a blog on hold

Obviously it's been too long since I've last posted here. The reality is that between school, work, recording, live shows and numerous other important elements of my life, there simply hasn't been, nor will be soon, proper time for maintaining this sort of blog. I love writing about synths and software and the production process (and of course about Industrial music, too) so I won't say this blog is done for good -- but it's on hold for now, so I can focus what free time I do have on being productive with the Dead When I Found Her project, both live and in the studio. Thanks for reading, and be sure to keep up with me and my project on the Dead When I Found Her website & facebook page.

-Michael

I couldn't help myself....my "Dead Lines" cover

Speaking of old-school industrial, it doesn't get much more old-school than this -- my oh-so-true-to-the-original cover version of Skinny Puppy's 'Dead Lines,' which I consider one of the greatest electro-industrial songs ever created. Which is why the process of making this re-creation was so rewarding. I deliberately set out to emulate the original sounds as best I could (I like to think of it as a sonic exercise in emulating my idols, so to speak) using a fairly limited set of tools: Ableton Live as the DAW , with three software instruments: ableton's Analog synth, and G-Force's Minimonsta and M-Tron Pro (Minimoog and Mellotron emulations, respectively).

Dead Lines (As I Found It) by deadwhenifoundher

On Creating INDUSTRIAL Drums

Every fan of old-school industrial knows that the sound of the drums is one of the most crucial elements at play in the mix: both the timbre of the used drum hits and the style of sequencing used in the drum patterns form a definitive element of the 80's-90's industrial sound. They're big, they're thick, they PUNCH; and the patterns are slick, infectious, and often subtle and unpredictable in their movements. And though occasionally (or often...) we hear the standard four-on-the-floor beat, we just as often find syncopated layers of rhythm that, while perhaps simple, nonetheless avoid cliche dance rhythms and form infectious patterns that stick in the mind for days, weeks, years...('Addiction,' anyone?)

If you're like me, you've probably felt that a sad majority of modern industrial music has tended, rather oddly, toward using drums of a very different sort. Today's popular drums, disappointingly, are too frequently built from the standard trance-kicks paired with light snappy snares. And worse yet, these tend to play looping four-on-the-floor patterns with little (if any) variation.

But I'm not here to insult today's drums, but rather to discuss how we can go about making Old School Industrial Drums, and bring this sound back to the genre.

1. The Drum Programs

I'm very picky about which drum programs I use inside my host. For my needs, Ableton's Drum Racks are the best thing out there, most notably because they allow you to apply individual effects for each drum sample in a simple and quick way (and furthermore, drum racks offer a collapsable mixer channel for each drum pad, so the extra visual element is there IF you want it). I can also drag and drop samples from Ableton's browser right onto the drum pads, which is also key for me, as it's a huge time-saver when I'm sorting through my rather ridiculously large library of drum sounds. Products like BPM, Guru and Battery allow for individual effects per pad, but only if you create new audio channels in your mixer and route the pads to them, which I find to be a huge workflow killer (not to mention a quick way to create a visual mess in your mixer). Battery and Maschine both have some built in FX, but if you're like me, you don't want to be limited by the native FX section, and need your bevy of 3rd party plugs on hand.

It's also worth noting that sometimes it's nice to use (or create yourself) synthesized drum sounds, as opposed to sample based drum design. In this case I almost always use the excellent Microtonic drum synth made by Sonic Charge. The rest of this article, however, generally pertains to using sample-based drum programs like battery, drum racks, guru, redrum, BPM and so on.

Last note: if your goal is to build industrial-style drum tracks, you can kiss goodbye the notion of finding preset kits in any of the above mentioned programs that will provide you with ready-to-go industrial drum sounds. You will, of course, find any number of glitchy, trancey, housey, techno-y kits out there among the vast preset kit libraries.

2. The Samples Themselves

This step and the next step are the most important on this matter; regardless of what drum tool you use, your drums are never going to sound suitably industrial if you don't a) use good samples to begin with and b) know how to make FX work for you (though I should note that sometimes, with really heavy FX like a good distortion plug, the FX chain can work magic on even the crappiest of samples, resulting in powerful drums regardless of your original source). I recommend hunting down one-shots (as opposed to loops) because extracting hits from loops tends to keep extra material like hats or other random percussive noises, which can get in the way of crafting a perfect, pure industrial kick or snare. I do, however, like using loops (either ones I've made in Maschine or others found online, from a library, etc) and filtering/EQ'ing and otherwise processing the hell out of them and then dropping them "behind" the primary kick and snare pattern, as this will often create a strong sense of additional movement to the overall pattern.

So, back to finding good one-shots: here's my secret tip, take it or leave it, but guard it safely: the best one-shots for industrial music are those that come....from 80's pop music. Whether from 80's style sample packs, or literally sampled from 80's pop tunes themselves, much of industrial drumming involves taking 80's style kicks and snares and then processing them heavily with reverb, distortion and compression. No doubt this is simply due to the fact that industrial music started up in the 80's, and the industrial musicians of the time were, to be reductionistic about it for a moment, basically creating a counter-culture version of what was mainstream pop at the time: pet shop boys, a-ha, tears for fears, depeche mode, bowie's 80's phase, and so on. Here's some proof: go listen to some samples from Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" album, and just pay attention to the drums. If you strip everything else away, what's left would fit at least decently well (if not far better) in any track from Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse or Front By Front. So: do searches online for 80's drum samples.

