As my studio is in a shared space, we regularly use each others equipment, however my modular is still quite a specialised tool. With that in mind I started writing this guide with a view of anyone else wanting to use our space, they should be able to plugin in a few USBs and viola, the modular would be ready to go.
The Fat of the Land was the Prodigy’s third album, and a huge commercial success. Released in 1997, I still remember buying it on cassette and taking it home to listen to for the first time (there were no leaks or previews in those days!)
Time for the second installment of this tutorial series, showing you how to make a fully fledged editor for your hardware synth; using a Waldorf Pulse as an example.
Max4Live opens up a world of sound design possibilities for any hardware synth, as well as giving you the opportunity to automate and save parameter settings in a track.
Like any self respecting music producer, you can’t help but be fascinated and influenced by the influence Steve Reich has had not only on contemporary classical music and minimalism but his ripples are felt through electronic dance music too.
The Jan Hammer Group’s track Don’t You Know is a groovy synth-jazz funk number taken from their 1977 album Melodies. It has seeped into the collective conscious through Erol Alkan’s inclusion of it on Another Bugged Out Mix and through being sampled numerous times.
A really neat feature of Ableton Live is the clip loop length. In session mode this can easily facilitate simple polyrhythm generation which can lead to some great results.
Right from the start, I knew I wanted to get my modular working with my computer. I imagined all the possibilities of running MIDI to a from my system, using Reaktor, Ableton Live, OSC… all that stuff.
Something that regularly crops up is questions about demystifying mastering, and whilst I’m not the person to go into detail about exactly how to master your own music, there is a case for shining some light on the subject.
There was a time when studios were only comprised of hardware. Whether that be sequencers, drum machines, synths, reel-to-reel tape recorders, mixers, effect units, patch-bays, compressors, EQs and such – these were the mandatory tools in order to take your music from concept to something physical.