Wsm - January 2008 - Issue 021

WUSIK MAGAZINE

ISSUE 21

wusik.com

When Open Minds Close An editorial by R(t)O Magazine Layout: MoniKe Editors: Paul Evans and MoniKe

Articles by: A. Arsov www.arsov.net Alexander Stoica www.beatslaughter.de DamBros Especial thanks to Claudia Picchi David Keenum Ginno 'g.no' Legaspi www.myspace.com/gnomusic

Johan Vaxelaire Paul Evans - aka Triple-P (PPP) www.triplep.wusik.com R(t)O Squibs www.musician.ie Warren Burt www.tropicapricorn.com

Proof-Reading by: Kevin Burke www.kevinburke.ca Bruce David

Wusikstation V4 Advertising Background: Michael Knubben

I recently had some of my musician friends over, and we were listening to CD’s.

When the changer rotated to “The Otherly Opus” by Joy Electric, my colleagues were enamored with the richness of the analogsynth melodies. Finally, someone asked the name of the band, and I stated that it was Joy Electric. Someone else spoke up and asked if this was a Christian band, to which I replied to the affirmative. Immediately the very same people who were lauding the music began to criticize it. What changed? It wasn’t the music; rather, it was the fact that the artist has a Christian belief.

From the outside looking in, it is easy to see the hypocrisy in this scenario. As a fan of music, I am not going to shut the door on a talented artist because he or she professes a certain religious belief. Religion is a personal matter, and, even if someone sings a song about his or her beliefs, I am not forced to listen to it. Christian artists work just as hard, face the same challenges, and deal with the same industry as their secular counterparts. It is a gross injustice to shut the door on them just because they are Christians.

If you can manage to keep an open mind, give a listen to Daniel Amos, Joy Electric, Starflyer 59, Resurrection Eve, or Leiahdorus on MySpace or CD Baby. When you form your opinion, forget the fact that they have a Christian faith and view them strictly as artists. Hopefully, you will find another great band to add to your rotation.

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Pictures: www.dreamstime.com

I have been a part of the music community for quite some time now, and the one thing I have noticed is that, for the most part, this community prides itself on its reputation for being open-minded. I believe that being open-minded is what allows the musician to create, explore, and bridge gaps between cultures and genres. Unfortunately, I have noticed an alarming trend among some musicians where they slam their mind shut like a bear trap when it comes to artists who are Christians.

MoniKe

Paul Evans akaTriple-P

The Dream of a Sabiรก - Part 2

by DamBros

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CD Review: Three From the San Francisco Bay Area

by Warren Burt The Brothers Martin

by R(t)O

Gear Review: Sytrus

by Squibs

Interview: The Way They Work It

by R(t)O

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Sound Review: Dancehall Vibes Vol. 1

by Ginno 'g.no' Legaspi Fun, Fun, Fun.

by A. Arsov

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Degrees of Abstract

by Ginno 'g.no' Legaspi

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Cobalt

by Alexander Stoica

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Dry Ice Metal Sounds

by Warren Burt

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Special Drums 38

Drums Reviews: Drumatoxin

by Johan Vaxelaire

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Ambient Drums

by David Keenum

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Experimental Approach

by Paul Evans

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EZ-Drummer

by Paul Evans EZX

by Paul Evans

66 70

60

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Steven Slate Drums 1.5

by Paul Evans Kennys Hi-hat Loop Library

by David Keenum Kennys Loopy Song Starters

by David Keenum Jamstix Mind

by A. Arsov

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80

86 88

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Addictive

by Ginno 'g.no' Legaspi

Steel Drum Percussion Room

by David Keenum

Wusik Magazine

Drum Tips: Managing Drum Loops

by A. Arsov

The Dream of a Sabiรก Part2

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by Visconde de Taunay

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The Dream of a Sabiá

If a dear reader, by chance, has not read the beginning of this story, we inform that it is about the drama of a Brazilian bird, a sabiá, which is imprisoned in a cage in a tavern, underfed, sad, desperate with his situation as prisoner and he is willingly mute as not to bring any kind of joy to the Inn keeper, his jailer. So, let’s continue.

Best regards, DamBros.

Once, in a very hot summer, the heat was like a brazier. Light waves of obfuscating intensity illuminated nature in the deepest caves, bringing languishing tiredness everywhere.

On the road the sun beat the earth with such force, that there arose a subtle incandescent vapor.

Depleted, the chickens were silent, and so were the strident cicallas.

The innkeeper loudly yawned three or four times; looked absently at the high ribbon of the road, which rutilated, distended his burly arms and, finally won by sleep, went to sleep on the rough bench, on the shady porch, lofty front for that temple of sordid greed...

Soon he snored as doomed.

So lonely was our sabiá.

Wusik Magazine

On the prairies, the small burnt grass twisted, whereas the high top of the trees contracted the foliage, to give less space for the merciless star.

Deserted of patrons was the tavern, for no one endeavored to seek it in such ardency and such hour.

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The Dream of a Sabiá

and alternated by the large smooth barks of the embaúbas.

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If, around there was an insinuating hot breeze, in this spot it was like the early dawn’s breath.

He could smell the fragrance of flowers, in the air filled with butterflies suspended in invisible yarn, fragrant orchids, and on the earth, the wild sneeze-wort and the purple manacás unbuttoned their perfumed petals.

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He tried to resist the laziness that invaded him as well, and could not. He was not completely asleep, but, with his lateral eyelid down like a translucid veil, which let him envisage the exterior world. Snoozing, three or four times he almost fell off his nail, led by the weigh of his head and beak.

There he dreamed that with every movement of wings he could fly over the extensive arid flat lands and find a great green bush he could see far, far away. He reached it, not easily, and breathless of such sudden voyage, freshened with some drops of lymph, his burning body.

He smoothed his scarce feathers, and less tired, looked around the place where he had arrived.

He found it delicious. Around a dense and vibrant forest, a limpid and brook, bordered by symmetrically aligned palm trees

What to do in such seductive and soft woods, if not sing?

So, our sabiá opened his resonant throat and – always dreaming – poured torrents of harmonies.

Almost without breathing, he told the stories he had learned from his parents and old masters during his life in freedom.

First of all he exalted the glories of creation.

In his singing language, sometimes in “canto largo” and paused, sometimes in ‘vibrato”and “volatas”, or soft modulations, described the hour of before dawn: imitated, as well as he could the beat of the wood-pecker, which from afar responded the araras, at the river edge; painted the gradual lights coming up, the rejoice of awakening earth, the murmur of life in its first agitations, the screeching of insects, the flight of birds, resembling the discreet murmur of waters; in a word, this unison concert which proclaims > >

The Dream of a Sabiá

the sun rise, at first muffled and mystic, and a soon after, stronger and stronger, finally poignant, like a shout of from a brave breast eager to live.

To follow he figured the run of the day. Inspired by the occasion, none better than he, with more concision and truth, recalled the languid feeling that breaks a creature’s will in the enervating hours when the heat comes. His song had falls with such feeling, that it seemed that the voice was going out with his existence. his

eyelids...

and

In front of him, he saw, with terror and anger, the innkeeper, which ecstatic, open mouthed, had been listening for a long while.

Oh! He exclaimed slowly, how he sings! He is a master! And I was thinking, this afternoon I would open his cage’s door and give him liberty!

Oh, the poor bird felt a pain so strong he thought he would die.

Commotion pressed his chest; and for an instant suffocated him.

It is night.

A roar comes from the onça (large wild cat) Our sabiá stops. by

the

He was a simple sabiá; the supreme consolation of tears, divine goodness only conceded to men, who break creation under the weight of his iron, will.

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He was awakened scream it let.

Afterwards... could not even cry.

Wusik Magazine

There comes afternoon. The fatal law reaches the life star.

Down it goes full of majesty and soon disappears. Forgotten are the aggravations, and nature covers itself with purple gauze, which briefly will change to black in funeral mantle.

Starts the nostalgic empire of gentle sadness. The last sun rays greet the tops of the hills. Light escapes.

Darkness takes over the plains, reached the coves, as if viciously and implacably pursuing the light that seeking the last shelter in the skies.

Opened trembled:

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Three From The San Francisco Bay Area

Three From The San Francisco Bay Area

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by Warren Burt

CD: The League of Automatic Music Composers 1978-83 - New World Records 80671-2. www.newworldrecords.org DVD: Noisy People: Improvising a Musical Life. A film by Tim Perkis www.noisypeople.com

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Book: Rich Gold: The Plenitude - Creativity, Innovation, and Making Stuff, MIT Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-262-07289-2

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Three From The San Francisco Bay Area

artistic rebels, explorers and pioneers have made it their home, creating a continually evolving sense of artistic community and exploration. At times, this exploration and community have been particularly active. The period from around the late 1970s to the present has been one of those periods, and three publications have recently been issued which document, in an interlinked way, some aspects of this period. Two figures are central to these releases - composer and filmmaker Tim Perkis, and the late, sadly missed composer, scientist, designer and engineer Rich Gold, whose sudden passing in 2003 was a big loss for those of us lucky enough to know him.

In addition to his work with The League, and the later collaborative electronics group The Hub, Perkis was also involved in the Bay Area’s lively improvised music, theater, and performance art scenes.