There are all kinds of resources around the internet for finding 80's drums. Zenhiser sells some cool sample packs, as do Dance Midi Samples and PureMagnetik. But you can also track down 80's style drum sounds from numerous free sites; see my old post about "feeding your sample" for some great starting points. That particular 80's sound often came from early sample-based synthesizers (and also, of course, sample-based drum machines) that used small waveform samples to form a core library of available sounds that could then be run through the usual filters and modulations. The LinnDrum was an early example of this, and has an iconic sound still heard in popular recordings today (though if you want to know what LinnDrum samples sound like, just listen to any track from Prince's 1999 album). The sample-synth idea eventually evolved into the 'workstation' concept, fully realized in 1988 by KORG with the seminal M1 workstation synth. Check out Korg's excellent emulation (part of the KORG Legacy Collection: Digital) of this synth, and a quick run through the drum kits will reveal plenty of distinctly 80's sounding, crunchy sample-based drum hits. Synthesized drums naturally have their role to play in industrial as well, with the classic Roland beatboxes popping up all over, to name one example, the entire discography of Skinny Puppy. But purely synthesized drum hits (particularly the snares and hats) tend to have a thinner, snappier kind of sound that, while having their place in industrial, won't by themselves provide adequate material for big, crunchy drums (unless, like Cevin Key in 1985, you know exactly how to heavily process these things to full effect, using the sorts of tricks mentioned below).

Needless disclaimer: Obviously I'm just talking about a specific sort of sound here, heard throughout much of the Classic Industrial backcatalog. It goes without saying that any kind of drum samples could be put to good use in industrial music, with the right creative tweaking. Oh, and maybe try some samples drawn from two rare, little-known machines that show up and now and then in the electronic music world, I think they're called the 808 and 909...

3. Production Techniques

This is where it gets really fun...but a whole book could be written on this subject. Your FX toolbox provides endless ways to toughen-up your drum sounds and make them really crash & clang. But I'll focus on a few FX tricks that lend themselves very well toward the Industrial 'sound'...

1. Gated Reverb (plus a few notes on sample layering)

It may have started with Phil Collins, but this trick is heard all over the industrial drums of the 80's and 90's. Usually you hear this on the snare drum, but often it appears on the kick (or more typically, one the 'click' layer of a multi-layer kick drum). Reverb Gating is basically where you run the sample through a big roomy reverb, and then run this signal into a Gate that effectively cuts off most of the tail of the reverb. The result is an expansive sounding punch to the hit (again, usually of the snare) that then quickly disappears, resulting in a much wider, crashier hit that can nonetheless be played repeatedly without numerous long reverb tails starting to overlap and muddy up the whole sequence. If you do this on a kick, I recommend layering your kicks such that one kick provides a lower, bass-centric 'oomph' and another provides less bass and more of a mid-range 'click' sound (you can sculpt these with your favorite EQ plugin) and then run the 'clicky' kick through the gated reverb. The combined result is highly effective, and if you want a perfect example of this kind of sound, just listen to 'Deadlines' from Skinny Puppy's 'Bites' album.

2. Parallel Compression

This is also called the 'New York' compression trick. Put a compressor on a Return channel and set it to a fairly high ratio (like 4:1 or higher); now put an EQ after it that scoops out the midrange, as we want the added 'oomph' to focus on the lows and highs, but not the mids, as these tend to sound grating and tinny when over-processed. The threshold setting of the compressor will have to be adjusted to taste, but it will usually be something of a moderate setting -- enough to pump a lot of the signal without pumping all of it, if that makes any sense. Now, use the Send on your Drum channel to send around %50 (give or take a bit) to the Return -- this will add the compressed signal from the Return into the mix, on top of the already heard drum channel, resulting in a beefier, snappier overall mix to the drums. Typically, compression is used as an insert effect in a serial FX chain; parallel compression mixes things up by using compression in parallel instead (e.g. adding wet signal to dry signal rather than dry becoming wet by a certain percentage) via the use of your DAW's send+return channels. If this all sounds a bit confusing, do a quick search on the difference between serial and parallel fx processing and you should be able to sort things out.

3. Making Noize

There's a wealth of tools out there to mangle your drum sounds. For industrial, a good distortion unit is always a good choice. Personally, I'm not too fond of extremely overdriven drums, e.g. the sort you'd hear in power-noise and it's brethren; but a subtle use of distortion or saturation can give drums extra grit and punch, and occasionally can be great for extreme sonic destruction, if controlled and sculpted appropriately. My recommendation for distortion (and for other crazy fx) is most definitely the kooky french group OHM FORCE, who make the most wicked distortion plugin you're likely to ever hear -- Ohmicide. This is a multi-band distortion unit that really just has to be heard and played with to be understood. You can find out more at www.ohmforce.com

Well, that wraps up my introduction to industrial drums. I have a feeling I may revisit this territory again in the future; meanwhile, if you have any particular tips and strategies, or know of any great sample resources relevant to this kind of thing, please drop a comment below!

Phil Western Virtual Tour of Subconscious Studios

This was posted over in the litany.net forum earlier this month, though I just stumbled onto it today: a fantastic mini-tour of the subconscious studios, gear-home to Phil Western and Cevin Key!

Gary Numan On Meeting the Minimoog

Here's an excerpt from a very recent (July 2010) Rolling Stone interview with Gary Numan, in which he tells the story of how he met the Minimoog-- and how that changed everything. This is as funny as it wonderful.

Read the full Rolling Stone interview here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/17386/184692

Meeting the Minimoog Portion of interview:

"I remember it clearly. I had been sent to a studio by [my label] Beggars to record my first album. It was going to be a punk album and we were going to play the songs live. But as soon as I walked into the control room, there was a mini Moog. I had never seen one before. I just thought it was the coolest looking thing, just fantastic. Quite, quite small.

Apparently, a company was going to come pick it up but the man said I could try it out until they came to collect it but they never turned up! I had this thing for the whole day and it was the most amazing experience. Very luckily, it had been left on that sound which had become famous: a huge big bottom bass roar. It was just huge. I didn't know how to set it up. All I did was press a key and the room shook! And I just thought, "Fuck me! That's the most amazing thing I've ever heard! The power!" Imagine, if the sound had been something that went ping!, I would've thought, "This is rubbish" and none of this success would've ever happened to me. So much of this was luck."

