Compressors, equalizers, reverb effects, delays… for the weekend-producer as well as the serious home-studio owner, kitting yourself out with some real hardware units can prove pretty costly. The big question is whether or not the virtual audio plugins designed to emulate real hardware and that you can use from the comfort of your DAW, do just as professional a job. So how good are current plugins at modelling hardware and how does it actually work?

“The mp3 era is over! Streaming is the future!” Is that right? While it is kind of right, and while a lot of beginner DJs can fall into the trap of believing that they can use their DJ controller with Spotify, unfortunately that might not be true because, a couple of years ago, Spotify stopped working with any DJ apps.

Welcome to the world of music production, where time is of utmost importance. In this fast-paced environment, being efficient is crucial, and Studio One provides a variety of tools to help you optimize your productivity. Follow guest blogger Mike Rosa as he reveals ten time-saving methods that will take your music production workflow to the next level.

While it isn’t the most obvious, live editing is actually one of the best ways to create music using Ableton Live, especially when it comes to genres where quick-switching is the name of the game, like drum-and-bass and other glitchy styles. Guest-blogger Hens Zimmerman is back to show you how to remix in real time via seven simple steps.

If you’ve already read my other blog on FM synthesis, then you’re ready for part two: an extensive tutorial on how to design sounds using FM synthesis. To give ambitious beginners a helping hand, I’ll be covering terms like operator, carrier, modulator, envelope, scaling and feedback, giving you all the basic knowledge you need to use either FM-based hardware such as real synthesizers, or FM-based software such as the Native Instruments FM8 virtual synth (included with Komplete) to sculpt your own sounds.

Music: it’s an art. It’s an emotion. Close your eyes, drift away on a fluffy little cloud and just feel the music. Music can’t be quantified, it can’t be measured. Music isn’t mathematics. Music can’t be judged – that would destroy it. But let’s be honest.

It’s something that every musician and technician has had to deal with at one point or another: stage monitors. When perfectly positioned and correctly set up, you’re looking at a smooth show and maybe a post-gig beer with the band and sound tech, but bad stage sound can lead to dirty looks, the exchange of dirty words and – ultimately – a bad show, simply because the band can’t hear themselves.

A brass section, or horn section is usually made up of one or two saxophones, trumpets and trombones and can fit pretty much anywhere in the music landscape, but in some genres, like soul and funk, having a horn section is an absolute must. In any case, when you add a brass section to the band, you can really make the music explode. A brass section brings in extra soloists, makes everything sound thicker and fatter and looks nothing short of awesome on the stage. But… adding horns into the mix is actually a tougher process than you might think. Here, we offer up eight tips to help you form the perfect collaboration.

Just to be clear, this blog is about traditional music composition, meaning it’s not going to deal with modern EDM-style workflows involving arpeggiators, drum loops, Ableton tools, and so on. So, if you know your way around a piano and want to start writing your own pieces, by all means, dig in!

Given the infinite list of plug-ins you can add to your DAW these days, it’s easy to forget that, back in the day, every single effect was a separate bit of kit that needed to be hooked up. Not only that, parts could break and spilling a cup of tea was a serious job hazard. That being said, hardware-based effects are still made to this very day.

Ever wondered what MPE, or MIDI Polyphonic Expression can do for your Ableton Live productions? Guest-blogger Hens Zimmerman is here to explain the potential of this ground-breaking MIDI feature and show you how MPE can be used to shape super-expressive sounds.

If you just treated yourself to your first guitar, digital piano, drum kit, DJ controller or music production software, then chances are you’re already dreaming of performing on a stage one day. To get there though, you’re going to need a good way to hone your skills. Nowadays, there’s plenty of wisdom to be found online, ranging from tutorials on YouTube to free courses, which raises the question: how does self-teaching stack up against going for lessons with a real teacher?