Table of contents for July 2018 in Computer Music

“How-to guides for the hottest new free DAWs and plugins” The dedicated people that create free music software deserve celebrating. Developers release incredible freebies on a weekly basis, and while often lacking the gloss or marketing push of commercial products, the free stuff often rivals the big boys where it counts: the sound. Producers can no longer use a lack of cash as an excuse to not make any music – with the amount of awesome free software out there today, you can most certainly knock together a decent tune or two without spending a fortune. This is why Computer Music’s annual freeware issue has become a highlight of the music-making calendar. Throughout this mag, you’ll not only find how-to guides for the hottest new free DAWs and plugins released…

ESSENTIAL FREEWARE 2018 Expert video guides on how to use the latest free instruments and effects Read the full article on p20 2 Getting started with SoundBridge 5 Exploring Full Bucket’s Korg synth emulations 6 Vintage fun with IK Syntronik Free 7 Random riffs with HY-Sequencer Free 9 Custom mixing chains with HOFA System Basic 11 Mixing with Kilohearts Snapins and Snap Heap cm Producer Masterclass YOUNGR The talented pop producer and multi-instrumentalist deconstructs a hit record in our exclusive video session Note: this video is only available using the link on page 45 Read the full article on p44 THORN CM This comprehensive video manual shows you how to get started with your new PC/Mac synth Read the full article on p50 FREEWARE VINTAGE STUDIO Discover the best retro…

“Saving a musician several seconds, 100 times over, is valuable” cm Phase-4 is your new phase distortion synth. What were the challenges you faced when designing such a deep instrument? CJ “The most challenging thing when creating Phase-4 was to come up with a GUI design that made it understandable enough to use. A modulation matrix is common, but often requires mental input from the user. Creating an intuitive interface for multiple operators was both novel and very rewarding. Otherwise, we spend about as much time building out our infrastructure as we do developing new features. In the case of Phase-4, this let us focus on the concept more — an instrument that allows both phase distortion and phase modulation simultaneously — and that made the actual development relatively straightforward.”…

It’s a natural phenomenon as old as the hills themselves. Every year, the freeware is counted, the wheat separated from the chaff, and the harvest blooms as the Computer Music free plugins roundup springs into life. So what’s the deal this year? Well, after this huge roundup of the best free DAWs and plugins released in the past 12 months, we’ve also got guides coming up through the rest of the mag on some of the hottest free software to have ever existed. We show you how to build your own Freeware Vintage Studioon p38; get to grips with the free Mac DAW thanks toThe Guide to GarageBand (p57); get an intro to the modular VCV Rack platform (p62), which has been blowing up in recent…

BRAINWORX BX_SUBFILTER Built for refining and clarifying sub-100Hz frequencies, bx_subfilter offers up input and output gain at either end, then some very abstract controls for Tight Punch, Low End and Resonance (set it between Low, High and Extreme). All you need to get your copy is a Plugin Alliance account. www.plugin-alliance.com WAVE ARTS TUBE SATURATOR VINTAGE For adding warming drive to signals, and making sure your bass band is properly audible when played back on smaller speakers, there’s not much better than a vintage preamp effect. Wave Arts’ meticulously sampled “dual triode” model used be a paid-for plugin, but it was unleashed for free this year. www.wavearts.com TSE AUDIO BOD 3.0 A bit of a rarity, BOD 3.0 models an overdrive pedal designed for bass guitars, offering distortion tailored to…

Ableton Live 9 “It’s just so versatile, and so quick to use. If you want to edit something you can just go in there, pitch it, timestretch it, change it, chop it, make love to it... you can do anything!” www.ableton.com Akai Professional APC40 MkII “The APC40 MkII is the dream, because of its layout – and everything’s assignable. Two have broken on me, so they are a little bit ‘loosey goosey’. I’m hoping they’ll bring out an update that shows you your channel names.” www.akaipro.com Roland FS-5U “It’s a simple latch on-and-off pedal. It lets me loop my bass, guitar, tambourine, cowbell, shakers and beatboxing without reaching back down to the APC – if I’m recording, I don’t want to stop on the last beat.” www.roland.com Roland JD-Xi “I…

