Bring back Reader Music!
Dear
A while back you used to feature reviews of readers’ music – in fact I believe it might even have been called, rather appropriately, ‘Reader’s Music’. I just wondered if you could bring it back as I’d love to hear what other readers are producing and put it next to mine as a comparison?
It’s a great idea Matt, and something we’ve been thinking about for a while. If you or anyone else would like to have your music critiqued, please send links (Soundcloud preferably) and a bio to computermusic@ futurenet.com. We’ll round up the best and put them in a feature called, now let me think…
Modular DAWs
Matt S
Dear
Last month’s discussion about DAW-specific things highlighted what I think is a rather inefficient equilibrium that music production software has reached. Apparently Logic 10.5’s Step Sequencer is brilliant, as is BitWig’s The Grid. I’m never going to use them because I already use a different DAW; it would simply be far too expensive/ disruptive/time consuming to switch over.
What if you could separately buy, for example, The Grid, Live’s sequencer and Reason’s mixer, and they could all be compatible with each other? Why do, say, Tracktion program yet another sequencer in Waveform Pro, when there are about 20 other DAWs that already have one?
The current setup causes huge duplication of programming tasks and the end result is that many users will never access potentially interesting products just because they’re bundled in this ‘all-ornothing’ way. What do you think?
COMPUTER MUSIC
Reason’s Rack in Ableton Live. Could it lead to modular DAWs?
This might be radical thinking but the first step to a solution is acknowledging the problem!
Anton
The first time I read that I thought ‘nah’; the second time I thought ‘mm’ and now I think it’s an excellent idea. Reason kind of does it with the Rack which can be used in any DAW so maybe it really is possible for developers to modularise – and that is a word, apparently – their DAWs and spread the love. A Cubase mixer, Live’s clips, Logic content, FL’s Channel Rack sequencer, Luna’s UA plugins would do me for starters. Oh and throw in Thor while you’re at it. Why don’t you all let us know what you’d all like to see in some all-singing, alldancing Homer’s car of a DAW? Oh and Gadget’s touch workflow, Tracktion’s Chord Track; OK, somebody stop me now…
A preset party
Dear
I’ve been a passionate reader of your magazine for many years. In the latest issue of the mag I found the great addition to the Plugins, Baby Audio’s Baby Comeback. I had fun messing around with it and I came up with some presets (15 in total) that I would like to share with you and the community. I really hope they could be useful for others. Please let me know what you think! Cheers.
Fabio Gotti (aka HydraTek)
Thanks Fabio! Baby Comeback was indeed a great give-away and thank you so much for taking the time to create some presets for it. We’ll get these up at filesilo.co.uk under this issue and use your mail as an example to others to say: if you create any great presets with any instruments and effects from the Plugin Suite then we will most certainly get them shared with the world of readers!
(And check out the review of Baby’s big Kid brother on p74.)
A toughie
Dear
I’ve been a subscriber for a while and getting to the point in my learning where I could really make use of one of the many free downloads offered in each edition.
I’ve got about three editions’ worth of things on my external drive and I’m sure there is much more that I could grab from the past issues I have.
The problem is, I don’t know what I have once I have it or where to find it. Does anyone maintain a
Hi Scott, that’s an excellent idea but I’m afraid it’s not something we’ve maintained simply because there is so much content up on our server (at filesilo.co.uk). All the details of every download there are obviously in the magazine related to it, but while one overall index is a fantastic idea it’d be a huge task for someone to tackle, and I have a horrible feeling it would be me doing it! So in order to distract you I’ll just say ‘look over there’ and point you in the direction of the next letter that kind of suggests the same thing, albeit simpler, and which I can answer in a much more helpful way.
Most oft-asked question of the month
Dear
I‘m just wondering if you have an up-to-date list of all of the plugins included as part of the CM Plugin Suite? The only list I can find from you is from March, 2013, so I have no idea if any more recent plugins are now included or not? I was trying to find out if Thorn CM is now permanently included?
Robin
For the last three issues we put this feature on as a PDF on filesilo. co.uk, our ‘super-fast’ download site for all our content (where you’ll now also find the Plugin Suite itself). Trouble is, we forgot to tell anyone… but consider it done now! Chances are it’ll also be back in the mag soon.