Table of contents for February 2016 in Computer Music

My first experience of stereo music production was with Soundtracker on the Commodore Amiga. With just four tracks of hard-panned digital audio – and absolutely no EQ, compression, reverb, or processing of any sort – “mixing” decisions largely consisted of choosing which speaker you wanted the bassline to come out of. But, if you could spare the polyphony, you could play the same sound on left and right channels, whereupon a miracle would occur: the sound would emanate from a point in space between the speakers! Adjust the levels of the two sounds and you had variable panning… Offset their timing a tad for a crude widening effect… Or detune one to get a wickedly thick wodge of stereo chorus/flange. Yes, with a bit of know-how, even the crumbly old…

Billed as an “Analog Modeled Dynamic Impact Enhancer”, Slate’s latest plugin for PC and Mac (VST/AU/AAX) combines a number of processes – including compression, saturation, filtering and harmonic generation – to “make your tracks and mixes more dimensional, impactful, exciting, and more alive-sounding”. FG-Bomber certainly looks easy to use, with just four controls: input gain (Drive), wet/dry mix (Intensity), output gain (Output) and processing style (Tone). The last switches between Present, Fat and Tight options and is presumably key to the actual sound of the effect, which Slate claim “can literally replace entire series of processing chains.” The meter is equipped with a small bomb image to point you towards the 0dB optimal input level. FG-Bomber is available now, priced $99 and running inside Slate Digital’s included Virtual Mix Rack…

cm What’s your background in music and in programming? LE “I’ve always been interested in technical stuff. From Lego as a kid onwards to soldering DIY electronic kits, and then the home computer revolution when I was about 12. Synths were always very intriguing – my first synth was a DIY PAiA kit. As the years went by, I moved on to just writing and producing, and in the early 2000s, I was working full-time as a writer/producer in Stockholm. “After teaming up with current XLN CEO and co-founder Niklas Möller, the idea for Addictive Drums popped into existence. We teamed up with some excellent programmers to make it a reality. I did a lot of programming on the tools we used to edit the thousands of samples. When we…

Electronic music duo Infected Mushroom have worked with software developer Polyverse to create I Wish, a VST/AU plugin for Mac and PC that’s described as a “granular note freezer plugin”. I Wish is intended to be applied to all kinds of source material, generating everything from robotic effects to pitched drums and granular vocal basslines. Intriguingly, it can also be pressed into service as a wavetable synth. See the Polyverse website for video demos. I Wish is in public beta at the time of writing, scheduled for release in early 2016 with a $39 pricetag. READ MORE polyversemusic.com…

THE FORCE IS STRONG WITH US We wondered last month if Star Wars: The Force Awakens would feature a new Cantina-style theme… and it does! Sadly, we went to press before the film opened, but director J J Abrams confirmed prior to the release that he’d written a new piece with Lin-Manuel Miranda. TRUE FAITH IN STEMS Native Instruments’ Stems project got arguably its biggest shot in the arm yet in December, with New Order releasing two tracks in the DJ-friendly format. It’s still a long way from being an industry standard, but support from big-name artists can only help. UNSTOPPABLE ADELE Speaking of big-name artists, someone forgot to tell Adele that you’re not supposed to be able to achieve massive album sales in this day and age. Her new…

As a sound’s mid signal only contains mono information, and the side signal contains all the sound’s stereo information. It follows that we can use mid/side processing to increase or decrease a signal’s width, as shown in the walkthrough to the left. We’ll soon show you some advanced mid/side techniques and processes, but it’s also important to keep a sense of perspective and balance, and a great way to do this is by analysing the mid/side content of a reference mix and comparing it to that of your own mixes. Load up your favourite commercial records in your DAW (high quality WAV files are recommended, as MP3 encoding will often degrade the stereo image), then use an M/S encoder/ decoder (or any plugin that’ll let you “listen in” to the…

In the past year alone, over 300 plugins, DAWs, controllers, interfaces, sample libraries and apps have graced the Computer Music reviews test-bench. It’s our job to have our finger on the pulse of music technology, and so it’s vital that our expert editors, reviewers and tutors have access to the cream of the crop of current releases. But which ones are they really using in their own productions? Which plugins are they secretly addicted to? What’s the hardware that they just can’t keep their hands off? It’s time to find out, in the first cm ever Experts’ Choice Awards! Our experts will reveal to you their favourite products of the last 12 months (since November 2014, as of the time of writing) or that have been reviewed in the last…

