Ah, Lazy Sunday afternoon. It’s wet and rainy out, so what to do? How about making some music with some fun online sequencers. Snag a comfy chair at Starbucks and kill a few hours making music on your laptop. Perfect!
256 buttons, and one sinewave tone, I find the simplicity of the 16 x 16 grid inspiring. I wish I could program MIDI in a DAW using something like this, that is without buying anything.
Taking the Tone Matrix idea further, iNudge gives you 8 layers of the 16×16 grid, master tempo and volume control, panning and volume control for each layer.
Hobnox is the Ultimate online musical time waster. Hobnox has a classic bass line synth, 2 classic drum machines, and a tone matrix for sound sources. There’s also several routing tools and a mixer but best of all a dozen stompbox effects you can put in any combination. This is simply brilliant, be amazed as hours of your day magically disappear.
What I love about these is I can quickly and easily come up with something cool musically, while I find trying something similar in a DAW to be so much more work. Once you’ve become addicted to these, the trick is getting your DAW to work like them while infinitely opening up your palette of sounds. I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but getting closer. FL Studio used to be this inspiring, but over time it lost that fun factor for me.
Did I miss any other cool online music sequencers? Let me know in the comments!
Recently I improved my home studio with the addition of a power conditioner. A power conditioner is one of those items that’s probably pretty low on the things to buy list. If you have a home studio, or especially a live recording set-up, you should definitely consider getting one sooner, rather than later.
So what is power conditioning?
Power conditioning is a kind of vague term to that covers voltage regulation, surge protection, spike protection and noise reduction of the AC power that runs all your equipment.
A power conditioner is a rack that does all this as well as power distribution, a fancy word for multiple outlets.
Samson PS15
The power conditioner I bought is a fairly simple one, nothing fancy. It’s the model PS15 from Samson that costs about $75. This is one of the least expensive power conditioners you can get, they can get pretty expensive and have all sorts of features that likely won’t help you make music. Mine has Eight outlets on the back, one on the front, basic radio frequency filtering, surge and spike protection and a circuit breaker to reset the system in case of overload. No lights or meters, just a rack with a big red button that no one is allowed to touch. That’s probably my favorite part of it.
Filtering and Noise reduction
On the topic of filtering and noise reduction. I haven’t heard a change in sound quality. Unless you have an obvious noise problem do not expect any change. On the other hand, power conditioner will never add noise to the system. The only time you might have noise is if you do something dumb like have one of your speakers on a different outlet, then you’ll have some nasty ground loop hum.
Using it in the home studio
The way I have it set up is like this:
All my computer equipment, computer, two monitors, modem, router and mouse charger go into a power bar and that takes up 1 outlet on the rack.
My audio gear plugs directly into the rack, that’s my two Yamaha monitors, M-Audio Profire 2626 interface and Roland Space Echo.
My hard drives and lighting for behind the desk go into another power bar and then into the rack.The charger for my Macbook Pro goes into the front.
Nine outlets is plenty, I still have two left. The circuit breaker will trip to tell me when I’ve used to much.
So why would you need a power conditioner?
These are the main factors in my decision to purchase this power conditioner rack.
My computer, monitors, speakers, interface, external drives and network take up a lot of outlets, more than is probably safe.
I hate cable clutter, I wanted to separate audio and power cables but they’d always seem to cross because everything was going in opposite directions, now with the rack it’s much more organized. I added some hooks to the back of the rack to keep the cables separated as much as possible.
I’m in an apartment there’s a good chance my power is erratic and noisy.
I sometimes do mobile recording and this provides great protection for my gear.
It was inexpensive.
I had extra space in the rack.
Rack gear is cool no matter what it does.
Your reasons for getting one might be different. I think everyone can agree it’s essential for a live recording rig (who knows what’s going on out there). Better blowing up your power conditioner than your much more valuable recording gear.
What’s your take on power conditioning? Let me know in the comments.
There are over a dozen free sample packs in various electronic musical styles.
This is just a taste of the Sample Magic catalog. Their sample collections get great reviews from Music production publications like Sound On Sound, Remix, Computer Music, and Music Tech.
I’m sure you’ll find a use for them in your productions.
Nick Maxwell [@AbletonTutor] of Nick’s Tutorials has recently released his 4th in-depth series of tutorial videos for Ableton Live users – Sound Design With Ableton Live: Analog. The latest video series goes deep into subtractive synthesis using Analog and costs $40.
Below is a taste of what’s in the nearly 4 hours of content.
Demystifying Synthesis and Analog’s Inteface
Looking to improve your skills with sound synthesis? How about more information on Ableton’s most misunderstood instrument? These two questions spawned this 3 hour 40 minute video tutorial series on the Analog synthesizer. Many people have been wondering where to begin with Analog’s interface and powerful functionality: “Sound Design in Ableton Live: Analog” serves as both a missing manual for the instrument plus a comprehensive introduction to the most important concepts in subtractive synthesis. By the end of the series, you’ll have a better understanding of the logic behind Analog’s interface and as well as its sonic potential.
Sound Design in Ableton Live: Operator $40
Learn Operator and FM synthesis in a practical way, discovering how timbres are created and combined to generate insane synth and drum sounds.
Sound Design in Ableton Live: Sampling Tools $40
Learn radical techniques for creating everything from hard-hitting drums to complex atmospheres. Gain the knowledge to create unique, complex sounds.
Sampling & Slicing in Ableton Live $25
A no-fluff series on creating sample-based music in Ableton Live. Learn essential tools and creative techniques with this series. Get up to speed in no time.
then add 25% more space.
