Electronic Musician

Synth designer Dave Smith, founder of Sequential Circuits and designer of the groundbreaking Prophet-5 synth, has died at the age of 72. A short statement on the Sequential website, published on June 2, reads: “It is with heavy hearts that we share t

After making headlines with the high-priced OP-1 Field and TX-6 mini mixer, Teenage Engineering's next move is to release a free musicmaking app for Google phones – Pocket Operator for Pixel. Designed to bring the Pocket Operator experience to your P

Neve are the latest high-end console manufacturer to get into the desktop audio interface game with the launch of the 88M. Promising the same mic preamp as you'll find in the classic 88RS console - as used in the likes of AIR, Abbey Road and Capitol

FROM THE ISSUE: Polyend Play Poland's Polyend have proved themselves to be a brand that excels at creating forward-thinking and inspiring gear. It was a real pleasure to spend some time with their latest sampler, Play, for this issue's lead review. S

You don't need to be a synth historian to work out that Model 82, the latest instrument plugin from the Softube stable, is designed to emulate Roland's classic SH-101. The name (the 101 was released in 1982) and the interface both give the game away,

Nina's motorized knobs were the talk of synth town in the run-up to the NAMM Show, and now we've had the chance to see them in action and find out a little more about the hardware they adorn. Coming from Melbourne Instruments – a company based in the

Hardware newcomers Groove Synthesis has now given us the fully skinny on its several-times-teased 3rd Wave synth. The members of the team behind it, we now know, previously worked for Avid/Digidesign and Sequential, so the instrument certainly has pe

Although Moog's modern output is better known for its classy, high-end synths - from the semi-modular Grandmother through to the behemoth Moog One - the Asheville brand have dabbled in budget, DIY gear before. Back in 2014 the company released the We

Imagine a compressor without attack or release controls, no threshold or ratio. This is exactly what you get with Playfair Audio's new plugin. Dynamic Grading, which aims to approach compression as if it had just been invented. How would dynamics pro

There is no more famous clavinet-based song than Stevie Wonder's mega-hit “Superstition”, from his 1972 album Talking Book. Originally written to give to guitarist Jeff Beck as a “thank you” for playing on Stevie's previous album (Music Of My Mind, 1

When writing music, you'll often come up with a chord progression first, and then find a melody to fit it. Other times, however, you may need to take the opposite approach - beginning with a melody and then needing to add chords to underpin it. A goo

$799 polyend.com + Powerful sequencing tools that are great for polyrhythms and live performance + Sleek, portable and USB-powered + Excellent stock of included sounds/kits - Preset-focused reverb/delay are a touch limiting - Can't import samples dir

As a crucial part of N.E.R.D Hugo has helped craft five innovative albums featuring bona fide bangers “Lapdance”, and “She Wants To Move”, but it's perhaps his work as part of the production team The Neptunes that's even more stellar. Bringing brave

Alongside the per-pad filter and distortion, and the punch-in Perform effects, Play features a series of master effects that can add an extra layer of polish to the overall sound. Two of these are auxiliary effects, the delay and reverb, which have d

$416 roland.com + It's more than just a direct digital recreation of the original JX-8P + Portable - using batteries and the builtin loudspeaker + Increased polyphony and layering take itcloserto the JX-10 sound - The small controls are quite fiddly

$373 ikmultimedia.com + Simple one control per function design + USB host interface and standalone functionality + Multichannel, stereo and mono operation + Decent selection of connection types and powering options + Good value - A touch old-fashione

$40 bleass.com + Adds FM character to audio + Wide range of great distortion effects + LFO and step sequencer are great for rhythmic effects + Attractive, easy-to-use control panel - Osc pitch offset range is small – No free timing mode for step sequ

Phase Mutant includes a number of synth-style parameter modulation options. These take the form of a pair of LFOs, an envelope generator and a step sequencer, each of which can be mapped to any two modulation destinations. The LFOs offer up a choice

$473 1010music.com + Unexpectedly easy to use, given the size + Sounds huge when you get carried away with it – and you will + Fantastic range of effects and modulation options - No battery, which limits portability - You'll need an external MIDI con

$37 Monster bottom-end bizz that'll melt cones, break hearts, and curdle milk at ten paces. The downright dirty decibels in this mammoth 3.8GB pack are ripe and ready to take your glitched out future-hop wobblers and nasty neuro-steppers to the next

$29 sinevibes.com Strengths + Unique way of engineering reversed audio in real-time + Simple GUI and easy to comprehend - and automate - the controls + Diverse array of presets, ready to go Limitations - Not as detailed as other time-reversing plugin

$99 babyaud.io + Fabulously clean reverb + Can go completely wild and still keep everything in time + Lovely easy controls + Great timing and ducking options - Would have liked presets ordered by type rather than programmer – a very minor gripe! Baby

Auto-Tune is one of those effects that's in a category of its own. There may be hundreds of EQs, compressors and reverbs to choose from out there, but until Antares' Auto-Tune software made its mark, pitch correction had been a pipe dream for many st

The central area has a Start slider which sets a time for the reverb to take effect – a great effect on vocals, leaving the sound dry for a determined time before the lush reverb comes in. The End slider is useful as you can set it so the reverb ends

A technology that's not as well known as it should be, ARA is most likely part of your DAW already. Operating sort of like plugin technology, in that it hosts third-party processing, ARA has two key differences from VST. The first is that it can rece

Unlike Auto-Tune, Celemony Melodyne gives users detailed levels of control over the pitch modulation of each note in a vocal take. This can be used for a blanket hard tuned effect, or you can use it for surgical per-note fine tuning. Often in a vocal

Slate Digital MetaTune $9.99/mo + Slate's recent take on the Auto-Tune effect lets you tweak retune speeds to zero and then even into negative speeds, bringing the effect on before the recorded pitch transition actually happens. The X/Y doubler effec

Musicians! If you ever want your stuff to be a global phenomenon - and, let's face it, who wouldn't want a slice of that? - you couldn't do better than taking a leaf out of Sigala's notebook. Luckily, we have several leaves of it right here as he giv

The global pandemic brought about difficult circumstances for all of us, including musicians and producers. However, many found that in the unfamiliar conditions imposed by lockdowns and quarantine, they were compelled to create in a new way. For Los

Any recording engineer will tell you that gain staging is an important part of achieving great sound. Gain staging involves insuring that at each stage of your signal chain the audio is at optimal level for the next processor in the chain. Optimal is

It's entirely possible to make music on a computer without having the faintest idea of how digital audio works, but a little knowledge can go a long way when it comes to pushing the medium to its limits. For those unfamiliar with the basics of how so