Table of contents for 06/07-2020 in Beat English

In the last year not only a lot of analog synthesizers have been released, but also some exciting digital sound generators and likewise interesting hybrids. While Behringer is releasing one low-priced analog synthesizer after another, the general trend seems to be going more towards digital sound generation. Special attention is paid to flexible waveforms of the oscillators. The wavetable synthesizer Modal Electronics Argon8 or ASM Hydrasynth with wave morphing or Korg‘s Wavestate with wave sequencing are just a few examples. Korg‘s synthesizers Prologue, Minilogue XD and NTS1 are particularly innovative with their digital user oscillator, which can be equipped with new oscillator and effect models. The concept has been very well received, as evidenced by the constantly growing range of oscillator models and effects from third-party suppliers: FM, wavetable, granular…

Beat/ Your new performance instrument was inspired by classic tracker software. What makes Polyend Tracker special? Jacek/ First of all it‘s the ease of use. Tracker is aimed at all DAW and hardware enthusiasts, from beginners to experienced professionals. It offers a fast, intuitive and goal-oriented workflow. The instrument shows that Trackers are by no means a relic of a past software era before DAWs. Polyend gives this popular music production concept a turbo boost - in hardware form! Immediacy and simplicity was the game with Tracker’s sequencer. The workflow has been simplified so that users can now actually see the parameter’s values when it’s being adjusted. Navigated with a large dial and silicone buttons, new users needn’t be too hesitant to get hands-on with the instrument. Beat/ Can you…

Erica Synths is one of the few manufacturers that use vacuum tubes in eurorack modules, and those, who are familiar with tube-based modules, know that tubes can push the sound to extremes or turn it deep, saturated and complete. The Fusion Series modules are the basis for this system. It offers loads of patchpoints for extensive experiments in sound design, all analogue signal and CV path to create the drones of massive power. Erica Synths Fusion Drone System II brings distinct and powerful sound into eurorack. We have come up with three new Fusion series modules – Fusion VCF3, Fusion Modulator and Fusion VCA/Waveshaper/Ringmodulator – to create the Erica Synths Fusion System II – a modular synthesiser for sounds of unprecedented pressure, unconventional modulations and creativity-inspiring patching. The system has…

Bitwig Studio inspires you to take greater control of your music, giving you access to every aspect of your production. Streamline your creative process and quickly evolve your ideas into complete songs, tracks, and compositions. Record and arrange, improvise and perform, or do it all at once. Welcome to the next generation of music creation and performance software. Modularity has been at the core of Bitwig Studio from the beginning. Devices can be nested, clips are containers, modulators exist everywhere, and practically anything can be dragged anywhere. The Grid - coming with Bitwig Studio 3 - is an open modular environment that powers a family of new devices in Bitwig Studio 3: Poly Grid and FX Grid. With a vast library of modules and a supersonic workflow, you’ll be creating…

Wiretap’s main job is to auto-trigger synth voices. Patched after a pitch CV source it tracks the incoming voltage and creates triggers/gates when the pitch changes. It also offers a pair of decay envelopes triggered by rising and falling voltages, but can alternatively be triggered by gate signals, either from within Wiretap itself or from an external source. Tech insights: Different from other slope detectors Regular slope detectors recognize motion or “states” – rising, falling, moving, still, larger, smaller or equal – and set their gate outputs high according to to the motion or changes in state. As long a voltage is rising, the rise gate is high. But when a voltage jumps from one note to another, which is usual for sequencers and keyboards, a regular slope detector would…

Some of my most intense experiences are connected to coffee. One of them will always remain in my memory: A recording of later works by Franz Liszt with my brother and the Italian pianist Sandro Ivo Bartoli. The session took place in the Neustädter Reitstadel, a rebuilt former horse stable, where albums for ECM have already been produced. We had exactly one day to record over an hour of this highly complex, psychedelic repertoire - a nearly impossible task. It started slowly. Every hour Sandro interrupted his performance to have another espresso in a café just around the corner. The endlessly flowing caffeine made me almost dizzy, but Sandro was getting more and more into his "zone". He thought a meal break was unnecessary, only occasionally his espresso diet was…

