TECHNEWS IN ASSOCIATION WITH POINT BLANK’S PRODUCTION TIP OF THE WEEK PROPELLERHEADS FIGURE IT OUT


DANNY J LEWIS GIVES YOU HIS FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE MUCH-HYPED PROPELLERHEADS IOS APP ‘FIGURE’


Point Blank Online School brings you weekly fresh nuggets of music production advice courtesy of the team of pro producer course developers and tutors… This week Danny J Lewis (Defected/Enzyme Black) takes the reins:


“iOS apps are making the process of production much more accessible and ‘Figure’ from Propellerheads, the people who brought us Reason, offers a unique next-gen interface for jamming with musical ideas. Traditionalists are going to hate on this one big time: for starters you don’t input notes via a keyboard and neither do you have the ability to edit notes on a piano roll. What it does is take away the ‘thinking’ process and strip things right down to a primal ‘fun’ level that is downright addictive! Composition is broken down into three key areas: drums, bass and lead. For drums you get four touch strips, one for each category of drum sample such as kick, snare, hats and percussion. The vertical position of your fi nger on each strip sets the ‘length’ of the drum hit and is great for adding variety to your programming with larger


decays at the top. The snare, hat and percussion strips also give you a different sample on the left and the right side, allowing for even more creative scope. When I fi rst used Figure I tried to programme the beats like an MPC or Maschine where each tap became a single element of the beat but the app doesn’t lend itself naturally to this kind of programming. Instead you select a ‘pattern’ from the rotary dial and then trigger it like a loop into the sequencer: the longer you hold your fi nger down, the longer the loop plays for. It takes a little getting used to but makes perfect sense and is a great way to lay down some beats, particularly for those who can’t play in time. The bass and lead elements operate on a similar principle: select a pattern and then trigger this from the touch strip, adjusting the root note of the sequence by the position on the pad.


Once you’ve got the foundation idea down, it’s time to modulate using the same touch pad interface although this time with different consequences. No surprises on the effects used


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