Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

Apple

The Focusrite 2i2 audio interface and its free plugins

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On 22 October 2013, I purchased a Focusrite 2i2 audio interface.

Seven years later, it is still working great and I use it mainly now to connect my Yamaha HS5 monitor speakers to my iMac using balanced connections. I rarely use it for recording.

One great thing about Focusrite is the set of plugins it comes with and its Plugin Collective programme. In essence (and I quote its website), this is what Plugin Collective offers: “When you register any Focusrite hardware you gain access to the most innovative music software brands on the market. Plug-in Collective keeps you up to date with the latest tools, offering you new free downloads every couple of months, along with generous discounts.”

Over the seven years, I have managed to get all of those for free:

  • Audiority Deleight
  • Audiority Distortion 1
  • AudioThing SR-88 (SoundMaster Memory Rhythm SR-88)
  • D16 Sigmund
  • Eventide EQuivocate
  • Focusrite and sonible Balancer
  • Focusrite Red 2
  • Focusrite Red 3
  • Focusrite Scarlett Compressor
  • Focusrite Scarlett Equaliser
  • Focusrite Scarlett Gate
  • Focusrite Scarlett Reverb
  • Mastering The Mix BASSROOM (for six months though)
  • Mastering The Mix IGNITE
  • Novation B-Station (Novation Bass Station)
  • Positive Grid BIAS AMP 2 LE
  • Softube Drawmer S73 Intelligent Master Processor
  • Softube Saturation Knob
  • Softube TSAR-1R Reverb
  • Softube Tube Delay
  • Sound Radix SurferEQ Boogie
  • Venomode DEEQ
  • Venomode MAXIMAL 2
  • Venomode PIVOT
  • and the quite excellent XLN Audio Addictive Keys

I also have a licence for Ableton Live Lite but I have not installed it because I now use the also quite excellent REAPER.

A journey from Unison to Syncthing and back to Unison

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I generally work on my laptop, an old Dell Inspiron 15 still running Fedora Linux 29 quite well. At home, I also tend to work on an Apple iMac (still) running macOS El Capitan (which I intend to upgrade to High Sierra soon — unfortunately, Apple has decided that this iMac cannot run Mojave).

Since the very beginning, I needed to have a proper file synchronisation process for these two computers and cloud solutions such as Google Drive or Dropbox were not options as I had many many Gigabytes to synchronise and this would have been very expensive to be done online.

For 1-2 years, I used Unison, a file synchronisation utility written by one of my Computer Science heroes, Benjamin Pierce, author of the quite renowned book “Types and Programming Languages” which, I have to confess, I have not yet read because, well, I never had the chance to stumble upon it. Anyway, Unison is a tool which does two-way synchronisation between computers and every time there is an inconsistency (a new file, a deleted file, a change, etc.) ask the user to manually choose on the action to make. One important of Unison is that one has to run it manually i.e. the synchronisation only happens when initiated by the user. For example, I like to run Unison every afternoon when I get back home after one day of work.

One year ago, I stopped using Unison. The reason was that I wanted to have real time synchronisation between the two computers i.e. as soon as one changes, the other one is updated (if on of course.) I settled on Syncthing. I tried two different ways of using Syncthing (with a central repository or in peer-to-peer mode) and both worked as expected. But after one year, I have to say that I have two issues with Syncthing. First of all, changes are detected through the inotify mechanism provided by Linux and the macOS kernel. As soon as a file is changed, Syncthing knows about it and can propagate the change to the other computer. All good in principle. But this also means that all errors (a file deleted by mistake, a file overwritten by mistake, etc.) are also immediately propagated. So I used different kinds of versioning techniques to make sure that backups are kept in these situations. But, nevertheless, I slowly realised that real-time propagation might not be a good idea. The second issue is that Syncthing uses a lot of CPU.

Two days ago, I stopped the Syncthing service on all my computers and revived my Unison installation. And, believe it or not, Unison works great for my use case: I can synchronise my computers when I want (after work for instance) and I have the possibility (if there are incoherences) to think deep about which version to keep. For me, and because my files are very valuable to me, this is a much better process.

