Wondering if you can use you synthesizer as a MIDI keyboard is a common question for beginners. For many of us. Space in the studio (at least to begin with) is at a premium. So having synthesizers, midi keyboards and controllers covering your entire desk is not necessarily what we want. When I first…
People kept telling me to download ASIO4ALL when I was having latency issues with my recordings a while ago. But ‘what is ASIO4ALL?’ I asked And I’ve just got a new Macbook…..’Can you get ASIO4ALL on a Mac?’ Latency can be all too common of a problem when you are first starting out in…
With the introduction of USB mixers, many people are starting to ask if they can act as a replacement for an audio interface. When I used to be in a band (a while ago now!) we didn’t do any of our own recordings. One of the reasons for this is that we used to…
These days many of us are finding ourselves more and more restricted in terms of space. A small corner of a one bedroom apartment may be all you have as your home ‘music studio’ when you are first starting out. So when you want to learn to play the piano. Buying a full-sized piano…
One day I noticed one of my synths was slightly out of tune. I was very confused…..can synths go out of tune? surely not? I assumed that because they were electronic instruments that they couldn’t, but I was wrong! Analog synths can go out of tune. However digital synths, virtual analogs and wavetable synths etc do…
When I bought my first Korg Volca synthesizer I couldn’t believe some of the weird sounds I managed to get from it. I wanted to record some of the weird sounds to my DAW because there is no way to save a patch on the synth itself. I noticed that the only audio output…
I know when I find some weird or interesting sound on my synthesizer. I want to record it to your computer as quickly as possible. The quickest and easiest way to connect most synthesizers to the computer for recording is by using an audio interface. The quick steps for connecting a synth to your computer…
This question came from a friend of mine who asked if they would be able to play chords on a Korg Monologue (a monophonic synth) which they wanted to purchase. I asked why needed to be able to play chords. This opened up all sorts of questions which eventually lead to this article. In…
I trawled through all the resources I could to try and find the correct etymological origin of the word ‘synth pad’ and there is no clear answer for the origin of the word in a musical context. However, it seems to be widely accepted that the word reflects the fact that a pad ‘pads out…