AUTOMATION GarageBand’s mix automation system is advanced for a free app. Click your A key to activate it, and the automation lanes for each track are revealed, allowing access to control curves for every parameter of GarageBand’s internal controls, as well as those of any installed third-party Audio Units plugins. LOGIC REMOTE APP This free app transforms any iOS device into a fully-featured wireless remote for both Logic and GarageBand. When controlling an instance of GarageBand via WiFi, it enables you to play, stop, drop into record, adjust fader levels and even play in new MIDI parts… all from across the room! iCLOUD INTEGRATION Apple’s iCloud service, together with GarageBand for iOS, makes it a cinch to work on songs on the move. Use your iPhone or iPad to add…

USE VST/AU PLUGINS Yep, you can use your favourite plugins in Audacity now. In the Effect menu, choose Add/Remove Plug-ins, select the effect you’re looking for (scanned from your usual plugin folders) and then click Enable. The effects you’ve enabled now appear in the Effect menu, below the dividing line, ready to be called up and applied to the waveform. AUDIO ANALYSIS The Analyze menu in Audacity lets you scrutinise your sounds to the max. You can Find Clipping, Silence and particular types of sound, but the Plot Spectrum tool is probably the neatest. Like many you might have seen, this plots an FFT spectrum, detailing the frequency makeup of the waveform, and it can go fairly in-depth, but the trick up is sleeve is that it can analyse particular…

Hailing from Africa and now a staple of modern orchestral music and jazz, the marimba is the bigger, deeper brother of the xylophone. A large tuned percussion instrument, it consists of two rows of wooden bars, arranged like a piano, with a series of metal tubes suspended vertically beneath. The bars are struck with mallets, and the resultant woody tones are amplified by the tubes to produce a characterful sound. Although usually played with just two mallets, the adept performer often uses four, holding two in each hand – a technique that goes by various originator-derived names including Stevens and Musser. This enables four-note chords to be played, as well as faster sequences of spaced-apart notes than would be possible with just two sticks. Here, I’ll put together a quick…

CIRCUIT BOARD (GAME) No, it’s not an April Fool’s gag: Korg really have launched a Monopoly skin for their iMono/Poly iOS synth. You can even roll some dice to randomise sounds, though stealing money from the bank while no-one else is looking isn’t a feature, sadly. GET YOUR SAMPLING ON TRACKLIB Tracklib is a new online record store designed to simplify the process of sampling existing tracks. Not only can you buy music on there, but it’s also possible to pay directly for sample clearance. Sounds like a great idea to us. FACE FACTS OK, it’s probably a massive gimmick, but who wouldn’t want to be able to adjust their synth and effect parameters by making different facial expressions? This is now a feature in GarageBand for iOS, though it’ll…

PROCHANNEL Using Cakewalk’s console-style channel strip, you can reorder processors including compression, EQ, tube saturation, tape emulation, reverb one-knob Style Dial FX and more. VOCALSYNC Cakewalk by BandLab supports the ARA format, so although Melodyne isn’t included, it integrates if you do own it. VocalSync comes free, and uses a timestretch algorithm to match the timing of audio tracks. CONTROL BAR Cakewalk’s Control Bar is a genius bit of design. Comprising 15 resizable, collapsible modules from transport and editing to automation and screensets, it can be docked top, bottom or floated.…

AUBURN SOUNDS GRAILLON Auto-Tune may remain the king of live voice-tuners, but it’s certainly not without competition. Graillon aims to give you a similar effect for no money down, and does it fairly well, operating using unique algorithms for getting the job done. The full version contains processes like Bitcrushing, Pitch-tracking and formant tweaking, but in its free guise, Graillon gives you no-nonsense retuning. The Pitch-Shift controls let you carry out widescale transformations (up to an octave either way), while the Correction controls give you the familiar piano keyboard to gently or abruptly nudge incoming pitches into line as you see fit. Correction-specific controls include Inertia (a delay in the effect), Smooth, Snap Range and Reference tuning. Naturally, Graillon doesn’t have to just be used on vocals – give it…

