Telefunkin'
Comprising Tim Butler and Tom Parry (from Wales and Amsterdam respectively), Televisor are making their funky mark on the nu-disco scene.
Since their formation in 2012 they've released original records on multiple labels (including over 15 on Canadian imprint Monstercat) and have also crafted remixes for the likes of Icona Pop and Tobtok. Televisor hope to write and produce for other artists in the future.
Right now, though, they're preparing for an appearance at Perfect Havoc Disco Digital at Brixton Jamm on 30 April (tickets are available here) and have a new Black Octopus sample pack - Televisor presents Nudisco Dynamite - to promote.
Televisor also took time out of their schedule to tell MusicRadar about the software they use to craft their joyous joints, so click on to read about their favourite DAW and plugins.
Bitwig Studio
“At first glance after switching over from Logic, its feature set appeared to be very minimal. What we didn't realise is that its great GUI and user interface make all the features we would have used in Logic accessible to us in new and more efficient ways.
“Everything is at your fingertips - you get more time to concentrate on the workflow and spend less on finding the right functions/buttons. Also, group tracks within group tracks?! A game changer for us.
“To give you an example, we typically have a group labelled Rhythm which houses two sub groups for our drum and percussion parts. It makes project organisation and workflow a breeze and really helps to de-clutter our work space.
“The bundled plugins are simple, feature-packed and very effective; the Dynamics plugin is used in any session when we want to use a kick drum to trigger some sidechain compression.
“The way Bitwig handles lossless crashing is a lifesaver, too. Many times in the past we forgot to save work in Logic Pro only to have it crash and lose hours of work!”
u-he Diva
“It’s quite CPU-demanding, especially when you have multiple instances in a single project. However, if your machine can handle it then we'd say you would be crazy not to have this gorgeous synth in your plugin arsenal.
“The filters are stunning - great for creating analogue-sounding patches that provide warmth and depth. The FX are simple but effective, too; chorus and plate reverb help widen our sounds, and we use them a lot on polysynth chord work. The GUI takes some getting used to, but once you're comfortable with it you can go crazy with it! The basic presets are often a great foundation to build on, too.”
Spectrasonics Trilian
“The bass master! We could not live without this plugin at our fingertips. It is used in every session we have in the studio.
“Getting a great live bass recording using a very minimal setup can be challenging. In an ideal world, you would want a decent bassist sitting in a live room playing a nice bass guitar through a good amp and speaker cab setup. However, in our case, we do not have the space or the proper equipment to get the level of quality in a bass guitar recording that we want.
“Trilian bridges the gap for us by producing a live bass sound at a professional studio-quality level whilst also being very accessible and customisable.
“Playing Trilian via a MIDI keyboard/controller is great fun. Many of the live bass patches are very velocity sensitive and so you can achieve some real groove by playing muted notes and so on.”
Waves API 2500
“An amazing compressor, wonderfully modelled from the equivalent API hardware. We use this in every session without fail - it’s a staple in our mixing process for numerous instruments and sounds.
“Before we started using the API 2500 we used to bus compress our drums with a standard in-the-box compressor, which did its job the best it could at the time. However, our productions, particularly our drums, were lacking that 'glued' sound that so many people strive to achieve with their drums. Throwing this compressor on our drum bus really helped fix that problem, as well as providing some subtle but pleasant coloration to our drum parts.”
Native Instruments Alicia's Keys
“We use a lot of pianos in our work and, luckily, there are a lot of piano VSTs out there. We've tried the majority of them, and although Alicia’s Keys is not perfect, it is currently our go to plugin for piano.
“This plugin gives us a decent amount of control over the sound. We do find that some patches have a touch too much resonance for our tastes, but this is easily fixed with some EQ.
“Full of beautiful tone and ambience, we find that, with minimal processing and some slight EQ, Alicia’s Keys sits perfectly in the mix every time.”