1 Install OBS Studio The first step is to download OBS Studio for free from https://obsproject.com and install the plugin. Windows users also need to download and install the installer for the ASIO plugin from https://github.com/Andersama/obs-asio. After that, please select your audio interface in the menu bar under ASIO -> Active Device. 2 Virtual signal flow As a Mac user, download and install iShowU Audio Capture [1]. iShowU is a kernel extension that provides virtual audio inputs and outputs. Now please open OBS Studio. Click on the Settings box in the lower right corner and then click on Audio. After that, select the Microphone/Audio Device called iShowU Capture. 3 Audio configuration Now, please open Ableton Live and head over to the Preferences and then to the Audio tab. Select the…

1 808s with Sytrus In the following workshop, we will show you how to create an 808 sound with FL Studio‘s synthesizer Sytrus. We start with the default settings and first adjust the pitch control. Push the slider as far down as possible. We trigger the synth with the MIDI note C4. Let‘s get started with the sound design! 2 Operator 1 Now open operator 1 (OP 1) of Sytrus. Use the mouse to drag the attack parameter to the left. This gives the signal more punch. Now drag the attack value back a little bit to make it smoother. Increase the release value after that, to achieve a fade-out effect. Your personal taste decides. 3 Waveforms In the default setting, of Sytrus a sine waveform is selected. This is…

1 Create unique sounds Vocal glitch loops are comprised of several snippets, sometimes of the same voice, sometimes of different ones. In each case, there are numerous expressions and "characters", each of which can be formed into an instrument. The obvious variation would be the simple looping of a short segment, but this sounds extremely artificial. 2 Stretching with reverb Instead, we load a reverb that can create extremely long tails as an insert effect, such as Pro-R from FabFilter [1] or OrilRiver [2]. Load a glitch loop or any vocal on an audio track and cut out a short piece of it, for example a second or less. We process it with the reverb effect and a powerful limiter. 3 Reverb settings We‘re setting the reverb effect for fullim-pact:…

Wavesfactory Cassette With Cassette, the majorcan software developer Wavesfactory promises to rewind time without any spaghettied tape and pencil! The plug-in wants to imprint the charming LoFi sound of the good old MC on your tracks. Not only optically it shows a lot of attention to detail: You can switch between different cassette types with different sound characteristics. It emulates the frequency response, saturation and compression of the high frequencies as well as the unavoidable noise of old cassette recorders. The wow and flutter and crosstalk of frequently played and overplayed magnetic tapes are also emulated. The most important settings can be adjusted on the main page of Cassette, including the stereo width, the number of band deletions and the intensity of noise and sound sound artifacts. You can also…

1 Acoustic deficiencies Before you can use the correction system, you must measure your studio room using the ARC3 software, a measuring microphone and your monitor speakers. The authorization manager from IK-Multimedia will help you install the measurement software and plug-in. Start the software and follow the steps below. 2 Preparation Plan in about 30 minutes for the measurement. Use a period of time in which as little unwanted background noise as possible affects your studio and you do not disturb anyone with the relatively obtrusive measurement sounds. For an exact measurement we recommend a microphone stand, which you place at your listening position first. 3 Microphone For the measurement you need a measuring microphone, either from the bundle offered or from your own stock. Select the appropriate model or,…

There are countless DJ controllers on the market. However, as soon as simultaneous standalone operation is required, the number of available models shrinks to just a few immediately. The Prime 4 comes just in time and promises comprehensive luxury equipment at a reasonable price. An all-rounder Our test candidate promises to have everything on board for standalone operation as well as for working with various DJ programs like the included Serato DJ Pro. The eye-catching highlight is a 10 inch flip-down touch screen which allows for central access to the music library of the connected computer or storage medium. As usual, browsing and deck-loading of tracks is done via the Browse Encoder section at the top of the mixer section. Effects and more The four deck channels of DJ Prime…

Using the digital connections, AudioFuse Studio provides a total of 18 inputs and 20 outputs, which should be sufficient for semi-professional studios. The interface is packed into a robust metal housing with the compact dimensions of 26 x 16 x 7 centimeter. The surface is equipped with seven silver controls for adjusting the input level of the first four analog inputs as well as the speaker and headphone outputs. The knobs are large and offer a comfortable turning resistance. In addition to a gain control, each of the four combi inputs for microphone, instrument or line signal has an eight-digit LED display for level indication, individually switchable phantom power, pad/boost switch and phase inversion for recording with several microphones. Monitor controller The extensive monitor section makes an additional monitor controller…