“Noisy People” is his recent film documenting the activities of a cross section of this busy and cooperative community of performers and composers, whose activities encompass a wide range of styles and activities from jazz to electronics to improvisation with plant materials to musical/theatrical productions staged in home theaters to conducted improvised operas. One of the most interesting elements of the film is Perkis’s questioning of each of the featured musicians as to how they make their living. None does so exclusively as a professional paid musician, and all feel that this has given their music making a freedom that it would not otherwise have.

Rich Gold left the League in 1980 to pursue a career in research and industry. One of his employers was Mattel, the toy maker, and for them he > >

Wusik Magazine

The League of Automatic Music Composers was a band/collective of composers and electronics enthusiasts living in the Bay Area, who were active from 1978-1983. Known for their early (perhaps the first) use of microcomputers in live performance,

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The San Francisco Bay Area has long been known as a hotbed of musical, artistic, spiritual and social innovation.

Since the mid-late 19th century,

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the group was founded by Rich Gold, John Bischoff, and Jim Horton. They were soon joined by David Behrman, and soon after by Tim Perkis. By 1980, Gold and Behrman had moved on to other activities, and the group stabilized with Horton, Bischoff and Perkis as the key members, with frequent guest appearances by many other members of the Bay Area music community.

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developed a series of technological toys including the legendary Power Glove. After leaving Mattel, he eventually settled into a career at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where he researched such things as the future of reading, ubiquitous computing, and ways to interface the creativity of artists and scientists. In his career, as he says, he wore four hats - that of the artist, the scientist, the designer, and the engineer. What these four professions have in common is that they make stuff, and they all have distinct approaches to the processes of creativity and problem solving. “Stuff,” as he points out, is fractal. Think of your kitchen. How many objects are in it? Now, how many parts are in each of those objects? Things generate the need for more things, which generate the need for more things, until the whole is knotted together in a dense ecology. In “The Plenitude” he deals with these issues, and how the process of making stuff is both a benefit to, and a problem for, society. If the musicians in Perkis’s film allude to the underlying philosophy of how and why their creativity works, Gold’s book is the worked out philosophical underpinning of the thoughts that were motivating a lot of the Bay Area scene.

The League Inspired by the newly available microcomputers in the mid-1970s, the members of the League of Automatic Music Composers began using these machines in their electronic music.

Each of these single board computers, the Kim-1, the Sim-1, and the Aim-65, to name but three, were very small machines. (The Kim-1 was the machine of choice for The League.)

Their memory was measured in the kilobytes, not megabytes, programs were often entered in hexadecimal on a keypad, and programs were stored on cassette tape. But they worked, and they allowed not only a measure of control, they allowed interesting automated composing processes to be set up and controlled - the composer sometime “riding” the controls like a cowboy riding a particularly recalcitrant bull, sometimes controlling the flow of things like a sailor with an elegant and swift yacht.

Very early on, Horton and Gold > >

Three From The San Francisco Bay Area

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Gold’s sound synthesis program (yes, he was doing sound synthesis in real time with 1K of memory!) sends audio information to Bishcoff’s and Behrman’s computers. Horton and Bischoff send digital tuning information to Gold’s computer.

Horton also sends audio signals to Bischoff and Behrman. Bischoff also sends a state flag to Behrman’s computer, which sends digital pitch information to Horton. The result is a larger scale musical organism that each player has only partial control of - the overall musical identity is formed by the cooperation between the performers - the way they listen to each other and respond, controlling aspects of their process. Even more than with acoustic free improvisation (where each player is (at least) in control of their own acoustic instrument), here was music that was truly the result of a communal consciousness.

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realized that they could also send information between their computers, and this would allow them to influence the outcome of each others’ performing. The Rich Gold designed poster for the first League concert, November 26, 1978, shows a typical process.

And what does the music sound like?

For those of you who are familiar with the sound of game chips, or music coming out of the “chiptune” scene, or those who explore the low-bit rate and decimation modules of such programs as AudioMulch, Max and PD, or the > >

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Bit-Quantizer effect in Wusik, the timbres will be very familiar indeed.

The raw 8-bit waveforms the group used are only occasionally filtered and processed, and are a far cry from the elegant, sophisticated, and selfconsciously beautiful timbres that people at the Stanford University computer music project were making at the same time.

Nor is the logic of the music in any way similar to the very carefully controlled, crafted music made by most computer musicians at the time, and to many synthesizer composers. This was music that was raw, aggressive, multilayered, anarchic, and which had “bite.” But it was also capable of moments of real beauty as well. All the League composers were interested alternative tunings, and when the simple waveforms of the computers were combined in the pure-ratio tunings of just intonation, the simple waveforms fused into a composite timbre, one that had great beauty and seductive qualities. Here was an example of a music that truly was greater than the sum of its parts.

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The CD is well put together, and well sequenced. More anarchic, wilder tracks alternate with more harmonious

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ones. This alternation, though, is within the context of the aggressive, overtly exploratory nature of the music the group was making.

The combination of simple waveforms, pure tunings, and collaborative interactive processes makes music with a particular ambience, a distinctive “sound.” Those who prefer new-age music with luscious timbres that is the pure expression of one person’s emotions may find this music almost completely alien. On the other hand, those who are interested in the more extreme manifestations of Japanese noise music, for example, may find this music a bit tame, and of mainly historical interest. But I would recommend this CD to both groups, (and to everyone else as well), not only as an example of advanced contemporary compositional thinking, but also for its sound. Ragged, precise, aggressive, harmonic, anarchic, and self-organizing as all get out, this is wonderfully self-contradictory music which challenges while it delights, a music which came out of a social situation (track 8 - a live microphone recording, even has the sounds of the performers laughing in delight at what their machines are doing), but which is now available for us in ours. And for those of us who get frustrated with CD > >

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liner-notes that simply consist of a graphic and track names, and want more information than that, the booklet that comes with the CD is a delight, with extended essays by Perkis, Bischoff and producer Jon Leidecker, which talk about the technology of the music, the ideas behind it, how this music came out of its social circumstances, and how it fed back into it.

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The DVD Fast forward twenty years, and Tim Perkis, of The League, is now involved in a number of other musical projects.

One of these is the computer network band “The Hub,” which continues the collaborative ideas of The League with more contemporary technology.

Another of his activities is being involved in the fluid and fertile free improvisation scene in the Bay Area, a scene in which acoustic, electronic and environmental musicians freely mix

The variety of musical expression explored by these people may be seen by a listing of the participants. Bass player George Gremaschi; trumpet player/deconstructor and composer Tom Djll; pianist and theater director Greg Goodman; reed player Philip Greenlief; environmental composer and violist Cheryl Leonard, who makes > >

Wusik Magazine

Tim Perkis

and mingle their sounds. Out of this stew-pot of musical ferment, Perkis selected 10 of his friends and colleagues to interview, filming not only their music making, and interviews with them, but also exploring how they make their living, and how their music-making fits into their lives. I found this to be an inspiring DVD, one that I wouldn’t hesitate to show to any musicians first starting out on their own musical lives.

The sound and the ways of music making may be different than that of The League, but the underlying philosophy of musical exploration is similar.

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elegant music using plant materials; composer Dan Plonsey, who creates participatory improvisational scores for orchestras whose skill level varies wildly from player to player; virtuoso percussionist, electronicist and composer Gino Robair, who directs an improvisatory community opera for his 40th birthday; bass player and exstunt bike rider Damon Smith; sound sculptor Kenneth Atchley, who makes portable fountains which he uses in live performances with light and electronic sound; and electronic performer Laetitia Sonami, who has developed an incredibly elegant glove-based interface for her own electronic performance. What is also interesting is that none of these highly involved musicians is making their living at music. All, for one reason or another, have found making their living outside of music to be more rewarding. Among the professions represented in the group are audio editor, magazine editor, educational counselor, posterputter-upper, satellite dish installer, arts center manager, and computer programmer.

Some of these professions relate to music, some don’t, but all (usually) give the performers the freedom, and the headspace, to create their music without the need for compromise.

This need to make music apart from, or parallel to, the economic realities of

the time is beautifully summed up by Perkis in this excerpt from an essay which accompanies the DVD and which is available on the www.noisypeople.com website. (The website also has some great interviews with the musicians, as well as other writings by Perkis.)

“In 21st century America, the very notion of culture itself – culture as something that arises in a community, in which all participate – is endangered. In culture’s place there is a pseudo-culture marketplace in which communities are replaced by isolated consumers who purchase entertainment products and services, and cultural professionals – ‘content providers’ – who sell them.

In this system musical artists are professionals or amateurs, serious or not, making a living at it or not. But these categories don’t capture the realities of artists’ lives. Not all lives are built around economic striving. The artists in my film remind us that there is another way to live: pursuing a passion directly, independent of its economic value. They exemplify an alternative political and social reality, a way of life largely outside the dominant consumer culture of the USA.” > >

Three From The San Francisco Bay Area

Cheryl Leonard

Djll

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Gino Robair

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As well, in the film, you’ll see some really fun music being made, from the already mentioned Robair opera, to Tom Djll’s Mockracy orchestra, to the more jazz oriented performances of Smith and Cremaschi, to Leonard’s plant music ensemble, to Atchley’s performance sculptures. For a look into a lively, and living musical community - and maybe to get ideas for your own music making - see this DVD. > >

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This sense of community is beautifully shown in the film, in which many of the performers appear in the works of the others. One gets the impression that here are a group of people that are interested in the diversity of what each other do, and show that interest by supporting each other musically.

