GADGET GURU
How to film in 8K, workout gear that really works for you, car diagnostics, and find out exactly what the hell is lurking in Guru’s magic box.
ABefore Guru goes suggesting any bespoke kit, let him say this: an iPad (the £339 5th-gen is awesome) could be the only tool you need. Long a favourite of bedroom noodlers and coffee shop composers, there are so many awesome apps that have been transposed from big-boy computers that your iPad can do just about anything. Even GarageBand (Free), on the simpler end, offers up cool instruments and enough tools to take you end-to-end on a track. If you’re planning to play live, the low latency and massive flexibility of Korg’s Gadget synth collection (£38.99) is perfect, and the Akai Professional iMPC Pro app (£12.99) apes Akai’s beautiful Music Production Controller hardware brilliantly.
What the iPad lacks, though, is tactile feedback, and Guru knows full well that there’s something immensely satisfying about poking buttons and twisting knobs. The Ableton Push 2 (£499) is, aside from being an absolutely stunning bit of hardware, the best way to interface with Ableton Live 9 (¤599/£510), which is the key bit of software you should be learning in this day and age. It’s not the only option – the Novation Launchpad Pro (£242) or Mini (£80) are great for grid-based sample maniupulation, but it’s worth the investment.
Tip-top of Guru’s musical plinth, though, is the Roli Seaboard RISE (from £649). It’s like a regular musical keyboard, only squishy – and it’s that squishiness that’s really pushing the envelope. Dependent on where and how hard you mash its malleable keys, you can pull off varied tones, slides and effects, giving rise to new sounds and more realistic emulation of existing analogue tones. Is this one of the most significant developments in 900 years of keyed instruments? If GaGu had his evangelism pants on, he’d probably lean that way. Alas, though, it’s Commando Thursday, so the Seaboard remains just a very neat gimmick.
The malleable keys on the rise give way to new sounds and more realist ic emulation of exist ing analogue tones