upfront • April 2010 • Denver

UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT! 

Nik Eccher joins CEC

Nik will now be manging the content of this website freeing up ZacLaurent to concentrate on his new project: futuremusics.com.

Nik says: "My goal for colorado electronica collective is to bring the most current events and music to the people of colorado in order to bring the healing to those who need it. Music is the new way to live and through it anything is possible, you must only open your mind, open your ears and step into the new age of life. Envelope your mind with the beats and enjoy life."

• see Nik's musician profile – click HERE

blog

In line with our policy of exploring the very latest in electronice, this time around I am going to share a few thoughts on...

D U B S T E P ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Yes, the big bass-driven sound that many are talking about; in Denver (all over the world too actually) loads of people are getting addicted to Dubstep. I'm not suprised, as dance music hasn't changed so much over the past ten or so years—it is long overdue for things to evolve.

My own musical background is in techno, trance, dnb, old school hip hop and ambient—and guess what? All those elements can be found in greater or lesser degrees in Dubstep.

So, for me personally it was more of a change of pace (slower bpms) than a change of genre. You can be hearing some reggae-like track one minute, then find yourself plunged into a dark tekkie trip the next and before you know it, some mad synths come and drag you up to euphoric tranceland (if the dj knows what they are doing...).

The following is a timeline charting how electronica developed into Dubstep:

Pink Floyd
Brian Eno
Kraftwerk
Disco
Electro
Old School Hip Hop
Chicago House
Detroit Techno
Acid House (UK)
Rave / Hardcore / DnB
Trance / Progressive
UK Garage (2step)
Dubstep

Already subgenres are emerging from Dubstep, such as:

Bassline / Fidget
Grime (basically UK Hip Hop)

When I met Caspa at Cervantes' recenty, II asked him his thoughts on Dubstep's evolution. He replied:

'"Dubstep will force the other genres to evolve."

For sure the Dubstep sound is like a virus and many people are catching it. Question is, "Will you?".

I'm personally glad to be 'infected'! I've not given up on the other genres though, but see that Dubstep is leading the way to new frontiers in sound construction and experience.

At present I am producing Dubstep and mixing it too and it's a very creative period in my life—I'm very satisfied with the energy the Dubstep sound creates.

Zac Laurent

feature

music-making goes mobile Full music production from sampling and synthesizing to broadcast quality export is now possible for iPhone and iPod touch users...

For a while I've been experimenting with music software / apps on my iPod Touch. Initially I was a bit disappointed with the results due to the intrinsic limitations of such a small device, and the Apple-imposed system of 'sandboxing' apps i.e. each app and its data files being semi-isolated in its own storage area.

Up until recently, this meant the only way for apps to interact and share music data being a tedious bounce from app to app using a computer as a stepping stone via wifi or USB. But now almost overnight there have been developments, especially with a new technology permitted by Apple called 'audio copy/ paste' which enables you to transfer loops, beats, samples etc from one app to the other.

A raft of new and updated apps are now beginning to exploit this feature. For instance, you can now make a beat in one app, transfer into another to add further effects then send it to a sequencer and mix it down in another along with other loops. The finished result can then be emailed as an mp3 for review or sent via wifi as a wav file to your laptop or desktop computer.

I am in the process of producing some demo tracks to illustrate all this to you, and no doubt others are on to this too.

Imagine, if you are on a bus or plane, you can keep producing instead of being bored, and for those with little money, it's a very affordable and fun option. These apps are not just gimmicks or toys to pass the time away with; live performances can be done with these apps too in a convincing and effective way.

For now I recommend the following apps available at the online Apple Store. These work well together and are interaction-enabled via the audio copy & paste feature:

Thumbjam – for organic sounds.

Dopplerpad – make beats and heavy bass / synth-lines.

FourTrack – as the name says, record on up to four tracks then mix it all down with and export.

StudioTrack – sonoma wire works upgraded version of FourTrack, powerful and clean sounding, facilitates audio copy/paste etc.

contd.

contd.

Looptastic producer – mix your loops dj style or sequence.

Soundgrid – I also highly recommend this amazing matrix sequencer which has an excellent extra feature, namely directly upload of finished tracks to your Soundcloud account. (Soundcloud is also emerging as another way to share tracks between apps.)

There are apps where you can record vocals and export in the same way. And here are a few more tasters of the latest apps I've tried (fuller reviews to follow):

Sonorasaurus Rex – the big brother to Sonorasaurus, a dj app I fell in love with during my iPod Touch days, now available exclusively for the iPad. The app has been much improved with a powerful and stable bpm counter, crisper effects, HD graphics and other visuals. The faders are excellent too. Highly recommended as a serious dj tool for beginners and professionals alike.

Aphonium – synthesis of audio and visual genereative art, can help unblock your creativity for those stuck moments.

Cue.play.dj – most user -friendly of all the dj apps, powerful faders and eq, cue buttons accurate. You can preset the bpm of each track and once beats matched they hold sweet for the longest time.

Tremor – 4 decks for the ambitious and risk-taking dj. Worth checking out, I'll use it for ambient mixes...you can even mix in live radio streams via wifi!!!

Proloops – want to make the trippiest loops and beats? This ones for you then, I love it!!!!

Bassline – make dirty reverb bass and audio paste it into other apps that support audio copy/paste

Korg iElectribe – the sickest digital synth sequencer for the iPad, loads of loops representing most genres, fx are awesome!!!!!

Such is the rate of progress in this new music-making area that by the time you read this the above list will probably be out of date! And of course the iPod Touch's new big brother the iPad is already beginning to open up even more mobile music horizons e.g. first off the blocks is the Korg iElectribe, a virtual version of the original dance dj's favourite synthesizer.

Thanks to all the developers who have supplied us with apps to experiment with – full reviews will appear here very soon! Meanwhile we have compiled the beginnings of a featured apps list on a special page (see below for link).

ZacLaurent

PS We are working on an extended feature on mobile music-making, the first in what we hope will be an ongoing series. We will keep you up to date with future developments and chances are you'll get to hear on this website some of what these amazing apps can do.

NEW!!! click HERE to go to our
apps A–Z apps roundup

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