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The Book I first met Rich Gold in 1967 or 68, when we were undergraduate students of electronic music at the State University of New York at Albany. Even then, Rich always wanted to understand the larger patterns behind things, the structures inherent in and common to different areas of endeavor. A little later, in the early 1970s, when he was at California Institute of the Arts, and I was studying at UC San Diego, we got together to perform some (as yet unreleased) Buchla quartets with Randy Cohen (now “The Ethicist” for the New York Times) and Gregory Kramer (now one of the leaders in the field of sonification). Over the years, our paths continued to cross - in the mid-80s in Los Angeles, and in the late 90s, when I visited the Bay Area for several months. He was always keenminded, and incisive, but in a very gentle kind of way. All these qualities come together in “The Plenitude,” a book summing up his work and thought, written in the last year of his life.

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It’s a marvelous book, full of insights and probing moral questions. Rich is no puritan, or purist - his central thesis is that “making stuff” - whether art,

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science, design, or engineering - is a marvelous activity, and the questions are more “what are the similarities and differences between these activities” and “how can we overcome the negative aspects of these activities” rather than “given the problems, why do we continue making things at all?”

Illustrated with his whimsical cartoons - made for slideshow presentations of these ideas, and astutely introduced and placed into context by his widow, artist/poet Marina de Bellagente LaPalma, the book consists of four chapters.

The first is an autobiographical introduction, the second, “The Four Creative Hats I’ve Worn” is an examination of the similarities and differences between art, science, design and engineering. > >

Three From The San Francisco Bay Area

come to the realizations that are set out so clearly in Gold’s friendly, inviting prose.

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Chapter 3 is called “Seven Patterns of Innovation” and deals with ideas of creativity, and how they apply in the four fields. Again, it’s an essential read for those wanting to deal with ideas and processes of creativity. The final chapter, “The Plenitude” deals with the products of creativity - stuff - in society, and raises five problems created by the proliferation of all this stuff, and proposes seven solutions and also presents the dangers inherent in those solutions. The book concludes with a moral - “We should be careful to make the world we actually want to live in.” In his life and work, Rich Gold embodied that principle, as did the other artists of The League of Automatic Music Composers, and the musicians profiled in Noisy People.

Encountering this CD, DVD and book is not just a means of finding out what people have been up to in the Bay Area arts community, it’s a means of exploring ourselves, and examining our own artistic solutions in the light of their experience. All three - the CD, the DVD, and the book are highly recommended.

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In art, he subdivides things further, dealing with fine art, pop art, and folk art; or as he calls them, “the beret, the baseball cap, and the straw hat.” The role of the audience, and ideas about the role of the self, are critical in all these disciplines and divisions. He points out, for example, that “the beret” does not consider the audience, but tries to realize a personal vision as accurately as possible, while “the baseball cap” absolutely considers the audience, even to the extent of suppressing personal vision in favor of what the audience wants, while “the straw hat” makes art for the members of their immediate community, often within a communal shared space. Most of the musicians in Tim Perkis’s film would be considered folk artists, in Gold’s definition, (even though none of them do so-called “folk” music), and indeed, it was Gold, and artists in his circle, who coined the terms “future primitive,” “techno-folk,” and “the ethnic music of the Lockheed engineer” to describe what was going on artistically in California in the 80s and 90s. This chapter is worth the price of admission alone. I wouldn’t hesitate to give this chapter to any young artist (or scientist or designer or engineer) as an introduction to the basic terms and definitions within the field. I’ve seen so many beginning artists struggle to

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The Brothers Martin Self-titled

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by R(t)O

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The brothers Ronnie and Jason Martin first made their mark on the music industry under the moniker of “The Dance House Children”. In a time that was dominated by grunge guitars and flannel, DHC cut through the drone of guitar fuzz with infectious synth hooks, catchy melodies, and sing-along lyrics. After two CD’s the brothers pursued their solo projects. Jason started Starflyer 59, a guitar-driven, avant-garde band, and Ronnie formed the analog synth powerhouse known as Joy Electric. The Brothers Martin is the long-awaited and much anticipated reunion of these two incredibly talented musicians. > >

The Brothers Martin

As anyone familiar with these musicians might imagine, this CD is a delectable sonic cornucopia.

While many crossover projects end in utter disaster, The Brothers Martin put together a masterpiece that has a distinct sound that offers hints to its audio building blocks. The anticipated reunion of the Martin brothers has been guilt up by fans over the years, and I am happy to report that it exceeds expectations and is well worth the wait.

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As a whole, this CD covers a broad spectrum of popular music. Each song is done very well and has all the best ingredients for its particular flavor, but none of the songs make the mistake of being just another pop song. There is something on this CD for most everyone and I highly recommend it.

Wusik Magazine

Both Ronnie and Jason are excellent songwriters. While each brother has his own unique style, this release clearly demonstrates that they work well together. Throughout the disc the listener is treated to some excellent verse in a variety of formats. From the abstract to the direct, each song is carefully crafted and delivered with style.

Picking my favorite tracks was a chore, but I finally narrowed it down. The disc opens up with the up-tempo “Communication”. The song lays thick guitar over a subtle analog synth background. “The Missionary” has an old school industrial feel with a bit of neogothic guitar work. My favorite track is the self-styled dance track “Deaf Will Hear”. It has a strong danceable groove with a good dose of pop sensibility.

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Sytrus

Sytrus

Image Line's

Sytrus

by Squibs

Wusik Magazine

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Once upon a time, we complained about complexity when performing sound synthesis with computers.

Meddling with DOS, IRQ settings and languages like csound, we could conceive and program a subtractive synthesis patch and render it offline.

Then Windows 95 came along, and the PCI bus, and faster processors, and we began see software

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synthesizers with a GUI, like VAZ and Rebirth, which made programming a pleasurable experience.

Eventually we got more processing power, Windows XP, the VSTi standard, and soon we were seeing huge behemoths of synths with capabilities far exceeding those seen previously.

Computer synthesis had become complicated again. > >

Sytrus

I must admit that I was largely an FM virgin before I started with Sytrus. I loaded an instance into Sonar 6 with a certain amount of trepidation, and eased myself into the review with some preset surfing. I had expected to hear a selection of DX7 like patches – and there are plenty of these to be found, but the arps, formant synth emulations and super saws I found made me do a double take. It is an FM synth, but it has many other tricks > >

Wusik Magazine

This is where Sytrus comes in. It’s Image Line’s 6-operator FM synthesis VSTi. Programmed by Gol, the man who brought us FL Studio, it is a synthesis beast. The look of the plug-in will be familiar to anybody who has experience with recent versions of FL Studio. It is moody, featuring charcoals and gunmetal greys, but it’s very cleanly laid out and the amount of information featured in the available screen real estate is impressive.

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Sytrus

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up its sleeves. Many of the presets have 2 parameters mapped to an x-y controller, with the mapping explained on the main page.

Once I found the sequenced presets, I nearly hit the floor. Some of these presets were workstation quality with sequenced drums, bass and lead capable of providing the basis of a song. It was time to get

under the hood and try to figure out how it all worked.

As I started to navigate the interface, I began to get a little agoraphobic. By my calculations, there are 506 configuration pages lurking within this synth. I know when I’m beaten, and so headed for the help file. I found some Image Line help files to be a little hit and miss in the past.

The usual problem is that they describe > >

Sytrus

There is a main configuration page which handles some global options for your preset. This page features volume, LFO and pitch controls, the x-y modulation pad, a 3-band routable EQ with frequency and bandwidth controls for each band, and some other general settings. There is also a unison unit which emulates sub-voices on the Sytrus operators. > >

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the function of every parameter in excellent detail, but are less successful at describing the big picture and explaining how components interact. Fortunately, this is not the case with the Sytrus help file, which manages to be user friendly and reasonably comprehensive. It is testament to the help file that I am able to bring this review to you at all!

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Sytrus

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We have 6 operators in FM parlance, or oscillators as I used to know them, with a shape control which morphs from sine to triangle to saw to square, as well as sliders for tension, skew and noise. Then it starts to get really interesting. Each oscillator has a tab for pan, volume, modulation, pitch, phase and damping. Each of these tabs has a further 8 sub-tabs for envelope, LFO, and mappings (key mapping, velocity mapping, modulation X, modulation Y,

Random mapping and unison mapping which maps to the global unison effect mentioned above).

The control for each of these pages is spline based, allowing us to add nodes, lines and curves. Suddenly it becomes clear how pitch and volume ADSR envelopes can become much more, with complex shapes allowing arps, gates, sequences and all sorts of other > >

Sytrus

weirdness. It’s far more flexible than a step sequencer approach could ever allow, but it also takes a while to program.

