Make sweet music with these portable
electronic noise boxes, plus apps for those less confident
Teenage Engineering OP-1
Price: $120
Website: teenageengineering.com
What’s in the mix?
The OP-1 compacts a world of glitchy
electronic sounds into a perfectly balanced soundslab. You get a synth, virtual
four-track tape recorder, sampler, internal sequencers, FM radio, two drum
machines, loads of effects and even a bonus Choplifter game. Still not enough?
You can also bolt on cranks, benders and a radio antenna for extra musical
mayhem.
The
OP-1 compacts a world of glitchy electronic sounds into a perfectly balanced
soundslab.
Up to scratch?
Yes, if you plan to launch a career as a
bedroom-based experimental synthpop overlord. The tiny OP-1 has a staggering
amount of potential but it’s complex, so prepare yourself for bafflement. If
you really get to know it, the OP-1 will be your loyal servant for years. You
can play its mini keys live, sequence it from a computer, drag and drop your
own samples to it, pinch snippets of audio off the radio, and record your own instruments
via the 3.5mm input before mashing everything together, all on one device.
A super fun music machine, that gives as
much as you can take.
A
super fun music machine, that gives as much as you can take.
Alternatively
Alchemy Synth Mobile
Price: free
Platform: iPhone, iPad
Even without expansions from in-app
purchases this free app is bursting with lush synth sounds, with irresistibly
tweak able controls that allow you to morph and warp the output to your every
whim.
Alchemy
Synth Mobile
Novation Mininova
Price: $450
Website: novationmusic.com
What’s in the mix?
The Mininova serves up a platter of sonic
surprises. The voice-changing vocoder and Auto-Tune-style effects are the main
headline, but there’s way more. Inspired by Korg’s awesome microKORG series
from the wooden end panels to the arpeggiator and the small but playable keys –
the Mininova builds on the formula with even more expressive controls for
flanging, filtering and wobbling on the fly. It can even be powered by your
laptop’s USB port, making it ideal for off-grid tunes.
The
Mininova serves up a platter of sonic surprises.
Up to scratch?
It’s the sound of now, that’s for sure. On
top of a bed of lush strings and classic lead sounds you get a barrage of
gritty, boomy, gurgly basses and electro uproariousness. The Mininova’s answer
to Auto-Tune isn’t as effective as we’d hoped but the other vocal effects are
fantastic (see tinyurl.com/novavocoder for our demo). Virtuoso pianists might
find it a bit too small but key stabbers won’t have much to moan about (its big
brother the Ultranova has a fuller set of keys). We think its distinctive sounds
might date faster than those of its Korg rivals, but for now we can’t get
enough of the Mininova, with its chunky knobs and real-time tweakability.
A beautiful portable synth bursting with
creative potential
A
beautiful portable synth bursting with creative potential
Alternatively
iVoxel
Price: $10.5
Platform: iPhone, iPad, Mac
If it’s vocal effects, iVoxel is the app
for you. Talk into it or use pre-recorded sounds to create robotic, electronic
voices as you play the onscreen keyboard.
How to use an Arpeggiator
Sync it to the tempo: An arpeggiator plays a single note or
the notes of a chord in a looped rhythm. Make sure it’s synced to your song’s
tempo, but try shorter pattern lengths. A three or five-note loop works great
on a 4/4 time signature.
Play some chords: Hold the keys as if you were playing
regular chords. Instead of sustained notes you’ll hear a flurry of staccato
notes instead. If, like on the Mininova, you have a ‘latch’
control they’ll keep playing when you release the keys.
Go nuts with the knobs: Now animate the sound even more by
messing around with controls such as the filter, echo effects and the length of
notes (sometimes called the gate time). See tinyurl.com/arpeggiator for some
examples.
Mackie DL1608
Price: $1,440
Website: mackie.com
What’s in the mix?
This mixer uses an iPad as its brain, and
it’s got a party trick: pop the slate out of its dock and you can wirelessly
control all its faders and effects, from anywhere ‘in da club’. It’s designed
for use with a live band, so its inputs are all mono for guitars, drums, vocals
and so on, but you split a stereo signal across two channels. Its Wi-Fi skills
require a wireless router, so if you’re on the road it’s best to bring a
dedicated router, to ensure it doesn’t get tripped up by traffic from the
torrent-happy neighbors.
This
mixer uses an iPad as its brain, and it’s got a party trick: pop the slate out
of its dock and you can wirelessly control all its faders and effects, from
anywhere ‘in da club’.
Up to scratch?
The Mackie was released just before the
latest batch of iPads, which means you’ll need a Lightning-to-30-pin adaptor
(£25) to dock the iPad 4 or Mini inside it. But it makes up for it with a neat
Master Fader app that runs the whole show. You can record your tunes to the
iPad, and you also get great built-in bread-and-butter effects, such as
compression, reverb and delay on every channel. Another very handy feature is
the ability to create and recall ‘snapshots’, so you can
instantly switch between different set ups for specific bands, songs or venues.
A quality build rounds off an excellent mixer for small bands and adventurous
buskers alike.
An ingenious live mixer, but you’ll pay for
the privilege.
A
quality build rounds off an excellent mixer for small bands and adventurous
buskers alike.
Alternatively
Auria
Price: $52.5
Platform: iPad
It may be pricey for an app, but Auria is a
hugely powerful, pro-level 48-track recorder and mixer. If you’ve outgrown
Garageband, this app is the way forward.
How To Use Compression
Forget MP3s: This is nothing to do with making your
MP3s smaller: this is dynamic range compression. It adjusts the volume of a
sound as it happens, making it easier to hear subtle details without ramping up
the overall volume.
What to compress: Almost everything sounds better
compressed, but vocals and acoustic instruments especially. When you’re mixing
a whole band or a track, it allows all the parts to be combined without one
drowning out the rest.
How to compress it: Many mixers have onboard compression
and most music production apps do too. Hardware compressors give greater
control and quality. Drums, vocals and bass all need different settings, so
check the manual first.