[At this point, let me point out that I use Unison for synchronisation and I use regular rsync for backup on other devices. It is important to understand the difference between these two processes. Synchronisation is not always needed but backups definitely. Especially when it is compliant with the 3-2-1 strategy.]

What about you? What do you use for synchronising multiple computers when cloud synchronisation is not possible? Do you use Unison? Syncthing? Something else? Why?

My music studio

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I started composing music when I was around 16 years old. At that time (1989!), the technology I had access to was quite primitive compared to what I have today. But I still managed to create some good tracks using my trusty Commodore Amiga 500, Music-X and Bars & Pipes sequencers and my still working Kawai K4 Digital Synthesizer.

Today, of course, I have move to greener and better pastures and this is what I want to share with you in this post.

To start with, from my humble beginnings on the Amiga with Music-X and Bars & Pipes, I’ve moved to Cakewalk (on a PC) when I was studying in France, then to Emagic Logic Audio (still on a PC), then Apple Logic (I had to get a MacBook!), then Apple Logic Pro X (on an Apple iMac) and now Cockos REAPER (still on the iMac but nothing prevents me to move to a PC if needed as I have made it a must to cut my dependence on Apple).

I started using a Focusrite Sapphire 2i2, a very affordable and high-quality audio interface a few years ago. To be honest, as I am an electronic music person, I don’t record a lot of guitars or vocals but I have to say that the balanced output on the Focusrite is very good.Two years ago, I finally acquired a pair of real studio monitors, a pair of Yamaha HS5. Listening to music on them via the balanced output of the 2i2 is great. Sometimes I do use my Superlux HD669 headphones too. I also own an M-Audio Uno MIDI interface for my trusty Kawai K4…

… which brings us to the three keyboards I have. The first one (chronologically) was the Kawai K4 Digital Synthesizer which my parents bought my brother and I around 1989. It was love at first sight for us even though there were better synths at that time. Thirty years later, the sounds are dated but the keybed is still very good (with note on and note off velocity and channel aftertouch). Today I am using the K4 as the master controller of my setup.

A few years ago, I also purchased an M-Audio Oxygen 25 for the rotary knobs but the two octaves are too limiting. Today I only use it sparingly. It will most probably end up in one of my kids’ room. A few months ago, I also got my first digital piano: a Yamaha P-45. I love it. We all use it pretty much every day, especially Anya, but it’s in our living room and not in my studio. I do bring it in my studio from time to time though but I have to say that the K4 is good enough.

When Anya finished CPE, we gave her a Valencia 100 acoustic guitar. Funnily, I was the one who got hooked on guitars and, today, I am a decent guitar player (my brother, Ashvin, who is a pro tells me I’ve reached “Lower VI” level…) Two years ago, we took the plunge and got a Yamaha Pacifica 012 electric guitar and a THR5 amp simulator. To be honest, we don’t use them that much but we really have to beef up our electric guitar skills. I say “we” because Kyan has become a good guitar player as well.

Aha. The venerable Roland TR-606 wsa gifted to me by the dad of a student. They had invited us to have dinner at their place and, when I told them I was a musician, the dad brought me the TR-606 which he had got from a past customer as payment (he was an electronics guy). I don’t switch on the Roland too much these days as I have samples of it but I’ll never let it go… It’s a museum piece.

Having covered hardware, let me move to software. I love virtual instruments. More than hardware synths or samplers in fact. The computer scientist in me knows that an Intel processor is way more powerful than what exists in synths. For acoustic sounds, my choice is XLN Audio. I have Addictive Keys for my grand piano (and I have to say it sounds better than my Yamaha P-45). For acoustic drums, I own Addictive Drums 2. I suppose my next album, the fourth one, will feature these quite a lot, especially Addictive Drums. On my 3rd album, Turn Around, I was still using the Drummer in Logic Pro X.

For synth and sampling, I have the best: UVI Falcon. I got Falcon only last week and I have been discovering the presets (which are quite amazing). Interestingly, a few days ago, Christina asked me about how Falcon works and I spent one hour explaining analog and FM synthesis to her while demonstrating the creation of simple sounds in Falcon. And, believe it or not, everything worked! Falcon is deep but logical. I love this!