I began to investigate Sytrus’s FM capabilities. Any operator can modulate another modulator by linking the output of the first (modulator) to the input of the second (carrier). An operator can modulate itself, acting as both carrier and > >

Wusik Magazine

Each operator also has 256 degree harmonics editor which is an intriguing way of interacting with a waveform. A sine wave with only the fundamental harmonic looks like a sine wave. Soon I was adding in different combinations of odd and even harmonics, seeing the waveforms morph

from sine to saw and other prime shapes, using harmonics 1 to 8 as organ drawbars, and painting city skylines on it to generate ring modulator-like drones.

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Sytrus

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modulator. This complex interaction is handled by the modulation matrix, a 2D array of knobs, visible on all pages, showing how much of each operators signal is modulating the other operators, as well as a pan control, FX send and master output level for each modulator. If no operator is modulating any other, Sytrus behaves like a 6 oscillator subtractive synth (on steroids).

The matrix also allows you to send operator inputs to three filter units. Each can use one of 13 different filter types, with the usual envelope amount, cut and resonance as well as a comprehensive set of spline based envelopes similar to the implementation described earlier for the operators. > >

Sytrus

There is a workhorse effects unit with a chorus, reverb and three delay lines, which are perfect for making pads sound larger than life. They should provide enough functionality for most purposes, though you will need to add some VST effects to your DAW signal paths if you need anything more esoteric.

As a confirmed preset hound and synth programming newbie, I didn’t get close to mastering this one. I figured out the subtractive synthesis, got to grips with arp control, and made a reasonable hand of the filters and FX. I was churning out patches predictable and repeatedly within a few hours.

As well as supplying a sub-forum on the Image Line forums (with access to userprogrammed presets), Gol added the ability to allow DX7 preset import. I downloaded a sysex bank of what were supposed to be the original factory presets. They all sounded good, and pretty authentic, but the preset names did not appear to match the sounds, with electric pianos sounding like flutes, and so on. I suspect that there was an offset issue – and I was hearing patch x+1 or x-2 when I selected patch x. This may have been a problem with the sysex bank rather than with Sytrus.

In essence, I only scratched the surface of this synth. After 10 minutes I was incompetent. After an hour I was out of my depth. After 2 hours I was getting to grips with it, and every subsequent hour extended my understanding and brought new revelations. I know that spending more time with it will pay further dividends and I could see myself using it as one of my primary sound design tools.

Wusik Magazine

The secrets of FM synthesis remained pretty much a mystery to me, unfortunately. I understood the basic technical principals but had little idea how to go about using the interactions to produce a specific sound. I found out almost immediately that turning everything up to eleven gets you white noise. I also had many happy accidents which produced searing leads, lush strings and fizzy brasses, but had no idea how I got the sound, and would not be able to reproduce it from scratch. I had better luck with adapting existing presets to my own

nefarious purposes. It is a testament to my own ignorance and the ingenuity of the preset programmers that the mechanics behind some of the presets remained so elusive.

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COBALT

Wusik Magazine

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Sanford Sound Design COBALT

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by Alexander Stoica

> >

Wusik Magazine

In November of last year I was invited to beta test a new VST synth named Cobalt. Except for previewing a screenshot, I knew knothing about the project, but the features the UI hinted at looked very promising. In this article I will guide you through this new synth, so that you will be better prepared to judge Cobalt for yourself.

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Overview and features

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Cobalt is a hybrid synthesizer inspired by many of the digital synthesizers of the early 80’s like the Korg DW8000 and DW6000, the Ensoniq ESQ-1 and the Kawai K3. The instrument combines classical subtractive synthesis with a wavetable and is not limited to typical analog waveforms.

Most of the wavetables were resynthesized from the actual hybrid synthesizers.

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Cobalt uses two oscillators for generating sound and offers 26 selectable waveforms for each oscillator. You will find classic shapes like sawtooth, triangle and sine, but also advanced waveforms such as various piano types, vocals and basses. The oscillators can be configured to use independent settings for portamento (also called polyphonic portamento) which isn't found often in sythesizers, and the second oscillator can be synchronized to the first oscillator.

Each of the oscillators can be modulated using a slot for pulse

width modulation (PWM) and two slots for frequency modulation (FM), each with switchable polarity. Sources for modulation are two ADSR envelopes offering retrigger and legato play modes and two available LFOs, all mixed in at various levels. The LFOs offer some interesting shapes like upand downramp and also sample/hold besides the usual basic shapes. It is possible to delay the time until they affect the sound, to bind them to the modulation wheel of a keyboard, or to synchronise the LFO rate to the host tempo.

The oscillators are followed by a filter section with four standard filter types to further shape the sound and to help extract the interesting portions of it. There are quite a lot of modulation options available with two FM slots, which can use the above mentioned sources and also support switchable polarity.

Channel pressure is available to allow more expressive playing of the sound with aftertouch enabled keyboards, the harder the key is struck, the more the filter opens up modulating cutoff > >

frequency. Also useful is key tracking, which opens the filter when higher notes are played.

Finally the sound runs through the effect section offering a great overdrive based on a custom implementation, a noise generator, a panner with modulation support, a very good sounding chorus and a delay with panning support which can sync to the host.

Usability and stability

The manual is well written and explains all parameters in short form with additional pictures for each section of the synth. There is also a guide to creating your first preset available in it, which will help the beginner making his first steps with Cobalt.

The sound Let me say one thing first, I love the sound of Cobalt. From lush pads to dark and dirty basses, classic 80s sounds or even rhythm sequences you can do a lot with it. Cobalt is very > >

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The CPU usage is surprisingly low too. I have tested it on my

One of the main concerns besides CPU usage for me is stability of a plugin. Nothing could be worse if your host crashes and takes down your latest edits with it. Even during the beta stage I did not have a single crash in any of the hosts I have tested it with.

Wusik Magazine

Cobalt comes in two flavors, meaning two versions each with a differently sized interface. The small one is perfect for laptop musicians or people with a small screen resolution and a bigger one recommended for people using one of the big screens available today, which usually run at much higher resolutions.

The choice is up to you. The graphical interface is well laid out and everything is reachable from a single page, which I find great. The actual graphics look really professional.

Athlon 64 X2 4200+ and most of the presets use about 3% up to 5% per instance. Sounds with longer release times or while playing melodies with a lot of polyphony used a maximum of 10% here.

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versatile and can sound cold and digital or warm and rich, just like one wishes. My personal favorite is the polyphonic portamento, which I am using a lot on pads and leads. The sample/hold LFO wave is great for moving sounds or weird effects when applied as modulator source on an oscillator. I am usually not much excited about another two OSC synth, but Cobalt is an exception for me and will surely find it's way into my songs.

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Conclusion

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At a ridiculously low price tag of 25$ there is no reason not to own it, especially if you love the sound of the 80s or even for more experimental music styles.

Cobalt is definitively fun and easy to program, versatilely usable and just sounds great. A very generous demo with very few restrictions can be downloaded from his website.

Website: www.lesliesanford.com

Tips Cobalt offers a lot of waveforms already in the oscillators, but it seems to miss a square wave at first look. You can achieve one by selecting a sawtooth into an oscillator, enable PWM for it and set the pulse width to 50%.

If you wish to hear any features which require the host tempo to function properly, like the sync on the LFOs and the delay, make sure that you play your song or an empty block of it while designing presets. Cobalt has no internal tempo synchronization.

You can download an extra bank of 128 presets for Cobalt at the Atomsplitter Audio website. www.atomsplitteraudio.com/info .php?id=37 Donovan Stringer has imported Cobalt's Factory Sounds into Kore 2 .ksd format, with controller assignments already setup. www.lesliesanford.com/Cobalt/ Downloads.shtml > >

Interview Sanford Audio Design is a new company, which only recently appeared on the market. I have made a small interview with Leslie Sanford, the developer of Cobalt to let him introduce himself to the musicians world.

Leslie, you have started the new year with the release of Cobalt, your first commercial project as VST developer under the brand name Sanford Sound Design.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your company. What made you decide to develop plugins for the VST market?

I downloaded the VST SDK, and like most beginning VST programmers, began exploring the samples that came with it. I eventually wrote a “freebie” VST called LightWave.

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As I became more and more comfortable with VST, I decided to set my goals higher; I began entertaining the possibility of releasing a commercial synthesizer.

Others began helping out with beta testing and creating patches. The project took on momentum. Finally, at the end of December 2007, I released my first VST. > >

Wusik Magazine

Sanford Sound Design was born out of the process of creating my first commercial VST, Cobalt. In the fall of 2006, I wrote a small synthesizer using Microsoft’s C# language. This was a proof of concept project commissioned

by James Squire, an associate professor at the Virginia Military Institute. The goal of the project was to prove that a synthesizer, albeit a simple one, can be created using C#. The project was successful; both James and I were pleased with how it turned out.

James recommended the DSP forum at www.kvraudio.com as a great source of knowledge. I dropped by there and began posting. At that time, I was mainly interested in learning ways to expand my C# synthesizer. Soon I realized that if I wanted my work to be reached by a wider audience, I would need to switch to VST (unfortunately, my C# work was not directly compatible with VST).

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What are your thoughts about Cobalt, now that it is released to the public. Was it well accepted by the users?

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The feedback from users has been very positive.