1 Readjustment If two songs diverge unexpectedly in tempo, check if there is enough time left to cancel the transition and to start over again. If there is not enough time, you should quickly readjust the jog wheels manually or activate Sync to catch up to the next beat or to slow down the offset. 2 Filter and equalizer Despite the fact that two songs are synchronized by BPM, a transition with two overlapping bass lines and the resulting potential of clipping, can be a disaster. Filtering can really be a lifesaver by reducing the bass part of the ending song and increasing it, to the middle of the following track. 3 Reverb with filter The use of a long-lasting reverb is also a good way to let a song…

1 Fader status Start Live's arrangement. Make sure that you are in Push's session mode and press the mix button in the upper right corner. You will now see the volume fader status of the eight tracks marked with the Session frame in Live. To start a new mix, turn down all volumes using the encoder located above. 2 Mixing and reset Turn the volumes back up track by track and adjust the balance of the individual tracks to each other. The display shows both peak level (color: dark green) and RMS value (color: light green). To reset the volume to its output value, keep holding down the delete button and tap on the track's encoder. 3 Play the arrangement You can start your arrangement with Push. If the software…

Sound colossus for hooks & basses Waves Element 2 Curtain up for our full DVD version of Waves! Whether analog standards or modern club sounds: Element 2 inspires as a versatile, intuitive synthesizer with assertive and lively sound. The virtual-analogue sound generator not only shines with a wide range of presets with high musical value, but also invites you to make your own sound thanks to its intuitive user interface! www.waves.com | License under: www.serialcenter.de win | mac All serial numbers securely accessible: Beat Serial-Center To ensure that none of your serial numbers will get lost in future (e.g. during a new installation, Outlook crash or disk crash), you can now conveniently manage them online. The advantages are obvious: The editors can send you individual software updates and you have…

Epic drums for little money: Herringbone by Meinhomestudio.de Drums made of glass, metal and stone: With Herringbone, Meinhomestudio.de releases its third instrument for HALion Sonic SE. More than 100 different sounds were sampled by Paul Marx and Matthias Basedow in a Lost Place in Leipzig. Herringbone has a particular attack dynamic. In the sound design process, individual velocity levels were created for each and every sample and simulated with the audio effect CALDO. This makes Herringbone sound extremely dynamic in its intensity and delivers raw sounding drums, distorted sounds as well as epic percussion. With four integrated effects, the instrument is flexible and suitable for various genres. This instrument requires Steinberg HALion HALion 6, HALion Sonic 3 or HALion Sonic SE 3, the last-mentioned can be downloaded here for free.…

Beat/ The Nord Wave 2 is the latest generation of the successful Nord synthesizer family. Can you briefly explain its concept? Staffan/ The Nord Wave 2 combines virtual-analog, FM and wavetable synthesis with samples and it is similar to the original Nord Wave in this aspect. However, with the Nord Wave 2, four layers - essentially four independent synthesizers - are always available to combine different sounds or create splits. The LED faders give you full control of the level and pan position of the four layers. The Nord Wave 2 also features a new, advanced arpeggiator/gate section, a variety of new effects and a lot of additions in terms of sound generation as well. Beat/ Can you tell us more about the sound generation of the Nord Wave 2?…

Features MPC One & Live mkII Sequencer and sampler Standalone and controller mode 8 CV ports 2 GB RAM, 16 GB hard disk 16 light pads 4 Q-Link controller Touchscreen USB ports for sticks and MIDI controllers 2,5” SATA ports (SSD/HDD) SD card slot Ethernet connection 3 internal synths in standalone mode VST/AU support (with MPC software 2.0) as VST/AU/RTAS plug-in usable (with MPC software 2.0) WAV-, MP3-, AIFF-, REX-, SND-, OGG- & FLACsupport MPC One 1 MIDI in and out MPC Live mkII 2 MIDI ins and outs each WiFi support Phono input Onboard boombox Although MPC's have always been full-fledged music production workstations and theoretically capable of replacing a DAW in the studio, they have definitely earned their reputation as intuitive samplers for finger drummers. The Live and…

