Martin Delaney

Following up on our last tutorial about mastering in Live 10, it’s time to dig a bit deeper, and highlight two of the most important and most-used of Live’s mastering devices –  Multiband Dynamics and EQ Eight.

It’s two years since Live 10 was released, and, as always Ableton has taken its time to avoid hollow point updates, and has finally provided the much anticipated next step in the world-beating DAW’s evolution.

We’ve all wondered why our mixes don’t quite boast that professional-level sheen, particular those of us who aren’t adept at mastering. Here, we’ll show you what you can do to get your songs sounding more radio-friendly.

Though there’s a multitude of technical processes wrapped up in the catch-all title of ‘mixing’, this across-the-board advice is worth considering before you finalise your track.

In our last tutorial, we covered recording a Session View jam using clip launching, mixer adjustments and effects manipulation to create an arrangement. Now it’s time to tidy it up and smooth its rough edges.

Crossing streams is a specialty of this Ohio-based company, whose creative plug-ins bridge the gap between analogue and digital. We dip our toes into its latest release, a granular-synthesis instrument with minimal CPU-drain.

One-shots, loops, audio effects – your elements are all in place. Now it’s time to commit everything to a finished arrangement. Fear not. Ableton Live makes this process intuitive and fun.

After a slew of new products, Akai has turned its attention to updating the mighty MPC Live. But does this speaker-toting follow-up revolutionise the hardware giant’s box of wonders?

This omnipotent plug-in from Denise Audio will see you sculpting sonic worlds in far fewer than seven days.

Cooked up by the boffins at SampleScience, Vaporwaves 2 is a time-travelling plug-in that winds back the clock and lets users party – or at least compose – like it’s 1989.