“Cytomic’s The Drop made me fall in love with filtering again” What rocked your DAW in 2015? Where to start? There’s been so much great music software released this year that narrowing it down to ‘the best’ seems both impossible and slightly churlish. Here are some things that have become irrevocably lodged on my hard drive, though… Being a huge fan of all three drummers involved in its production, I was always going to be the target audience for Spitfire Audio’s Kontakt drum library, The Grange. Capturing the kits and grooves of Chad Smith, Roger Taylor and Andy Gangadeen, all recorded to tape at the historic Headley Grange, it’s quirky, idiosyncratic, frustrating and comparatively limited from a technical point of view, but sounds phenomenal. The Gangadeen kit gets the most…

What rocked your DAW in 2015? iZotope really upped the ante with IRC IV mode in Ozone 7, and its modules feature in most of my projects. Universal Audio impressed with their Big Muff clone Bermuda Triangle, and the AKG BX 20 reverb. Both sit on return buses with some low-cut to keep things clean. Another classic pedal-emulation, D16’s Antresol features extensively throughout my 2015 mixes. It’s perfect for making things stand out in the mix and to give a bit of variation. Then there’s u-he Presswerk. This brilliant compressor is on my very short shortlist of go-to plugins for thickening and sharpening live bass, drum groups and classic funk/disco samples. Finally, Live 9.5 offers some significant steps forward, maintaining Live as my main compositional tool. What’s your Expert’s Choice…

With remixing credits that include an eclectic array of artists such as Gossip, The Rakes, Shinichi Osawa, My Tiger My Timing and Midfield General, Tronik Youth (aka Neil Parnell) knows a thing or two about reworking other people’s music. Having just dropped his debut album Youth is Wasted on the Young on the label he co-founded, Nein Records, we caught up with Neil in his Rugby studio to discover how he makes his deep, dark, retro-inspired sounds. Computer Music : First things first: the genre Tronik Youth makes doesn’t really have a name. So what’s it all about? NP: “It contains all the key bits, really. The dark aggression of techno, the guitar-y elements of indie and shoegaze, the arpeggiations of disco... You take all…

Dave Clews In a studio career spanning almost 25 years, Dave has engineered, programmed and played keyboards on records for a string of artists including George Michael, Kylie Minogue, Tina Turner and Estelle. These days, in between writing articles for and other magazines, he collaborates on occasional songs and videos with singer/songwriter Lucy Hirst, aka Polkadothaze. www.daveclews.com Years ago, I was assisting on a session in a big studio when I overheard the client say to the producer something along the lines of: “I’ve only got four chords in my song; why do I need a seventh chord?” So when it came to coming up with a topic for this month’s Easy Guide, I found myself transported back in time to that session, and while the producer’s original reply really…

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. Although Dr Beat’s focus up to this point has been very much on the drum kit, it would be remiss of me not to at least introduce you to its closest relatives, the fabulously colourful Afro-Latin percussion family. So, for the next few instalments, we’re going to be getting hands-on with congas, bongos, shakers, claves, timbales and their compadres, illustrating just how easy it is to work their unique tonal charms into your productions. Not only will this expand your rhythmic horizons in general, but it’ll give you…

With the release of Push in 2013, Ableton took quite a risk, serving up a 64-pad USB hardware controller for Live positioned as a music creation instrument and Session view launcher, rather than a conventional MIDI control surface. We loved it, scoring it 10/10 in cm191’s review and lauding its innovative Scales mode, excellent step sequencing, inspiring hands-on device control, and exceptional build quality. Imagine our surprise, then, to find that next to Push 2, it seems positively clunky To quickly summarise the idea behind Push (1 and 2), the 64-pad grid is used to play and record melodic MIDI clips and Drum Rack beats, either ‘live’ or through an ingenious step sequencing system. It also facilitates browsing for devices, presets and sounds, which can be loaded onto tracks in…

