Jon Hopkins' favourite music software
Sound Forge 4
“This lets you open files directly off the hard drive, so you can edit and process them independently of your sequencer. I often have tens of different sounds open at once, all with separate undo chains and innumerable edits. I use it to make my most complex sounds and all of my beats.”
Gadget Labs WaveWARM
“One of the reasons I use such an old version of Sound Forge is for some of the plugins that won’t load in newer versions. WaveWARM’s meant to be a valve emulator or something, but if you push the settings to extremes, it does the most mental stuff. Waveforms come out looking like stalagmites - which is obviously a good thing!”
[Editor's note: WaveWARM is so old that we couldn't even find a picture of it, hence the shot of Jon's studio above!]
Parallels Desktop
“Parallels enables me to have my 2001 Windows XP PC exactly as it was (before it caught fire), open in a window on my Mac. So, I can have the best of all the old software with the best of the new. I love sampling from my older stuff to build textures.”
Apple Logic Pro
“Logic is my main sequencer. Its overall sound is amazing, and the automation is intuitive and instant. Automation is central to everything I do - I use layer upon layer of it going on for each sound to keep everything sounding alive and organic.”
Audio Ease Altiverb
“This can be great when used in weird ways - on the entire master of the track Form By Firelight, I mixed in an emulation of a Chorus Echo, set pretty dry but with its input quite driven.”
Read Audio Ease Altiverb 7 review
Jon's album Immunity is out now.