Prior to getting Falcon, I had purchased UVI Synth Anthology 2 and UVI Beatbox Anthology 2. Both are complex sound libraries of legendary synths and drum machines. I was using them in the free UVI Workstation which has limited editing capabilities. With Falcon, I can now edit every single aspect of the sounds if needed. I love that UVI sound libraries are compatible with Falcon. I also own Analog and Digital Motions, two additional Falcon sound expansions. They are both wicked!

A few years ago, I purchased KV331Audio Synthmaster, a very powerful synth. It’s not as powerful as Falcon (in principle) but still… I have used it a few times and the presets are also very nice. As I own Falcon now, I may sell it but maybe not… The only issue with Falcon is that the presets and the expansions tend to be complex evolving arpeggiated sounds. Synthmaster provides the bread and butter sounds: bass, lead, etc. Of course, these can easily be made in Falcon but I will have to MAKE them or find yet another library. Maybe I’ll keep SynthMaster around for a few months and see what happens…

As for sampling, I bought TAL-Sampler a few months ago and I have not used it a lot. It is quite easy to use though: choose a sample, map it and voilà. Unfortunately, it does not support multisamples and I have a lot of multisamples of my trusty Kawai K4 which I recorded myself. I’ll probably resell the TAL-Sampler soon once I find an easy way to import the K4 samples into Falcon. In any case, Falcon is a much more powerful sampler than TAL-Sampler… I will probably get a few dollars which I’ll invest into other Falcon expansions…

Coming to effects, I am pretty much a Waves guy (despite a lot of people criticising the company). For me, the plugins are affordable (I always get them when they are on sales), they look great, they sound great and are multiplatform. I’m really thinking of moving to a PC after the iMac and the Waves plugins will definitely have to move with me…

The channel strip which I use on all my channels is the Waves Scheps Omni Channel. It is powerful, sounds great and is easy to use. The preamp has a nice distortion, the EQ is easy to use and the compressor very effective as it’s basically a VCA, a FET and an Optical compressor in one. The presets by Andrew Scheps are very good and can serve as inspiration.

I use the Waves H-Reverb and H-Delay plugins pretty much on all my tracks. They both sound great and are easy to use. These days, I tend to use the EQ and the compressor in the channel strip. But in case I need standalone ones, I have H-Comp and H-EQ. I got all four plugins in the H-Series Bundle.

I have acquired the F6 Floating-Band Dynamic EQ but I have not used it yet on any track. But I know that I am ready for any complex audio correction if needed (possibly at the mastering level…) I suppose this will be needed more on acoustic instruments and vocals. We’ll see. I also have the Bass Rider. It’s designed for bass guitar but also works great on synth bass.

For vocals, I have Vocal Rider which is insane. And I also have Waves Tune which is insane too. I have used both for a recording of Anya and Kyan singing “Where’s the Revolution” by Depeche Mode and the result is quite fantastic! Pity they asked me not to put their version of the DM song on YouTube or Soundcloud. I can only tell you that you are missing quite something :-)

For mastering, I have opted for Vitamin Sonic Enhancer for sprinkling the magichigh-frequency dust on the song. Waves Center is also very powerful for controlling the stereo image of the song and making it sound more professional.

At the end of the chain, I use the Waves SSL G-Master Buss Compressor, THE GLUE! This plugin makes everything seamless. It’s a joy to use (as it has a few knobs) and sounds great. For making sure that no clipping can ever happen, I use the L2 Ultramaximizer at the very end. I am a fan. I make sure that mixing and mastering are well done and attenuation is only a few dBs at most.

I also use two essential Waves metering plugins. First, I tend to use the Waves Dorrough Stereo plugin a lot when recording and mixing. I use it to make sure that I never have signals which are too hot. I also use it to make sure that my music is dynamic. For me, as someone who despise the Loudness War, I love listening to unclipped and dynamic music. Finally, the WLM Plus Loudness Meter allows me to master in compliance with AES EBU R128 standards.

Of course, hardward and software is only one part of the equation. To do music, you also need some inspiration (20%) and a lot of perspiration (80%) :-)

Listen to my three albums online: Turn Around (2016), So Logical (2004) and My Contribution to Art (1995-2000).

Enjoy. And don’t hesitate to leave your feedback.