Any criticisms have been constructive and usually in the form of suggestions for future versions.

I’m very happy, and a bit relieved, to have Cobalt finally out and well received.

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I’ve realized how much work and preparation goes into producing a commercial piece of software, especially a VST plugin. It’s so easy to miss something because the plugin will work perfectly on your system but not on another.

In those cases, determining why can be a challenge in that you may not be able to reproduce the problem. A little luck and a lot of perseverance helps.

Have you planned any further updates for Cobalt?

There are some minor updates that should come out within the next few weeks. For example, I want to improve Cobalt’s MIDI implementation.

As far as major updates, I have two overall goals. The first is to not in any way break existing functionality when adding a new feature. This was a lesson I learned in creating Cobalt. It’s so easy to overlook how a new feature will affect and interact with existing features. Secondly, I want to avoid feature creep.

Part of Cobalt’s charm, I think, is its simplicity. It provides quite a bit of power while at the same time not overwhelming you with features. In other words, I want to take a conservative approach to updating Cobalt.

Possible updates I’m currently considering are adding an extra effect, adding parameters to the existing effects, more waveforms, etc.

Cobalt was inspired by many old synths from the 80s. What do you like about them and what not?

I like the fact that they were basically analog synthesizers with digital oscillators. This meant that you could have waveforms that go beyond > >

traditional analog waveforms. A lot of sonic variety is possible with this approach. For example, if you’re trying to create a bell type of sound, you first choose a bell-like waveform and begin from there. You’re given a head start by having a set of waveforms to choose from that represent all kinds of sounds.

Back when these synthesizers were first released, this was something new.

My immediate plans are to release some freebie effects based on those in Cobalt. At this time, the chorus is almost ready for release. I’m releasing these as a gesture of gratitude to the user community at large for their warm reception of Cobalt.

Beyond that, I’m interested in phase distortion synthesis, the type of synthesis used in the Casio’s CZ line of synthesizers. I want to design a VST synth that puts a new spin on this form of synthesis.

Basically, I’d like to present it to the user in such a way that each oscillator appears to have its own filter with resonance. But what’s really going on under the hood is a phase distortion engine with the resonance sync algorithm Casio created. It will have the user friendliness of a subtractive synth but have a different sound from your typical VA; it will be much more digital.

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Wusik Magazine

As far as what I dislike about them, they were limited by the hardware of their day, so their interface was necessarily limited.

Usually, you had one "data slider" for entering parameter values and a few buttons for changing from one parameter to the next. The display was usually a two character LED display.

These limitations could make them hard to program. The ESQ1 was an exception in that its interface was much more elaborate and user friendly.

What are your current plans for future releases besides Cobalt?

Anything you want to reveal yet?

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Since you are a VST developer yourself, it would be interesting to know some of your favorite plugins.

A few weeks ago, I purchased NUSofting’s DK+ drum sampler.

I love using it. It has a way of randomizing drum samples so that you don’t here the same sample over and over. This greatly increases realism when playing a drum pattern.

groups like Led Zeppelin, Queen, Van Halen and Rush. I also love Jazz Fusion. Chick Corea’s Elektric Band is at the top of my list in that genre.

Any kind of music that has syncopation attracts me. Hearing music that’s doing something rhythmically interesting immediately gets my attention.

So I love everything from Latin to Middle Eastern music.

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Anything else you want to tell us?

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One fellow developer who consistently impresses me is B. Serrano. He has some amazing plugins out. I enjoy playing with them not only because they sound great but because they are inspiring as well. Sometimes when I’m faced with a design decision and don’t know exactly what to do, I’ll wonder how he solved the same problem. So I’ll take a look at his plugins for ideas. He’s a virtuoso synth designer.

What kind of music do you usually listen too?

I grew up on rock from the 70s and 80s, and that’s still my favorite style of music. I love

First, I’d like to thank everyone who’s supported me in releasing my first VST synth. If it wasn’t for their help, Cobalt would still be a toy project sitting on my computer. Many people have helped out and in doing so have helped me realize a dream.

Also, I just want to say that I look forward to releasing many more VST synths and effects.

This is just the beginning for Sanford Sound Design. My hope is that we will be able to provide new and interesting plugins to the VST community for many years to come.

Label

www.wusiklabel.com

Drum Tips

Managing Drum Loops

by A. Arsov

Wusik Magazine

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Drum loops can be an excellent addition to your song because they add drive and feeling, and a unique character to your track. There is only one problem: it is not easy to mix them, because drum loops occupy full frequency range and you can't fix singular sounds embedded in a loop without affecting the other ones. Also it happens that most of them contain frequencies that fight the frequencies of some other instruments or vocals.

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For that reason most of the producers use readymade drum loops just for the background noise. All important parts of the loop, such as kicks, snares and hats are doubled with samples which are added on top of the frequency-reduced original loop. > >

Drum Tips

Managing Drum Loops

One way There are two ways of adding samples on top of a loop. Dance producers usually take a kick from one loop and filter out all the unnecessary frequencies, and then the same for the hat except that there they use whole loop's pattern and not just one sample. If this combination works well, there is no need for using any additional drum loop for background.

or another The second method is often used in pop or electro songs. A drum loop is used for the background drive while all the main hits are doubled with some additional samples. This method is more time consuming but it gives us far better results than if we use just a drum loop. Another reason for using this method is for when we use two or more drum loops in the same song.

In this case, it is essential to have at least the same kick and hats throughout the song giving it a feel of unity. > >

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Drum Tips

Managing Drum Loops

So, after choosing the loops, they have to be chopped with some Recycle-like software in order to get the midi file, or done by hand as we used to do it in the past. The manual method goes this way: put a new empty midi file under your loop, zoom it horizontally and insert separate midi notes under the kick, snare and hats.

Slightly cut some lows from your loop and add some kick samples under the loop's kick.

This will give you a kick with better definition which will stand out better in a mix and will be much easier to control than kick in a loop.

You don't need to cut frequencies for a snare, but you need to find some comparative snare sound which will go nicely along with loop's snare.

For hats, you can recreate them with some additional samples (in case you want better definition), or you can simply cut all high frequencies on the main loop and copy the same loop under the original - this time using loop's hats’ but heavily filtering all low and middle frequencies from the loop. If you recreate the whole loop with samples, play the loop's pattern through midi and turn the volume of the original drum loop all the way down and slowly bring it back in the mix. This way you will add drive to your drums without messing the whole sound with unwanted frequencies.

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Happy looping!

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Drum Review

Drumatoxin

Drumatoxin

Wusik Magazine

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by Johan Vaxelaire

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Is it necessary to introduce you to Artvera? I will close this question because I think that all readers of Wusik Magazine know well about whom I speak. So I am not going to infringe on traditional rules of presentation but rather refresh your memory. After numerous contributions in the world of computer music for Protoplasm, Stealth, Pro-Sounds, Dangerous Bear, for example, and Imagination (thank you still Vera) and Mistral for Wusik.com, Artvera offers us a new sound library for Wusikstation with the provocative name, Drumatoxin.

Drumatoxin

Before adding in the creation of rhythms from the Drumsets-basic, 577 presets were created by Vera Kinter (Artvera) and Daniel Kemp (Dnekm). There are several categories of Drum and Bass which use patterns of drum sounds with basses: Drum Beat, which regroups 4 groups of rhythmic sequences with the number of bars used in the wave sequencer; Drum Beat Percussive, which is presets with percussive sounds; extreme Industrial sounds, which combine patterns of drums with industrial sounds using Wusikstation effects; One Shot Effects and Rhythms, which are one-shot combinations of 25 drums sets and percussive drums sets which use the two wave sequencers of Wusikstation to create even more varied rhythms. > >

Drum Review

This new Artvera production comes as a massive collection of electronic hits, ambient, percussion and industrial sounds for Wusikstation. The composition of this library is made up of 32 sets of drums; that is, 2,000 samples processed with various effects.

What does it give us in concrete terms? 25 Drums sets, called Drumatoxin 01 to 25, that are a combination of electronic drums and ambient sounds; 3 drum sets called Drum-Perc which are combinations of drum sounds with some melodic percussive sounds to create also more melodic sequences; and 4 sets called Extreme which are industrial sounds. The sounds called Drumsets-basic, which are entirely neutral sets, have been changed by means of Wusikstation effects to create pattern of percussive sounds via wave sequencer. It is important to underline the presence of these neutral sounds because the basses are in the this part of the library (and they work very well with the wave sequencer).

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Drum Review

Drumatoxin

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Among these categories a quick presets test very quickly reveals to us the quality of this library. All over we find diversity of rhythms offered, quality sounds, creativeness in the presets, and, especially, the fun which they bring immediately. Using this library, inspiration comes very fast and I caught myself quite a lot of the time trying to see what could be done by twisting these sounds or sometimes by replacing drums parts in already existent songs, with or without changing the presets of Drumatoxin.

Passed the surprise of discovery (and after some hours of playing), a general quality emerges from presets of Drumatoxin, which is for me an essential quality afforded a drum track. Thus, you get a living rhythmic track. This translates in creating a rhythm that is never static. So you may be sure that Wusikstation and Drumatoxin will not give you the effect of a simple "machine" reproducing a rhythm in a uniform way. The

subtle implementation of Drumatoxin allows us to reinforce a feeling of movement and diversity through the wave sequencer, every key bringing a rhythm variation. Again in concrete terms, the test consists in playing a chord on the keyboard. You will see that amazing rhythms are acquired by this means alone..

