Table of contents for 08/2024 in Beat English

Input, Input, Input and how to deal with it DIY workshops, performances, talk concerts, events and, of course, the many exhibitors - it became clear on the very first day that even three days of Superbooth would not allow you to see and hear, let alone try out everything. Sound everywhere, gear everywhere, people everywhere: If you don‘t filter, sort and structure, you‘ll blow a fuse after half a day. So, I‘ve scaled back my claim to a complete, detailed overview and let myself be guided by personal preferences. I have, therefore, only touched on many major manufacturers from the synth sector. Pro audio and studio equipment were also only touched on in passing. Instead, I let myself drift, and in doing so, I found one or two bangers from…

Splice – industry leader with endless samples For a long time, Splice was by far the most popular sample cloud service. The sheer selection and variety of samples, far beyond hip hop and techno, is still one of the most important advantages. Unfortunately, due to the popularity of the service, there have been repeated copyright problems in recent years for producers who use melody loops unchanged from the platform - so you have to be careful here. A small drawback of the platform is that if you have accumulated hundreds of credits after several months and then cancel, you lose all of the credits at the end of the subscription if you have not redeemed them. This has repeatedly caused discontent among producers. Splice package 1 – $12.99 per month…

Beat /Hi Paulee, welcome back again! It’s not too long ago that you took part in out Beat Community and now it’s great to have you here again, this time talking about your passion for low fidelity sounds and retro approach to making music. So let’s get straight to the point: You’re still working with the OctaMED tracker on your Amiga. Why? Paulee/ Thanks for talking to me! I think it’s important to first talk about my approach towards sampling. Some folks swear by whatever the modern version of crate digging is – taking records and splicing them together to make new creations. With me, I’m not really doing that – I’m writing songs the same way I would in a DAW, but the process of splitting, then down-sampling, my…

Like a mantra, like an incantation, like a prayer, like a plea, she tells herself over and over again „Don‘t look at yourself“. But 3,000 pairs of eyes are fixated on this woman in the black one-piece don‘t care. This is the climax of the show, a solitary dance on a huge stage, an unadorned voice over cold, mechanical machinery, an interlocking and drifting apart of sensual verses and the thunderous stroboscopic discharges of the chorus. After four minutes, the song ends, all structures dissolve and the music collapses into a black hole of brutal bass vibrations and cascading sound crystals until the deep, sonorously swelling wave shatters and splinters, shreds and scratches like a wild animal in a cage and the singer‘s voice mutates into a scream on the…

1 Percussion! Let‘s start with the Cubase arrangement that we set up in the last two issues. Load a new instance of HALion Sonic and then click on Iconica Sketch. Then, select the Percussion Map preset from the Drum&Perc category. In this preset, the various percussion instruments in the library are mapped and ready to play. 2 More power For more powerful percussion, we load the Tube Compressor from Cubase as an insert effect. The AM Floor Tom preset does a good job here. Now you can record or program a groove that fits the arrangement. Create a basic groove with bass drum, snare and toms and vary the velocities for more dynamics. 3 Build a groove You can create the desired drive with high-frequency instruments such as hi-hats and…

1 More width We load the audio material to be widened onto a stereo track in the sequencer of our choice. We make use of the human echo limit of 40 ms, known as the Haas effect, to create width. To do this, we set a Delay Time of about 35 ms, with Feedback of 40% and a Mix value of about 30% for Timeless from about 200 Hz. 2 Mid/Side processing Now we boost individual frequencies in Side Mode by approximately 3-10 dB, depending on the audio material. This creates a subtle width. We select frequencies above the bass range that add detail to the signal without overloading it. We can recognize the Side Mode by the S symbol of the respective curve node. 3 Stabilize width We stabilize…

Artemas – I like the way you kiss me: Bass w/Vital 1 21 weeks at No. 1 At the tender age of 24, Artemas Diamandis is a Brit with Greek roots and has been producing hit after hit under his alias „Artemas“ since 2023. He made a name for himself back in October 2023 with „If you think I‘m pretty“, but „I like the way you kiss me“ finally shot him into the stratosphere of the charts at the beginning of 2024. 2 Grunge House Artemas says in interviews that Kurt Cobain, legendary frontman of the Grunge band, Nirvana, inspired him to produce music when he was 16. And if you listen carefully, you can actually hear a very grungy guitar in the C section. Otherwise, the song bangs with…

The common thread: Beat issue 08/2024 For many years, Beat has been inspiring its readers not only with practical and musical topics, but above all with the tight integration of editorial content. From the very beginning, Beat has been about creating, about the structured building of ideas and the common thread – in the magazine as well as in the tracks. This navigator shows you the highlights of this issue andallows you to see the big picture. Portrait: Solar Fake Sven Friedrich has left his mark on the dark music scene for years with his sonorous and velvety voice, both with the Dreadful Shadows and with Zeraphine. Since 2007 he has been pursuing Electro with Solar Fake and is currently releasing his seventh album „Don‘t Push This Button!“. We spoke…

