Dance, The Power Of Ten
Sep 01, 2010
Ten years. That’s how long I’ve been writing the Dance column for Keyboard. It has enabled so much for me—from meeting heroes, to receiving letters thanking me for my insights, to compiling dozens of columns for my book, The More...
Michael Brauer, On Playing Your Mixer Like an Instrument
Sep 01, 2010
“This is what I wanted,” beams the multiple Grammy-winning mix engineer from amidst the glow of his NASA-sized collection of vintage outboard gear at Electric Lady Studios. “I wanted a job where I’m totally responsible for my More...
Steal This Sound, Madonna’s “Lucky Star”
Sep 01, 2010
Most folks think of ’80s-vintage Madonna and remember the hair, rubber bracelets, and attire that spawned a generation of dress-alikes. Listen to the Material Girl’s early hits, though, and you’ll find some pretty sweet vintage More...
Dance, The Rise, Part II
Aug 01, 2010
Last month, we learned how to create dramatic pitch rises using soft synths. This time, we’ll add rises to audio from beatboxes or drum loops. Drums that rise? Hell, yeah! This is a fantastic trick for constantly increasing More...
Erasure’s “A Little Respect”
Aug 01, 2010
Vince Clarke has cemented his place as a legend of synth pop. In the ’80s, he penned numerous hits with Depeche Mode prior to forming smash duo Yaz with singer Alison Moyet. Yaz disbanded after just two albums, but Vince More...
Ask Mike, August 2010
Aug 01, 2010
For your playback duties with Mariah Carey, are you still touring with the two G5 Macs, multiple MOTU HD192 interfaces, and the 72 x 24 Clair Brothers audio switcher? I’m considering just carrying laptops on tour. What do you More...
Steal This Sound, Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon”
Jul 01, 2010
 Herbie Hancock’s music has traversed many paths over the years, but in the early ’70s, the album Head Hunters set the standard for jazz-funk fusion. Using a combination of Clavinet, Rhodes electric piano, and ARP synth, Head More...
Synth Workshop, Modular Mayhem On the Kurzweil PC3
Jul 01, 2010
On Kurzweil’s PC3 series synths, a layer of a sound program can have up to four “units” of DSP—measures of how hard the chips work to create sound. You can spend DSP units on a modeled analog oscillator, a filter, or other More...
Dance - The Rise, Part I
Jul 01, 2010
For dance floor mayhem, one of the most dramatic, hands-in-the-air effects is “the rise,” which usually happens after a big breakdown in your track. Often starting quite low, then rising in pitch over the course of eight, 16, or More...
Robert Palmer’s Addicted To Love
Jun 01, 2010
Who could forget the suit-and-tie clad Robert Palmer surrounded by a “band” of five vapid models obviously only pretending to play? Considering the small fortunes spent on videos then, “Addicted to Love” was cheap, simple, and More...
Real-World Ambiences
Jun 01, 2010
Killer synth riffs and slammin’ drums are key components of dance tracks, but if you want fans to wonder, “How was that sound created?” you can get a lot of mileage from adding ambiences. Not as in “Brian Eno” washy drones, but More...
How To Rescue Old Stereo Mixes
May 01, 2010
Mixing in a home studio can be hazardous to your music. Over the past few years, I’ve finished and mixed a number of synth instrumentals, but I never took the essential step of burning them to a CD and listening to them on More...
Duran Duran's 'Hungry Like The Wolf'
May 01, 2010
 Duran Duran were the poster children of the ’80s with a string of MTV-era hits that still rock the clubs today. Nick Rhodes’ mix of swirling atmospherics and percolating arpeggios went a long way toward establishing the More...
Electro Bass Lines
Apr 28, 2010
Starting in the underground and now infecting hip-hop and mainstream pop, the genre called electro combines elements of greasy funk and grimy synths. This booty-shaking, floor-stomping sound is one reason that artists like More...
Techno Delays
Apr 01, 2010
Last year, I became fond of a popular techno technique for keeping a simple, repetitive riff interesting: using dramatic delays as the part evolves over the course of a track. This trick is so effective that it can be More...
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