Tag: music

  • Arturia KeyLab Mk3 Review: A Premium Midi Controller at a Great Price

    Arturia KeyLab Mk3 Review: A Premium Midi Controller at a Great Price

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    You can even browse presets directly from KeyLab, filtering them by instrument, sound bank, or style. Native Instruments offers a flashier and arguably more advanced version of these same tools on its Kontrol series, but I find Arturia’s UI more responsive.

    Integration with Arturia’s individual instruments is a little more patchy at the moment. Only some, like Mini V and Piano V, will allow you to browse presets and show graphics, though I’m sure updates will fix that soon enough. Since the interfaces of the instruments vary widely, the way the controls are mapped also can be inconsistent. And for many of the stand-alone instruments there are more parameters to contend with than there are hands-on controls. You can easily remap these to your liking, but it does add an extra step.

    The KeyLab mk3 also offers some control over your digital audio workstation (DAW), so long as your DAW is Ableton Live, Bitwig Studio, FL Studio, Cubase, or Logic Pro. Your specific choice of recording software will determine how tight the integration is. I only tested Ableton Live, and things mostly worked as expected. The transport controls allowed me to play and record, and the knobs and faders were automatically mapped to controls for Ableton’s native instruments and effects. The pads can be used to trigger scenes and clips in Ableton’s clip view, and big improvements were also made allowing you to easily select and arm tracks using the main encoder.

    Other Goodies

    The new KeyLab mk3 has a few other nice features, including scale mode to keep you from playing out of key and an excellent arpeggiator with randomization tools. In addition to serving as a controller for your DAW and plug-ins, it has 5-pin MIDI in and out ports for directly talking to hardware synths. Plus it comes with a solid software bundle, including Analog Pro V, Mini V, Piano V, Augmented Strings, Ableton Live Lite, and more.

    Ultimately, the reason to pick the KeyLab mk3 isn’t the arpeggiator (I think Native Instruments’ arpeggiator is better). It’s high-quality hardware and seamless integration with Analog Lab. At $499 for the 49-key version and $599 for the 61-key, they’re actually cheaper than comparative controllers from Novation and Native Instruments.

    If you’re already a dedicated user of Arturia’s software instruments and want something a little more premium than its plasticky KeyLab Essential series, the KeyLab mk3 is an obvious choice. But if you’re not already committed to a specific plug-in suite, the KeyLab is a solid proposition. It delivers high-quality hardware at a lower price than the competition and comes packaged with some of the finest emulations of classic synths on the market.

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  • This is how your brain knows when the beat is about to drop

    This is how your brain knows when the beat is about to drop

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    We can enjoy music because of our ability to recognise musical boundaries

    NDAB Creativity/Shutterstock

    We may finally know how the brain processes a beat drop: people use two distinct brain networks to anticipate and identify transitions between segments in a piece of music.

    Musical boundaries, the moments when one section of a composition ends and another begins, are important to our enjoyment of music, particularly from the Western tradition. Otherwise, your favourite hit would sound like a monotonous stream of random sounds, “similar to reading a text with no punctuation”, says Iballa Burunat Perez at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland.

    To understand how the brain processes musical boundaries, she and her colleagues analysed brain activity in 36 adults while they listened to three instrumental works from different genres: the Argentinian nuevo tango composition Adiós Nonino by Astor Piazzolla, the US progressive metal piece Stream of Consciousness by Dream Theater and the Russian ballet classic The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky. All of the listeners attended school in Finland, and half considered themselves semi-professional or professional musicians.

    The researchers found that, right before a musical boundary, a brain network they called the early auditory network activates in anticipation of the musical phrase ending. This network primarily involves auditory areas in the posterior, or back, of the brain’s outer region, called the cortex.

    A different network then activates during and after musical transitions. Dubbed the boundary transition network, it is characterised by increased activity in auditory areas toward the middle and anterior, or front, of the cortex. Perez says the shift in brain activity between these two areas is similar to how our brains understand the differences between sentences in language.

    Several brain regions deactivate during and after musical boundaries, including the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which is involved in complex cognitive tasks and decision-making. This suggests that, as a new segment begins, the brain redirects attention and resources towards integrating the new musical information, says Perez.

    Musicians and non-musicians engage these two brain networks differently as well. For instance, musicians relied on brain areas important for higher-level auditory processing and integration. This may reflect a more specialised approach towards understanding musical boundaries, says Perez. Non-musicians, on the other hand, showed greater connectivity across broader brain regions, indicating a more generalised approach.

