Radius is a new commercial sound pack containing 100 new high quality presets for Circle. It covers a broad spectrum, containing techno percussive sounds, drums, dub step wobble basses, tech house chords and plucks, nu disco arps, pads and build risers. It also includes TB 303 bass line sounds, FM bass sounds…we could go on but why not check out the audio demos for yourself!

Purchase from here:
http://www.voltagedisciple.com/circle.html

Gavin.

For our readers who are not familiar with you yet, can you tell us a bit about what you do?
I am a berlin based musican/producer/singer/songwriter/dj.
Stylistically I do electronic music in the broadest sense because I only use my music software and my voice. So far I have releases on Oliver Koletzkis’ Label “Stil Vor Talent” and am currently working on my debut album.

What inspired you first to start making electronic music?
When I was a kid and I listened to my favorite music I was always like „how do they do this? how are they creating those sounds?“. It all started with that curiosity of how electronic sound is being created so I can eventually do it myself. To afford a good music/sound production during the late 90s was still a luxury and only accessible to a limited group of people. The thing I love about today and about music software in general, is that it is accessible to everyone. It is quite affordable in comparison to when I was a kid. So it all started with the curiosity about how my favorite tracks became the tracks they were. Music was always my passion and so I wanted to produce it as well. I was fascinated by the idea to be able to retain something. To retain emotion and make it last forever. So to record electronic music for me is to capture a moment, an emotional state you are in. You record that moment and you code it through sound and then you put it on a record and it is in the world forever. I love about doing electronic music that it gives me the feeling to freeze time. It is something universal for me. I can play a beautiful song on the piano, but then when it´s finished it´s finished. It´s just gone. Anyway, my parents gave me my first music software when I was 16, that´s when I started to experiment with different music software like Logic, Reason and Ableton. What I love about electronic music is that the possibilities are endless, you can always create a new sound. Its kind of limitless. So it never gets boring! On top of that I find it amazing what role pure chance can play in the process too. Sometimes a sound just happens accidentally without being planned. This is not possible with any other kind of instrument. I mean you can put objects into your piano and change the sound, but at the end of the day a piano is a really limited instrument. You will never get over a certain point of sound.

What are the biggest influences to your music?
Sound wise it has always been the city of Berlin with it’s tremendous night life culture of course. The input you can get here in one night is just insane. I love all the productions of Dirk Leyers, his productions were also one of the firsts I came in contact with. I am also still very much fascinated by Kraftwerk because it is so timeless and you can still find their traces in almost every piece of electronic music. They were just visionary, they build their own synthesizers and created a unique sound. Which is still so modern nowadays. Stuff like this is just unbelievable. Also I really love the productions by Ame and Pantha Du Prince. Lyrics wise it´s mostly personal experiences with relationships, everything that has to do with love and the nightlife in Berlin. When it comes to lyrics I love the German lyrics of Aim of Design Is To Define Space, Kraftwerk, Ideal, Nina Hagen, 2Raumwohnung (only first album), “Neue Deutsche Welle” in general…but also old romantic german tales and poems. I am really interested in combining the german language in a poetic way with electronic machine sounds.

Tell us about your studio setup?
I have a so called bedroom studio where I write my music, before taking it to a professional mixing studio. At the moment it consists of my Macbook, an external sound card, two monitor speakers, AKG Headphones, one Rhode Microphone, then some midi controllers, mixer and a keyboard, the music software Ableton Live and lots of different plug ins like Circle and different Arturia synths plug-ins like ProphetV and Analog Factory.

When writing a track, what is your process?
This can really differ from track to track. But I usually start with the melodies and harmonies, then I add the beats and then I add the singing voice and lyrics at the end. I do the first drafts really quick by only using presets and then I exchange the sounds later on and refine them when the core idea is finished. 

Do you follow the latest developments in music technology?
I am really interested in how music apps for the iPad and iPhone are going to develop. I really liked the Garage Band app for the iPad as a creative sketch pad. I hope these things are going to become more advanced or open to producing more personal styles. I´d love to do live gigs with an iPad for example. I think it has a great potential. I read about girl bands in Japan who only use iphones and ipads as instruments i think that is super fun. I also heard the read that Damon Albarn is recorded his latest album only using apps. But i don´t know if this totally true. That must sound shocking now to music technology fans, but as I said I think you don´t need to be a total tech fetishist to create great music. I admire people though, who program music software and are researching on new sound possibilities. I think I would not be patient enough myself. But I´m lucky that there are people who create all these tool for musicians. I especially love the sound aesthetic of Circle. I see myself as artist as a kind of  “player” who combines the cool sounds that are handed to me. And I can then play around with them and put them together into a piece of music like a some one playing with a jigsaw puzzle, but one without any picture on the box! As I said the possible combinations are endless!

What are the biggest issues you have with music technology?
I am not a tech nerd and so I love music technology that is easy and intuitively to use. I don’t want to have to have to get a masters degree in math before I can start to use it. That is what I like about Circle for example and also the Arturia analog synthesizers.

Drawing Circles is a commercially available Dubstep sound bank for Circle, from the company Loop Based. These sounds are not only an impressive demonstration of Circle’s capabilities but also a true innovation since it is the first professional Dubstep kit made for it. Loop Based have given us with some free sample presets from the bank for you to use in your music.