Stock plugins and in-house effects: How to make Lo-Fi with DAW resources Before you spend a lot of money to buy THE lo-fi plug-in and THE lo-fi sampler, it can be worth taking a look at the instruments and effects included with your DAW. Depending on the DAW, for example, drum samples that bring the lo-fi vibes with them are already included. But it can be worth taking a look at the integrated effects in particular. The two most important effects for lo-fi are a bit crusher and a distortion or saturator. With the former, you emulate the low bit rates of early samplers. With a distortion or saturation effect, you get closer to the scratchiness of old cassettes or records. If you want it to sound a bit wobbly,…

1 Where/what to sample? In the beginning there was the sample: but where to get it from? Simply recording sounds from vinyl or YouTube is fine if you take care of sample clearance with the label in the event of a release. But there are also alternatives: the first is called Citizen DJ [1], who operate a gigantic library of public domain music with their “Free Music Archive”. 2 Public Domain … You can listen to the freely usable songs in your browser and, if you like them, simply download them as a WAV file. So it‘s „crate digging“ without any ifs or buts. If you want to be a little more targeted, Suno‘s AI [2] is a possible alternative: after registering, a prompt like „intricate classic piano, relaxed feeling“ is enough…

Despite their power, samplers are often used purely as players that play a sound here and there that has at best been slightly transposed. Even freeware samplers like the TX16Wx have enormous capabilities that turn a simple sample into a creative playground. And you don‘t even have to master a complex sound laboratory like Kontakt or Halion. Sampler - A short digression Basically, a sampler plays back previously recorded or loaded sounds. These sounds can be assigned filters and effects and played chromatically via a keyboard. This was the end of the line for older hardware, but current plug-ins are just getting started. They offer elements familiar from synthesizers such as envelopes, LFOs and step sequencers, which not only affect pitch and filters, but can also move loop points or…

1 The sidechain effect Everyone has probably heard of the sidechain effect. And if not, you have at least heard it in use. You know it from the radio, for example. When the Presenter speaks, the music becomes quieter at the same time so that he is easier to understand. We now want to apply exactly the same principle to our kick. 2 Into the mixer The whole action takes place in the FL Studio Mixer. Select the kick in the Channel Rack. Then, go to any mixer channel and use the shortcut Ctrl + l to send the kick signal to the Mixer. Repeat this with all the instruments. Also, name the Mixer channel directly next to the kick as an Instrument Bus. 3 Delay Let‘s move on to…

1 Reverb rumble Load a 909 kick into a Drum Rack. Program a four-to-the-floor beat. Place a reverb with a short echo chamber in the track behind the rack and group the device. Create a second chain in its chain list through which the kick runs without effects. Load an amp and an autofilter behind the reverb and set Dry/Wet to 100% for both. 2 Rumble tuning Select 110 Hz as the filter frequency in the autofilter. To tune the rumble to the kick, load the freeware spectrum analyzer, Voxengo Span, into the chain. Select the High Res mode. Check whether the peaks match the fundamental of your kick. If the high transients do not match the key, move reverb size a little until they are in the desired tonal…

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Flame Sound Firestarter SFX With animations, films and games, it‘s not just the perfect picture that counts, but the right soundtrack that really brings them to life. With Firestarter SFX, Flame Sound provides the necessary sound library with 250 cinematic sound effects, which are divided into nine categories: Accents, booms, braams, downers, impacts, loops, tension, textures and transitions. The impacts and booms are sometimes bloodcurdling, but always full of tension and very impressive. The same applies to the Braams, even if they sound even more brutal and sharp-edged. The textures are filled with emotion, some are more abstract. As if that wasn‘t enough, there is also over 1 GB of field recordings, including the sound of the sea, atmospheric sounds, rain and church bells. Verdict For cinematic post-productions, Firestarter SFX…

1 Faster workflow Sound design is an important part of today‘s EDM productions. With the help of Roar, you can tweak sounds in real time, change them continuously and create a musically extraordinary sound performance. So, a tip first: Group Roar and map the parameters you use most frequently to the Macros. 2 Anchor percussion Load a percussion loop to the drums in a new track. Place an Autofilter with Lowcut Filter Type and a frequency around 500 Hz in the track. Load a Roar behind it. Increase drive to 8 dB and Shaper 1 Amt to 50%. Experiment with Shaper 1 Type. For example, select Fractal and use Shaper 1 Amt to control how strong the signal distortion is. 3 The transient form To attenuate the treble somewhat, set…

Vintage character for your mix with Nomad Factory To give your mixes a richer, deeper and fuller sound in the future, Nomad Factory has modernized its Magnetics Bundle to version 3. The plug-in suite includes the three tools Magnectic, Cosmos and Echoes. Give your sound the character of analog tapes with Magnetic. It is sonically inspired by well-known tape machines and offers a selection of ten tapemodels, as well as compression, saturation and the emulation of synchronization fluctuations (wow & flutter). Echoes evokes the spirit of five vintage single line delays, allowing you to create mono and stereo delays. Cosmos is a versatile exciter that you can use to give individual tracks, stems or entire master mixes a vintage charm. It also has a transparent limiter with which you can…

