Review of Audiospillage Drumspillage: Tired of overprocessed sampled drum kits where nothing is left for your imagination? Drumspillage is a drum synthesizer that goes back to the roots of drum boxes.

Drumspillage
Drumspillage
Anyone who's following this blog, probably knows about my quest for finding the perfect drum machine. I am aware of that it's just a futile dream - but as with so much in life, the search is often a desirable goal by itself. So with that in mind, my spirit got filled with nice white noise when I got contacted by Stephen from Audiospillage asking me if I would be interested to take the latest version of Drumspillage for a test drive.

Audiospillage is a young company. Their first release, Minispillage, came out last year and is a free drum synthesis plugin and was later followed up by The Real Deal Drumspillage, which quote Audiospillage "with an emphasis on creative electronic percussion synthesis."

Is this a contender for the mighty Microtonic we see on the horizon? Read on.

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Review of Sidsonic Tubes! Tubes is a sample library specially designed for sounds passing of old dusty vacuum tubes. As with all products Sidsonic - Tubes is not for the person who enjoys tubification in small, well constrained, amounts. Ass-Blasters set to burn!

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Sidsonic Tubes!
Tubes, tubes, tubes. They are all the rage and fashion and have been popping up in all kinds of instruments, mixers and pedals, but also in quite unexpected gear, such as the 2002 Aopen PC mainboard with a built-in russian-made tube to ensure your pleasure while listening to Gorillaz.

It's all - of course - about distortion.

As with recording to magnetic tape, distorting a tube doesn't clip in the nasty way it does with a/d converters and transistors. The headroom brings something extra. You've all heard about the wonders and magic about TUBE SOUND that brings WARMTH to your mixes. If I sound less than convinced - let me explain my cynicism here. When I read about some hot-shot dance producer talk themselves wet over the WARM sound of their latest gear, I get so tired I cannot finish reading. You wanna hear the truth? You damn morons hear what you want to hear. Period.

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Review of Sidsonic Libraries Circus Circuit Bending Library: German soundmakers take circuit bending to the next level.

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Circus Circuit Library
Berlin based soundmakers Sidsonic are relatively fresh on the library scene, but have succeeded to make quite some fuzz with their two first Kontakt-based libraries Circus Circuit Bending Library and Tubes! While this review only concentrates on Circus Circuit - it's quite clear that Sidsonic is not an ordinary bunch of sound designers. Circus Circuit is (obviously) about circuit bending and Tubes! is a library created from the mad innovations by Eric Barbour/Metasonix. In other words: these boys like it odd.

While circuit bending is widely known to most people by now, it doesn't hurt putting yourself in the right state mind seeing Picachu making funny noises while being electrocuted.

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Review of Sample Magic Ultimate FX: While Ultimate FX offers all typical effects for the dance floor, it takes the concept of effect libraries one step further, by inviting you to lay the last finishing touches.

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"Genres come and go, dancefloor tastes change, new influences permeate studios but some things in dance music are staples: sonic fundamentals that are permanent fixtures in the producers’ arsenal. Effects are such staples."

The above is a direct quote from the manual of latest library from Sample Magic, Ultimate FX. During the last three-four years I've developed a habit of always reaching for my Vengeance effect libraries when in any kind of troubles during production. A few well-placed effects can spice up any track quite a few notches. Whatever people might be saying about Vengeance - for dance music - their effects libraries are among the best, if not the best. As being a serious effect junkie, my pulse took a bungy-jump the moment when I saw the words 'Sample Magic' combined with 'FX'. Being a fanboi is a double edged sword. I'm not only expecting to get a good library with effects, I'm expecting it to make my current libraries a thing of the past, make my upcoming 8-bit remix of Miami Porno Machine perfect and cure my aching tooth. Make no mistake you gentlemen over at Sample Magic. Fans are cool to have, but most of us are insane.

At the first glance, Ultimate FX seem to deviate little from the walked up path of dance effect libraries. We've got cymbal hits, down-falls, fills, hits, impacts, noise loops and uplifters. The usual gang. As with many releases from Sample Magic, the tempo dependent sounds come in two flavors: 125 and 128 bpm. While the tempo police and audio connoisseurs might appreciate the finer details of these two tempos, I personally feel it's a wasted opportunity. I am aware that not everybody lives in the world of simple elastic audio a la Ableton Live, so I won't take my criticism further. But still. I would have appreciated two more different tempos, such as 125 and 110. The good thing about it is that the 125 bpm sounds and the 128 bpm sounds are not the same. No wasted space on doubles in other words.