    In addition to clarifying how the brain processes music, these findings may also help develop music-based therapies for people who have difficulties comprehending language, says Perez. For instance, incorporating elements of musical boundaries into language transitions – perhaps by setting syllables to a melody – may make sentences easier to understand, she says.

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  • The Best Field Recorders for Portable Audio

    The Best Field Recorders for Portable Audio

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    Yes, you currently have a device in your pocket capable of capturing audio—your phone. But, the quality of the audio from those tiny microphones leaves a lot to be desired. You’ll easily overwhelm the mics if you try to capture an impromptu jam session with your band. You’ll never get solid stereo imaging of your environment. And echoey lecture halls will reduce any speaker to a muddy mess.

    There are plenty of reasons to pick up a field recorder. They can be used to capture lectures at school, record audio for a video shoot, serve as a mobile podcast studio, collect samples to use in your music, and even create IR (impulse responses) for building custom audio effects.

    There is also the act of field recording itself—going out and capturing the ambient sounds of the world around you. If you’ve never dabbled before, I can’t recommend it enough. It can teach you to listen more closely to the world around you and make you more observant.

    If you work with audio in any way, even as a hobby, a good handheld field recorder is a must-have. Below are our current favorites. Be sure to also check out our guides to the Best Recording Software, the Best Wired Headphones, and the Best USB Microphones. If you’re interested in recording at home as well as outdoors, be sure to check out our guide to leveling up your home recording studio.

    If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED

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  • How to Watch Billie Eilish and Snoop Dogg at the Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony

    How to Watch Billie Eilish and Snoop Dogg at the Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony

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    The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics will be remembered for a lot of things: drag performances, shameful allegations against some female athletes, swimming in the Seine, and, of course, incredible sporting achievements. On Sunday, the Games will add another memory to that list when Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers perform at the event’s Closing Ceremony in Los Angeles, officially handing off the Olympics from Paris to the 2028 host city.

    The 2024 Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony is scheduled to begin Sunday, August 11, at 3 pm EDT. It will begin at Stade de France, north of Paris, run for just over two hours, and feature live and pretaped performances. For fans in the US, the events will be viewable on NBC (the Games’ sole distributor in the States) and Peacock, which have really been nailing this whole Olympics-watching thing this year. You can also stream the event on NBCOlympics.com.

    The Closing Ceremony festivities will take place despite a state of alert around live music events following a foiled terrorist attack targeting the Vienna leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour this week. According to a report in Variety, crowd control and security were a concern for local officials even before news of the planned attack in Austria broke. Variety withheld the location of the performances because of those fears.

    In addition to Southern California heroes Eilish, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Snoop (also an internet hero during the Paris Games), there are rumors that Tom Cruise will perform a stunt to transition the Olympics from their 2024 home to LA.

    The 2028 Summer Olympics will take place from July 14 to July 30 in Los Angeles.

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  • How Camo Hats Became an Instant Meme

    How Camo Hats Became an Instant Meme

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    On Tuesday, when Vice President Kamala Harris picked Tim Walz to be her running mate in her bid for US president, she commemorated it by sharing a video of her calling the Minnesota governor and asking him if he’d like to join her campaign. In the clip, he appears in a T-shirt, khakis, white sneakers, and a camouflage baseball cap.

    In politics, this is known as “appealing to the base”—looking like an average (yet electable) American. For pop culture followers, it was known as “appealing to Chappell Roan stans.” Over the last year, during the singer’s meteoric rise, Roan has been selling camo caps emblazoned with “Midwest Princess” in orange block letters. Once Walz officially joined the ticket, the campaign began selling a similar hat with “Harris Walz” on it.

    Soon, everyone wanted to know: Has Chappell seen this?

    Eventually, she did. Later on Tuesday she reposted an image on X showing a side-by-side comparison of her hat and the Harris campaign’s with the caption “Is this real[?]”

    Indeed it was, and according to reporting from my colleagues at Teen Vogue, the 3,000 hats that were initially made sold out in 30 minutes. Close to $1 million worth of hats have now been sold, officially making it a liberal status symbol. As the hat, and its similarities to Roan’s merch, began to spread, the jokes sprang to life.

