The Making of: Full Moon Remix

The remix of “Full Moon” by Matthias Bishop got quite some range and positive feedback. It was also an occasion to record a video about sound design for this track. The video is my most popular episode on Youtube by far, go check it out:

Recorded back in the summer, recently edited with great (and free!) DaVinci Resolve 16. That certainly is quite an advancement since early episodes, but I won’t stop here!

The Video features Reaktor Blocks, now with awesome Toybox expansion which suddenly became my favourite tools of trade. Feels nice to use, looks great, but most importantly, sounds gorgeous. Indeed there’s something about all these “analog” and analog emulations.

The making of: Oceanfront Remix

It came out of nowhere – a guy named Matthias Bishop just mailed me and asked to create an uplifting remix for one of his tracks for a new label Interflow Uplifting. I picked Oceanfront, as it sounded pretty neutral and indistinct despite nice harmonies. I could go anywhere with it 🙂

So I added a plenty of bold synth lines, drawing from trance classics. Gated phasy pad was inspired by The Thrillseekers – New Life (Lange Remix), while gliding lead is a classic sound found for instance in Solid Globe – Sahara, both from 2004. On top of that, there’s arpeggiated supersaw lead that’s my signature sound of course.

Warmonger – Native Aliens out now!

Finally a proper full-on psy from me, this time at popular label Aftertime Records. Commercial style, so it hits hard and would rock all the club parties… if they were not already cancelled :v Either way…

The tune combines classic psybass, African drums and chants as well as classic psy patterns and my signature supersaw lead. What’s there not to like?

Listen and buy – now in all stores!

Spotify
Deezer

Beatport
Juno
Apple Music

Studio Updates

Having quite some money but no life whatsoever, I made some upgrades to my studio setup over last few months.

Neutron 3 Advanced from my favourite company iZotope has been a tough choice, but everything that speeds up workflow at least by a little margin is always welcome. This one features multiband Transient Shaper with nice display to replace proven, but simple NI Transient Master with something more streamlined. The same is true with multiband Gate plugin. A completely new tool in my arsenal would be Sculptor, which seems to be multiband dynamics + EQ hybrid requested myself in one of user polls some years ago. Simple controls, but does wonders.

Finally purchased a D16 plugin (with money – got all others free). This is Godfazer, multi-purpose phaser tool with a plenty of algorithms and controls for every scenario. Subtle or extreme, classic or avant-garde, periodic or dynamic – you name it. In particular, stepped phaser is something I always needed for uplifting trance basslines. So far only Hybrid 3 got it.

Massive X is a great synth

NI’s new flagship VST, the Massive X, was surrounded by controversy and buzz months before launch. Some claim it was a dissapointment, but I gave it a chance and it surpassed my expectations. As a matter of fact, Massive X might be my new favourite 🙂

Massive X is the holy grail combining ease of use, quick operation and vast possibilities. Beyond standard envelopes and LFOs there are also numerous handy features and options, such as “switcher LFO” or modulation bar next to every control, even synced delay times. An unbelievably flexible “performer” sequencer is accompanied by note-dependent, velocity and random modulators – all of them immediately available for quick use. No modulation matrix and no menu diving whatsoever.
In terms of synthesis options, everything is here – phase modulation / FM, sync and even wavefolders – till now rarely found in virtual synths, especially not all at once. Massive X also offers great sound quality for moderate CPU usage thanks to (brave) implementation of AVX instructions. These are commonplace in every CPU released since 2011, though many people already complained their machine is even older and thus completely incompatible with new synth. But hey, I’m up for latest tech advances!

Transient shaper – a breakthrough

Thanks to recent NI Komplete Ultimate purchase I had a chance to try praised Transient Master. It is nothing new is the world of music production, neither in my studio setup. However, I figured out something clever and got great results with it.

First of all, unlike compressor or expander, it allows to recreate dynamics in completely flat audio material – that’s because it is level-independent. This also means it can work equally good for quiet and loud input, especially in already processed track with automated volume level and so on. Last but not least, NI Transient Master precisely targets transient or sustained portion of a signal, which is relevant to human listener – unlike simple compressors, which are only a mathematical volume processors.