The Clarett 2Pre is the newest and lowliest member of Focusrite’s premium-quality Clarett family of Thunderbolt audio interfaces. The front panel hosts two analogue mic/line/ instrument inputs, plus an 8-channel ADAT optical digital input, while alongside the Thunderbolt port on the back are four line outputs, and 5-pin MIDI In and Out ports. The accompanying Focusrite Control application enables patching of inputs and outputs, and configuration of monitoring and channel settings. Also thrown in is a respectable collection of plugins by Focusrite (Red2 and Red3) and Softube (Time and Tone Bundle). It all adds up to a svelte package that makes the Clarett 2Pre ideal for the small-scale studio, where you’re only ever going to want to capture a single mono or stereo source at a time. It’s currently only…

Transify features a built-in clipping circuit that, according to the developer, “creates more aggressive sounds and prevents peak overages”. The circuit is activated for each band individually, rather than globally, and its primary use is to shave off excessive peaks resulting from the transient-shaping process. It’s particularly useful in situations where the attack is being heavily boosted, and it also adds its own distinctive sound to the signal, being effectively a brick-wall limiter. The clipping circuit needs to be used with caution, as it’s easy to overdrive the signal path too much, relying only on the clipper to prevent peak overages without regard for internal gain structure – as expected, the clipping circuit itself has a strong influence on transients. Transients cut through better if you pull the input fader…

Addictive Trigger (VST/AU/AAX) is a drum replacement plugin from the company behind Addictive Drums 2 (9/10, cm207) and Addictive Keys (9/10, cm185), the main focus of which is replacing single sounds on individual kick drum, snare drum and tom tom tracks within multitrack drum recordings. It’s a plugin of two halves: detection and replacement. The former detects drum hits using Threshold, Sensitivity and Hold time controls, combined with XLN’s newly developed FFT-based spectral analysis system, Audio Fingerprint. This, they claim, is capable of very accurate hit detection, even with lots of mic bleed or background noise. Audio Fingerprints can be manually captured on the fly or by selecting a portion of waveform in the real-time Transient display. Additionally, the time-saving SuperStart feature will scan incoming audio and automatically set up…

That Thing’s sample player might sound like a gimmick, but it really isn’t – it’s actually really useful for both subtle atmospheres and full-on strangeness. You tweak the sound using pitch and level dials, and it can, of course, be disabled entirely. Our one real issue is that its playback is directly controlled by the incoming signal level (using an envelope follower, we’re told), so that the level of the sample moves with it, peaking noticeably with the transients of a drum loop, for example. This gives a great rhythmic feel that becomes part of the sound (and cleverly disguises the fact that the loops almost certainly don’t correspond to the bar length of the track), but also significantly limits the practicality of the player, as you’ll often want it…

Sample Logic CinemorphX $599 Web www.samplelogic.com Format PC/Mac, Kontakt 5/Player With Sample Logic’s new Kontakt-scripted engine (last reviewed as part of Gamelan – 9/10, cm223) now well established as one of the best around, the company have seen fit to ‘port’ a number of their legacy libraries over to it. So, what we have here is a bringing together of Impacts, Ambience, Rhythms, The Elements (7/10, cm121) and Synergy (7/10, cm132, and already repackaged once as Synergy X – 9/10, cm180) in a single 30GB instrument that far surpasses the capabilities of the originals. If you already own one or more of them, you can take advantage of crossgrade pricing, as detailed on the Sample Logic website, incidentally. To quickly summarise the engine, it enables up to eight sounds to…

NATIVE INSTRUMENTS REAKTOR 6 Reaktor has only recently been given a once-over that includes ‘Blocks’, a building-block approach to combining preconfigured, purpose-built modules, clearly influenced by the Eurorack format. Within hours of Reaktor 6’s release, users were already creating and trading Blocks designed to emulate their favourite Eurorack modules. www.native-instruments.com MAX FOR CATS OSCILLOT Ableton Live users should check out this fully outfitted modular synthesis system with over 100 modules that can be quickly and easily patched together with virtual cables. Oscillators, filters, modulators, amplifiers, sequencers, processors – you name it, Oscillot has it all and more. There’s a free Lite version (pictured) to get you started. www.ableton.com KARMAFX SYNTH MODULAR This cross-platform VST/AU environment has made regular appearances in over the years, and for good reason. This fully loaded…

Step 1 On your PC or Mac, go to vault.computermusic.co.uk, then either register for a new Vault account, or log in if you already have one. Step 2 Click ‘add a magazine’ in the top bar, select the issue you want to add to your Vault (eg, this issue is 226), and answer a few simple security questions. Step 3 Go to ‘my vault’ to see all your mags – click a cover and use the links to download! You can download as much or as little as you like.…