    “This is the Bushwick x Los Feliz unity our nation needs,” wrote podcast and TV personality Desus Nice, referring to the hip enclaves in New York and Los Angeles, respectively. Wall Street Journal tech columnist Christopher Mims shared Roan’s tweet on Threads saying, “Chappell Roan posting the Harris-Walz camo hat is some kind of Gen Z inception.”

    You say “inception,” others say “reclaiming the narrative.” Yes, the hat could be a subtle (or not subtle) attempt by the Harris-Walz campaign to get a Roan endorsement. When President Biden was still running for reelection, she’d turned down an opportunity to play a Pride event at the White House, and so maybe the hat was a move to make her reconsider. (A rep for Roan didn’t respond to a request for comment.) It could also be an attempt to make camo do for Harris-Walz what red has done for Donald Trump.

    In the years since Trump started wearing them, the red Make America Great Again hat has become a symbol of not only Trump’s campaigns for the US presidency, but also for the values he and the GOP stand for. Red hats became symbols, memes of their own. Kanye West wore one to the White House; supporters wear them at rallies.

    The language of the MAGA cap also became something translatable. The Strand bookstore in New York made a line of hats that said “Make America Read Again” (albeit in white); in 2020, LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers wore red caps that read “Make America Great Again Arrest the Cops Who Killed Breonna Taylor.”

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  • Twitch’s New DJ Program Has Flaws, But It’s the Best There Is

    Twitch’s New DJ Program Has Flaws, But It’s the Best There Is

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    Other restrictions such as the lack of VODs (videos-on-demand/replays) or other promotional tools like clips are factors DJs need to consider. Many performers already don’t use the VOD service, to avoid potential strikes, but for some it’s another way to engage fans who can’t watch live. Twitch has confirmed that VODs are not covered by the existing licensing agreement, but the company claims it’s exploring other promotional tools. DJs who also host nonmusic streams are simply being told to run dual accounts with only one enrolled in the program.

    Despite these drawbacks, every DJ whom WIRED spoke with agreed that operating in a copyright gray area wasn’t good for anyone. Most also understood that Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, has obligations to rights holders. Clancy suggested as much in a blog post announcing the program. “It’s crucial that DJs understand the status quo on Twitch was not sustainable,” he wrote, “and any viable future for the community required we find a solution.”

    Solutions are what Twitch seems to be needing most these days. The company, you may have heard, is not making money. User growth seems to have stagnated, while revenue growth has slowed, according to documents recently reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. In January, it announced it was laying off 500 employees (approximately a third of total staff), a move that followed a purge of more than 400 people in March last year.

    According to Twitch, there are currently “tens of thousands” of DJs on the platform. This means, at best, DJs currently account for approximately 1 percent of active streamers—so attracting more to the platform is unlikely to be a panacea. But it is a growth area, fueled in large part by a wave of performers who joined during the pandemic, that the company clearly deems worth investing in.

    In terms of competition, Twitch doesn’t face much. Harris says he tried Mixcloud, but felt there was a lot of “bot” activity in the streams and the revenue split wasn’t favorable. TikTok and most other mainstream social media platforms suffer at least some combination of takedowns and demonetization for playing unlicensed songs. Kick, a direct Twitch rival, offers a far more favorable earnings split—95 percent going to the performer—but if Twitch can’t make money with its bigger cut, it raises questions over whether that ratio is sustainable.

    DJs, for their part, appear to welcome Twitch’s commitment to them, with most concerns directly proportional to their investment in the platform so far.

    “I haven’t got a lot to lose, to be honest, so I’m just seeing where it takes me,” Harris says.

    “Twitch is my main source of income,” says Colaway, a DJ who streams about 35 hours per week. “The supply of DJs on Twitch has grown extremely, so the likelihood of new DJs streaming full-time is very unlikely.” She added that she believed the program was still a step in the right direction and that she would be signing up.

    As for East, he says: “I plan on hopping onboard as soon as it goes live, just so that I’m in the game, and getting the feel of what’s happening.”

    “If I’m the guinea pig at that point, I’m the guinea pig,” East adds. “And I’ll take my lumps and bumps and hopefully keep on moving. The journey for me on Twitch has been amazing. It’s really the community that cements that.”

    Ultimately, Twitch has the best shot at making this work, if DJs can tolerate the inconveniences that going legitimate requires. As the embattled music industry pats down the pockets of the people who promote its artists, Twitch seems as well positioned as any platform to offer a resolution.

