Music Tech Focus

Suite 7, Riverside Court Lower Bristol Road, Bath, BA2 3DZ Tel +44 (0)1225 461932 MANAGING EDITOR Andy Price ART EDITOR John Thackray FEATURES EDITOR Will Betts PRODUCTION EDITOR Sean McGeady PRODUCTION EDITOR Tom Phipps MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Alex Holmes

Congratulations, Ableton Live user, on picking up this jam-packed edition of MusicTech Focus, devoted completely to your DAW of choice. In this bumper-sized mag we present a plethora of Live tutorials that cover everything from initial setup, buildin

We’re gathered here to have a little chat about why and how to add bass to our tunes – and when I say ‘bass’, I’m including bass guitar and bass synths – any source of low-end rhythmic/melodic instrument parts. Traditionally, bass can provide a count

Sometimes a keyboard part is about performance, sometimes it’s about using other techniques to make an interesting sound and then a musical part from a less-than-exciting source sample. It really doesn’t matter if you’re not one of the all-time great

£278 PAIR Contact adam-audio.com We reviewed both the T5V and T7V from ADAM, but we're opting for the former option for this round-up. Not only is it the cheaper model, but it offers a slightly more joined-up listening experience, with the five-inch

For any musician or producer running a lot of digital gear side-by-side, synchronisation has always been an issue – an inconvenient necessity. We’ve used MIDI cables and interfaces to connect the black boxes that clutter our workspaces, and we’ve use

Dynamic mics tend to be the workhorses of the microphone world. They are cheap, can take a bit of signal, and tend to be used as mics for some of the bigger-sounding instruments and live vocals. Condensers are more sensitive so are better for more in

Ableton Live is a fantastic beat-maker, especially when paired with Ableton’s Push instrument and Simpler sampler. But once you’ve created your ideal rhythmic components and laid down that just-so percussion line, what comes next? Do you bring in som

01 There are so many variables with these techniques, we can’t cover everything, but this’ll give you some ideas, especially if your performance machine is different from your studio one. If you’re using Live, it’s easy to get a performance-ready ins

elektron.se The first in Elektron’s more affordable ‘Model’ series (well, it’s probably going to be a series), Model:Samples is an accessible machine that shouldn’t be dismissed. Even though it’s a sample playback-only device, which could be consider

£599 Contact Ableton | ableton.com The de facto controller for Live – many pick up the Live/Push combo on day one of their musical mission. Push is available bundled with any of the three versions of Live. The truth is, you really need a clear reason

Unless you really want to be a musical hermit, you’ll eventually need to add other gear to your setup. We’ve seen this first-hand and know how daunting it can be initially, but we’ve also seen how quickly people get over the hump, adding more compone

We’re following on from the first part of this bumper-sized tutorial, where we talked about what we might connect and how to do it. Here we’ll talk about how to use what you’ve connected! Setting up a microphone at home is a real adventure unless you

If you’re already rocking a laptop and some DAW software, and you have a controller that you’re happy with, maybe you don’t ‘need’ this. But you still might be attracted by the self-contained nature of it. There is something to be said for a single-b

As a synth fan, I know I always ‘need’ the next big thing. The reality is that I don’t, and I can probably make do with one or two plug-ins from my DAW. Trouble is, so is everyone else. A product like Summit is a luxury – it’s nearly two grand, after

If you’re a guitarist who has spent a lot of time crafting a unique tone that relies on a specific amp, cab or speakers, then chances are you’re not going to be interested in software models or emulations. If you are that type of guitar player, then

£1,599 STREET Dedicated DSP processing in an audio interface is very much in vogue at present, with a number of mid-to-highend units coming out from new entrants to the market over recent months. Interesting though these offerings have been, none hav

One of the most important parts of any studio is the audio interface, as it has more bearing on the quality of your recordings than almost any other aspect of your studio. Adding dedicated DSP to a studio isn’t as important perhaps, but it does bring

£1,228 Headphones are certainly becoming more important for music production, as more and more people take up this most satisfying of pursuits, only to perhaps find out they don’t always have the ideal setup or space for ‘proper’ monitoring. Manufact

Tough question. We’d still only recommend critical mixing on headphones if you really can’t experience true monitoring because of practical reasons, or it’s your secondary monitoring scenario. If that’s the case, you don’t really want to spend four f

£449 BOUM, from France’s OTO Machines, is a hardware compressor/saturator/filter (or ‘analogue stereo warming unit’ as described on the company’s website) that appears to have something to offer producers of all types. For hardware-based musicians, e

For anybody working with music hardware, be it synths or samplers or drum machines, a final-stage processing device equivalent to what you’d put on a master channel in software can be a great idea, especially for live use. You get compression and ano

If you already have a drum machine and a synth, adding the Squid will transform your workflow, adding an immediate yet alternative way of generating usable ideas and actually forming them into arrangements and tracks. For somebody already software fo

PRODUCERTECH Price £29.95 Contact producertech.com This seven-hour course sees veteran producer Simon Shackleton (whose aliases include Elite Force, Zodiac Cartel and Lunatic Calm) create a deep melodic tech house track using Ableton Live. There are

Contact loopmasters.com If you’re looking for a good all-round pack, then this Loopmasters release covers both classic and familiar jungle vibes and more aggressive and original new sounds. Producer Martyn Nytram has raided his vaults for a killer co