“It was so nice to copy and paste without having to go into three menus” Young at heart With his bootleg-infested one-man live shows and slew of catchy singles, Dario Darnell – AKA Youngr – is one of the most innovative acts in today’s pop scene. Readers of a certain age will be intrigued to learn that he’s the son of August Darnell, better known as Kid Creole of ‘and the Coconuts’ fame. Dario has certainly continued his father’s legacy of merging electric influences with his polished, self-produced pop sounds, so paid a visit to his East London studio to try and discover the techniques behind one of his tracks, Drive. CM : Who gave you your love of music? DD: “It was probably through my pops, who was a…

Scoring 9/10 in 253’s review, in which we summed it up as “a world-class softsynth that we confidently predict will become a dance music production staple,” Dmitry Sches’ innovative Thorn spectral synthesiser is one of the virtual instrument highlights of the last few years. And so, for our extra-special Essential Freeware 2018 issue, we’re proud to bring you the exclusive Computer Music edition of Thorn! Even with its slightly cut-down feature set, this is a truly spectacular virtual instrument. With up to 16 voices of polyphony and eight detunable, spreadable unison voices, Thorn CM’s two oscillators generate their raw waveforms from banks of 128 editable harmonics and enable multiple waves, to be ‘scanned’, wavetable-style. The Harmonic Filter directly shapes those harmonics, while the Analogue Filter works on the audio output.…

“For me, music is a simple job,” reckons Cédric Steinmyller, AKA 26-year-old French producer Klingande. “I love technology and I love the power it gives me in the studio, but when it comes to writing songs, I can only go so far. There is a point when I know that I am trying to make something that is too complicated. “It’s so easy to add lots of elements to a song. That is a sound which became very popular in EDM. There is so much happening in the mix. When I listen to it, it sounds like a mess. I don’t want my music to be a mess.” Steinmyller used that musical ‘simplicity’ to great effect on his 2013 debut, Punga, and its follow-up. The sun-drenched, sax-driven groove of Jubel…

HYBRID SYNTHS Our synths have been created by the best software developers in the world to bring you a suite of sound-making tools for all music production scenarios u-he Zebra CM • Blendable oscillator waveforms • Super-programmable step LFOs • Slick delay, reverb and chorus • Original synth designed just for CM • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit www.u-he.com Enzyme CM • Scanned synthesis sound generator • Easy-to-use preset-based synth • Assign parameters to controls • Based on the full Enzyme synth • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit humanoidsoundsystems.com KV331AudioSynthMasterCM • Dual wavescanning oscillators • Multimode filter and built-in effects • FM/AM synthesis modes • Based on SynthMaster 2.5 • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit www.kv331audio.com Cableguys Curve 2.6 CM • Design-your-own-waveforms synth • New waveform capabilities for v2.6 • Phat 16-voice Unison mode • Based on Cableguys Curve…

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 Musicpage (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 receive,…

iPad 9.7 The iPad is a great choice for music-making… but which model? We’d say that the new entry-level 9.7-inch model strikes a pretty good balance between price and power, with an A10 Fusion chip, higher-res touch sensor and compatibility with the Apple Pencil. This makes it altogether more appealing than its predecessor – and it’s cheaper, too. The 32GB WiFi version costs £319/$329, and the 128GB model – better if you want lots of apps – is £409/$429. www.apple.com/uk/ipad-9.7 Objeq Applied Acoustics Systems have been impressing us with their desktop plugins for years, and now they’re hitting the iOS world, with Objeq. This translates beats that you make by tapping your fingers on your desk into authentic percussion parts. Beam, drumhead and plate resonators are used, and you can…

