Future Music

Future Music delivers the technique and technology behind the hits. Packed with inspiration for today’s modern musician there’s reviews of hot new gear, tons of tutorials to help you get the most out of your hardware and software, and exclusive In The Studio features where the stars take apart their tracks. Our Zinio edition does not include the DVD but DOES INCLUDE the full samples and tutorial files to download. Full details inside. Download does not include In The Studio With video. This digital edition is not printable.

FutureMusic

The beat goes on

Nord’s Stage 4 is more expressive than ever • Revamped keyboard adds a new panel layout, upgraded keyboard and improved synth section

Universal Audio’s native plugins are now available to buy in three new bundles

Teenage Engineering’s new Field Desk costs just as much as you’d expect and then a little bit more

Taiga goes “beyond the boundaries of a traditional analogue synth”

FabFilter Twin returns for version 3

Matrix is a portable, affordable opensource grid controller

Spitfire Audio’s Albion Colossus brings an epic blockbuster sound

Generate new musical ideas in Ableton Live • How can I add interesting sonic movements to my repeated hi-hat sequences?

Trikk • Trikk gives us the lowdown on the studio setup behind his new album Fauna & Flora

Palm Skin Productions Remilixir

Track by track with Simon Richmond

LIKE IT? TRY THESE…

Caroline Polachek Desire, I Want To Turn Into You

ON OUR PLAYLIST

Toumba Petals

Bonobo/Jacques Greene Fold

FUTURE BEATS • A KICK, A SNARE, A CLAP, A HI-HAT – the basic elements of electronic drum production have, on the surface, changed little since the dawn of dance music in the 1980s. But technology has come on in leaps and bounds since then. How can we take these tried-and-tested rhythms and give them a modern, creative spin? READ ON…

SMALL CHANGES, BIG RESULTS

THREE GREAT HARDWARE TOOLS

5 ‘FUTURISTIC’ DRUM TRICKS

MODERN DRUM INSTRUMENTS • Get every hit right smack in the centre as we take you on a tour of the top drum tools out there

Using MIDI effects to make interesting rhythms

EXPLORING SOUNDS

Finding sounds with AI

NAVIGATING SAMPLES

Layering drums for custom sounds

CRAFTING THE PERFECT HARD-HITTING KICK WITH D16 GROUP PUNCHBOX

Acoustic drum plugins

‘SMART’ BEATS

THE BEST ‘REAL’ DRUMS

IS AI THE FUTURE OF BEATMAKING? • Audialab’s Emergent Drums brings AI-powered sound generation to the DAW for the first time. We chat to the brains behind the plugin, who tells us that “drums are just the start”

CREATE A DRUM KIT

MODERN DRUM EFFECTS • We check out a selection of today’s top plugins for getting a state-of-the-art drum sound

Processing a drum bus with multiband compression

HIGH-PASSING KICKS

MODERN DRUM REVERB

Sidechain successes

Mid/side EQ processing for better stereo drums

TUNING AND TRANSIENT SHAPING FOR HARDER-HITTING DRUMS

THREE OF THE BEST

Transient pitches

LAYERING DRUMS

UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA • UMO founder Ruban Nielson tells Danny Turner how he relishes staying true to the band’s sonically ambiguous sound

AVEY TARE • Perennially leapfrogging between Animal Collective and Avey Tare, Danny Turner asks Dave Portner how he manages to feed both fires

MISS GRIT • Miss Grit follows up previous EPs with the utterly captivating debut album, Follow The Cyborg on Mute. Hamish Mackintosh finds out more

Roland SH-4d £549 • Roland release yet another groovebox that emulates the company’s heritage instruments. However, as Si Truss discovers, there’s real...