Beyond the provided presets, we can of course create our own from Drumsets-basic. To create rhythms efficiently it is important to understand how the wave sequencer works, which allowed me, moreover, to learn it a little more about the wave sequencer of Wusikstation. But I reassure you, it is not complicated, proven by looking at the presets that I succeeded in creating, my first percussive rhythms.

To conclude, Drumatoxin is a sound library full of quality, stimulating creativity, fun and rhythmic > >

Drumatoxin

I want to underscore the hugeness of the work of Artvera and Daniel Kemp relating to the great quality of the presets; a long work to have been carried out but profitable, because Drumatoxin represents one of the best drum sounds libraries I have seen -- maybe simply the best.

Drum Review

supplements.

Addicts to electronic rhythms will be fulfilled and will find a number of impressive rhythms and effects ready to use. Others who prefer acoustic drums (like me, in general) will be easily enticed and see a heightening of their musical horizons and an enriching of their compositions.

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Drum Review

Ambient Drums

A Rose by any other Name…

A look at

Nucleus Soundlab’s Ambient Drums

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by David Keenum

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Ambient Drums

Drum Review

“Ambient” is an oft-used but ambiguous word. What is ambient? (Cue pensive pose….) What makes ambient, ambient? Maybe it was originally called ambient because of the use of ambience (delays and reverb), but now… it means something different to every person. So I had an idea of how Ambient Drums would sound -- my idea.

Yes, I had listened to the demos, but, somehow, I had a different idea of how they would sound. I expected it to sound… ambient… my idea of how ambient sounds. I can see how you would say that these drum sounds are “ambient,” but they’re so much more than that.

So I’m thinking that this library needs a new name. I’m thinking it should be something like “Freakin’ Cool and Unusual Drum and Percussion-like Sounds!” Whaddya think? Okay, it may be a little long, but let me tell you about this library. You may actually agree with me! > >

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Drum Review

Ambient Drums

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Ambient Drums is almost 500 MB of percussion hits and scrapes. These samples are arranged into 24 kits, 12 dry kits and 12 wet kits. The sounds in the dry and wet kits are duplicates.

The wet kits are processed with a convolution reverb and are really wet. This brings up the possibility of layering the wet kit under the dry kit and controlling the amount of reverb by the volume level of the wet kit. That way you can decide how much “ambience” you need. Or how about layering a different wet kit under the dry kit?

The possibilities increase!

The kits have descriptive titles like Bell Kit, Mighty Kit, Phantom Kit, and Thunder Kit. There is a Rainstick Kit and a couple of Tibetan Bowl kits. And there are a few bass drum, snare drum, and hi-hat sounds. There are even a couple of sounds that I would classify as some kind of drum, tom drum or hand drum.

But the majority of the sounds have a processed sound. You could call them booms, smacks, whacks, scrapes, and clinks, but don’t forget to call them cool.

Each kit is mapped to about one octave and starts at C1. The lowest note (C1) is consistent throughout the kits.

I received two versions of Ambient Drums: Wusikstation and Reason.

The Wusikstation version contains

basic patches, while the Reason version contains 32 Combinator patches.

These Combinator patches utilize Reason’s EQ, Malström (for the filter), and compressor, and the sound is fantastic! They have a mastered, finished sheen to them. There are also a couple of patches that use the Matrix Sequencer to play a rhythm.

I really like this idea!

Jeremy Janzen says that the Battery version also benefits from some advanced programming. But even with the advanced Reason presets, I ended up using the Wusikstation version the most, and I didn’t really miss the extra presets as much as I thought I would.

As a side note, Daniel Kemp has programmed 30 Wusikstation presets that use the Ambient Drums soundsets. He programmed them into the wavesequencer, so you get a rhythm when you press a key. In my mind (editor - as small as it is!) this takes Ambient Drums to the next level, at least from an inspiration point of view.

My one complaint is that not all of the wavesequences synced to tempo. I asked Daniel about this and he explained that he wanted to develop unusual rhythms.

His words were that he “wanted some to be in an odd timing.” I can live with that. > >

Ambient Drums

So, would I recommend this library?

Of course! And I would recommend both the Reason version and the Wusikstation versions. I would like

Details: Ambient Drums Website: www.nucleussoundlab.com/ambdrums.htm Contact: Jeremy Janzen jeremy@nucleus-soundlab.com Price: €19.95 (single-format), €24.95 (all formats) or shipped on DVD for €29.95.

Formats: Reason, Wusikstation, DK+, Battery 1/2, DR008, and Kontakt.

Specifics: - Contains nearly 500mb of raw samples - Sampled in 24-bit 44.1 kHz -Includes both wet samples processed with convolution reverb, and dry samples - Over 370 unique samples divided into 24 kits (12 dry, 12 wet)

Wusik Magazine

And to that end, I created a short demo. I used Ambient Drums and VS Resurrection to create this piece, aptly titled, Ambient Drums Demo. I really over-did the drums on this one, so try to not hold that against me. I wanted to show as many different sounds as possible without making it sound like a Spike Jones’ tune.

The demo can be found here: www.wusik.com/song.php?id=16 95

to see the rhythm aspect of the library developed, both as Wusikstation wavesequences and as Reason Matrix Sequencer rhythms. But that wish is far from a deal-breaker. I was able to, with no difficulty, create a loop with an Ambient Drum kit. So even if Nucleus Soundlabs do not call this library “Freakin’ Cool and Unusual Drum and Percussion-like Sounds!”

-- it still is!

Drum Review

So what about the application of Ambient Drums? Well, obviously, the booms and scrapes would be useful in Ambient music, any kind of Ambient music… whatever you call Ambient music. There are a number of sounds that have a mysterious, even spooky sound to them, but there are a number of sounds that do not. In fact, Ambient Drums would also come in handy anywhere you need some dramatic percussion sounds: film, video, electronic, pop, you name it. There are unusual sounds, but there are also plenty of low-end booms that you could use to great advantage in just about any tune. As always, listen to the demos on the website. They will give you a better understanding of these sounds than any words I could write.

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Drum Review

Experimental Approach

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Make it Unique

by Paul Evans

Make it Unique

Drum Review

If you make music very dependent upon drum rhythms and beats, you know you must get the most of each hit. You have to make the rhythm hit'em!

For me, compression is usually the starting point of the creative process of processing drums. In this article I will have the drums routed together to be able to process all at once and give them the same feel and tone.

EZ-Drummer's fabulous Claustrophobic kit will be the heart of my drums. > >

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Drum Review

Make it Unique

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Make it Unique

Drum Review

One of my favorites for creative compression is Voxengo's Marquis Compressor. It really squashes drums and brings great color, sound, and a variety of options from which to choose. You can turn the blandest of drum beats into something quite a bit more exciting.

If you look at the settings in the picture of Marquis, I gave it the deepest possible threshold, a fair

ratio, fast attack and release. As well, it’s set to be more program dependant T3, which makes it behave more as an analog compressor would. I do this to create an atmosphere.

You probably know if you hammer drums with the right amount of compression it will make it sound as if air is being beat out with each hit. It is good to be careful and not overdo it though. So be careful with compression. > >

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Drum Review

Make it Unique

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Make it Unique

I do not want extreme saturation however. Marquis produces a bit of a "tapelike" compression which shapes and flavors very nicely. For this reason I choose the Color Tape program in Nebula3. This give the proper glue to the drumbeat I am looking for. It really does provide color.

Great saturation is key for me to processing drums in the box. Drums can be very lifeless and dull due to all of

the factors that become excluded as a result of not being played on a real kit in a real room. Nebula3 is full of amazing programs that, unlike a lot of plug-ins, have a musical character about them that is almost unmatched among native plug-ins. The saturation it provides has been impossible for me to find anywhere else.

Drum Review

Now that I have the compressor set to taste, I often search for a good saturation to help them standout with a distinct color. For this kind of saturation I always turn to Nebula3 and its extraordinary tape programs.

Okay, so saturation and compression is really pretty common. Of course it is how it is used and applied that forms the base I need in order to get where I want to go. The atmosphere I spoke of from the compression is key in this. It gives my drums the proper color, crack, and thump that I want. > >

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Drum Review

Make it Unique

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Make it Unique

This filter is really outstanding. It offers various filter types as well as a Vowel Mode that is most impressive. Vowel mode is the key to using it for this exercise actually.

I put WOW in vowel mode and apply its LF Crusher filter type (only found on their filter). This also applies some more saturation.

Do you see the pattern? It has two vowels I am able to set. I set both of them on E. It has internal modulators, with one of them being an LFO. I apply this to the cutoff of the Vowels and set the

LFO so it steadily bounces back and forth between the E's. This is for movement and variation. I pull the resonance up to about 70; this is so the movement of the cutoff and sound of the vowels is well heard, though not so much that it sounds really awkward. It has an overdrive knob to push the filter. I bring this close to 30 to give the filter a nice but not overdone push. Now, when coupled with the compression and saturation, the Vowels make the air from the compression sound like rhythmic mumbling. This makes them sound really fantastic and it also makes it sound like there is another instrument aside from drums at play here. From overdriving the filter we also give the drums a real vicious feel that hits hard. I keep the mix knob of the filter more towards the dry.