The Plugins collection is a suite of complete, limitation-free instrument and effects plugins. It’s an incredible resource, boasting more than 50 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 Ohm Force, KV331 Audio, u-he, Cableguys, AudioThing, XILS-lab, Vengeance-Sound, Rob Papen and zplane. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS What is Plugins? Is it just freeware from the internet? No, and neither are the plugins limited or ‘crippled’. It’s a set of virtual instruments and effects created by some of the best developers in the business just for us – you won’t find this set of plugins anywhere else! Where do I get Plugins? As a download from…

Designed to dial in parallel compression from a single intuitive plugin, Manic Compressor features individual Wet/ Dry faders and a built-in EQ. What’s more, there are actually six different compressors included for you to switch between. Each one features a Loudness Relief knob, the idea being to crank up your settings as far as you want/need to and then use it to soften any compression artifacts. Manic Compressor is available now for Mac and PC (AU/VST), priced $149. READ MORE www.bozdigitallabs.com…

The latest instrument from synth legend Wolfgang Palm, Phonem (PC/Mac, VST/AU) is designed to replicate all kinds of voices and includes a text-to-speech tool. It’s built around a 12-resonator filter, which can be used for filter sweeps and FX as well as vocal sounds, while the ‘excitation source’ simulates the human glottis. Each phoneme can be edited in detail, while the pitch and control tracks can make the voice sing to your specification, the modulation matrix incorporates LFOs, envelopes and two X/Y pads, and plenty of presets are included to get you started. Phonem is available now for €119. READ MORE www.wolfgangpalm.com…

“We’d toyed with the idea of doing a ‘recording made difficult’ piece” We asked how the newly launched Windows Vista would affect musicians in February 2006 (issue 96). The answer for many was ‘not that much’, and plenty chose to stick with XP for a good while. In the reviews section, we took a look at the Samson CO1U, one of the first (if not the first) USB condenser mics. At the time, we described it as “unique and useful”, but it remained useful for far longer than it was unique. The meat of the mag featured a ‘recording made easy’ feature (we’d toyed with the idea of doing a ‘recording made difficult’ piece but thought it may have limited appeal), while Pete Tong described the podcast as “the future…

Molten Music Technology “What I’m looking forward to is the development and wide adoption of Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression (MPE). This is the technology that allows the ROLI Seaboard to be such an expressive instrument, with pitchbend and modulation per note, plus polyphonic aftertouch. “Second to that is the assimilation of the fabulous external analogue boxes that have grown up over the past few years. We need an audio interface designed to patch modular synths and CV/Gate signals back into the PC.” – Robin Vincent PowerFX “The two biggest growth trends for 2016 will be more products and services based around non-real-time collaboration, and ‘intelligent’ instruments or plugins utilising algorithms for personalised learning and producing. Computer musicians need better and simpler ways to collaborate with each other along the lines of…

As we’ve seen, it’s very much possible to perform mid/side encoding, processing and decoding using your DAW’s built-in functionality. However, it’s a bit more convenient to use plugin effects that feature dedicated mid/ side processing capabilities. Many contemporary compressor and equalisers such as FabFilter’s Pro-C 2 and Pro-Q 2, iZotope’s Ozone, Brainworx bx_digital V2, and Flux BitterSweet – to name just a few! – include tools to process the mid and side signals independently. While this can certainly be used to creative effect, this kind of processing really comes into its own when mixing. One particularly useful technique is to compress a channel’s mid and side signals separately, which makes it easier to balance them, control the width of the stereo signal, and get an overall louder sound. As a…

“I’ve gotta give a shout-out to Toontrack’s Metal Machinery SDX” What rocked your DAW in 2015? Blimey, that’s a big question! I came up with it, though, so I’d better answer it – I’ll start from the outside of my setup and work inwards. Accurate monitoring is essential, and while my PreSonus Sceptre S8 monitors sounded great in 2014, they were even better this year. How so? It’s all down to Sonarworks’ Reference 3 (9/10, cm219) speaker/headphone correction system, which also makes my AKG K702 cans far more listenable for long stretches. You can’t argue with a plugin that improves the sound of your entire setup. I use Cubase Pro 8 (9/10, cm214) pretty much every day, and I’m still exploring the new additions (not to mention the brand-new v8.5…

