A glimpse into the “Electronic Music Production and Sound Synthesis Workshop ” conducted on 21st July 2019. Here are the highlights of the Arturia meet up.
This two City Meetup was a much-awaited event among Arturia followers in the country. Brought together by The Inventory; the 1st Leg of the meet was conducted in association with Beatworx Studios and DJP Media in Bangalore.
The 2nd and Final leg, conducted by the I Love Music Academy was at “Dontelmama”- a brand new venue in the centre of Delhi’s shopping district (South-Ex). The event had a great turnout with a hundred Arturia lovers in attendance.
Topics covered at the Workshop:
- How to use hardware synths and drum machines.
- Using Semi-Modular Synthesizers.
- How to explore and expand your tracks.
- Sounds of V- Collection7/ Software Synths.
- Mixing and polishing your track with EQs and Compressors.
- How to use hardware sequencers and modular synthesizers in a live environment.
Instructors & Artists at the Workshop
The workshop was conducted by Patrice Martin (from Arturia, France) along with Monophonik (Gently Altered) & Sushant Joshi (Faculty member – I Love Music Academy) demonstrating synthesis and its concepts.
S h atrunjai aka Monophonik
Artist
Monophonik kickstarted the meet with a brief introduction to his music by way of a short performance. He paraphrased with explanations on the basics of Synthesis. Moving on to Modular synthesis, its application and demonstration; Monophonik wowed the already excited audience. Further, he went on to explain the use of the Arturia BeatStep Pro in his set. Most noteworthy; he described the Beat Step Pro as the centre of his performance and production. His intriguing performance ended with the audience swaying to his music. They couldn’t get enough of it.
Patrice Martin
Area Sales Manager (Arturia)
Patrice started with a small performance integrating Arturia Microfreak, Drum brute Impact, Arturia Audio fuse with Ableton. Furthermore, he illuminated on product features and revealed some music production tricks via a Q&A session. He was supported by Tanseer Jabbar (Founder & Managing Director at The Inventory).
Sushant Joshi
Artist/Instructor at I Love Music Academy.
Expressing his love for the history of synthesis, Sushant dove into the origins of west coast synthesizers. He touched upon the features of the Arturia Microfreak. However, we ran short of time and had to cut short the explanation.
Sushant regularly takes lessons on Music Production and Synthesis at the academy. Almost always happy to help any fellow synth lover to dig deeper, and is known for getting our students excited about synthesis. Come say hi, if you feel the urge to explore synthesis.
Students had the opportunity to tinker with Arturia’s newly launched Microfreak and the V-collection 7 among the other gear that was available for demonstration at the meet. If you missed it check out the gear that was available below:
Hardware/Software Synths & Controllers on display by Arturia.
Arturia Microfreak
Budget-friendly synth
This budget-friendly synth, packs allot for its price. Described as an experimental Hybrid Synth, the Microfreak is the latest synth to be added to Arturias arsenal. Blending Wavetable and Digital oscillators with analogue filters, it features 11 oscillation modes.
The bright chirpy sounds along with its capacitive touch keyboard and Spice & Dice Gate randomizers make it an interesting but at times unusual acting synth, that Arturia refers to as “controlled randomness”. More information here on the Microfreak.
Arturia BeatStep Pro
Budget-friendly synth
The Controller Sequencer that can be an asset on stage as well as in the studio. The BeatStep Pro has 2 melodic sequencers and a drum sequencer, a looper with a touch strip, a randomizer, swing settings and a bunch of hands-on controls. It further expands one’s capabilities allowing you to work and connect to virtually any musical device.
Arturia Mini Brute 2
“Wired-up analog mutant”
A touch of Modular to the ever so famous Mini Brute. The upgrade to the original, adds powerful sound shaping features, step-sequencer, arpeggiator, and a modular patch-bay. With a 2nd VCO, 2 LFO’s and a high quality, aftertouch-enhanced 25-key keyboard; it is a tempting semi-modular that is ready for your own personal tweaks. Being dynamic the Mini Brute is ready for Play – patched or unpatched.
Drum Brute Impact
Analogue Drum Synth
Simple and straightforward in its design and workflow, the Drum Brute, is as its name suggests, a RAW and powerful Drum sequencer. It is a feature-rich step sequencer boasting of few features like its sound shaper called Colour, Drum optimised Distortion and It’s polyrhythm feature that lets you assign different pattern lengths for each instrument, creating an effect of perpetual motion. Its tactile pads feel great. The wealth of analogue and digital connections allows for expansion of your setup and experimentation with routing.
Arturia Keylab 49 (MK-II) + V Collection 7
Luxury in Midi
Keylab MKII series comes in 49 & 61 Keys with the colour option of Black or White. This luxurious keyboard is the full package for your Studio with seamless integration with your DAW, virtual instruments, hardware, and outboard or modular gear. It includes 16 RGB backlit pads, 9 faders, 9 rotary knobs, dedicated DAW and transport controls, along with a high-quality 49-note keyboard with aftertouch.
Packaged with Arturia’s V Collection, an ever-growing bank of sounds now in its 7th edition, the combination is just amazing. The V collection is the go-to software library of every vintage synth you would ever want. This mega bundle features the much loved CZ-101 remake of the Casio, circa 1985; which is a favourite of vintage synth enthusiasts.
The V-collection is available at I Love Music Academy(Gurgaon), for our student to explore.
The meet ended with attendees trying out the demo gear. Sushant along with Ratul ( X-I Love Music Academy audio engineering student and current “The Inventory” North-India, Representative) helped explain product features and more. A quick mention of our venue host Owner/DJ Gols for Dontellmama’s hospitality and our Team. Abhishek Varma, Vinayak Sen, Manish Bhatt, Rishabh Chhabra and Sharanjeet Singh (The Team). They worked endlessly behind the scenes to make sure everything went off well.
A Big Thank you to Arturia and The Inventory for collaborating with us. We look forward to continuing support and expanding the reach and influence of electronic music with them. We hope you join us in this endeavour. Cheers!