This is so my drum beat does not become a whole new sound entirely. > >

Drum Review

The next effect I bring to the table is what will give it the sound and character to make it really different and most importantly make it stand out strongly. Sugar-Bytes have released a most amazing new filter aptly titled "WOW!" It may not be the first choice to use on drums. Follow me for minute though.

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Drum Review

Make it Unique

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Now this drum-beat is only made up of a ride, kick, snare, and two types of crashes. The processing makes it sound very thick and slams and pumps very nicely.

Some EQ would be more than welcome and probably is a must. I will leave that to the imagination though. This processing procedure will make your drums stand firmly in any mix. These are the kind of drums fit for hip-hop (for example) where drums are very crucial and much of the time the centerpiece of the music. The vowel filter puts a twist and dimension to the drums.

It is really what gives this beat the uniqueness I was looking for, in conjunction with the compression.

All I had to use was a VSTI and 3FX. Sometimes it is not how much you do and how much you use, but what and how you do it. Of course, a Vowel filter on your drum buss is a bit unorthodox.

However, experimentation can bring ideas and characteristics not achievable with a conventional approach.

Comb filtering is another great filter type that can bring unique and adventurous results. Be creative, experimental, and adventurous. Most importantly, make music and have fun!

Artvera presents her first commercial sound project for Wusikstation - MISTRAL. This sound library offers Wusikstation users the chance to own a collection of ethnic sounds - string instruments, drums/percussion, woodwinds, vocals and more.

With more than 300 presets and 300 megabytes of sample data it's a great inspiration for musicians in any kind of music, especially composers of Film, Ethnic, NewAge or Ambient music.

The presets contain not only individual instruments but also longer melodic sequences.

Many presets take advantage of all the new features of Wusikstation version 3.

In addition, there are very interesting pads with extra sounds which can be used in different music styles. These pads have been created by combining multiple ethnic instruments. The package also contains percussive/drum sequences and even some nature sounds, which have been used to create some special sound effects.

MISTRAL contains also a free bonus - two variants of a new skin for Wusikstation, in both normal and large sequencer formats (see the preview of main page below). The MISTRAL presets have been created by Vera Kinter (Artvera), Daniel Kemp (dnekm) and Stephan M端sch (rsmus7). The price is very friendly - only $30.

Release is scheduled for March 2007. www.artvera-music.com/ Wusik Sound Magazine April 2007 #012

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Drum Review

Addictive

XLN AUDIO

Addictive Drums

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

by Ginno 'g.no' Legaspi

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Addictive Drums

Drum Review

What is Addictive Drums Addictive Drums is dubbed by XLN Audio as "complete drum production studio". It is an easy to use plug-in and is compatible with all major sequencing hosts. Addictive Drums - or AD for short, offers 3 essential components: a huge supply of realistic drum samples, production tools for tweaking the drum kits and the more than 3000 midi beats and fills in different styles and genre. AD has everything you need to make a professional drumtrack production.

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AD's flexibility and top-notch editing parameters can yield some very interesting results.

Wusik Magazine

Installing the program is a cinch. The program runs in grace mode after installation (you have 10 days total to run it) and must be activated. Online authorization is required for further use.

Authorizing this plug-in is very straight forward. > >

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Drum Review

Addictive Drums

The Gui Addictive Drums' very attractive interface is divided into 4 sections: the KIT, EDIT, FX and BEATS sections. The Kit section is where you view the actual instruments loaded within a "kit". The Edit page basically lets you shape the sound of the sampled drum/cymbal sound. The FX section displays what types of effects are being applied to a drum kit and the Beats section lets you access the vast library of midi files for quickbuilding a drum track. Also, AD has its own 12-channel mixer on the bottom of page. This is where you mix the levels of the individual sounds as well as apply insert effects and reverbs to each channel.

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AD looks simple and navigating is easy. It is very intuitive, easy to use and quick to learn - even beginners will not be alienated when they first run the plug-in.

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The Drum Kit One of the main four screens of AD is the KIT page. When you select a preset drum kit, this is where the component parts of the drum kit are displayed as images, so eyecandy takes prevalence here. A default kit called "Startup" is loaded when the plug-in is launch.

You can immediately audition the sound of the kit by pressing the play button in the upper right next to the AD logo. The Startup audio demo file makes all this possible and when I first heard it, my jaw dropped. I couldn't believe how realistic sounding Addictive Drums is. > >

Addictive Drums

AD ships with a massive 3000+ midi beats and fills. Some of them are in 'song' structure and contain verse/bridge/chorus and middle8 variations. Auditioning the beats is easy. A simple left-click on the beat will highlight it and pressing the big, orange-colored play button in the center of the screen allows you to hear the beats. The files are categorized and can be sorted according to the time signatures.

In Use I auditioned the drums/cymbal sounds by tapping the keys of my midi controller. I loved what I was hearing and was instantly hooked.

I noodled some more and the next thing I knew I'd spent 30 minutes auditioning the sounds of Addictive Drums. AD is highly addictive, indeed. Mind you, the program ships with over 100 presets in various music production styles.

You can tweak the presets to your own liking and save it for future projects. > >

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Say, if you're in the mood for some electronic drum sounds to go along with your ambient piece, a quick tweak at some of the parameters in the EDIT page will cover what you're looking for. This program is so flexible yet easy to understand.

In fact, AD is so versatile that the stock presets speak volumes for the product and what it is capable

The Beats

Wusik Magazine

It would be an understatement to define AD as a drum plug-in with supplied samples only. Yes, AD uses acoustic drum samples but this plug-in is more than that. The real fun happens when you go to the EDIT page and start tweaking the parameters. All the usual suspect knobs, sliders and buttons are here, include tuning, envelopes, insert effects, reverbs and overhead and mic room controls. Also displayed on this page are the compressor, distortion, saturation and EQ section to further "enhance" your sound. The "Sampler" section controls the level and panning of a particular drum sample. It also lets you swap 4 kicks, 6 snares, 4 rides, 9 crashes, 3 splashes, 2 chinas, 14 toms and 3 hi-hats from a preset. AD will let you mix and match the samples to build your own kit. Once you like what you're hearing, you can save your kit for future projects. Also, on offer are the choked cymbal samples. Very cool!

of. My favorites from the preset selections are the natural "Acoustic Roomy", the 70's sounding "Funky Pants" and the big-sounding "90's Rock". If you're a sound-sculptor like me, AD's flexibility can yield some interesting results.

Drum Review

The Edit Page

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Drum Review

Addictive Drums

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Verdict Addictive Drums is heaven-sent for pop/rock producers, in my opinion.

But since it is very versatile, pretty much any genre is covered. The samples sound very realistic and the sound-sculpting tools are very handy for tweaking the kits to your liking. If you're a producer who's looking for a plug-in with authentic drum samples, tons of tweaking possibilities and great midi beats to get you started, then you might consider AD before hiring a drummer. Highly recommended.

System Requirements: 1.5 GB RAM 3 GB free hard drive space DVD drive for installation PC Windows XP / Vista 2Ghz Pentium 4 or faster Mac OS X 10.4 or later G5 or IntelMac Formats: VST, AudioUnits, RTAS Price: $249 Contact: www.xlnaudio.com

V4

Drum Review

The Right Choice. The Easy choice.

EZ-Drummer

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

by Paul Evans

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EZ-Drummer

Next to the midi browser is one of the most useful, and in my opinion important, features of EZ. It is a button that allows you to turn on the humanize feature of EZDrummer.

The humanize feature makes EZD automatically deviate each hits velocity from note to note. This is very effective in giving an authentic feel to your drum performances. You can simply click it on or off.

Also, by the browser is a velocity knob for setting velocities of the hits within EZ-Drummer. > >

Wusik Magazine

Upon first opening, you see a pretty nice looking drumset: a very simple looking drumset from my first impression.

Clicking on different parts of the kit lets you preview the sound, and each drum part has an arrow you can press to change the hit to a different sample. At the bottom of the GUI is where the functions are for EZD, such as a midi file library that allows you to keep track of all of the midi files that come with instrument in a very sensible way. You can add your own midi files to be part of the vast included library. This midi browser allows you to select a file and play it from within EZ-

Drummer, and makes previewing a midi file very simple, or for using it from inside EZD for a project in your host. It also gives you the ability to drag midi files into your host sequencer for altering, or for using with other instruments, and so on.

For example, in FL Studio I can drag it to an instruments piano roll or sequencer and it will make the midi notes come up.

Drum Review

We all want the best drum sounds possible right? Most of us like them mapped for us, and with a great variety to from which to choose.

Toontrack, the creators of the highly respected DFH Superior, have a piece of kit to meet these standards and shatter expectations. This VSTI goes by the name of: EZ-Drummer.