“Maybe the new MIDI protocol, ‘HD MIDI’, will be the next revolution” What rocked your DAW in 2015? I did! Gosh, I’ve spent so much time in the studio this year, I’ve forgotten my way home. MeldaProduction are mainly to blame, with their string of exciting new releases and rapid update schedule (all ‘free for life’ to MTotalBundle owners). At the time of writing, MTransformer is the latest bit of Melda wizardry – it’s a spectral processor that lets you remap any frequency to any other frequency, and/or to perform functions on frequencies based on their relative levels, dynamically. What? Yeah, I know, the results sound like you’re turning audio inside out and stuff – it’s amazing! While MTransformer’s obvious uses are in the creative domain, I’m discovering naughty new…

“Hopefully LennarDigital will beef up the old classic in 2016” What rocked your DAW in 2015? This has been a great year for updates! I’m a big fan of 90s-style digital pads, so Omnisphere 2’s ability to import audio files is a dream come true for me. I can now get much more out of my pad samples by using the instrument’s amazing array of processing tools, though its inability to loop user audio is a frustrating omission that I’m praying will be remedied before too long. Having finally jumped ship from a 32-bit Windows to a 64-bit Mac system, the arrival of the Sylenth1 v3 beta came at just the right time for me. The downside is that v3 doesn’t add much apart from enhanced compatibility, and initialising a…

Break Touted as ‘the DnB producer’s DnB producer’, Break – aka Charlie Bierman – has a discography that’s seen him sign tracks to the likes of Metalheadz, RAM, Critical and Shogun, as well as his own imprint, Symmetry. His latest album, Simpler Times, has just been released to rave reviews after smashing up festivals and clubs this summer. www.symmetryrecordings.co.uk A good kick drum can make or break your track. With a lot of the power and weight coming from the kick in dance music, getting the sound just right can take some practice. If you’re tired of trawling through sample packs to find a kick that makes the grade, creating your own layered samples can be the best way to go. Often, a synthesised kick on its own can sound…

“I grew up in a small Midlands village where the only entertainment revolved around the local pub,” explains Josh Steele, aka Flux Pavilion. “We were surrounded by smaller villages that had even smaller pubs, and the only music I heard was my dad’s record collection – Frank Zappa, Roxy Music, the Stranglers… I had no idea what people were listening to in London; no idea about house or drum ’n’ bass or garage. It’s strange to think that electronic music has ended up being such a huge part of my life.” Although the young Josh did eventually join a few bands, he admits it was all ‘singer/songwriter stuff’, and he eventually went to music college, hoping to become a music teacher. Two days into the term, somebody played him a…

Sonimus have impressed us with their desk emulations, Satson (8/10, cm167) and Britson (8/10, cm205), and analogue-style SonEQ Pro (9/10, cm199), and their latest Neve-inspired plugin feels like a logical next step. Burnley 73 (VST/AU/AAX/RTAS) emulates both the EQ and preamp of the highly regarded Neve 1073 hardware unit. Arranged as a horizontal unit, from left to right we have an 18dB/octave high-pass filter with notched frequencies (300, 160, 80, 50Hz and Off); a three-band EQ, with low shelf (220, 110, 60 and 35Hz), mid bell (360 and 700Hz, 1.6, 3.2, 4.8 and 7.2kHz) and high shelf (12kHz); preamp saturation; and finally, at the right-hand end, Output level (+16dB to -24dB). Each EQ band offers up to 16dB of boost or cut, and as it’s based on the 1073, the…

