Electronic Musician

The new ELECTRONIC MUSICIAN is a “must have” resource for anyone who makes music, plays music, and shares music. Every issue includes "gig tested" product reviews on music gear, tons of how-to's, and interviews with today's stars revealing the secrets of their songwriting approaches and audio-production concepts.

Dreams & feelings

Electronic Musician • Vol. 35 No. 10

Focusrite buys Adam Audio, bringing studio monitors into its range

Casiotone comeback!

Akai Force, MPC X and MPC Live now play nice with Ableton Live

Teenage Engineering adds sampling to the OP-Z

SOFT OPINIONS • Is the world of remixing and copyright set to change? Or will the internet make short work of this new way to make music?

THIS MONTH IN SOFTWARE • A legendary synth, a legendary studio and a legendary console all arrive in our plugin folders, along with plenty of other good stuff

FEEL & GROOVE • Work your stale, grid-drawn MIDI notes into a real, meaningful musical phrases with our guide

The emotional arc of ‘feel’

Tips

Rushing or dragging? It’s all in the backbeat • In the following walkthrough, we’re going to explore a simple device to shift the ‘feel’ of a groove from ‘fast’ to ‘slow’ without actually altering the tempo

Understanding Rubato • Rubato is a musical term which describes ‘pulling’ a performance in and out of time, to provide a more emotional, sympathetic effect

The power of live performance

Using MIDI controllers to add pathos to strings • We’ve already seen how leaving melody lines ‘un-quantized’ can enhance ‘feel’. Now we’re exploring how MIDI controllers and velocity assignments can help as well

TANGERINE DREAM • A 16 CD box set celebrates the German synthpioneers’ much-lauded Virgin Years. Peter Baumann was part of that Virgin line-up and he reveals the secrets behind those classic electronic albums. “There was no preparation. We just switched on the synths, smoked a joint and made some noise!”

Why Stop At Vibrato? • Explore some exciting additional functions for your Mod Wheel

Three-note extended chords • When a seventh or ninth chord would take too many fingers to play, there are established ways of fitting them into three notes

ARP Omni • Strings were the thing back in the 1970s, and this weighty portable orchestra provided backing for some big names

Three sonic successors

UNO Drum • The Italian brand follows up last year’s UNO Synth with a super lightweight, ultra-compact beatmaker, but would you want to hit the road with it?

Kits, patterns and songs

THE ALTERNATIVES

Volca Nubass • Korg’s latest offering boasts a mini vacuum-tube oscillator, but is this synth all mouth and no trousers?

Everything old is ‘Nu’ again

THE ALTERNATIVES

Phase Plant • The Swedish developers’ new flagship is a fully modular synth and sampling sandbox – but its biggest selling point is simplicity

Add on, snap in, tune out

THE ALTERNATIVES

SiX • A super-compact mixing desk sporting a Solid State Logic badge should be a no-brainer…

V Collection 7 • Three more historically significant new entrants take this ever-expanding suite of virtual vintage synths and keys to the next level

Lab report

THE ALTERNATIVES

Nuxx • Audiaire’s debut virtual synth, Zone, hit the mark earlier this year, but can this new developer do the same in the effects department?

THE ALTERNATIVES

KL-8 • A feature-packed mixer/interface designed with the working keyboardist in mind

Ginger Snaps Pres. Deep Funk Cuts

PHASE PLANT • Recreating iconic synthesizer architectures with Kilohearts’ revolutionary new modular soft...