DEAD WHEN I FOUND HER CENTRAL : THE HOME STUDIO

I figured some of you might be interested in seeing the current incarnation of the DWIFH Home Studio Setup. Additionally, I'll post a little guide below to help you understand what you're looking at, as a few things are obscured. It's funny to reflect on the progression and development of my home studio, because I used to be a very "software only" kind of guy. And actually, that's still *mostly* true, as much of what you see above are controllers rather than instruments. But, things change...

It's worth noting, however, that pretty much everything you hear in my songs has been, to date, software-based. The kurzweil has only been used (it's a crime, I know) as a midi controller for my softsynths; and the Virus and Ensoniq are both relatively recent acquisitions, both of which I've yet to explore extensively (let alone use within a DWIFH track). Even Maschine (though strictly a controller that powers the Maschine software) is a new purchase that hasn't shown up, to date, in any DWIFH material.

I point this out because, if you're thinking that the sound of "Harm's Way" requires an apparently hardware-heavy setup like the one seen above, be sure that it doesn't. "Harm's Way" was the product of extensively using Ableton Live and a selection of software instruments and FX. Most of what you see above are tools acting as controllers for software: only the Virus and the Ensoniq will be used as additional instrument sound sources on future recordings (and the Ensoniq, well, was really more of a goofy nostalgia purchase; both the K2000 and most of the software I'm using can run circles around the Ensoniq's relatively dated functionality; but, it will have it's place all the same).

That said, I keep eyeing DSI's MOPHO keyboard with hungry anticipation...After all, a setup like the one above could certainly use at least one truly analog synthesizer...vamos a ver!


Studio Hardware:

Apple iMac Intel Core2Duo
Mackie MR5 reference monitors
Native Intruments Audio Kontrol 1 audio interface
Akai LPK25 mini keyboard controller
Akai APC40 ableton live controller
Native Instruments Maschine drum sampler/groovebox
Shure57 microphone
Kurzweil K2000vx with sampler option (lower keyboard in photo)
Ensoniq ESQ-1 Synthesizer
Sennheiser HD 280pro Headphones
Access Virus B Synthesizer
Epiphone Les Paul "goth" electric guitar (not pictured; it's next to the keyboards)

Studio Software:
(listed by company; not a comprehensive list, but with a focus on the most essential and frequently used tools)

DAW:
Ableton: Live 8 (Suite Version)

SOFTWARE INSTRUMENTS:
Native Instruments: reaktor5, absynth5, kontakt3, fm8, guitar rig3, maschine
KORG: Legacy collection instruments, Analog + Digital
GForce: Minimonsta, impOSCar, Oddity
Arturia: ProphetV, ARP2600V
Rob Papen: Predator
Propellerhead: Reason4 (instruments rewired into Live host)
Cakewalk: Rapture, Dimension Pro

FX:
(note: mostly I use the Ableton on-board FX but there are a few exceptions, most notably the Voxengo plugs which I use extensively; for mastering I use nothing but 3rd party mastering FX plug-ins)

Sonnox: Limiter
U-He: Uhbik bundle
Sonalksis: StereoTools
Izotope: Ozone4 (mostly used just for the multi-band compression unit)
BBE: Sonic Suite (for the D4 aural exciter)
Voxengo: MaxPunch, VariSaturator, StereoTouch

Review: Waldorf LARGO Software Synthesizer

Largo Softsynth by Waldorf

$249

Waldorf have long since made themselves a household name among the modern hardware synth market through the success of their digital units Blofeld, Q and Pulse. Largo, while not technically the companies first softsynth (they had earlier released a nice emulation of the classic PPG Wave synth as part of a bundle with the Attack drum synth), is nonetheless their first large-scale entry into the software instrument market. And "large" it truly is: a three-oscillator, two-filter, modulation-heavy wavetable monster that, while not presenting anything notably novel into digital synth design, instead simply aims to do what's been done before, but with Waldorf's signature style and edge. Do we need another subtractive style soft-synth? Is simply having that "Waldorf signature" worth a notably steep $249? Well, follow me...

I'm going to bypass writing paragraphs aimed at comprehensively listing all of Largo's various features, as a quick jump over to Waldorf's website will fill you in on anything you might want to know. Suffice to say that Largo boasts a very typical subtractive design, with the notable (and very important) added feature that it's a true Wavetable synth, with two of the three oscillators providing a selection of sixty-eight wavetables, borrowed from Waldorf's hardware line (the Blofeld, specifically). Each 'table' contains a long chain of single cycle waveforms (one hundred and twenty-seven, to be precise) that each individually provide, as you progress along from 1 to 127, gradually varying harmonic content. For example, a table might start with a standard sawtooth waveform and gradually morph into a standard square waveform, with the harmonic content of each wave inbetween altering slightly to create the total morph. Using modulation sources such as envelopes and LFO's, each table can be 'scanned' through, thereby resulting in a fantastic array of moving textures, tones and soundscapes.  

I'm always happy to see new wavetable synths come on the market, as they represent a definite minority among the software market despite their ability to offer a much wider range of timbres and sound-shaping abilities than your average synth. Before Largo's arrival, the most notable (and certainly most popular) wavetable synth on the market had been (and probably continues to be) Native Instrument's Massive, a synth that shares quite a few substantial similarities (and also a number of important differences) with Largo.

THE OSCILLATORS...

Evaluating the sound quality of provided waveforms is always terribly subjective at best, but all the same, as the owner and user of an admittedly over-large array of software instruments, I feel 100% comfortable in stating that Largo's oscillators are among the best I have heard. And I'm talking about the straight, unfiltered sound quality of the waveforms and tables: there is a richness, smoothness and perceived 'purity' here (so to speak, as I know such terminology verges on the dangerously arbitrary) that my ears aren't used to hearing when loading up dry waveforms. Largo's oscillators are high-powered machines: first there are the scannable 68 wavetables, and secondly there is the powerful sub-oscs to further fatten the sound.