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  • Arturia AudioFuse 16Rig Audio Interface Review: So Many Inputs

    Arturia AudioFuse 16Rig Audio Interface Review: So Many Inputs

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    For as long as music gear companies have been making audio interfaces, they’ve assumed that most people in the market care only about plugging as many microphones into their computer as possible. They might have a couple quarter-inch inputs in front for “instruments,” but the market dominance of interfaces that devote the bulk of their real estate to inputs with mic preamps and XLR jacks has gone unquestioned and unchallenged for far too long. What about boomer gearheads with racks of vintage preamps who don’t want chintzy Guitar Center–grade circuity coloring their signal? Or the synth nerds who need a hassle-free hub for their many winding paths of modular goodness?

    Some of the most innovative gear answers questions that aren’t being asked, and Arturia has been ahead of the curve on these matters for the better part of a decade. Known best for their durable MIDI controllers and Behringer-beating budget synths, the French firm turned heads when it dipped its toes in the crowded waters of the audio interface market with its AudioFuse series. These durable and stylish little boxes made it simple for recording artists of all stripes to capture ideas with little effort, all at a price point that hovered in a comfortable middle ground between the bargain basement junk that litters Amazon and the “prosumer” studio centerpieces offered by glitzier brands like Audient and Universal Audio. The addition of USB hub ports for connecting gear like USB MIDI controllers, keyboards, and other common peripherals was a “Why didn’t anyone think of this sooner?” moment for the ages. To date, the MiniFuse 2 ($122) is my favorite interface for quick and easy iPad-based audio production.

    As they move upmarket with the AudioFuse 16Rig, Arturia answers another important question no one is asking: Would anyone pay $1,299 for a rack-mount interface that trades preamps for a mind-boggling array of inputs and outputs? A month with the 16 inputs and eight outputs offered by this 1U dynamo of routing and workflow convinced me the answer is a resounding “Yes.”

    Audio devices stacked on a rolling cart each with many input ports beside a desk and a set of audio pedals on the floor

    Photograph: Pete Cottell

    Audio Infusions

    Patience and spontaneity are the yin and yang of lo-fi bedroom musicians and revered producers alike. Creativity can hit at any time, but you’ll need to spend untold hours in advance plugging things in to foster an environment that makes the process of sitting down and hitting the record button as frictionless as possible.

    I spent a few afternoons routing my Line 6 Helix, HX Effects, synths, and a pedalboard full of effects from brands like Chase Bliss and Walrus Audio through a basic patchbay and into the various ins and outs of the AudioFuse. It took less than an hour to wrap my head around how the accompanying software could lead me to a “set it and forget it” setup that would be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

    The software is relatively straightforward, with predictable layouts and functions nested in its I/O, mixer, and routing matrix pages. The mixer page starts off empty and requires channels to be “added” to become active, which took some getting used to, but this and the I/O page will feel immediately familiar to anyone who uses a DAW with any regularity.

    Screenshot of an audio interface app showing the routing mix

    Photograph: Pete Cottell

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  • How the ‘Slamming Door’ Sound Became Embedded in Hip-Hop History

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    Similar to the G-Funk sounds that still make plenty of cameos in West Coast hip-hop (see: Dr. Dre’s “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang”), the stomp sound isn’t something Barber actively notices. It’s simply “in the air now.”

    Barber points out that the “Grindin’” beat spawned other imitations. There’s “Tipsy,” by J-Kwon, with a similar low end to “Grindin’,” though the song’s Tribe-like stomp is actually a sample of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” Incidentally, Barber’s children have recently started listening to this song because of country artist Shaboozey’s platinum track “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” which interpolates J-Kwon’s original.

    There are other production breadcrumbs like Tribe that show up over and over again in hip-hop, Barber notes, such as Three 6 Mafia member Juicy J’s trademark “yeah, ho,” or the shaker used in the late ’90s by D-Dot Angeletti, Jermaine Dupri, and the Hitmen. Yet another distinctive shaker was popularized by Atlanta producer Zaytoven a decade later.

    Staying Power

    The Korg Triton is particularly important to the Evan Ingersoll, better known as Chuck Inglish, a rapper, producer, and one half of the hip hop duo Cool Kids. He first learned how to make beats on the now-iconic synthesizer.

    “Grindin’,” if Inglish recalls correctly, dropped on the same day he graduated from high school. A friend showed Inglish the Korg Triton. He went to the B116 Percussion Kit and showed him all the sounds from the Neptunes beat.