Download link:
Sample Drawing Circles Bank

Install Instructions:
Copy unzipped folder to the “Presets” folder in the Circle installation directory on your hard drive.
Copy the contents of the unzipped “Wavetables” folder to the “Wavetables” folder in the Circle installation directory.

Purchase Link:
Purchase Full Drawing Circles Bank on Loopbased

The first in a new monthly Circle artist focus, we chat to the upcoming UK bass and dubstep producer iO. Hailing from Guildford, iO has been causing ripples in his scene, with some high quality remixes and productions up coming in the new year. Below is a sample of the punchy bass rework of Warrior One’s 90′s sounding jungle track ‘Fyah’, featuring dnb favourite Ayah Marar. It’s out Jan 9th on Black Butter Records.

For our readers who are not familiar with you yet, can you tell us a bit about what you do?

Im a young producer from London, and make house infused electronic music -under the name iO.

What inspired you first to start making electronic music?

I started out writing in bands, and got a bit frustrated with the limits and boundaries that exist within that framework. So about 6 years ago I started playing around with computers making music.

What are the biggest influences to your music?

I would say that my surroundings, the people that i spend my time with, and the gigs I go to all influence me. I try my hardest not to draw inspiration from other producers in the same genre. Just because i think it can be easy for electronic musicians to end up mimicking and sounding alike. It’s extremely difficult though…

Tell us about your studio setup?

Well I record bands, so i have quite a large interface (Apogee ensemble). I have a load of nice mic pre-amps and stuff, but they don’t get used a whole lot when I’m writing electronic music. I use the KRK VXT6’s for monitoring, and have a load of other systems i reference on. Then pretty much everything else is in the box! I have a pretty old rusty Mac which i run Logic from, with a couple of choice synths (FAW Circle being a favorite). Apart from that the only other thing that sitts in my studio, is my Rhodes. Its an MK1, and I’m in love with it.

When writing a track, what is your process?

I try not to have a set ‘process’, just because from my experience, when I stick to a template, my ideas start to sound formulaic. I usually mess around on the piano until i have a chord progression. Then I might see if I can add an accapella, then write the beats around the rhythm I’ve come up with. Occasionally I will write some beats first (if there is a style I’m trying to capture). But for me personally, I find it a lot harder writing melodies around drums…but thats just me. But usually I try to have an idea before I switch the computer on.

Do you follow the latest developments in music technology?

I try to, but it seems things fly at a million miles an hour nowadays. I try to keep up to date with the latest plug-ins and soft synths. But there is only so many one producer needs! I’m still trying to hone my skills with the tools that I’ve got.

What are the biggest issues you have with music technology?

Well i think we live in exciting times, and there are many amazing things happening within music technology. But i think the fact that music production software has become so widly available in the last few years, has lead to production values falling, and in my opinion this is one of the reasons why electronic music isn’t valued in the way it has been in the past. I will always try my best to deliver quality not quantity. But i dunno, maybe today thats not the best model follow!

From Sun-Ra to Pink Flyod, musicians have been looking to the heavens for inspiration in their music. Sound designers also have been inspired, realizing its lonely beauty in sound, through atmospheric electronic evolving sounds. We are happy to present this free bank of space inspired sounds to you, designed by Proxima IV.

Download link:
Eclipse Circle Bank by Proxima IV

We wish you all a great time over the holidays with your family and friends. Berlin based singer, Juli Holz, sent us a link to an electronic reworking of a classic German Christmas song, Tanne Tanne. She also used Circle for synthesizer parts.

Check out Juli’s facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/juliholzmusic

FAW founder, Gavin Burke, speaks about Circle, the future of music technology and it’s impact on a wider audience, as part of the CDR Berlin workshop series.

This month Future Audio Workshop went retro, as we dusted down the original Sequential Circuits Pro-One synthesiser that we used to model Circle’s filter section and went about recreating the original factory patches which were contained in the original Pro-One owners manual. This process involved first creating a patch on the Pro-One, analyzing the sound using frequency analysis tools, then matching the settings and tuning the sound so that they matched perfect between Circle and the Pro-One. This authentic analog sound bank for Circle is free to download for everyone.

Download link:
Pro One Analog Bank

Install Instructions:
Copy unzipped folder to the “Presets” folder in the Circle installation directory on your hard drive.

A Monome and Circle user uploaded this to YouTube, from the description:

“This was made with Ableton Live and a Monome 64, using impulse in ableton for drums, and both the lower ‘bass’ line and the main melody were made using the FAW Circle VST.

The Monome was controlling the main melody using Polygomé written by Stretta (stretta.com) and using the tilt feature of the Monome to control Circle live for some added variance.

I know it got a little long but I was having fun with the Monome and got carried away, beside isn’t that what music is about sometimes!”

Above is a recording of a panel discussion on “How Technology Is Shaping The Future Of Music” as part of the Bermuda/Alltogethernow festival in Berlin.

Gavin Burke (CEO FAW), Alonso Dominguez (Sugarhigh), Verena Dauerer (journalist) and hosted by Ari Stein.