THE FILTERS...

Waldorf are famous for the supposed legendary quality of their filters. All I know is that these sound really, really good. Furthemore, they each boast a variable drive-stage that allows you to instantly dirty-up the sound. This is a great feature.

THE GUI....is pristine. Really. Look at those big silver knobs, they're a thing of beauty. The layout is natural and easy to get around. Yes, you have to tab between the modulation sources, mod matrix, fx, and arpeggiator, and the synth itself is rather large to begin with. But at least the 3 oscs and 2 filters are always visible.

At first glance, Largo definitely looks to be more-of-the-same. You could argue that it's basically just like Massive, but with no available step-sequencers as mod sources and a vastly more antiquited approach to modulation (Massive still has, I must admit, my all time favorite implementation of modulation-- long live the colored-rings!). The difference for me -- and it's a huge difference -- is all in the sound. Whereas Massive has always sounded cold and edgy to me, no matter what the style it's programmed for, Largo's pallette is smooth, warm and clean. They both sound unabashedly digital, but Largo, for my  money, sounds far and away superior. 

Nonetheless, if it weren't for the wavetable oscillators, fully recommending Largo would be harder to do, simply because despite the overall excellent quality of the GUI and filters, the synth just doesn't bring much of anything new to the table in an already crowded soft-synth universe. Everything it does, it does well, and the whole package is slick, sleek and refined. But if you've been using software synths for a while, it's unlikely that Largo will offer you any real new tricks or abilities that you don't already have well covered among your synth arsenal. But, I'm a sucker for wavetable synths, and the only real competition in this department is Massive (you could argue Rapture as well, but if you see my feature on that synth, you'll learn that it's claim to the 'wavetable' title is tenuous at best). The large choice of waveforms and, more importantly, the ability to smoothly glide through the 127-cycle long tables, altogether allows for a depth of sonic exploration you just don't find on non-wavetable synths. I can't say I'm very fond of the preset library shipped with Largo; it's weak compared to the great (and extensive) material that comes with synths like Predator, Rapture and Sylenth1. Too many of the presets fall in the trancey, buzzing lead category, which is odd for a wavetable synth, and the browser itself is a bit clunky. Still, these considerations aside, the good certainly outweighs the mediocre on this thing, and Waldorf have crafted a classy software instrument that I imagine will please both their longtime followers as well as nit-picky soft-synth users such a myself. 

The Best Software Instrument Just Got Better: REAKTOR 5.5

REAKTOR 5.5 PUBLIC BETA

This is, for me, the most exciting computer-music news in a long time: seemingly out of nowhere (to me, anyway) Native Instruments has released a public beta of REAKTOR 5.5. And it's a big, big update: it sports a totally remade GUI that now perfectly matches the GUI of sister products Maschine and Kontakt, an amazing new ensemble called Lazerbass, two new sound modules (one for additive synthesis, which Lazerbass is built around, and one for physical modeling) and a slew of other smaller improvements...I downloaded the beta the moment I heard about it and I am, I must say, very impressed and absurdly excited. While the forum moaners moan endlessly about how this means Reaktor 6 is further away then they thought, I'll be adoring this sleek new GUI and getting back to work on some unfinished ensembles...

It's a free download for any Reaktor 5 owners and can be found via the links in this official NI post.

Debut DEAD WHEN I FOUND HER Album Now Available!

Today is the day:
My debut album Harm's Way has been released by ArtOfFact Records.

There are many ways to pick up a copy, either CD or MP3:

buy MP3 album on iTunes

buy MP3 album on Amazon.com

buy a CD on Amazon.com

buy a CD at Storming the Base

Adorable Japanese Guy Plays Every Synth You Ever Dreamed Of Owning

Warning: this post is for die-hard synth geeks only!
There are countless Youtube videos out there featuring dudes playing old analog synths. Predictably, most of them aren't particularly exciting once you get past the initial pangs of lust and envy upon first glimpsing legendary gear...but then there is THIS guy. I love this guy. Throughout his Youtube page he demos analog synths, digital synths, softsynths...and his energy and passion for the instruments is absolutely infectious. He speaks in Japenese throughout, so naturally I have no clue what he's saying, but it doesn't matter; most of us know the layout of these instruments by heart already. This is just pure synth joy. Be sure to check out the Prophet 5 demo, it's my favorite along with the Minimoog.

See his full list of videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/musictrackjp

Holy crap the SUN is Industrial!

These are some seriously great and inspiring sounds (especially the second of the three)...made by our sun! Time for some sampling...

Very useful tutorial on programming an FM Bass sequence using Ableton's Operator

The Best Software Instruments for Industrial Music, Part Three: Rob Papen Predator

Rob Papen Predator
Here's a software synthesizer that has shown up in probably every Dead When I Found Her track, often more than once per track. It's probably my most-used software instrument after the Korg Legacy emulations (see my blog about the amazing Mono/Poly emulation in the first installment of this series). There's a lot to love about this thing, aside from the great (and all too appropriate for the industrial genre) name.

First the details: Predator is a modern "virtual analog" subtractive-style softsynth that could arguably be viewed as a MiniMoog-on-Steroids. I compare it to the MiniMoog because, like that most classic of classic synths, the main structure of the Predator is built around three oscillators that feed into one filter and then onward to the amp (technical point: the Predator has a very simple second filter as well, but it's fixed serially after the first filter, so there's no parrallel filter action going on here). The Predator features plenty of modulation options; more, in fact, than you are likely to make use of for any given patch. There are four envelopes (two dedicated as the expected filter/amp envs, and two free to be assigned wherever) and three LFO's, plus a very generous selection of onboard FX and, maybe the real prize here, one of the best step-sequencer/arpeggiator combos I've ever come across on a softsynth, if not the best. I say this because of it's enormous flexibility and furthermore its ease-of-use, which is second to none.  Each of the three oscillators can load from a large number of waveforms that go well beyond the standards. Lastly, the Predator comes packaged with presets numbering in, no joke, the thousands, and even more surprisingly, the majority of them are really great sounding and very usable. Which means this synth works wonderfully both for from-scratch programming and also preset-tweaking.