    Two decades after the Clipse dropped “Grindin’,” the Cool Kids used Tribe in “SCAM LIKELY,” a track off their 2022 album Before Shit Got Weird. Inglish, along with Don Trevino and Slade Da Monsta, produced it. A spoiler for Cool Kids fans: He also used the sound on their upcoming album in a way that he tells me is “cheeky.”

    The Tribe sound has a nostalgic, familiar feeling, Inglish says, one that has become an ingredient in a growing recipe book of beats. As another example, Inglish points to “Dilemma” by Nelly and Kelly Rowland, which uses an “ahh!” sound found in a Roland M-DC1 rack module, which has since been heard on tracks by the likes of Travis Scott, Nicki Minaj, and Migos, largely in part because of the producer Zaytoven.

    If you used the sound right after “Grindin’” came out, “you’re damn near biting Pharrell,” Inglish says. But 22 years have passed. “Now, it’s common knowledge.”

    In the ’90s, people dipped back into previous decades for their sounds. So one reason we might be recognizing the “Grindin’” beat is that producers are referencing these now-vintage sounds.

    “I believe there’s a type of energy required for anybody to even be curious or discover your song,” Inglish says. Tribe is a sound people’s ears gravitate toward, one that provides familiarity when hearing a fresh batch of beats for the first time. When someone hears that stomp, “it’s an instant I like that.”

    He compares it to the staying power of Jordan sneakers. “These kids weren’t even alive to watch Michael Jordan,” he said. “But that doesn’t stop them from rocking Jordans. And they can go back and see how impactful Jordan was.” The Tribe sound, or “Grindin’ stomp,” gets repurposed in a similar way, he says. “The nostalgia just carries. That sound was from something that you’re familiar with, so you’re more warmed up to hear it.”

    Sound on Sound

    Like many who work in the field of audio production, Lehmkuhl doesn’t just love music, he loves sound. Outside of his home studio, he’s recorded entire libraries of sounds using ambient recordings captured on a Tascam recorder in a Costa Rican rainforest.

    Image may contain Electronics Speaker Accessories Glasses Keyboard Musical Instrument Piano Adult and Person

    Photograph: Natalie Behring

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  • Moog Muse Review: A Machine for Musical Inspiration

    Moog Muse Review: A Machine for Musical Inspiration

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    In 2018 Moog introduced its first analog polysynth in nearly three decades, the Moog One. It’s an enormous, intimidating beast designed to allow musicians to play multiple analog synth voices at the same time. Even more daunting than the front panel filled with controls is the price. When it was originally released the Moog One came in eight- and 16-voice flavors at $5,999 and $7,999 respectively. Since then the Moog One 8 has been discontinued, and the 16-voice version has jumped in price to $10,000, leaving an enormous gap in Moog’s analog synth lineup.

    The Muse is an attempt to plug that gap and make a Moog polysynth more attainable. This $3,499 eight-voice bi-timbral analog machine has two oscillators, a mod oscillator, three low-frequency oscillators (LFOs), two filters, two envelopes, a digital delay, and aftertouch (though not polyphonic). There are more feature-rich synths out there, but this is still a pretty solid core with a lot of flexibility. Besides, there’s one thing that the Muse has over those other synths: It’s a Moog.

    Classic Sound

    There is something about the sound of a Moog synthesizer. There are plenty of synths out there that do an admirable job of emulating the iconic sound of a Moog bass, but they can never quite stand toe-to-toe with the real deal.

    I was reminded of this multiple times during my testing. I played the Moog Muse side by side with a number of different instruments, ranging from the Korg Monologue and Minilogue XD to the Novation BassStation II and the Arturia Polybrute 12. There is just something about the sound of a Moog oscillator and its iconic ladder filter that feels bigger and warmer than almost anything I’ve ever played.

    Audio device with knobs buttons and a pianolike keyboard

    Photograph: Moog

    Part of that is due to the particular characteristics of the oscillators here, which are based on the Minimoog Voyager. They are not just analog, but aggressively so; where other modern analog polysynths do everything in their power to stay perfectly in tune, treating natural analog drift as something to be dialed in to taste, the Muse leans into its natural imperfections, giving it a lot of character and body.

