket all the complimentary toiletries, obviously. Elsewhere in 120, we managed to keep our hands out of the air long enough to put together a comprehensive guide to trance production, while one eco-conscious reader wrote…

Joseph Howard “It’s got to be the Schmidt synthesiser – simply because it’s a hands-on analogue experience with memory and literally endless possibilities.” Carl Carl “A custom-made D16 Phoscyon MIDI controller.” Nicolò Angellaro “The most expensive Roland V-Drums kit. As a drummer, I really love the idea of physically playing the beats for my drum ’n’ bass tracks, and the different velocities would give a human touch. Plus, I would definitely enjoy recording drum fills rather than composing them click-by-click.” Andrew Rainey “One of the original Moogs and a jam in a studio with Moroder and Sylvester.” Phil White “A Buchla music easel.” Kevin Wooding “A Steinway grand piano. It’s a mechanical instrument that actually feels alive.” Marc Van Stoffelen “I could mention a lot of analogue, digital and hybrid…

01 Latency is an evil necessary for certain plugins to work their DSP voodoo. But what if you want to record MIDI or audio into a latency-heavy project while monitoring through the DAW? You could turn off the offending plugins manually… or you could click Cubase’s Constrain Latency Compensation button to disable them instantly. Turn it off when you’re done recording. 02 Cubase’s MIDI Modifiers tweak the notes of a MIDI or Instrument track on the fly. You’ll find them in the Track Inspector, or you can use the MIDI Insert of the same name. Use it for transposing, compressing, randomising, and limiting MIDI notes. One of our favourite uses is applying Random position to a quantised part, humanising it in real time – try it! 03 Have you ever…

01 Bitwig’s Pop-up Browser (opened by clicking any + icon) makes auditioning and selecting devices, presets, plugins and samples fast, intuitive and inspiring. It’s context-sensitive, so its filters are related to the place it’s launched from, and you can further customise the filters for each context: after setting it up the way you want, just right-click anywhere in the Pop-up Browser and select Remember selected filters when… 02 When setting up a drum kit in Bitwig’s Drum Machine, you may often have the same device in multiple slots – most often Samplers, especially when you’ve sliced an audio clip into Drum Machine automatically. If this is the case in your project, try right-clicking on a parameter to copy its value to all ‘sibling’ instruments in the setup, making work between…

01 There’s only one type of track in Reaper: any track can handle MIDI or audio clips, or video, or even all at once! A standard track can be configured as an effects send, a subgroup, or even a VCA master. It can handle multichannel audio, or complex sidechaining setups, or parallel processing chains. 02 You can route anything to almost anywhere in Reaper. Clicking the routing button for a track shows a list of current sends and receives, and allows you to create more. But it’s often easier to just drag the routing button from the source track to the destination, then configure it via the popup. The default post-fade setup is ideal for effects sends. 03 Reaper’s approach to subgroups is great: simply drag a selection of tracks…

01 GarageBand can help with iffy timing. Choose Track » Configure Track Header (or hit Alt-T and tick the Groove Track box). Mouse over the left edge of your drum track and click the yellow star to make it the ‘groove master’. All other tracks now have checkboxes in their headers – tick the dodgy ones and they should now follow the timing of the drums more closely. 02 Available with GarageBand 10.2, Drummer Loops are essentially Drummer performances captured as Apple Loops and stored in the loop library with regular audio and MIDI loops. The advantage is that you can flick through the parts with your project running and only drag in the ones you like, after which they can be edited in the Drummer Editor the same as…

01 Edited audio tracks can look a mess, chocked full of micro-edited snippets that have been chopped, moved, copied, and pasted into place. Use Ardour’s Combine Regions function to merge them into a single, cohesive audio file wherever possible. 02 Are you spending too much time scrolling through the innumerable channels of an epic arrangement? If so, you might want to make use of Ardour’s Strips List, where you can view, hide, add, remove, and otherwise reorganise channels in an instant. 03 Ardour’s Editor List likewise makes it easy to take in all of the various bits and pieces, actions and edits that make up your project. Once enabled, it provides a view of your tracks, regions, busses, bus groups, snapshots, and marks. 04 Ardour’s playhead is very flexible, allowing…

Waves CLA-2A Compressor Limiter N/A » N/A » $249 “This is the classic go-to vocal compressor and limiter. I find it really good on vocal buses and for general vocal glue. I often use it in conjunction with another compressor, normally towards the end of the chain.” www.waves.com Soundtoys Decapitator cm227 » 10/10 » $199 “This is an incredibly versatile saturation and distortion unit. I use it loads: I like using it to fatten drum busses; I use it on bass to add some harmonics up top; and it’s actually really good on lead vocals when used very subtly.” www.soundtoys.com UAD 1176 Classic Limiting Amplifier cm181 » 9/10 » £229 “This has been around for ages. It’s just a great emulation of the 1176, which I’ve used loads before. I…

Step Sequencer If you have a preference for pattern-based programming, you’ll love Cakewalk Sonar Home Studio’s superb Step Sequencer. It’s thoroughly customisable and ideal for both percussion parts and modern electronic riffs. Anything you add to the Step Sequencer will be reflected in the associated track’s MIDI clips. Overloud TH3 Cakewalk Edition If you’re a guitar player, or if you simply like the grit ’n’ grime of guitar amps and cabinets, you’ll be in heaven with Overloud’s TH3. This rockin’ plugin playground offers simulated stomp boxes, amp heads and cabinets and comes complete with a lovely looper for layering your licks. Use the powerful presets or roll your own combos. Matrix View Audio loops are an important part of modern music production. You’ve already had a glimpse of Sonar Home…

DIGIDESIGN TURBOSYNTH (1988) The brainchild of the same developers who would later create Pro Tools, Turbosynth was a modular construction kit that invited users to cobble together custom synthesis, sample and effects patches by stringing together various modules with virtual patch cables and offloading the results to a hardware sampler. It was far ahead of its time, with niceties like multi-segment envelopes and custom waveform generation. ANTARES AUTO-TUNE (1997) Like it or loathe it, Auto-Tune changed not only how we make music, but the very sound of modern music itself. Used subtly, it’s a useful engineering tool that can save precious studio hours. Pushed to the extreme, it’s an instantly recognisable effect that has managed to transcend its original novelty status to become a modern production staple. NEMESYS GIGASAMPLER (1998)…

Ronan Macdonald Having previously served as Editor of drummer’s bible Rhythm as well as Computer Music, Ronan is clearly the right man for this particular gig. He’s been playing drums for over 30 years and making music with computers since the 90s. Probably the most well known of all Brazilian dance music styles, samba as we now know it came into being through the arrival of West African slaves in Brazil, and the subsequent merging of the two countries’ religious and musical traditions. Today, samba is, of course, associated with the spectacular Brazilian carnival, where percussion ensembles – known as bateria – march along blasting out the infectious, repetitive rhythms of the batucada samba subgenre, sounding out with its unmistakable swing, somewhere between a 6/8 triplet feel and regular 2/4…