What makes it industrial? Well, perhaps my own songs can explain this better than any words can. The plucked-style, tap-delayed, arpeggiated melody lines that feature prominently in "Lost House" (from right when the song gets going after the intro drums) and "Taking Shelter" (during the New Order-style mid section of the song) were done with the Predator (and with the same patch in fact, though altered slightly), using quick attack/decay envelopes and extensive use of the step-sequencer-as-arpeggiator. And that chorused-bass that comes in during the same part of "Taking Shelter" -- the one reminiscent of the classic Mentallo & The Fixer bass style of quick 16th note punches on a single note, transposed up and down -- was also done with this synth, again using the arpeggiator.

I should also note that I'm very fond of the Predator's GUI -- I'm a real sucker for a GUI design that puts as much information as possible on a single screen, without much if any tab/menu switching, while still managing to look sleek, attractive and organized. Predator excels on this point. The arpeggiator is pretty much the only item tucked away here, which is no big deal; otherwise you've got all your knobs for the filters, oscs, lfo's and envelopes visible at all times, and meanwhile looking very sleekly industrial with the black/silver/red graphic design.

Programming Tips:

I tend to use Predator as a "bread and butter" type instrument: it supplies melodic lines, punchy basses, and smooth pads for my songs; whereas I leave more complex layered sounds to the likes of Rapture and Absynth. This approach seems in fitting with Predator's relatively straightforward VA Subtractive approach to synthesis, though the wide selection of non-standard waveforms and multiple modulation routings certainly could be employed for crazier types of sounds.

My main tip here is simply to make special note of the sym, sub and spread knobs located on each of the three oscillators. Sym is like having a Pulse Width Modulation control that isn't limited to Pulse/Square waves: it modifies the symmetry between the two halves of the wave cycle for any given waveform. This is a great, rarely seen parameter that can result in huge changes to the harmonic content of the wave with just small changes of the knob. Sub is a more commonly seen (but always extremely useful) parameter that adds a square wave pitched one octave below the oscillator's frequency, lending low-end oomph. Spread functions like a unison mode, doubling the oscillator and de-tuning it slightly. All three of these allow you to seriously fatten up the sound of each oscillator, making Predator ideal for thick bass and lead sounds -- again, making this a great "bread and butter" synth for song elements that cut through the mix and play a prominent role in your compositions.

Lastly, use the step-sequencer+arpeggiator to full effect: this thing is perfect for programming elastic, quick, snappy bass patterns in the vein of Leatherstrip, making it an ideal tool for harder-edged EBM style music.

My Debut Album...

Harm's Way, the debut album from my old-school industrial project DEAD WHEN I FOUND HER, is now available for pre-order (physical CD, digital release to follow) around the interwebs. Release date is July 13th, 2010.

See the Storming the Base press release here: http://ymlp.com/zVLeOG

Or go direct to their pre-order here: http://www.stormingthebase.com/details.asp?ProdID=9775

You can also find the album on Amazon.com and other online music retailers!

Exciting times, indeed.

Reason 5 Announced!

Go look here: http://www.propellerheads.se/

I've been using Reason since version 2, that is to say, for many years. In fact, way back in the day, I made all of my music via a combination of CoolEdit Pro and Reason 2, building sequences in the latter and exporting them for editing and arrangement in the former. These days, I use Reason 4 solely as a huge instrument rack, with each instrument unit ReWired into Ableton Live. That is, I bypass entirely the nice but very limited (e.g. no 3rd party plugins allowed) Reason sequencer and just wire up its instruments on channels inside Live. It's proved a very effective and powerful tool, because Reason has a ton of stuff I really like, most notably the NNXT sampler, THOR and MALSTROM synths, and some of the FX like the Scream distortion unit.

So, given all that, I'm quite psyched about the announcement of Reason 5. The first unveiling has shown a beefed-up Dr.Rex, now Dr. OctoRex, which as the name implies can load 8 separate rex files and lets you jump between them; there's some pretty cool potential there. I'm expecting some much bigger revelations in the coming days, though.

You can also sign up for beta-testing over at the propellerhead website.

Somebody. Buy. Me. This.

Currently for sale via ebay here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150442279122

A lot of synth gear shows up on ebay, naturally. But every once in a while one of the Big Guns of analog synths shows up on there and sells for some ungodly amount. I think I read about a Jupiter 8 selling for $8,000 or something. A CS-80 even showed up on there just a few months back, and the guy had to make half the post about the shipping plans (basically, it's a boat). Normally I wouldn't post a peep about some gear-lust I have due to something on ebay. Everything, after all, shows up on ebay at one point or another.

But.

This is the Arp 2600. This is the analog synth that I want more than any analog synth. Why? Well. I could say, because it's a "smaller" sized synth (e.g. not a veritable wall of synth, like the Moog Modular or the preceding Arp 2500) but offers a semi-modular, patch-based design, whereas a synth like the Minimoog, as revolutionary as it was, nonetheless was quite limited in its routing (though it's worth noting that the hard-wired signal path it sported became THE standard routing for basically every subtractive synth that followed, and remains so today). So the 2600 was like a pre-wired mini-synth but also a modular synth, shrunk-down. It even comes packaged in a funky little half-suitcase, complete with handle.

I could tell you all that....but the truth is, what makes a given synth a "favorite" is fundamentally a personal, subjective, unquantifiable kind of thing. Something idiosyncratic about the UI, or a childhood memory from a classic song you first heard it in, or, most likely of course, that special extra-something about the sound that sets it apart, at least for your ears, from everything else. In any case, the ARP 2600 has that retro-nostalgia perfection for me. I don't really know why. I don't even own a single truly-analog synth. But if I did, this would be it (well, this or a Prophet 5, anyway...)

