Plug-In Spotlight #2: NI FM8

Native Instruments - FM8

Although I had no experience of the revolutionary Yamaha DX7, the cut-down DX100 with its short keyboard and simplified editing parameters was a defining sound in early Techno - mostly due to it's use as a cutting edge bass and percussion instrument by Derrick May. 

Via Neuro Politique's Matt Cogger I was fortunate to inherit Derrick's DX100 with it's familiar 'hard bass' preset and made it a feature of my own earliest productions.

FM synthesis seems tailor-made for Derrick May's brand of thoughtful, complex Techno. Sharp, angular with an icy emotion in it's clean, yet far from pristine digital output. With it's lack of deep bass, it also leaves plenty of space in the mix for the layers of percussion in those early Rythim Is Rythim (sic) releases.

FM8 - follows on from FM7 in being Native Instruments modern software equivalent of the Yamaha FM philosophy. 

The DX7 was legendary in it's programming difficulty and complexity. I must admit, parts of FM8 'Expert' editing features elude me, but thankfully there is a useful and quick 'Easy' editing section with the basic parameters that alter timbre and envelope shape. 

My favourite feature of FM8 is the often overlooked arpeggiator which has some powerful preset patterns and a neat randomize feature. The morph square is another intuitive performance tool which NI so excel in and a useful selection of onboard effects make this incarnation of FM synthesis the best yet IMO. Still unbeatable for edgy percussive bass and techy-tones.

PRO's:

Easier to edit than previous hardware FM synths.

Powerful arpeggiator.

Creative Morph feature.

CON's:

In-depth FM synthesis inherently complicated.

Wave Rider

Controlling dynamics in audio is a combination of musicianship or vocal mic technique and most commonly, compression and/or fader riding. Compression and riding faders however are very different techniques: fader riding usually considered as more natural. Your ear acts as a look-ahead compressor and if you are familiar with the material you can accurately ride the faders to lower and raise gain at key points. Compression can of course do this automatically but it is fundamentally less natural even with auto-release and auto-gain settings.

The side-effects of compression are often desirable, but riding faders is still commonly performed - particularly on vocal takes. But in this age of mixer-less project-studios if you don't have a hardware controller you are left struggling with a mouse to ride virtual faders in your DAW. This is quite tricky. Hence my excitement at the announcement of a new RTAS plug-in for Pro Tools called Wave Rider. It analyses audio and instead of controlling dynamics using compression, it will write volume data automation to your session. Great idea! This can of course then be fine-tuned. It also provides "ducking" - great for radio show voice-overs, and fader "parking" - which handily lowers faders when no audio is present to minimize mic bleed for example.

More info available at: Wave Rider

LOL: I've just noticed the date... no this isn't a lame April Fools joke!

NI Maschine

Native Instruments Maschine

A new addition to the studio: Maschine - the hardware MIDI controller, sampler, "groovebox", step sequencer, FX unit, etc, etc from Native Instruments. User-customizable Controller templates allow you to set-up the knobs, pads and buttons to remotely control software instruments such as Massive and Battery - and even DAW's such as Ableton Live.

Beat-making, MPC-style is straight-forward, and after some file-management of various template files I've successfully done sessions in Ableton Live 7 switching effortlessly between Maschine control, controlling Massive and firing clips in Ableton itself.

The hardware build-quality is extremely impressive - especially considering the unit is retailing for around £600 UKP. The Sound Library - as you'd expect from a company such as NI is very extensive - with many (80%?) of the sounds exclusive to Maschine.

There is some confusion as to it's functionality - it's such a multi-purpose unit, I guess that's inevitable. The main complaint seems to be the lack of MIDI exporting of Maschine's own sequencing data. However - this will hopefully be addressed in a future update. For now - the audio is captured via routing of virtual outputs into any DAW.

I've only had the unit for 2 days, so will report back with various findings over the next few weeks. Of particular interest will be any latency issues when using Maschine as a plug-in within DAW's, the extent of custom built templates for controlling software (the Ableton control is fairly limited at present - and there is no visual feedback when navigating around the Arrange view).

Ableton Live 8 beta:

Ableton Live 8 beta: demo track

Finally got around to joining the beta testing for Live 8 at version 8.0b11. Will spend every spare moment putting Live through it's paces over the next 3 days. 

So far, have just discovered the new Zoom feature. Hidden in the preferences, it can zoom Live's screen from 50%-200%. I really like the amount of screen real-estate a setting of 80% gives. Some users want the zoom feature on the GUI, personally I'm glad it's in the pref's. One of Live's main attractions for me is the uncluttered layout. 

Group tracks is also going to help out in this respect... you can now collapse a group into a single track (see above, indicated by the shaded Group Clip colouring).

more to follow....

It's raining tunes:

Cloud-based computing is all the rage right now. Google's rumoured GDrive, cloud-based media content sites like Soundcloud, etc - everything is geared up to being available 'out there' on a cloud somewhere, rather than physically existing in your home or even on your hard drive.

How would you feel about a scenario where every single piece of music ever made, was made available for streaming from a cloud at MP3 quality with the option to download?

Streaming rights (your own personal radio station basically) would be subscription fee-based. All subscription income would go directly to the cloud provider (a very large company like Google or Apple - somebody who can handle that kind of traffic and data storage).

This income would then be used to cover the expenses of maintaining the cloud, plus a small handling fee as incentive for providing such a service. Any remaining income would then go to the owners of copyright (a label or an individual), the publishers and the artists.