It’s been almost five years since its debut, but Thunderbolt is finally being adopted as a mainstream audio interface format. The Clarett family uses Thunderbolt 1, capable of transferring data at 10Gbits/sec. More relevant for most producers, though, is the very low latency that Thunderbolt affords. Latency has long been the thorn in the side of the native DAW, leading to the common problem of playing a note on your instrument only to hear it come back out of the speakers slightly later, like an echo, and ruining your ability to keep a solid groove. The usual workaround is to use direct monitoring, letting you listen to your input with no delay, but also no plugin effects. With a 128-sample buffer on the 2Pre, we got round-trip latency figures in…

eMo D5 combines five dynamics processors (DeEsser, Compressor, Limiter, Leveler and Gate/Expander) in a single plugin, claiming zero latency and light CPU usage. It’s the first plugin to incorporate Waves’ ‘Parallel Detection’ technology, more on which later. A clean, touchscreen-optimised interface makes it easy to dive in and get started, with the thresholds for the Gate, Limiter and Compressor adjustable directly in the central display, which also offers a combined gain reduction meter for the Compressor, Limiter and Leveler, and metering for the master output. The Gate/Expander module will be familiar to users of Waves’ C1 compressor/gate, with controls for Threshold, Attack, Release and Hold, as well as an independent setting for the Gate’s closing threshold, plus a sidechain filter. The Expander gives more natural results than gating, as it…

As mentioned, Addictive Drums 2 owners can use their AD2 sounds within Addictive Trigger, but that’s the only way to expand its library; you can’t just fly your own samples in, as you can with other drum replacers. Fortunately, though, the drag and drop MIDI Export option is actually rather good, so you could use Addictive Trigger solely for its detection engine, then simply fire up your own sounds in a regular drum sampler. In addition to General MIDI and Addictive Drums 2 mapping, the MIDI export feature also includes four tailor-made note mappings for FXpansion BFD, Toontrack EZdrummer and Superior Drummer, and Steven Slate Drums. These mappings cover not only all the kit pieces AT is designed to replace (Kick, Snare and four Toms), but also the snare articulations,…

Aiming to slake our seemingly unquenchable thirst for hot wax, Vinyl Strip is a multieffects plugin (VST2/AU/AAX) aimed at delivering a range of classic vinyl sounds and flavours in one handy processor. Its six modules – Compression, Distortion, Reverb, EQ, Vinyl and Sampler – can be manually reordered and activated independently, and each emulates a particular aspect of vinyl recording and playback. Compression has just two controls – Amount and Envelope (fast/slow action) – and is great for creating that cut-to-vinyl sound. Much of the ‘sound’ of vinyl masters is down to the compression and EQ used by cutting engineers to squeeze the signal onto that famously temperamental medium. Significant gain is also required to compensate for heavy compression, so the Compression algorithm includes automatic gain make-up. Distortion also features…

Samplephonics CloudMachines £35 The overarching aesthetic with Cloud Machines’ 254 loops and 176 one-shots is delicate, floaty and decidedly organic. The main event is the Music Loops folder, which is full of tastefully processed melodics performed on guitar, glockenspiel, ukulele (our favourite), various synths and kalimba. The beats are similarly gentle and teasingly ambiguous, hinting at drum ’n’ bass, house and hip-hop but maintaining the same natural production style throughout. Lovely stuff for those working on the more aerated side of dance and electronica. www.samplephonics.com 9/10 Big Fish Audio The Crate 2 – Ultimate Urban Samples £90 A whopping 7477 samples – over half of them one-shot drums and percussion – plus a ton of scripted Kontakt drum and synth instruments, for hip-hop and R&B production. The drum loops come…

Sibalance CM Get harsh, sibilant sounds under control with this issue’s fantastic plugin from Toneboosters, p10 Samples Over 900 royalty-free samples, created frame by frame just for readers. See what’s inside and how to get them on p12 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 Tutorial files All the supporting files and audio examples you need to follow along with our tutorials CM Plugins Our exclusive collection of free plugins for Mac and PC. See what’s available on p14…

AMOUNT Increase the strength of de-essing, from between 0% to 100% THRESHOLD When this level is breached by the noise component of the signal, gain reduction is triggered ATTACK Determines how quickly the de-essing reacts to sibilance DE-ESS METER Displays gain reduction amount PRESET MODES Choose from four modes: female voice, male voice, stereo vocals and broad de-harshing TONEBOOSTERS LOGO Click to go to the Toneboosters website Innovative and prolific software developers Toneboosters have built an enviable reputation among producers, mixing engineers and sound designers thanks to their comprehensive range of software tools that cover all bases, from high-quality EQ, compression and saturation plugins through to more esoteric devices for headphone mixing, voice transforming and bitcrushing. Their previous Plugin, Barricade CM, is a high-quality limiter that’s seen plenty of use…