Oh and the current bid is a mere $4,100.00

The Greatest FREE Music Plug-Ins...

Some of these will be obvious to all of you, some will be new to a few of you, and maybe one or two of these will prove nothing short of Life Changing for one or two of you. In any case, all of these are things that simply must be among your arsenal of music-crafting tools, because 1) they're great and 2) they're absolutely free.

1. George Yohng W1 Limiter

Grab it here: http://www.yohng.com/w1limit.html

Well admittedly this isn't the limiter I use for mastering (I use the very pricey but totally amazing Sonnox Limiter), but for a freebie, this little guy can't be beat. It's an emulation of the classic, expensive waves L1. Does it sound as good? I have no idea; what I do know is it brickwall-limits with great success and meanwhile is capable of providing a very hefty, noticeable volume increase, if wanted (just increase the threshold setting).

2. Synth1 (pictured above)

Grab it here: http://www.geocities.jp/daichi1969/softsynth/

(Yes, the linked page is in Japanese; just click the "download" and "manual" links listed in english to the left of the image)

I almost didn't include this one, even though it's probably the greatest piece of freeware a synth-addict and computer-music creator could ask for. But here's the catch: it's PC only. So while I can enjoy this amazing emulation of the Clavia Nord Lead 2 synthesizer on my laptop, I sadly cannot put it to use on my iMac, where pretty much all of the DWIFH tracks are created, mixed and finished. Somebody out there, please, port this thing! Anyway, Synth1 is fantastic. Outdated interface, sure, but the sound is great, it's flexible, and there's hordes of user-patch libraries floating around the net. The developer of this beauty is Ichiro Toda, and after a many-years-long absence, he just updated Synth1 on 5-4-2010. If only he'd work on the mac port...

3. Stormgate1

Grab it here: http://www.araldfx.com/downloads.php#dla96dd0845f649eb792376e4a2bbfe001 

There are a lot of gate-fx plugins out there, but Stormgate is my favorite. It's a surprisingly flexible and intuitive little freeware beast, and I can't believe I didn't find it sooner (it's a fairly recent addition to my plugin collection). For those of you unfamiliar with them, the idea of Gating FX is simply to cut the volume of the audio source at user-defined rhythmic intervals. Stormgate makes this easy and fun to do: you draw the envelopes yourself with a handy selection of drawing tools, then chain multiple sequences together using a super-simple pattern-follow scheme. The best way to get a feeling for it is to drop it as an insert-effect for a softsynth, load up some kind of bright pad that would normally play a sustained timbre (like a string patch) and then create 16th note steps along Stormgate's envelope window: now play a note, and you've turned a sustaining pad sound into a tempo-sync'd rhythmic instrument. But you can run drum loops through this thing to great effect, or whatever else you wish to rhythmically-mangle.

4.Togu Audio Line Plug-ins

Grab them here: http://kunz.corrupt.ch/?Products

There is so much high-quality freeware on the TAL website it boggles the mind. Really all I can say is go and check it out for yourself, and GRAB EVERYTHING. Especially of note is the Elek7ro VA synthesizer, the TAL-U-No-62 synth (a Roland Juno emulation, Juno-style graphics included) and the TAL-Bassline (looks nearly identical to a Roland SH101...). All three of these are especially great tools for learning subtractive synthesis, as they are very straight-forward, bread-n-butter type instruments with approachable interfaces that also sound really great. 

5. dblue Glitch

Grab it here:  http://illformed.org/plugins/glitch/

According to which music forums you read (or who is posting on a given afternoon) dblue's Glitch plugin is either the greatest freeware effect ever, or, rather, the death of electronic music itself. It's certainly one of the most aggressively debated pieces of freeware ever. Is it awesome? Is it cheating? I'll leave it up to you to decide...You feed it audio, you choose from a series of glitch effects, and well, they happen. The order can be controlled or random, along with some other parameters. Just go and play with it and see what you think. Oh, but only if you use a PC, because like Synth1, this one sorely needs a Mac port...

If you know of any other must-have freeware for computer music creation, please post links+descriptions in the comments below!

Rebirth, Reborn

This will of course be showing up in every single electronic music blog out there, but I had to note it here: Propellerhead's Rebirth, a software simulation of the classic Roland 808 and 909 drum machines along with the 303 bassline, has been born yet again, this time for the iPhone. It's 6.99 in the app store, and I'm about to find out if it's money well spent...(though certainly the concept has me quite psyched).

The original Rebirth program, released in 1996, was revolutionary: software synthesizers/emulations pretty much didn't exist at the time, except some primitive forms bundled with the DAW's of the period. It could probably be argued that Propellerhead started the whole movement right there.Which is rather fitting, considering the source material-- three early-eighties analog instruments by Roland that pretty much defined dance and hip-hop music, and who's influence on all genres of electronci music is as strong as ever today.

More info here: http://rebirthapp.com/

The Best Software Instruments for Industrial Music, Part Two: Cakewalk Rapture

CAKEWALK RAPTURE - "WAVETABLE" HYBRID SYNTH

First, a bit of a rant regarding some Synth-Semantics: I put the above quotes around "wavetable" because there is some dispute over just what this term actually means. Commonly (and certainly to my mind) a wavetable synth will use oscillators that draw from a long-ish, linear list of single-cycle waveforms: e.g., the wavetables. Usually the harmonic content of each waveform in the table presents a slight variation from those on either side of it. By using modulators (usually LFO's or Envelopes) to "sweep" or "scan" the wavetable you can get interesting harmonic variations, or in some cases, sweep from one waveform shape to an entirely different one. The classic (and original, if memory serves) wavetable synth is the PPG Wave, but this approach to synthesis has been used quite successfully in modern softsynths such as Native Instruments MASSIVE and Waldorf's new Largo.