www.doepfer.de A-133-2 Dual Voltage Controlled VCA/Polarizer/Inverter/Ring Modulator The module contains two special voltage controlled amplifiers (VCAs) that allow both positive and negative amplification. The overall amplification is definded by the sum of the voltage generated by the Man control, external voltage CV and the position of the CV control which works as an attenuator for external voltage. In addition the CV signal can be modulated via the modulation control input Mod by means of another control voltage. Typical use: Simple VCA, polarizer, attuverter, inverter or DC coupled ring modulator A-130-8 Octal Linear VCA/Voltage Controlled Mixers Module A-130-8 contains eight linear voltage controlled amplifiers. Each VCA features a control voltage input, a signal input and a signal output. In addition three mixers are included. The signal inputs are able to process…

Bitwig Studio includes technology called the „Open Controller API“. This allows anyone, from controller manufacturers to everyday Bitwig music makers, to create highly-detailed control scripts for your favorite controllers. Bitwig comes with a huge selection of Scripts for well-known Controllers by Arturia, Nektar, Roger Linn and many more. All of them ready for instant use. Connect your gear, Bitwig will automatically detect it and fire up the script to get your controller included right away. If that’s not enough, have a look on the more than 70 user scripts on Bitwig.com, or create your own ones! The included Scripting Guide and Documentation will make this a breeze. www.bitwig.com…

1 Activate the sequencer Element 2 is especially suitable for vivid analog sequences. Activate the plug-in as a virtual instrument in your DAW and disable the sixth modulation assignment by clicking on number 6 in the Mod Matrix. Then select the Sequence mode in the Arp/Seq section. Now a sequence can be triggered when you play Element 2 via MIDI. 2 Sequence creation Now you can set the desired pitch for each step of the sequence. By clicking on the LEDs below a step, you deactivate them. This also allows you to create gated sequences. The sound of the sequence might still a bit monotonous. But if you combine both oscillators, it quickly becomes much more interesting! 3 Oscillator settings For oscillator 1, select the VCO mode and move the…

1 Set up MIDI Device To integrate a MIDI-capable synth into Cubase, a MIDI and audio connection is required. Creating an external instrument is much more convenient than using simple audio and MIDI tracks. First click Studio > More Options > Install MIDI Device Manager on Install Device. Select Define New. 2 Name and MIDI-Output After that, please enter the name of the synthesizer you want to use and click OK. Close the window that’s opening now. Select the desired MIDI-Output management to which you have connected your synth. To set up an external instrument, click studio again. 3 External instrument Click Audio Connections, switch to External Instruments and click Add External Instrument. Enter the desired name. Since our Moog Sub 37 has a mono output, we set mono returns…

1 Preparation Work effectively with the piano roll: Logic Pro X offers not just two, but three selection tools. Go to Edit in the DAW's global settings and select the option Can be assigned to a tool for the right mouse button. This is the most efficient way to work with this assignment: Pointer, velocity (command key) and pen (right mouse button). 2 Selection We want to record a piano pattern, which contains melodic elements as well as a key glissando. The usual 1/16 quantization helps against the bad timing, but makes the piano sound like a machine. In the piano roll editor, hold down the left mouse button, select the glissando notes and set time quantization to off for continuous sliding. 3 Microtiming In real piano playing, the individual…

Tracktion Waveform Pro 11 is available in three editions: Basic, Standard and Extreme. The editions differentiate only in the extended content; Waveform Pro is identical in all three editions. The software is available for MacOS, Windows, Linux (tested on Ubuntu 18.04) and for Raspberry Pi. Whats new? Version 11 of Waveform Pro also offers all kinds of new features. First of all, there is the arrangement track, in which arrangement clips can be created. These clips can then be used to move or duplicate entire sections of the arrangement. A very convenient feature, especially for "producing songs". Even the owners of multi-screen set ups have not been forgotten: Waveform Pro can now handle multiple screens and individual areas can be moved from the main view to other screens. In addition,…

