The specialist magazine for music, production and DJ-ing: BEAT combines competent hardware and software tests with committed reviews as well as reports and interviews from music circles and the music business.
Viva freaktronica! This month’s Electronic Sound cover stars are the legendary Faust, the wildest and weirdest of the 1970s krautrock outfits. We’ve interviewed all of the surviving original members of Faust for our cover piece, which starts in Hamburg with two trios combining into a single unit and ends in Munich just five years later, when the police arrest half of the band at Giorgio Moroder’s studios as they try to complete their fifth album. It’s a madcap story of counterculture abandon, disregard for music industry standards, inter-group personality clashes on an epic scale, and the pursuit of bold and brazen new sounds. It’s one heck of a read.
FM synthesis was a major turning point when it was popularized in the 1980s, and now it’s back in a small but powerful form: volca fm. Electronic artist G.W. Childs is here to show you everything you need to know about this amazing little box! FM synthesis always had a reputation of being very difficult to learn, but fear not… our volca expert, G.W. Childs, will show you how easy (and fun!) it is to create music with volca FM. G.W. starts this course with a tour of volca FM’s interface. You learn all the basics: how to power it, how to hook it up with your equipment, and how to use the gold and black keys to play sounds and access additional functions. Next, he explains how to load presets, how to start building your own patterns, and how simple it is to create dynamic sequences with pattern chain mode.
Studio pro Larry Holcombe brings you an in-depth series on the wildly popular KORG volca fm hardware synth. Explore what this small but mighty synth can do and learn all about its features and functions, how to operate and program it, as well as some cool sound design ideas! Larry begins with an introduction to FM Synthesis, and then starts at the beginning with the KORG volca, covering how it executes FM synthesis, its Edit Menus, Keyboard Functions and Global Parameters, followed by front panel controls and how to load and save sounds. Next, see how to play and create patterns with its built in sequencer, use the powerful Arpeggiator, how to make a blank starting patch to build upon, and then more specific topics like Level Scalling, the LFO, Pitch Envelope, and using Velocity. Wrapping it up, Larry covers the Algorithms, Sound Design Concepts and Feedback, which is essential to programming sounds on the volca fM, followed by step by step videos on designing a Bass and Pad sound.
Korg’s volca beats is a full-featured beat-making universe squeezed into a small, live performance rhythm machine. Watch this course, by G.W. Childs, and see how to create original and innovative beats …with volca beats! Analog beat-making is where it’s at and Korg jam-packs tons of beat-making fun into their hardware rhythm machine: volca beats. This course takes you through all of the volca beats controls, signal flow and touch interface so that you’ll be able to quickly perform, record and modify your volca-induced rhythmic inspirations! Before you can get the most out of this machine you’ve got to learn the basics. G.W. starts this course with a section introducing you to the volca beats interface, the ins and outs and how to hook everything up. From there, you’re plunged, fingers-first, into the drum sounds. You then learn cool performance techniques and how to record your inspirations either live or in step-record mode. But no performance is perfect, so G.W. takes you through the editing process where you modify and add cool stutter FX to your patterns.
This collection of 30 original orchestral pieces was recorded live with a professional orchestra. We’ve turned soaring strings, majestic horns and driving percussion into completely flexible, loopable and above all musical construction kits. Each piece is about one minute long and contains full string sections, horns, woodwinds, percussion and additional instruments like synths and guitars. Let your imagination soar! Rearrange, rework or completely mangle these kits however you like. It will take you a while to maneuver through this collection that is busting at the seams with over 5 GB of exciting car chases, tender love scenes, action packed suspense and everything in between. So whether you’re scoring a film or sampling an orchestra for a hip hop track, this disc will supply you with endless hours of symphonic adventures.
The Azure Dreams Vocal Library Vol.2 is a collection of 300+ custom vocal runs, adlibs, chants and phrases recorded by artist, singer & songwriter Maor Mo using only top notch equipment (U87, Avalon 737, Apollo) to ensure professional, high quality recordings. You’ll find dry runs as well as harmonized runs and heavily edited and altered vocal textures that will instantly spark your creativity. Breath life into your tracks by adding soulful vocal runs and melodic one-shots.