Every stream would be logged and revenue shared upon a % of total stream traffic for that month. To qualify, a time point would have to be reached for a stream to be logged - perhaps two-thirds of the track. Tracks streamed for less would not count towards the stream traffic and no income generated. 

Subscribers would be limited to the number of plays per month for a particular track. This would prevent misuse by record label employees, artists or "street teams" who might try to boost the "stream count" artificially. The limited number of plays per month, the time point at which a track qualifies towards the stream traffic count and the monthly subscription fee must be carefully correlated to make any artificial attempts at boosting streams unprofitable.

The cloud-provider would then charge for downloads in addition to the subscription rate. The download option would be price structured for different formats. Three different prices for MP3, 16 bit or 24 bit quality. All of this revenue would then be divided between copyright holder, publisher and artist.

Weekly charts would be based upon downloads only.

The user would effectively have the world's largest record library to select from. Stream a track to see if you like it. If you don't like it and turn it off before two-thirds has elapsed, then no revenue is generated for that track. If you do like it and play more than two-thirds, but don't like it enough to download, then at least the rights holders and artist will see some revenue. If you like it enough to download for unlimited playback, then you pay extra - depending on what quality you prefer - and all of that revenue goes towards the respective owners.

Social networks of the kind already building up around streamed music content and "DJ's" (such as Blip.FM) can easily be built around such a service. Rather than playing tracks on radio and having to worry about playlists, demographics of listenership, station politics, pressure from pluggers, etc - you could have "followers" who would become your "audience" - turn up to your gigs, or listen in to your radio shows based upon your recommendations of streaming/download history. Conversely, subscribers can follow DJ's who they know have similar music tastes and can recommend tracks or point them in the right direction.

Will it be "raining songs" or is my roughly sketched vision of the ultimate music service just "pie in the sky"? How will file-sharing and piracy affect such a model? Is iTunes a better model?

500 Series:

API "Lunchbox"

It may well be time to finally enter the 500 series format of audio processors. The format has seen a huge growth in design options since API announced various alliances with other rack manufacturers. The format has grown from strength to strength with a multitude of new and established boutique audio manufacturers releasing 500 series format designs on a seemingly regular basis.

NAMM 2009 saw the announcement of yet more 500 series designs - and despite the current weakness of the £ against the $, it does now seem a seriously good time to invest in this space-saving, cost-effective format.

The original API 500 series Mic Pre and EQ are still a solid standard for the format, but it's a few new designs that have really caught my eye recently.

Compressors:

Alta Moda AM-10

I'm a big fan of FET based compressors. Both the UA1176 and Daking FET II compressors feature heavily in my productions from the past several years. The AM-10 is a FET-based compressor/limiter that packs a lot of features into a small footprint. 

It has both stereo linkable compression and/or limiting sections, has a 'vintage' feedback style topology - soft-knee type for compression, hard-knee type for limiting. Attack and release for the compression section can either be manually controlled over a wide -range or set to Auto. The limiter can be set to Fast or Slow.

Both compressor and limiter have hi-pass filter sidechain settings useful for avoiding low-frequency caused pumping and have useful LED gain reduction and output displays. 

The finishing touch is the on-board ability to perform 'parallel compression'. Using the units Mix section, both the dry and effected signals can be blended - allowing the subtle reinforcement of audio without the loss of the source's original dynamics.

Obviously the unit will ultimately be judged by its sound, but design-wise the only downside I can potential see is the rather limited metering (a problem for all 500 series modules due to sheer lack of space). Everything else is logically and neatly laid out, with neat little toggle switches and dual concentric knobs enabling a large feature set to be crammed into the small 500 series format.

Price-wise it is excellent value. Vintage King currently listing them at just under $700.

Chandler "Little Devil" Compressor

Another FET-based design, this time from US manufacturer Chandler - best known for their units based upon classic EMI workshop designs and the recent "germanium" based units known for extreme coloration and character.

The "Little Devil" compressor promises more of the same character as it features knee-shapes based upon either the Zener diode or Germanium units which Chandler makes in regular 19" rack format. This, coupled with a "clean/dirty" toggle setting (presumably to impart some harmonic distortion) says a lot about how this unit aims to follow its colorful larger predecessors in the Chandler range.

Input and gain are fully manually controlled, as are attack and release times. Compression ratio is selected using a three-way toggle (Lo-Med-Hi), and a final knob controls a wide-ranging hi-pass side-chain filter with no less than five settings for very precise control of low-frequency material.

An imposing feature is the traditional VU mater housed at the top of the unit. This not only ensures accurate, easy to ready ballistics - but it looks fantastic! 

Another feature packed unit - albeit with no limiter, the Little Devil compressor is another potential winner if the sound matches up to its promise. It's a slight shame the unit is relatively pricey (currently just over $1000 on Vintage King's site). 

Shadow Hills Optograph 500

A typically eye-catching design from boutique manufacturer Shadow Hills Industries. The Optograph 500 is a mono version of their rack format Dual Optograph compressor.

As it's name suggests, this compressor is based around an optical design - usually a somewhat smoother, slower design than FET based compressors, and takes up 2 500 slots.

Large 24 position switches control compression threshold and output gain, whilst two 4 position sliders select various compressor or sidechain filter settings. A unique feature on the Optograph is the Desaturate setting which eliminates any distortion from the custom output transformer for a super clean, transformer-less type sound.

The sidechain filter includes a band-pass setting which causes the compressor to react to mid-range material rather than high or low frequency sound.

A suitably vintage looking VU meter completes this fascinating design currently listing at just under $1500.