Computer Music

Computer Music's goal is to help its readers create great music with a PC or Mac. Each month find easy-to-follow tutorials for all sorts of music software, unbiased reviews of the latest products and answers to technical questions.

welcome

news • NEW RELEASES > COMMENT > INDUSTRY HAPPENINGS

App watch • We report on the latest developments in phone and tablet music making

COMPUTER music 10 years back • Our monthly shake-of-the-head at our earlier selves’ news choices…

SampleScience’s Stylo – can you tell what it is yet?

Ins & outs

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO ANALOGUE DIRT • Your digital mixes may well be too perfect! Here’s our guide to bringing some humanity back into your productions and how to get deep, down and dirty with some ‘analogue’ processing

The Pro Producer’s Guide To Analogue • Getting a distorted analogue sound is a great way to add filth to digital productions. Here’s a look at the classic analogue signal chain and how to recreate it in your DAW

Go analogue on a budget with the cm Plugins • Over the following pages we’ll reveal how you can get perfect analogue dirt in your mixes, for free, using plugins from the Computer Music Plugin Suite. Here are some of the highlights of the Suite including plenty of analogue-style superstars

> Step by step The common distortion types and how they’re used

Level, EQ and distortion

> Step by step Emulating analogue gear with filtering and EQ

> Step by step Sending sounds back in time for the ultimate analogue journey

Saturation in the mix

Three of the best vinyl and noise plugins

> Step by step Creating pitch-wavering analogue chords

#17 Zebra CM go-getta bass • Creating a square bass with movement is a cool commercial trick. Let’s widen the pulse of Zebra CM’s oscillators, David Guetta-style

PRO TIP

Dave Gale

#6 Getting a great bass tone • In this tutorial you’ll learn how to get a great sound for your bass, straight from your audio interface

PRO TIPS

Ashley Thorpe

WILLIAM ORBIT • After working with Madonna, U2, Blur, Robbie Williams and Britney Spears, William Orbit’s career went on hold after battling with drugs and his confidence. The joy of painting and a beginner’s guide to Pro Tools got his mojo back and now he is about to release his first new album in eight years

Painting by notes • How does your love of painting translate into the new album’s sound?

Orbiting artists • You have obviously worked with many artists. Any favourites?

Best classic hardware synths?

CINEMATIC BEATS • Enormous drum and percussion sounds are the order of the day as we turn our attention to producing blockbuster beats suitable for a Hollywood epic

Nicky Romero/Cableguys Kickstart 2 €14 • If you want pumping sidechain effects, a dedicated plugin is a must and this one’s just had a tasty update

Cherry Audio Minimode $59.00 • Endorsing the fact that “everyone should have a Minimoog”, Cherry Audio re-mode the early 70s classic into a highly desirable plugin form

Caelum Audio Flux Pro £50 • Can an affordable plugin deliver compelling multi effects? This latest offering from Caelum Audio could be the one

Arturia V Collection 9 £419 • The reputed resource of software synths gets an update. We should all be looking to complete our collections as we upgrade to version 9

Røde NTH-100 £145 • Can Røde’s first attempt at producing headphones be anywhere near as good as the company’s microphones? Let’s find out…

Best tablets for music production • We’ve updated our iPad tablet roundup by including other devices that use both the Android and Windows operating systems. Here...