    It’s easy, with eight voices at your disposal, to assume you should be using the Muse to play chords and pads, but don’t ignore the bass on this thing. It is massive, putting basically every other polysynth I’ve played to shame. It’s especially absurd when you stack all eight voices in unison mode. This thing may be built with pads and key sounds in mind, but it’s every bit a beast on bass and leads as you’d expect a Moog to be.

    Of course, you have plenty of other, cheaper options for beefy mono synths. To justify the price the Muse has to deliver on more complicated and wide-ranging sounds. Thankfully it excels at epic pads, cinematic strings, and plucky keys as well.

    The sound-shaping options here are pretty robust. The dedicated mod oscillator can control pitch, the filter, or pulse width, or even be turned into a third audio rate oscillator. Its tuning isn’t quite as stable as the main oscillators though, which makes it great for getting queasy and dissonant.

    There are also ring mod and FM (frequency modulation) circuits for turning that analog warmth into clanging and metallic bells and plucks and an overload circuit for adding even more grit. Plus, there are three LFOs and two envelopes, and all of these can be connected through the 16-slot modulation matrix to create complex sounds ranging from chaotic EDM bass to long-evolving soundscapes.

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  • Polyend Tracker+ Review: Powerful but Niche

    Polyend Tracker+ Review: Powerful but Niche

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    Polyend’s Tracker+ is a significant update to its powerful (if somewhat anachronistic) sample-based groovebox, the Tracker. What made the Tracker so unique, and also confounding, was that it was a tracker (small t), but in hardware form. Trackers were an early form of music-making software that emerged in the late ’80s. They were initially used mainly for video game music but eventually found favor with a certain strain of electronic musicians, most famously Aphex Twin.

    They’re very much a product of their time though, designed to work around the limitations of late 20th century personal computers like the Amiga. The new $799 Tracker+ has evolved to take advantage of modern technology, but its interface stays true to its forebears. The best way to describe a tracker is that it’s like composing in Excel. They’re vertically scrolling, spreadsheet-like collections of letters and numbers that can easily scare off a newcomer. But persistence will reveal a shocking amount of flexibility.

    The Basics

    Let’s get all the specs stuff out of the way first. The Polyend Tracker+ is a 16-track groovebox. Eight of those tracks can support stereo samples, with various methods of playback, and the other eight tracks can either control external devices via MIDI or one of the five built-in virtual synths. Samples can be simple one-shots or loops; you can slice up loops, or even load them into granular and wavetable engines for sample-based synthesis.

    All of the tracks are monophonic. So playing a chord will eat up multiple tracks unless you’re using a sample of a chord. But tracks aren’t dedicated to any specific instrument so, you can combine kicks and snares on track one and maybe squeeze your bass in between hi-hats on track two.

    The tracks themselves can be up to 128 steps, and each step contains instrument and note data, along with two slots for FX. The “FX” in this case aren’t chorus or reverb but things like chance, micro timing, and rolls. These two effects slots are the key to making your music not sound like it was written in a spreadsheet.

    In addition to the increased sample memory, virtual synths, and stereo sampling, the other big upgrade from the original Tracker is support for audio over USB. This means you can connect the Tracker+ to your computer and get 14 stereo audio tracks out straight into your digital audio workstation (DAW). This makes it easy to put the final touches on an arrangement you’ve created on the Tracker+.

    In Use

    Top and bottom images as closeups of the screen and buttons respectively of a music making device

    Photograph: Terrance O’Brien

    Polyend nearly nailed the hardware with the original Tracker, if you ask me. The Tracker+ introduces some minor tweaks, but it’s mostly the same. It’s lighter and easier to toss in a bag but feels solid enough. The buttons are slightly clicky but have a new soft-touch finish. The large encoder has a bit more resistance, and the screen is brighter.

    The grid of 48 pads is the same and remains, at best, usable. If you plan to use the built-in synths, I recommend connecting a MIDI keyboard. The pads are tiny, not velocity-sensitive, and don’t feel particularly natural to play. The quality of the hardware here is important since the interface can feel a bit like doing office work. But the feel of the keys and the resistance of the click wheel are all incredibly satisfying.

    Polyend put a lot of thought into the interface to keep things from getting too tedious. There are shortcuts for quickly filling in entire tracks with data. For instance, you can quickly lay down a four-on-the-floor kick pattern with just a few button presses, generate a melody quantized to a specific scale, or randomly tweak the velocity on a hi-hat to give it a more natural feel.

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