None of this, however, has anything to do with Cakewalk's Rapture, which is nonetheless billed and hyped (rather extensively, if you read Cakewalk's website) as the "ultimate wavetable synthesizer." Well, literally speaking it does draw from a "table" of single cycle waveforms, yes-- but they are very short waveforms, not the long strings with varying harmonics as discussed above, and so there is, predictably, no available functionality for scanning them with modulators. Really, it's as much a "wavetable" synth as Sylenth1 is, or any other software synth that draws on sampled waveforms (and there are many). It stands apart from those others, I suppose, in that it offers a very large collection of single-cycle waves, numbering in the three-hundreds.

Basically, this is a matter of synth-semantics: some folks believe "wavetable synth" should always denote a synth with wave-scanning abilities, while others have a more lenient view of the term. If only the term "wave-scanning synthesizer" was more widely used, we could probably avoid a lot of confusion...

...But what about Rapture itself? Well, near-false advertising or no, Rapture is nonetheless a fantastic and, in my opinion, highly under-rated soft-synth. Cakewalk's product line as a whole, it seems to me, often gets pegged as being "mid-level" or otherwise "non-professional" by a healthy base of the synthesizer and DAW elite. I've never used SONAR, so I can't comment there, but I've had very positive experiences with both Rapture and also (though to a lesser extent) the Dimension Pro sample-synth. I'm not sure where the bad rep comes from, but you'd think the fact alone that the company is now owned and managed by one of the most venerable electronic-music instrument companies of all time, with arguably the greatest legacy of influential instruments in the history of electronic music (303, 808 and Jupiter 8 to name a notable few) would lend the company some cred, but apparently not...

But I keep wandering off course here. Let's look at what's so cool about Rapture, and why it's good for industrial music in particular. The key trick here is that the designers put a step-sequencer, LFO, sync-able envelope, multiple insert FX, and a non-linear double-filter DSP chain (including neat things like a tube amp sim) on every one of six available "elements." An element starts with an oscillator playing a selected waveform or sample, and then runs through the arrangement of all the above-mentioned gadgets. The point here is that Rapture is capable of some very serious sound-layering, and each of those layers is capable of some equally serious modulation and FX, most notably the excellent and flexible step-sequencers. And in addition to all that, the global page gives you yet another step sequencer and more insert FX slots. Put all this together and are talking about some very big, lush and rhythmically-dynamic sounds. The preset library is, in a word, immense, and shows off to great effect the abilities of the synth as a stepping/gating/morphing monster. But it also has you well covered for your basics, too, though frankly when I load this thing up, I'm almost always going for layered step-sequenced goodness. These sort of qualities and FX have, to my ear, a distinctly futuristic, dark vibe that serves the industrial musician very well.

Programming Tips:

-Reverse engineer from the presets
This is a good way to learn how to succesfully program any synth, but is especially the case with Rapture because there is so much going on. Take, for example, the hundreds of possible waveforms you can choose from for each oscillator-- it's frankly overwhelming, especially if you are accustomed (like most of us) to the typical subtractive selection of sine, tri, saw and pulse. But you can use the presets to get a sense of which waves are being used, and to what end, and then use these as your go-to waves when starting out with your own programming.

-Step-sequence everything
Modulate the filter cutoff, the resonance, the pan, and so on, and offset the different step values for each so the changes compliment each other. You can also set different overall lengths for each sequencer, and/or different increments of stepping, resulting in more dynamic and unpredictable sound-shifting and morphing.

New Gear Showcase : 2 Upcoming Acquisitions

A recent windfall with tax returns (being a student really pays come tax time) has resulted in my making two interesting new gear purchases, and in this period of excited anticipation prior to their physical arrival, I thought I'd share the good news here.

My original plan was to use the unexpected dough to buy a new MacBook Pro i7, which in fact was released the same day that I learned of my fortuitous windfall. But I came to my senses (just barely) and decided to spend a fraction of that amount and get a couple new pieces of hardware music gear, and [cough] save the rest.

I should also mention that buying actual hardware is, gear-wise, an interesting turn of events for yours truly. My setup has generally been almost exclusively software-based (not counting a years-old k2000vx that serves as my midi controller, plus a couple guitars and a microphone). A software-focused workflow helps to keep things tidy and organized both in my room and within my DAW, while also avoiding any number of possible routing complications, not to mention keeping things vastly cheaper. And yet, things have been changing, starting last year with the purchase of  the APC-40 controller, then continuing earlier this year with an out of the blue gifted Access Virus-B (which I've yet to use!) and, presently, two new exciting items purchased in the last few days....And here they are:

NATIVE INSTRUMENTS MASCHINE 1.5
I probably don't need to introduce this monster, as NI has been steadily hyping it for the past nine months or so. In any case, the very recent 1.5 update added some DAW-integration functionality (most notably drag-and-drop of midi, audio, or midi rendered into audio from Maschine's sequencer into the host) that probably should have been there the first time around, in addition to a lot of other cool functionality updates. Maschine's beat-slicing ability is pretty irrelevant to me as an Ableton Live user, so what I'm most interested in here is the physical pads themselves, the library content, the software that drives it (which is like a big step sequencer and matrix arranger with various additional bells and whistles) and just using it altogether as a giant drum-sampler workstation. Oh and it looks cool, too.

ENSONIQ ESQ-1
Now this was an unexpected purchase, to say the least, but I couldn't help myself. I stumbled upon this admittedly outdated legend on Ebay earlier today, and my reasons for bidding are as nerdy as they come: this is the affordable, mid-80's digital synth that was put to very extensive use by Skinny Puppy during the late 80's and early 90's, both in the studio and on the stage (extensive but scattered online information will inform you that SP had two of them, and that among other uses it provided the bass and synth-strings on the classic 'Worlock' track from Rabies). From a tech standpoint, the ESQ-1 can't do a fraction of what a majority of modern digital synths can do, but the value here is purely and deeply nostalgic. It's also just a pretty interesting synth: it boasts a hybrid combo of digital oscillators with actual analog filters, the latter of which supposedly are quite excellent. The sound itself represents an interesting period of synth history, when everything was popularly moving toward sample/ROM-based replication of "real instruments" (culminating, you might say, with the Korg M1 in 1988, which shaped everything that followed) and with technology that wasn't quite up to the given task, which is to say, it sounds distinctly digital and crunchy, with notable aliasing -- none of which is necessarily a bad thing for industrial musicians. In any case, I'll be giggling like a madman knowing that I'm programming snappy basslines on the same synth model that Cevin and Dwayne infamously put to use all over numerous seminal Puppy albums.

