Future Music2 min read
Akai Pro’s MPC Key 37 Is A Standalone Synth And Sampling Keyboard That Promises To Blend Portability With Power
When Akai Pro added the number ‘61’ to the name of its first MPC Key standalone music production keyboard, it always seemed to imply that smaller and/or larger versions of it could be in the offing. And it now turns out that it’s the former; followin
Future Music2 min read
Allen &Heath CQ-18T £899
It’s brought the bells and whistles. Essentially, the CQ-18T is an 18-in/8-out hardware mixer/audio interface, with plenty to get the home studio owner and live performer excited. Featuring eight XLR inputs, and another eight XLR/jack combi inputs (p
Future Music2 min read
The New Omnichord Has Finally Broken Cover With Retro And Modern Sounds, Keyboard/drum Pad Modes And MIDI Out
It’s happening: Suzuki has confirmed that the new Omnichord, which it announced last year, will be called the OM-108, and will be released in July 2024.  The Omnichord has always been an instrument that’s been designed to be playable even by those wi
Future Music2 min read
Erica Synths Hexinverter Mindphaser £460
Many modularists were sad to see the end of Hexinverter Electronique and were relieved when Erica Synths declared it would bring back some much-loved modules, including the Mindphaser, a complex oscillator featuring lots of modulation, that blends Ea
Future Music1 min read
Daws
While some new features are better implemented than others, Live 12 is a generous update stuffed with ideas and real potential. Review: FM382 Version 12 is a solid and dependable update to Cubase, and offers some excellent new features and small, but
Future Music3 min read
Denise Audio Bass XXL $69
+ Smartly designed and easy to use Can tighten a variety of bass sounds Can’t add low-end weight when none already exists Recently acquired by fellow US-based developer Baby Audio, Denise Audio designs plugins around a ‘single use’ mantra – essential
Future Music1 min read
The Dirtywave M8 Handheld Tracker Has A Model:02 Version Coming This Summer
The Dirtywave M8 Tracker Model:02 doesn’t particularly look much like a musicmaking device, but the software trackers that inspired it didn’t look like traditional sequencers either, so maybe that’s appropriate. This is the successor to the original
Future Music8 min read
Make Music Together
Electronic music makers have a bit of a reputation for being solitary creatures. The phrase “bedroom producer” is often used to describe modern, laptopbased music makers, and it’s a term that suggests a somewhat lonely image of creativity; the solo m
Future Music4 min read
Spitfire Audio – Aska Matsumiya Crystal Bowls £79
> Whether or not you believe in the healing powers of sound, there is no doubting the appealing audio qualities of so-called singing bowls. The tone any given object is capable of making is broadly defined by its shape and the manner in which it is s
Future Music3 min read
Autechre
Electronic music is a spectrum. On one side, we have the crowdpleasers, the big-room bangers, the tunes you might hear on an AI-generated playlist at the gym, soundtracking your spinning class. By and large, these follow many of the same rules as con
Future Music1 min read
Audio Interfaces
As with Apollos before it, the Twin X is pricey for the amount of ins and outs it offers, but the quality of the build, preamps and design, plus DSP in Duo or Quad justifies the outlay. Review: FM373 A simple 2-in/2-out design coupled with smart, use
Future Music2 min read
Baby Audio Atoms $99
Physical modelling is a synthesis process that works by simulating the resonant properties of a real-world object. Ableton Live users will likely be familiar with the concept through the DAW’s Collision synth and Corpus effect, and it provides the co
Future Music2 min read
Generate New Musical Ideas In Ableton Live
Whether you’re a seasoned songwriter, or just getting started, having a little help coming up with melodies is always valuable. Using Live’s MIDI Effects in creative ways has always been a useful tool for generating interesting melodic patterns, but
Future Music2 min read
Cherry Audio Releases Its First Drum Machine
Cherry Audio has released its first drum machine, a plugin emulation of the much-loved Roland CompuRhythm CR-78 from 1978. The CR-78 used analogue synthesis to make sounds that are more delicate than you’ll find in later boxes like the 808 and 909. I
Future Music1 min read
Grubs Up: Dada Life Serve Up The Recipe To Their Secret Sauce