2CAudio Vector Vector is an exceptional plug-in for the freeware industry. Vector is optimized to detect acoustic problems in the stereo field and ensure mono compatibility. Especially if you work a lot with stereo enhancement tools like the Ozone Imager, which is also free, you should pay special attention to this. There is a certain risk of phase shifting and as a result of this also the risk to delete the audio signal when it is played back mono. And since mono speakers are back in popularity, due to Amazon's Alexa, this is definitely relevant. Looking at 2CAudio's portfolio, with help of programs such as Precedence 1.5 and PBJ System, which specialise in the psycho-acoustic placement of ambient audio signals, will explain the developer's deeper experience in this field. The…

Moog Matriarch is the new flagship of the Mother Series, previously consisting of the Mother-32 and Drummer From Another Mother (DFAM), Eurorack-compatible desktop devices and the Grandmother. With quadruple paraphony, it joins the ranks of the monophonic Grandmother and the duophonic Subsequent and the polyphonic Moog One. Vintage design With its slightly slanted user interface, typical Moog controls and narrow white pitch and mod wheels, the handcrafted Matriarch is inspired by old Moog classics such as Prodigy and Rogue, and the pastel colours add a nice touch of 70s flair to the design. This colour scheme has already established itself with the Grandmother, as it clearly separates the individual modules of the sound generation. The finishing is excellent, the synthesizer is very robust and with its 11 kilograms also quite…

Both the Prologue and the Minilogue XD have a digital oscillator and multi-effect in addition to the analog sound generation, which Korg has already equipped with oscillator and effect algorithms. Meanwhile, there are also various models from third-party developers that can be loaded into the Multi-Engine and cover both conventional sounds and weird creative effects. Construction time again Unlike Prologue and Minilogue XD, the digital synthesizer part in the NTS-1 is monophone, so polyphonic playing is not possible. The effects section with three effects that can be used simultaneously, equals exactly to the Minilogue XD without restriction. This makes the NTS-1 also very interesting as an effect device due to its audio input. The small synthesizer is delivered disassembled into its individual parts. There is no need for a soldering…

1 No unwanted surprises! We first activate Playback Keys Use Shift to prevent unwanted surprises through accidental keyboard commands. If you forget to click on the search window in a rush, for example when aiming at it, the entered text will no longer trigger unwanted shortcut functions such as Stop or Rewind. 2 Save the decks The option Lock Playing Deck prevents accidentally placing a new title in a deck during playback. In addition, it prevents accidentally jumping in the track due to unintentionally set cue points. But if you want to use the latter - like Flip edits - creatively, it's probably better to leave this feature off. 3 Cue organisation With the next option Sort Cue Points Chronologically, all cues in the decks are sorted according to their…

HOW DOES IT WORK? On the Beat DVD, you will find a melody as a WAV file in 120 BPM, played with five different instruments. Choose one of these samples and produce a short song (instrumental or with vocals) between 0:30 and 1:30 minutes. One of the samples should be heard at least once in its full length. All other producer decisions are up to you. You are free to choose the genre and the instrumentation and to develop your composition, arrangement and mix. JOIN IN! You will find instructions for submitting your track on the DVD. Your production will be evaluated by a jury of 5 producers by MeinHomestudio.de and BEAT. Decision factors are musical creativity and production skills. The participation deadline is June 20, 2020. We wish you…

Beat/ With the MFB Synth Pro, you expand your product range by a polyphonic synthesizer. How did the idea for it come up? Manfred/ The idea of building a polyphonic Dominion has been around for a long time since Dominion 1 was released. It was clear, that the development effort would be very high and that producing such a device in the required quantities would mean a fundamental change for me. That's why I chose the less complex way with the polyphonic version of the MFB Synth II. Since the basic principle already existed, I only had to expand it to eight voices. With the Poly-Lite I had already gained experience with a four-voice version. A keyboard version is currently still a long way off, although the demand is huge.…

Beat/ Hi Andreas, the SuperBooth20 is over and due to the lockdown it took place in form of the first virtual music fair ever. What was your key point or initial idea to let the event happen via streaming and how did it work? HerrSchneider/ We wanted to offer a virtual way to remember the personal contacts, let the people virtually meet up with Jean-Michel Jarre or with the purchase manager of Thomann or SchneidersLaden, and ask the usual questions that we all ask each other at least once a year: “Hey how are you? Looking younger than ever, or – in this case – how do you feel with corona in your country?”. This became the topic “listen:” in our Superbooth20 Home Edition, where we had guests from India,…