I'd say that this will be the last of my hardware-purchases for a long time to come, but my word on such a matter is, to say the least, rather dubious. Hmmm do I see a DX7 auction over there....

Feed Your Sampler!

You know it's hungry...

My sampler of choice is the aptly named "Sampler" that comes included with the Suite version of Ableton Live. It's interface gives new meaning to the word "streamlined" and thereby alleviates the sort of interfacing-intimidation/dread aroused by a beast like NI's Kontakt (though purely in terms of bundled library content, Kontakt is the easy winner). But a sampler is just an empty shell waiting for material to mangle...and on that note I thought I'd share a few websites/archives that have proved invaluable in bolstering my (already extensive) sample library.

There's a gamut of sample archives out there among the interwebs, but I chose these three specifically because they have loads of content, it's all free (with one minor exception*) and the quality is generally quite good to really great. If you fish around enough, you might even stumble upon some of the movie/radio/tv voice samples that appear in a handful of DWIH tracks...

*The KB6 drum archive asks for a donation before for all of the site's content becomes available, and I can verify that it's safe+secure (and worth it).

SampleRadar (11,922 samples, part of MusicRadar) --
http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/sampleradar-free-sample-downloads-217833

SampleSwap (5.5 gigs of samples; be sure to click the little "explore sounds and samples" link near the top of the site) --
http://www.sampleswap.org/


KB6 drum archive (1.5 gigs of drum samples) --
http://samples.kb6.de/downloads.php

If anybody knows of any other quality, free sample resources, please post links in the comments below!

The best software instruments for Industrial Music, Part One: KORG Mono/Poly

I'll start this series by briefly pointing out the obvious: just about any synth can conceivably be used to create industrial music, so it may seem a bit silly to talk about the "best" synths for the job. That said, it seems inevitable that while exploring many different instruments and approaches to this genre, some tools will stand out as better suited for the task, for any number of possible reasons. Sure, it's a subjective appraisal, but there's no question for me that among my arsenal of software instruments, a handful of them have become my go-to weapons of choice for industrial-style productions, not just because they're great sounding synths, but because something about their character or approach to synthesis just makes them a great fit with this genre. And with that, I bring you the first of five entries in my series on the best software instruments for Industrial Music, the KORG Mono/Poly synthesizer.

The original hardware Mono/Poly wasn't exactly a huge hit after it's release back in 1981. First of all, it was (fundamentally) monophonic after years of polyphonic instrument production, and secondly, it featured four oscillators but only one voltage-controlled envelope to modulate them (plus one for modulating the filter). This sort of setup led Vince Clarke to famously say about the synth, "It's like playing 4 cheap synthesizers at once."

The modern-day digital emulation of the analog original, released as part of the excellent KORG Legacy Collection: Analog, naturally rectifies the polyphony issue, if not the oversimplified envelope routing. But in my experience, it hardly matters: this synth is an absolute monster, with a richness and thickness of tone (thanks to having four total oscillators, pulse-width modulation, a unison 'spread' knob, and a heap of excellent KORG FX thrown in) that I've found hard to match with other plugins. It may not be a programmers dream synth, but just about everything that comes out of this thing sounds phat, wide and smooth. I've used it for a large number of DWIFH electro-style punchy basslines ('useless children' is one), handfuls of creepy horror-style pads, and a large number of bright, mid-rangey synthlines (usually driven by an arpeggiator). Recently, in working on a new track, I realized that I had eight separate instances of the mono/poly within my mix; that's easily the most that any one instrument has ever shown up in one of my tracks-- so you can see why it's my first choice in discussing the best software instruments for industrial music.

Programming Tips: 

-Crank up the Unison, detune a bit, and then turn the unison "spread" knob -- this is one recipe for wide, phat bass sounds (but try it on anything).

-Make use of the FX -- the KORG fx are some of the best for their time, and like the MDE-X plugin that comes with the Legacy Digital Edition, the onboard FX here are top-notch, not to mention widely varied -- there are 18 total (!) including great tap delays, an exciter/enhancer, a decimator and a talking modulator, all in addition to the usual suspects.

-Use Pulse Width Modulation -- like it's sister synth, the Polysix, the Mono/Poly can crank out some wicked electro style bass by selecting square/pulse waves on one or more oscillators and then tweaking both the pulse width and the PWM knobs (the latter having three available mod sources: the filter envelope or one of two LFO's).

Welcome.

This blog will act as a supplement to the offical Dead When I Found Her website; whereas that site will be regularly updated with news items pertaining specifically to my industrial music project, this blog will serve as a venue for rambling, ranting, reviewing and (hopefully) discussing with others our journey down the rabbit hole that is electronic music production.

Topics will likely include hardware & software synthesizer programming, sequencing & mixing in modern DAWs, plugin instruments and effects, digital sampling, and so on...Basically, if it has to do with making music on a computer, it's relevant to this blog...

...but with that said, in the interest of both further exploring my own particular passion while also providing a more narrow, niche-oriented journal among the gamut of already existing electronic music blogs, my posts will generally focus on the production of Industrial Music in particular -- e.g. the style and sound of bands like Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, Haujobb, Mentallo & The Fixer and, naturally, Dead When I Found Her.

Thanks for stopping by, and welcome to Knobs & Sliders.

-M