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Review of Loopmasters Deep Techno Sessions: when house legend A Guy Called Gerald releases his own sample library on Loopmasters the focus is on dark moody techno.

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Gerald Simpson is a legend. While pretty much anyone who played at the Hacienda in Manchester are legends in my book, but Monsieur Gerald is more legendarish than the rest. While he'll always be remembered as the guy who were behind tracks such as Voodoo Ray and Pacific (808 State), his catalogue and works stretches far beyond. My earliest memory of A Guy Called Gerald is from one of my insanely hip friends who sent me an early mixtapes with G before he got big and starting redefining the sound of house. Big words - but while Marshall Jefferson might be the granddaddy of the US house movement - I would personally name Gerald Simpson as one of founders of modern house.

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If you are a smart lazy person who collects all your news via RSS, you would do fine by changing your Plughugger-feed to this feed instead. While the old feed will still work, the new one combines all Plughugger feeds into one: reviews, interviews, technique, new sounds and my personal ramblings.
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Review of Prime Loops Ambient Illusions: ambient music - it's not just refreshing to hear something something more soothing - mixing styles is an old, effective trick to create new ideas.
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It must be the oldest trick in the book, but it is still one of the most underused ones. Yes - it's time for our monthly reminder of The Value of Contrast. Among all the shiny sports cars in bright colors, the black matte is the one that immediately grabs the attention. In the metro you'll immediately spot the one with a red jacket - or yellow - in the sea of dark, greyish, anonymous coats. To be able to go faster, you actually don't need to go faster. It's way more effective of adding something going slower, and you'll get the illusion of higher speed.

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Review of Best Service K-Size FX Edition: 1400 effects and atmospheres specialized for dance music might sound like nirvana for the modern producer - but is a rather mixed library complete with some very clever stuff and instant sleeping pills.

Best Service K-Size FX Edition
The first thing to notice after a first, quick listen is that Best Service isn't too clear about the structure and idea behind the library. The website nor the enclosed pdf documentation sheds any light of what the categories mean. Ok - pretty much everyone can figure out what upsweeps, impacts and atmos mean - but modulations? or PreArrangementFX?

Straight out from the virtual box - K-Size FX Edition is big. 1400 wav effects spread over 1,33 gigabyte is quite a lot and multiply that with the additional formats for acid, rex2, Stylus RMX, NNXT, Live 8, Kontakt 3, Halion, EXS24, Battery 2 and Apple loops.

For the sake of clarity this review focus only on the wav format. Rex-lovers only get the loops pre-chopped.

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Beatserv Clash 04/24/2010
 
Review of Beatserv Clash: Take a drummer who knows what he's doing - record a bunch of loops. Then give those loops to three different sound designers and see what they'll make of it. Does it sound interesting? Yes, it is.

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One of the most important wisdoms I've learned in life is that it doesn't really matter what you do, but almost everything depend on the way you do it. Art, food, live performances, riding bicycles and of course, sample libraries. There is no formula. Just a matter of taste. And as a thumb of rule it usually pays to be bold. After my first listen to the demos of Beatservs latest library Clash, I have to admit that I was quite confused. It's a sample library, alright. It's drum loops and according to its maker, is intended for electronica, glitch and IDM.

But from my narrow horizon I was as stunned as finding a three-legged alien outside my door inviting itself in for a beer. What can you say? Of course you're intrigued.

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Review of Industrial Strength Computer Core. With so many well-polished libraries out on the market, it was just a matter of time before something really ugly got released: welcome Computer Core.

Behind this pack of samples is a fellow named Steve Vasquez, a DJ, producer and sound designer who teamed up with the label Industrial Strength which is distributed by Loopmasters. Despite its name - Computer Core is not a reference to blippy 8 bit sounds you might expect, but rather the opposite. The revival of gabber? Yes - almost. The head-banging hardness is certainly there.
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