That seems to be a lot to say about a plugin, which has only 3 knobs, one of them being a volume control – no automate volume compensation here, unfortunatelly.

So let’s give some examples, real word examples:

• Add dynamics to heavily distorted acid lead
• Add attack to drums
• Tame starting click in gated synths
• Add sustain to short claps
• Completely redesign the impact of various one-shot FX

As a conclusion, it lead me to ultimate mix discovery: Which tracks should have powerful transient impact, and which should not. Apparently, not everything in the mix can or even should be very dynamic – and I overdid this in the past, as it turns out.

All in all, Transient Master is now my go-to tool for pretty much everything. I already used in on a latest uplifting remix, coming out in January. Can’t share any details yet, but it’s just right, as all my tracks should have been. Expect a real bomb!

4K in a DAW – appendix

My previous post about 4K in a DAW is still getting many hits, so I decided to continue this topic. Especially since a lot has changed since then in DAW & VST world. I also discovered some new tricks and issues that make it even more important topic to discuss.

• Ableton 10 got very nice automatic high-DPI scaling, which takes system settings and resizes each plugin’s windows accordingly – possible to enable or disable per plugin. However, it does have its caveats. Namely, jBridge plugins don’t work with resizable windows, neither plugins which already offer free drag-to-resize feature.
• To enable internal Ableton scaling under Windows, the automatic Windows 10 scaling system needs to be turned off and use application internal scaling instead. Without it, some plugins receive incorrect DPI or try to upscale twice at a time, leading to heavy distortion and unusable GUI.

Additionally, over last two years many plugins have received or are going to receive high-DPI scaling. Massive X, Dune 3 and the newest Cableguys bundle in particular offer drop-down menu with predefined sizes, while Ozone 9 offers free scaling via mouse drag. It is expected that also the rest of iZotope family gets it, as well as AAS – Ultra Analog just enabled this feature, though I’m only waiting for their Chromaphone 2 update. It is knows that Native Instruments also considers it – they recently even ran a poll, which suggested possible GUI resizability for Reaktor.

There are of course many others plugins with scalable GUI, which I don’t own or use however.

All in all, high DPI is getting more accessible and useful. It’s also just easier for eyes to get high-DPI monitor, such as mine 4K at 27″. So, if you consider gear upgrade anytime soon, just go for it with no hesitation.

The secret plan is Komplete

That’s right! Finally I got the most popular plugin package in the world, which is Komplete Ultimate 12. It was heavily discounted during Native Instruments‘ Summer of Sound – still, not a cheap stuff. Been looking forward to Komplete for years.

So what’s inside?

Studio expansion: audio interface

So I got adventurous and purchased serious audio interface – NI Komplete Audio 6. It replaces my old E-MU 0202 USB.

This 9-old year interface was alright and still served me well, so I bought Audio 6 quite in advance. I’m hoping to expand with serious studio monitors (finally!), hardware synth, or maybe guitar. But it’s all distant future.

However, good interface gives me some immediate benefits – both planned and unexpected.

Firts of all, I’m finally able to connect my XDJ-RX to other gear – in particular home speakers and PC. Record directly to Audacity or, better yet, Ableton with some effects – not only generic mastering strip, but also some creative FX played live. Need to try it out someday.

Secondly, I am finally, finally able to run Ableton and any other audio application at same time. Be it Audacity, Winamp, Rekordbox or just Youtube tutorials and cat movies. Previously it was impossible, so I had to close Ableton in order to check anything and hope that interface doesn’t collapse into erratic state (aliasing at lower sample rate, maybe?). Now it’s all gone. You can imagine how much time it saves me (or how much time previous interface wasted).

As to Komplete Audio 6 itself – someone on forums said “it’s build like tank”. Absolutely. It’s like a brick, but covered with aluminium. You could kill somebody with it. Works smoothly, has current Windows 10 drivers and nice config window.

Oh, and they gave me some NI stickers in box. The box also comes with a selection of NI crapware, including demos for Kontakt (seriously?) and a discount voucher. The voucher expires 3 months after it’s activated, so I simply didn’t activate anything. Overall, everything but stickers is a komplete waste of time.

All in all, I’m very satisfied with this interface. Now I need to figure out where to place stickers.