The Microphonic Soundbox mk2 is an acoustic wooden experimental instrument, which perfectly integrates in any audio setup to create interesting and otherworldly soundscapes. It comes prepared with metal springs, metal rods, sand paper and a Kalimba made from carbon strips, but it can easily be extended with any other found materials. It can be played in many ways by scratching and bowing, to create totally unique sounds. It‘s the perfect sound design tool - be creative! What‘s inside? The Microphonic Soundbox features two internal contact microphones and two battery powered low noise pre-amps (~100x Gain), both signals can be mixed together and sent to the outputs as a line level. Inserting an external signal to the input will switch off the first internal mic and use the external signal instead,…

TimeShaper: Audio time machine In the Time module, the horizontal axis represents the temporal curve. The vertical axis, on the other hand, indicates the position in the incoming audio signal. With a curve in the form of a descending staircase, you can create stuttering and repeating effects. If you draw slopes, the pitch is altered. So you achieve tape stop and acceleration effects. Glitch and reverse effects are also possible. VolumeShaper: Your expert for pumping and gate fx You can shape audio signals in pinpoint detail with the powerful drawable volume LFO and visual compressor on every band of Shaper-Box 6. So you can create all kinds of stutter, pumping and gate effects, but also achieve distortion, bitcrushing and ring modulation. You can also use the compressor with its sidechain…

Beat /Now that you regularly play your concerts with your acoustic Techno: Do you listen to club music differently afterwards? Maxi / As a composer, of course, yes. When I'm in the club and dance and when I also like a sound, a rhythm or a structure especially, I write it down afterwards so I will not forget it. Although you actually go clubbing to let yourself go to the maximum and enjoy your night out. Beat / Where did the idea for a double album with a Jazz and a Techno part come from? Maxi / The suggestion originally came from Werner Aldinger who is also signed on our label ENJA. Since we had already recorded a pure Jazz and a pure Techno CD, it was also the next…

CALVIN HARRIS & DUA LIPA – ONE KISS (OLIVER HELDENS REMIX) 1 More bass, please! Oliver Heldens has reached deep into the bass box for his remix and brought out a classic Reese bass as known from Drum n' Bass or 1990s Bass House. It goes without saying that Native Instruments Massive with its cascadable filters is the perfect choice for this job. Let's get started in the New Sound preset at Osc 1 with the Disto Wavetable from the analog/electric section and pitch at -12.00. 2 Volume and lowpass Now we activate Osc 2 and 3: First Osc 2 provides us with Pulse Saw-PWM from the VA section, an amp pot set back to the 10 o'clock position and two octaves pitched down a very subtle filling note. Osc…

1 Basics The most popular elements in Psytrance are probably arpeggios and staccato sequences, hardly any track can do without them. And practically, they are also relatively easy to create. We start with the synth plug-in Thorn Solo and load the preset SEQ Neocortex. We just change the second last arpeggio note from 20 to 19. 2 Variation This helps to tone down the somehow old fashioned character. We trigger the arpeggio with a note of one bar length and duplicate it several times to 16 bars. We want to decorate the sequence with our own ideas instead of using it exactly as it is. It is a common pitfall to build too predictable pitch changes with arpeggios like this. 3 Individual touch An example is the change of pitch…

1 Peak section In the last part of our workshop series [1], we used a single long SEQUENCE to gather as many ideas as possible for a track. Within this SEQUENCE (which is 32 bars long in our case), the individual tracks are already minimally pre-arranged, so that the pad sound doesn't run through completely, but starts at bar 17 and the shaker at bar 9. 2 It's gotta rock! Other elements have their fixed places and are also partly automated, such as an arpeggio that slowly fades in at the beginning and then fades out again later using a high-pass filter. In short: There is enough movement in the 32 bars. Very important: If the SEQUENCE does not inspire you yet, add more elements or change the existing ones.…