Jan Wilking Synthesizers, samplers and drum machines have defined his life for a good four decades. Inspired by the emerging Synth Pop of the early 80s, particularly the first concerts as a budding teenager like Depeche Mode, Nitzer Ebb and Shock Therapy shaped his further development, which led to the founding of the EBM/Industrial project STERIL in 1990, which was successful mainly in the USA. From the simple cassette recorder, Casio keyboard and mono sampler with mini-memory to the modern DAW with almost unlimited possibilities, Jan has witnessed the development of electronic music production, with his personal conclusion: Less is often more! Sascha Blach Passionate music nerd who likes variety as a listener, as well as a singer, musician and producer, because he thinks variety is what makes life interesting…

1 Kickstart The biggest secret behind Lo-Fi‘s recipe for success, apart from the playful, anti-hectic melodies and beats is, of course, the retro feel with elements such as the typical crackling of vinyl, 12-bit drums and low sample rates for the sounds used. These are no problem at all and we even use a LoFi Reverb to round things off! 2 Piano Lead We start typically with a piano melody at 75 BPM, so you can‘t go wrong to begin with. We‘ll use a simple piano from Reason‘s ID8-Rompler, but any other piano will do. And if - like us - you‘re not a keyboard virtuoso, feel free to help yourself to the LOFI PIANO MIDI FILES folder in the workshop downloads. 3 Muffled sound For a muffled sound, we load a…

1 Retro Synth „Blinding Lights“ by The Weeknd is a danceable pop song that is reminiscent of the 80s due to its instrumentation featuring all kinds of retro synths. We set the tempo to 171, create a new track for a software instrument and play the main synth‘s part. You can save yourself this step and find the MIDI in the download files. 2 Full effects Due to the 80s character of „Blinding Lights“, we load Logic‘s Retro Synth onto our track. The interesting thing about the sound of the main synth is that we shape its sound character using all kinds of effects, as the default preset of the software instrument is the perfect starting point for our further processing. Sometimes less is more! 3 The softener To further…

1 Loop it all away We „misuse“ Bitwig‘s looping function for lightning-fast mixing of different loops. This requires exactly these loops. Ideally, all the loops you select should have the same length, in other words 1, 2 or 4 bars. Whether they are all very similar drum loops or sounds from completely different instruments is up to you. 2 Comping workflow Bitwig‘s comping workflow is very simple. As soon as you record repeatedly at the same point in an audio track, the DAW generates the Take Stacks, that is, a collection of repetitions from which you can cut out the best parts. Audio clips with take stacks can be recognized by the small, cubed symbol at the top right. 3 Only the best! Double-click on an audio clip with a…

The workmanship of the housing and controls is excellent. Although primarily plastic was used, the Console 1 Channel MK III still feels very high-quality. The touch-sensitive endless encoders are easy to grip and have a pleasant turning resistance and generous spacing between them, the buttons do not wobble and have a clean pressure point. With its flat and modern design, Console 1 is still compact enough to find a place in the sweet spot of even the smallest desktop studio. The USB port is recessed in the housing, the plug does not require any additional space. Power via USB-C The USB connection can also take over the power supply. This works best via a USB-C port with the appropriate power, but fortunately, Console also works with older USB ports (slightly…

The haptic experience of a modular synth is usually achieved by turning knobs, moving sliders or pressing buttons. Gliss solves the problem of direct, intuitive interaction with the sound using a touch-sensitive surface. Movement and Pressure - in this case the size of the surface - can be translated into CV in four modes and, therefore, influence the sounds in the system. This requires a sure instinct. Navigation through the functions The module looks inconspicuous at first, as it only has one input, two outputs, a button and the illuminated touch strip. The modes with their sub-functions and the global settings all need to be navigated through. However, the creators have gone to great lengths to familiarize us with the module. Thanks to excellent instructions, including a cheat sheet to…

Anja Schneider: Reworks & Remixes After 20 years in the business, the German Techno producer wanted to present some of her most successful tracks from a different perspective. She gathered a variety of renowned remixers such as Paramida & E-Talking, Radio Slave, JakoJako, Julian Muller, Cassy, Deetron, Erobique, Jaymie Silk, and Ackermann, and also did some reworking herself. The result is a double album with 18 tracks that offer a wide musical variety. Of course, there‘s plenty of hard, driving Techno, as that‘s Anja‘s specialty. The cool Scubas D-U Mix of „WMF“ stands out as a chic Drum’n’Bass number, while the Leafar Legov remix of „Belize“ is very chilled and relaxed. Things get funky in the Erobique mix of „Sanctuary,“ which was created in collaboration with Stereo MCs. A high-quality,…