Shruthi Control is a QuNeo preset built to control the Mutable Instruments Shruthi. It is also compatible with the TubeOhm Phoenix Synthesizer and the Laurentide SynthWorks Monosynth Formerly Known As Shruthi – both Shruthi clones. Read more »
Vernon Reid is the founding member, guitarist and primary songwriter of the metal-funk-rock-jazz outfit Living Colour. We caught up with Vernon to talk about his inspirations, integrating the hardware and software elements of his rig, and a bit about what he’s been listening to lately. Read more »
In the last installment we successfully implemented some transport control in our script to play, stop and record from our controller, as well as input notes. This article will focus on creating and using observers to get information from Bitwig sent to our controllers. This is useful if your controller has any type of LED feedback. You can create all kinds of useful communication including parameter values, volume levels, transport state, clip launching, etc. We will be focusing on adding some observers to our transport so we can see what state our session is in right from our controller! Read more »
Wavefolding is a type of distortion synthesis where when the input amplitude exceeds the threshold, the peaks get cut off, similar to digital clipping. The difference is that in wavefolding, the curved amplitude peaks get inverted into a series of folds. Read more »
DeWayne Blackbyrd McKnight is an electric guitarist and funk practitioner who has shared the stage and studio with legends the likes of Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters, George Clinton’s Parliament Funkadelic, Miles Davis and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. I caught up with Blackbyrd after a stint on the road with the P-Funk Allstars to talk about his life in music, being in the studio with George Clinton, and the current State of the Funk (spoiler: the Funk is just fine.) Read more »
Timo Preece is a Berlin-based electronic musician and educator, Certified Ableton Trainer, and ProTools Expert. We caught up with him to talk about gear, technology, balancing old and new, and the attraction of living and making music in Berlin. Read more »
In the last article we succeeded in creating a user input section that allows us to MIDI map CCs from our controller to any parameter in Bitwig, just as we are used to doing in other DAWs. In this article we will dive a bit deeper into the API to get control of, and get feedback from the Transport Controls. Read more »
The Analog Rytm is still Elektron’s new kid on the block. With eight analog voices, each with an oscillator section, multimode filter, and overdrive circuit, it’s a club music powerhouse that’s quickly become adopted by big named artists such as Aphex Twin, Plaid and John Tejada. One of the useful features of the Rytm is that, unlike the Machinedrum and Monomachine, the user is able to set different sequence lengths per track, opening the door to something called polymeter. Read more »
Nick Reinhart is a guitarist and effects wizard who plays in the genre-defying band Tera Melos, the equally frenetic duo Bygones with Zach Hill, the super-group Big Walnuts Yonder with Mike Watt, Nels Cline and Greg Saunier, and contributed to the Jenny Death half of Death Grips’ album The Powers That B. I caught up with Nick to talk about the electronic music inspiration for his sound, his process with effects pedals, the inception of Big Walnuts Yonder, The Simpsons universe, and the reality-challenging aesthetic of Windy City Heat. Read more »
MIDI has officially hit the web browser! Well, at least in Google Chrome. With the latest version of Google Chrome, MIDI is enabled by default, whereas previously it needed to be enabled by setting a special flag in your browser. This opens up a huge variety of possibilities for not only art and music in the browser, but also allows any hardware that uses MIDI as its communication platform to control and be controlled by your browser. MIDI.org itself says “the Web-MIDI API is the most significant advancement of MIDI since… MIDI itself!”
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Subtractive synthesis is heavily reliant on different wave types to increase the variety of possible sounds. Decades ago, when synth makers were trying to find novel ways to get more milage out of their oscillators they decided upon an interesting solution: Oscillator Sync. Read more »
In the previous article we walked through the setup and creation of a basic controller script for Bitwig Studio. In this next installment we will implement freely mappable CCs so you can use any controller you have laying around to interact with Bitwig. Read more »
Every month, I dig up my favorite recently discovered module and write about what I think is cool about said module. This month I’m focused on my newest and most exciting module, ALM’s Dinky’s Taiko. Read more »
Matthew Garrison is a bassist based in New York City where he is the co-owner and creative director of ShapeShifter Lab, a gallery and performance space. He has performed and recorded with Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, John McLaughlin and others, and has released several solo recordings wherein he explores the furthest reaches of bass, electronics, and spacialized sound. We caught up with Matt to talk about his ideas on music, his performance space and coding new vehicles for creative performance. Read more »
There’s a lot more to oscillators than a simple output frequency. Common oscillators generally only output a few basic waveforms, but there are several ways to expand your sonic palette. Read more »