This month we’ve had our speakers set to 11 for some excellent new tracker remakes. First of all, BitJam’s latest podcast – Insert Disk 2 – celebrates 30 years of the Commodore Amiga with a selection of remixes of famous four-channel game musics by remixer Martin Noriander (aka Instant Remedy), including the seminal Project-X and IK+ (bit.ly/BitJam). Next up, the latest glut of releases over at Amiga Remix (amigaremix.com) includes a version of Jester’s much-loved Stardust Memories, which originally appeared on the classic World of Commodore 92 demo. Remixed by the equally prolific and talented daXX, this exquisitely produced, pumping re-invention leans heavily towards Euro-cheese while remaining respectful to the original (a different kind of cheese, but one we grew up loving). DEMO OF THE MONTH XX by Onslaught At…

The commercial version of Tokyo Dawn Records’ Nova dynamic EQ VST/AU/AAX plugin for Mac and PC (see p26) expands on the free version with two extra processing bands (for six in total), steeper filters (up to 120dB/ octave), the addition of expansive ratios in the dynamics section alongside the compressive ones, support for “equal loudness workflows”, and the “Insane” high-quality mode. With its versatile feature set and very reasonable $40 asking price, Nova – Gentleman’s Edition looks to be well worth checking out. It’s available now. READ MORE www.tokyodawn.net…

Last month, in Stereo Science: Part 1 (see the PDF in the Vault if you need a refresher), we talked about how our hearing system interprets signals from the outside world and turns them into information about a sound’s location. Let’s quickly recap on this, and discuss how we can use this knowledge in our productions. Since we hear sounds with two ears, our brains focus on what’s different about the same sound arriving at the left and the right ear, and use the information as a cue to discover where the sound is coming from. One cue that gives us information about a sound’s location is its level in both ears – if a sound is coming from your right, it will be louder in your right ear than…

“It can be squishy, crunchy, or downright nasty, depending upon the settings” What rocked your DAW in 2015? It’s been a great year for cm Plugins, with many of the past 12 months’ instruments and effects finding their way into my own projects. As a source of retro-sounding breakbeat hits, BeatMachine CM is tough to beat. All the included drum kits sound like they’ve been sampled straight from a record, which is the vibe I’m looking for, so I’ll often combine a BeatMachine CM kit with a loose tambourine or shaker loop to build my own custom breakbeat that sounds like one of the ‘classics’. I always have space in my plugins folder for a simple, sweet tone-shaper, so I’ve been joyously overusing Lindell Audio’s 6X-500 CM. I love to…

What rocked your DAW in 2015? In terms of processing, Klanghelm’s excellent, multifaceted and absurdly cheap compressor, MJUC, has been doing sterling service. And for value, it’s hard to ignore cm’s own plugins, with Boz Digital/JST SideWidener, Lindell’s 6X-500 CM and Vengeance Sound’s Scope CM all getting regular outings. A couple of plugins nearly got my winning vote: IK Multimedia’s recently upgraded AmpliTube 4 delivers not only some great new Marshall Amps, but also the most extensive cabinet and speaker tweaking I’ve seen. Elsewhere, and fulfilling a very different remit, there’s Sonarworks Reference 3, with its two versions – room analysis and headphone calibration – proving very useful. What’s your Expert’s Choice for 2015? 2015 has seen plenty of decent processing plugins, but my award goes to a sound-generating tool:…

The original TR-909 was equipped with a CV Trigger output for controlling external instruments and sequencers – to a very limited extent. The signal used to do this was an 18ms ‘click’ playing the same sequence as the Rim Shot, that was actually quite effective as a percussion sound. Drumazon lets you activate the ‘Trigger Out’ sound in the Output page of the Options screen, assign it to any channel for triggering, and route it to any of the plugin’s 12 audio outputs.…

Owen Palmer As an in-demand dance music engineer, Owen’s worked with a slew of outstanding underground artists behind the scenes from his London studio. After years of meticulously studying what makes a great production tick, Owen has promised to share his most advanced and coveted techniques each month exclusively in . www.owenthegeek.com/cm A vocoder effect can transfer the formant qualities of a human voice to a synthesiser, which makes awesome robot voices. But in fact, I’ve been using the vocoder as one of my secret weapons for more reasons than you might realise… The effect works with two input signals (duh – the carrier and the modulator) each divided into a number of discrete frequency bands by an array of band-pass filters (typically eight or more). The bands of the…