The proverb is that "anyone who loves the law or sausages should never watch either being made", but Swedish duo Dada Life appear to disagree. Famed for their much-loved Sausage Fattener plugin, they are now giving you access to their Secret Sauce. T
Future Music7 min read
Folly Group
Marrying the snarling savagery of post-punk with an array of wider influences that spans dub, trip-hop and electronica, Folly Group is one of the UK’s most exciting new bands. With a fresh and experimental outlook, the group’s debut album, Down There
Future Music5 min read
beetlecrab.audio Tempera €670 (excl VAT)
+ Unique design belies a smart and easy-touse workflow Capable of fantastic, complex ambient sounds Multitude of sample recording and import options - Better configuration of the overlay keyboard would be nice Emitter placement can lag occasionally
Future Music9 min read
Ben Frost
Australian-Icelandic sound designer and producer Ben Frost arrived on the music scene in relatively subdued fashion with the ambient glisten of his guitar-oriented LP Steel Wound in 2003. However, it wasn’t long before his fascination with black meta
Future Music7 min read
Julia Holter
Julia Holter’s work is about synthesis in its purest form. The California-based musician is gifted as a lyricist and musical worldbuilder, weaving in literary themes, concepts and reference points, from Greek mythology (Ekstasis) through to belle epo
Future Music2 min read
Autechre In Four Releases
The environment in which Autechre formed is a world away from today’s hyper-commercialised, TikTokified electronic music culture; thousands of pill-happy ravers were congregating every weekend for multi-day DIY outdoor parties. Tabloids sensationalis
Future Music9 min read
IN THE STUDIO WITH Paranoid London
Paranoid London – the duo consisting of Quinn Whalley and Gerado Delgado – are an example of how success can come from sticking to your guns and doing what you do well. Their sound is defiantly old school, a raw and unpolished take on acid house and
Future Music3 min read
Kali Audio WS-6.2 studio sub £599
Investing in a sub that can properly reveal low frequencies, with little distortion and plenty of definition, can be ruinously expensive. The best units can be huge too, as when it comes to bass, bigger is better right? Acoustic engineering is, of co
Future Music2 min read
T.bone HD 515 £25
Thomann’s t.bone brand is aimed squarely at the budget end of the market. But the vast majority of its products I’ve tested have been pretty decent, and recently I was particularly impressed by the performance of its RM 700 ribbon mic. Up for review
Future Music9 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
AI Sample Organisers
Artificial intelligence is well and truly here, and even past naysayers must be finding it harder to deny its inevitable further symbiosis with human life across the board. AI has been with us for a while in music technology, with noise removal and r
Future Music9 min read
Juno Reactor Bible Of Dreams
Trance and techno pioneers Juno Reactor began life as a loose and lively art collective. Head honcho, Ben Watkins, fondly remembers the time he and his wife drove a surface-to-air missile past Big Ben as an anti Gulf War protest. As the ’90s soldiere
Future Music13 min read
Carl Craig
One of the leading visionaries behind Detroit techno’s second generation throughout the late ’80s and early ’90s, Carl Craig picked up the torch from the genre’s forefathers, The Belleville Three, releasing classic tracks under his own name and alias
Future Music1 min read
Midi Keyboards
Better and slicker than its predecessor, Keylab Essential 3 delivers great control features, quality design and good DAW integration. Review FM363 A very decent upgrade with genuinely pro features, fixing its position in the top rung of mini keyboard
Future Music4 min read
Releases
US producer Jerrilynn Patton – aka Jlin – first emerged from the 2010s footwork scene, starting out under the mentorship of artists including DJ Rashad and RP Boo. While the frantic rhythms and staccato sample chops of footwork are still an important
Future Music13 min read
Bass Synthesis
Bass is a staple element of all kinds of music, from piano compositions to rock or jazz music. While the upper frequencies might be home to hooks and harmonies, it’s the lower frequencies that provide the foundations… This is particularly true of el
Future Music1 min read
Synth Plugins
Atoms is a characterful and natural-sounding electronic instrument. Come for the otherworldly pads, stay for the surprisingly hard-hitting bass. Diva is a little long in the tooth these days, but it’s still one of the most powerful and popular virtua
…Or Discover Something New