Impact Soundworks Shreddage 3 Hydra The sample instruments of the Shreddage series created by Impact Soundworks are without a doubt among the best virtual guitars currently available. With Hydra, the developer adds a detailed and complete Ibanez RGIF8 to the product series. The eight-string electric guitar has been tuned down to a low E, making it the perfect choice for modern metal styles. A variety of articulations have been recorded in two pickup positions, including sustain, power chords, palm mutes, staccato, harmonics, tapping, tremolo, legato, vibrato and slides. Various playing sounds as well as tonal and atonal release samples provide a high degree of realism. Shreddage 3 Hydra offers extremely flexible ways to adjust the sound. Particularly outstanding is the multi-tracking function, which ensures a remarkably powerful sound, as well…

For those who want to expand the basic plugin offer of their DAW, bundle packages - just like our test candidate - are recommended because of the significantly lower price. This one has 31 different plugins starting from compressor, limiter and EQ over reverb, delay and saturation up to sound generators up its sleeve, which promise to cover many areas in production, mixing and mastering. In the review we concentrated at selected highlights, because featuring all included plugins would have simply gone beyond the scope of this article. Versatile all-in-one solution Let‘s get started with the dynamic processorss with the FET compressor. The legendary UREI 1176 served as a model, whose concept was supplemented by some practical features such as dedicated sidechain filters or dry/wet mix for parallel compression. The…

ARC stands for acoustic room correction. This involves first measuring the room using your studio monitors, a microphone and the appropriate software to calculate a corrected frequency curve. This curve is then used as a plugin to adjust the output signal of the DAW accordingly. A software cannot completely replace an acoustic optimization of a room by isolation, etc., but it can be a great help in finding the right sound. Suitable measuring microphone The software is available as a package with a suitable measuring microphone or individually, if you already have a measuring microphone. In general, any measurement microphone can be used if you have an associated calibration file. Suitable profiles for the microphones are already integrated in the software. After installing the software, select the input to which…

The Pro-One has characterized numerous songs, from synthpop hits like Yazoo's "Don't go" to the early works of industrial legend Skinny Puppy. But the good sound was accompanied by a rather bad processing of the original. The consequence of this is that despite the high sales figures at that time, only a few fully functional copies are still available on the market today and in addition to the not exactly inexpensive second-hand price, future maintenance and repair costs should also be taken into account. Because of this situation Behringer wants to take remedial action with the original replica called Pro. Eurorack format The main difference to the original, apart from a general reduction of the user interface and elements, is the missing keyboard. This way, the Pro-1 can be placed…

After Launchpad X and Mini, the large model is now also available in a revised and updated version. Originally the Launchpads were developed as pure Ableton Live controllers. Although they now support other DAWs such as Logic, the integration with Ableton is still the most profound. A matrix of 8x8 pads lets you start and stop your audio and MIDI clips in Ableton's Session View. The multi-colored pad lighting, which can be adjusted in brightness, reflects the color of the clips on the Launchpad, making it easier to see the clips. For large projects, you can switch between groups of clips and tracks using the four navigation buttons on the upper left side, and complete scenes can be started by using the eight buttons on the right. In contrast to…

1 The Base The Electron Octatrack serves as the centerpiece of the live act. Here loops, samples but also complete stems are launched. Since the Octatrack has a flexible and clever input section, it also functions as a mixer. With the two stereo outputs, you can send the sum signal to the mixer and the other stereo pair to the effect devices. 2 Multitasking Gear The signals of both Circuit and Peak run into the Octatrack, while it also sends the Master Clock via MIDI. With two synths and four drum parts, Circuit offers a versatile sound generation. Another great thing is that the synth tracks can also be used for triggering external devices via MIDI. In this case, Synth 2 controls the Peak. 3 MIDI Controller The Octatrack is…

Feature: Recording workflow Whether it's a large studio, home recording or laptop setup… When creative ideas come up, a well structured workflow is essential. But what can you do to optimize your hardware and software setup so that ideas can be captured quickly and efficiently when the muse kisses you? And how do you achieve the best possible sound when recording? In our large workflow special, we answer these questions and show you how to make the most out of your equipment to achieve the best possible musical output. Review: Sequential Pro 3 As the successor to the popular Dave Smith Instruments Pro 2 synthesizer, the Sequential Pro 3 can compete with a mid-range modular system in terms of flexibility. The hybrid synthesizer, which can be played either monophonic or…