“The plugin is identical, whichever option you choose – it’s just the included gear that differs” SIGNAL FLOW Choose from eight signal flow options, including mono or stereo inputs MIC POSITION Two close and two stereo mics can be adjusted within the graphic or via the mic panel TUNER A mini tuner display means you dont have to launch the full tuner panel MATCH With Match active, your cabinet will automatically match your chosen amp SELECTED MODULE Adjust various parameters for the currently selected module RACK INSERTS New for v4 – positioned within the Amp module before the main output BASKET Launch the Custom Shop interface and buy more gear! MODULE BYPASS Quickly bypass the selected module CABINET SIZE Adjust the fundamental size of the cabinet with this slider TABBED…

Burnley 73 rejigs the traditional 1073 preamp into a saturation control. But what exactly does it do? Using a test tone and a spectrum analyser, we investigated the effect it has across the frequency spectrum. First, the line amp option (anticlockwise) has a very subtle effect, generating a low-level second harmonic distortion that’s only really noticeable with frequencies up to around 150Hz. Beyond that point, it becomes pretty negligible. The mic preamp option (clockwise) produces a stronger second harmonic distortion, and as the frequency moves beyond 500Hz, it’s joined by an increasingly significant third harmonic. The result is fatness in low/low-mid frequencies and a bit more presence in the mid range and higher frequencies. At its highest settings (50-60), this can sound quite edgy; but at moderate settings (30 to…

Transient shaping effects enable the relative levels of the attack and sustain stages of a signal to be raised or lowered. They’re great for emphasising or concealing specific elements within a mix – for example, helping a snare drum to ‘pop’ out – especially if compression is also being applied, which often has the adverse effect of squashing transients. Joey Sturgis is known for creating slick, focused plugins at competitive prices. His latest, Transify (VST/AU/AAX/RTAS), is a multiband processor that combines four transient designers with three adjustable crossovers. The idea is that being able to shape the transients in each frequency range independently gives significantly more flexibility than you would get with a single-band model. The interface is straightforward, with the controls for the four bands clearly accessible on the…

A neat feature of eMo D5’s Compressor and Gate/Expander is their comprehensive sidechain filtering and monitoring, controlled in each module’s Key section. Here, the dynamics processing is set to react to the internal signal or an external trigger, as fed into the plugin via your DAW’s usual sidechain routing system. The high- and low-pass filters enable the Key source to be filtered from 16Hz up to 18kHz, offering a great deal of flexibility when mixing. The Gate/Expander’s Key has two source options (Internal and External), while the Compressor’s adds a third, placing the DeEsser module before the compressor in the trigger’s signal path. With both modules, the trigger signal can be monitored by clicking the Preview button, making it simple to have a surgical level of control by fine-tuning the…

Indian developer Beatskillz’ recent first foray into plugin development, Slam Dawg (7/10, cm224), wasn’t the all-in-one millionaire mastering tool it claimed to be, but it did offer genuine creative mixing potential. Coded by AudioThing’s Carlo Castellano, their second release, That Thing (VST/AU/AAX), is meant to replace “that” sound of analogue and early digital gear that is missing from today’s “digitally perfect tracks”. In order to do this, it incorporates four distinct editable processes. First is no-frills chorusing, offering Frequency, Depth and Stereo (width) dials for the main parameters, plus individual Dry and Wet sliders. It’s basic, and we’re not quite sure what it has to do with “that” sound, but it is effective, delivering everything from vocal thickening to synth widening, and sounds rather nice. Next up is a sample…

The Vinyl module emulates the playback experience of vinyl. Dust Amount and Rate control the density of dust crackles and the gaps between them; Noise adds classic analogue hiss; while Wow introduces the pitch-wobbling inherent in analogue media. A dropdown menu reveals more controls: the optional Dust/Noise Envelope uses an envelope follower to bring the crackle and hiss down in quiet sections; Dust Noise/Noise Louder raises the level of these sounds; and Wow Enhanced increases the range of the Wow knob. Record Age uses filters to emulate the frequency ranges of vinyl recordings across the decades (from ‘Modern’ to ‘Vintage’), and Stereo allows a gradual reduction from stereo to pure mono-summing of the signal. The option to instead select the left or right channel as the mono source, though, would…