 Arturia are now skilled at creating analogue hardware synths, but back in July 2008 ( 127), they debuted the Origin, a curious instrument that let you run their plugin emulations in a standalone box. A bold concept that never quite took off, though the £1900 price tag may have had something to do with that. “Arturia’s Origin… a bold concept, but one that never quite took off” In Reviews, we checked out the IK Multimedia Stomp I/O, a USB foot controller/audio interface designed to be used alongside IK’s AmpliTube software. A decade later, the iRig Stomp I/O has been released – a USB pedalboard/audio interface you can slot an iPad into. Image-Line, meanwhile, celebrated FL Studio’s 10th birthday with the release of version 8. Even with our limited maths, we…

CJ Shdeen Monias “Logic Pro X is probably the best investment I’ve ever made. The constant updates are outrageous, and they keep up with the new tools and sounds that us producers need.” Rob Herder “Fathom. The developer continuously improves it based on user input. It’s amazing to see the speed at which updates appear. The synth has loads of options in a semimodular workflow, and sounds awesome. The free mono version lets you use all functions, and the paid version is ridiculously cheap!” Looney Jetman “I think the internet, and YouTube specifically. There’s more content about music production than anyone could hope to consume in a lifetime… and it’s free!” Zach Gormley “Synth 1. How this plugin has remained free all this time is almost unbelievable considering its sound…

Both the full version of Syntronik (8/10, 249, €360) and the free version are based on the same sampled set of 38 vintage instruments, split into 17 virtual units. The instruments themselves are identical across versions, and the suite of 38 effects hasn’t been cut down in the free version of Syntronik. What you’re paying for with the full version, though, is the hugely beefed-up library of presets (2000 instead of 50). With each ‘synth’ in Syntronik actually being a sort of amalgam of a few – Jupiters -4, -6 and -8 go into the J-8, for example – you could argue that the extra presets give you truer access to the 38 original synths themselves, rather than the 17 compromises. At 1.1GB, the free version of Syntronik is certainly…

Vocal processing with Guitar Rig The inspiration for Drive came while Dario was, appropriately enough, driving. He sang the melody idea into his phone’s Voice Memos app, and when he got home, dragged the audio into Ableton Live. “The actual voice note is still the main melody,” Dario reveals. “I actually tried re-singing it through my condenser mics, but couldn’t get it to sound as legit. I duplicated it in the project; the first version is Auto-Tuned, EQed and gated with Live plugins, then has a Guitar Rig on with Studio Reverb, Quad Delay and Equaliser Shelving. Then there’s a distorted version that really cuts through the mix. This is Auto-Tuned, then there’s some EQ before it’s run through Guitar Rig’s guitar amp. Then I gated it because it was…

Beats are the backbone of dance music, particularly within drum ’n’ bass (the clue’s in the name, after all!) and other bass music genres. Beyond rhythmic conventions, the individual drum sounds you use – and how you program them – will define your overall aesthetic as an artist, and guide all your compositional choices. I focus on the three core components of an electronic ‘kit’: the bass drum, hi-hats/cymbals and the snare drum. When making bass music, the latter is probably the most crucial element to get right, as different styles of snare suit different types of tracks – swap a 200Hz-heavy ‘power-snare’ for a thin finger snap to completely alter a track’s groove and timbre. A popular strategy is to start with a solid one-shot sample, then fill out…

DYNAMICS Check out this huge collection of processors – from classic compressors to modern digital creations, we’ve got everything you need to shape your signals eaReckon CM-COMP 87 • Slick, punchy compressor • Mix knob for parallel compression • Limiter to keep the output in check • Clear VU- and LED-style metering • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit www.eareckon.com LVC-Audio Transector CM • Transient tweaking and saturation • Define and process envelope stages • Useful metering/display functions • Mix control for parallel processing • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit www.lvcaudio.com Audiority TS-1 CM • Flavoursome transient shaper • Set attack and sustain gain • Blend control for parallel processing • Based on the full TS-1 plugin • AU/VST, 32-/64-bit www.audiority.com Unfiltered Audio G8 CM • Get tight dynamics or creative FX • Includes advanced gating controls…