How Your DAW Does Math 

By Brian Smithers

Much of the number crunching that occurs within your audio software remains a mystery; does your DAW treat audio as floating-point numbers or as fixed-point numbers? What’s the difference, and should you really care?...

Sonic Sculptor 

By Diane Gershuny

Electronic Musician's Pro/File of Monsieur Leroc, who's latest CD, I'm Not Young But I Need the Money, was put together without a lot of gear, but with a lot of creativity....

Phone Tag 

By Steve Ouimette

Writing music for cell-phone games is a specialized skill. Though it may seem simple on the surface, the process is more complex than just dropping an...

Slice, Move, and Glue 

By Mitchell Sigman

The advent of digital audio sequencers has made quantized drums a fact of life. Here’s how to chop up multitrack audio drum parts and quantize them perfectly in Apple Logic Pro....

Machine Tools 

By Len Sasso

SFX Machine Pro, winner of an EM 2007 Editors' Choice Award, takes a novel and somewhat quirky approach to effects design. One of the best ways to learn...

Q&A: Michael Petricone 

By Mike Levine

Electronic Musician's interview with Michael Petricone, VP of the Consumer Electronics Association, who tells why he thinks the major record labels are stifling technologies that could help independent musicians....

From Talking Heads to Production Whiz 

By Paul Tingen

Former Talking Head member Jerry Harrison has established himself as a successful producer. Electronic Musician talks to him about his production philosophy, gear choices and his advice for personal-studio owners....

Native Instruments Announces the Traktor Tutorial DVD 

Native Instruments has announced the Traktor Tutorial DVD, which offers comprehensive video tutorials, artist interviews, and special workshop content to help you get the most out of NI Traktor 3 DJ software....

Movin' On Up 

By Jim Aikin

The audio input/output (I/O) that's built into your computer is fine for playing games and maybe for watching movies. But once you begin to produce your...

Twelve Under a Hundred 

By Len Sasso

From time to time, EM's editors search out cost-effective solutions for common problems. Most electronic musicians use software instruments to one extent...

Train REX 

By Jim Aikin

Using REX files is a great way to add prerecorded beats to almost any project. One advantage of REX files, which are available from many sound developers,...

Q&A: Michael Laskow 

By Mike Levine

Predicting the future is never easy, but trying to anticipate what it will bring can help a lot as long as you really know the subject that you're speculating...

Sounds in Motion 

By Mitchell Sigman

Vector synthesis was invented by Sequential Circuits and first appeared in the company's Prophet-VS synthesizer in 1986. Subsequent classic hardware vector...

Beat Crazy in Atlanta 

By Mike Levine

As I pulled up to the ramshackle house in the Atlanta suburbs, I was sure that I had the wrong address. This couldn't be where producer, keyboardist,...

Hest Makes Best 

By Mike Levine

After years of touring and making several indie CDs, singer-songwriter Ari Hest's career was on the rise. He signed with Columbia Records and cut a CD's...

All about Additive Synthesis 

By Scott R. Garrigus

Most desktop musicians are familiar with the term "additive synthesis," but how many know exactly what it is and how it can be used to create sound? In this article you will learn how to use additive synthesis to create sound. Learn about the basic principles behind this technique and the different ways it has been implemented over the years....

Here's That Grainy Day 

By Jim Aikin

Granular synthesis is often used in academic and experimental music but isn't found in many commercial synthesizers. The sounds it produces are somewhat...

Texas in a Suitcase 

By Diane Gershuny

Lynda Kay Parker and Danny B. Harvey are the component parts of the quirky country duo Lonesome Spurs. Though both are native Texans, they're based in...

Q&A: Jack Rudy 

By Mike Levine

In the music-for-picture world, composers get most of the glory. But there's another group of professionals who have a big impact on which music gets...

Mic Specs Demystified 

By Brian Smithers

How to interpret microphone specifications....