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Drum Review

EZ-Drummer

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You will also notice on the interface a button that says mixer. It will bring up a mixer of the drum hits as routed from mic set ups. These mics can be routed to your host’s mixer for advanced mixing or kept within EZD for a simplified approach. What’s even better is the ambient mics it features - Room and Overhead micing of the entire kit. This lets you really have flexibility not found in many other drum kits or sample libraries. It lets you control whether mic bleed is heard or not. These mic tracks can be routed to 8 separate tracks in your host. This flexibility lets you mold and shape your

drums in a very great way. A multi-miced mixer and a dead simple interface is a dream. It really is.

That is only the surface and features. Less is more, feature wise. I really like the fact I do not have to dig through a ton of different parameters to get great results. What is at the heart of EZ-Drummer is one of the greatest multi-miced multi-sampled libraries you will find of drums. The quality in my view and from my ears is far past amazing and sets a standard for what library's and drum kit VSTI's should sound like. > >

EZ-Drummer

does not use disk-streaming.

Uncompressed wav files of this sample library would equal 5 GB.

When you first open it just play a midi file with it’s humanize feature turned on, any doubts you may have had should instantly vanish. This is a serious kit with serious sound packed into its unsuspecting interface.

It does not matter what genre you’re into - as long as you need the highest quality acoustic drum samples possible, these are a must purchase. It is universally available to all plug-in formats and hosts, whether Mac or PC. Purchasing EZ-Drummer also opens you to all of the EZX kits for use with the EZDrummer sample engine.

These are just as good and I will talk a bit about a few of these extension kits.

The library of drum samples is made up of 7000 sounds. It uses a proprietary format to keep RAM use low however it

EZ-Drummer is listed on the Toontrack site for $179. This is one kit you should not let pass you by. The sound will make your jaw drop and your feet tap.

Wusik Magazine

What I really like, too, is a lot of drums. Many instruments pile on a lot of effects and features that are really useless. Most like processing with their own effects inside of their host and not within an instruments limited set of onboard effects.

I really have not used a kit before that sounds so realistic from the jump. It really sounds like you have a real drumkit banging out in your computer; for good reason too. This kit was made by veteran drummers and programmers in music. These samples were all recorded in New York’s Avatar studio.

Drum Review

These drums are processed and dry and cleverly programmed to give you the most out of every single hit in the instrument. Each hit contains different samples so it is more than just a single kit. If you want the dry untouched samples you can have them. However, the processing Toontrack put on this kit is professional and does not leave much to desire.

I dare say this is a perfect drum kit if I have ever used one.

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Drum Review

EZX

by Paul Evans

EZX Claustrophobic

new effect tracks are: distortion, reverb, compression and attack, as well as the overhead and room mics.

This is another shot at drum sample excellence for Toontrack as they mark their territory convincingly with this kit. Aimed at contemporary music, but of course very useful for any genre that can use amazing acoustic samples, it comes with a large set of midi files to add to your EZD midi-file browser. With the addition of new effects.

EZD 1.1 allows you to save mixer presets. Claustrophobic comes with a great deal of presets for the mixer to get you up and running. > >

Drum Review

As the name might suggest, EZX Claustrophobic was recorded in a very small room.

This huge kit is a partnership with Sontronics Microphones and Evans Drumheads. This kit is even more massive than the initial EZD kit and has quite a few varieties of hits and percussion. It, of course, stays with the mic mixer that makes the EZ-Drummer so superb. In this go however, they took the multi-mic setup even further. Now there are several mics that are routed to effects. The kit, as a whole, was miced through various kinds of outboard gear and expands the mic mixer concept even further. These dedicated effect mic's can be routed to your host just the same as the others can. The

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Drum Review

EZX Twisted Kit

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EZX Twisted Kit This is another Toontrack collaboration with Micheal Blair. This veers off the beaten path and goes down a very strange path into a crazy expansion kit that is fit for many users; without a doubt their most interesting kit yet.

Filled with strange percussion and wild sounds and sound effects, this is an intricately crafted junk kit! It was created using hubcaps, pots, bells, whistles, old vintage kick drums, and even a manikin to beat on!

Strange to say the least, it is, but effective nonetheless.

There are midi files aplenty from Micheal Blair. This is such a unique kit that showcases a form of drums and percussion not heard by many people. I say this because at first I was pretty skeptical of the use I would get from it. Knowing the record of Toontrack, I knew it would be much more than well crafted. So I gave it a shot and now I use it quite frequently. This keeps the same expanded mixer setup > >

EZX Twisted Kit

Drum Review

as Claustrophobic does but with more new presets for it.

It looks awesome, too, with the interface with the large variety of hits and percussion built with strange things.

Superior quality again makes this rise above the many sample libraries just like the other Toontrack products.

Who else but Micheal Blair and Toontrack could make a bunch of junk into an absolute treasure trove of percussion and drums?

This is a shockingly useful kit with really great midi files. I think this expansion has the best midi files out of the lot I have tried. > >

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Drum Review

EZX Nashville

EZX Nashville

Wusik Magazine

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Nashville is a much more conventional and traditional kit compared to the other two.

An all American style kit, it gets rid of the expanded mixer except it keeps a mic for compression.

Toontrack worked on this with Harry Stinson and Chuck Ainlay at the Sound Kitchen in Nashville, USA.

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This is not just a kit for the good ol’ boys of country, however. As in the rest, it is useful across the board. Its cymbals and hi-hats are exceptionally good. You can hear a slight hint of reverb on the decay that sounds sweet.

The rides are slick and the hats just plain sizzle. This is an ear catcher. This is probably the smoothest of the expansions and I like that it > >

EZX Nashville

Drum Review

only has a compressor effect.

The effects are certainly pretty good but I just am not a huge fan of the expanded mixer. So, it is nice to see it cut down with this one. Of course the overhead and room are here. You can decide if you want bleed to come through on certain drum mics.

samples. It’s built with 10,000 samples to be exact! The Toontrack value has become legendary to me in terms of quality and functionality. It just doesn't get much better, or easier to sound good.

Nashville adds another credit to this status in a big way.

Nothing off the wall and fancy here - except the sound!

This kit is finely detailed and constructed with a ton of

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Drum Review

Steel Drum Percussion Room

Steel Drum Percussion Room

by David Keenum

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

A unique collection of drums and Steel Drums available in a variety of formats, including Wusik

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Steel Drum Percussion Room

concert bass drum, and some hits that I can’t really place.

And then there are the "prepared" steel drums. To again quote Pendle, “These are a neglected set of bass and cello > >

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And they all sound like they were recorded in the same room. Could that be the source of the “Room” in Steel Drum Percussion Room? This gives a unity to the wide variety of sounds.

Wusik Magazine

drums, congas, bongos, toms, hi-hats, cymbals, boxes, metal shelving...you name it.”

These drums have character! And I mean that in a good way. They are recorded cleanly and programmed well.

But don’t expect a complete collection sampled from one drum kit. Oh, it is much more than that. There are bass and snare drums. There are toms and hi-hats and cymbals. But there is also a big bass drum – it sounds like a

Steel Drum Percussion Room is “a new kit of lovely dusty binaural acoustic drum samples and slightly prepared steel drums.... a kind of Tom Waits percussion machine featuring drums in all shapes and sizes.” There are “4 octaves of huge flappy marching band bass drums, ripped and rattly snares and kicks, frame

Drum Review

A few months ago, I had the pleasure to review FXpansion’s BFD. This is not BFD! In fact, just mentioning Steel Drum Percussion Room in the same sentence as BFD is odd, except to say that Steel Drum Percussion Room is really the anti-BFD! Pendle, the creator, describes it this way:

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Drum Review

Steel Drum Percussion Room

steel pans played with fingers and soft mallets to avoid sounding like proper steel drums (more apocalypse than calypso), the tunings are a bit dubious, but there are plenty of velocity layers per hit for a rusty hang drum like effect.”

Again, they have character out the wazoo!

I wouldn’t try to use these as a steel drum ensemble, but as an effect they may be just what you are looking for.

Wusik Magazine

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Both kits were recorded binaurally with a total of 168mb of samples. They are available in Kontakt 2/3, Ableton Live

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Sampler, Wusik, EXS, SFZ, Giga, Soundfont, and Reason NN-XT formats. The cost is £15.

As far as applications - I think the name, Tom Waits, sums it up. I believe these instruments would fit well in an acoustic song, especially one with an off-center, old-style alternative sound to it.

A song with a smoky, quirky Mellotron would be a prime spot to try these sounds. And I also think film and video scores could use these sounds. But I don’t want to limit Steel Drum Percussion Room’s uses. So… listen to the demos. > >

Steel Drum Percussion Room

Details

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Steel Drum Percussion Room Contact: Pendle Price: £15 Format: Kontakt 2/3, Ableton Live Sampler, Wusik, EXS, SFZ, Giga, Soundfont, and Reason NN-XT Website: www.virb.com/dulcitone1884

Wusik Magazine

And finally, I made up a short demo using Steel Drum Percussion Room, as well as a hi-hat loop from Kenny’s Hi-hat Loop Library. The piano is Sampletekk’s Rain Piano, the bass from Manybass, and the rest is Wusikstation. I used a guitar from esoundz’ Guitar Sonic Capsule and I used a JP6 Strings and Solina C from Dash Signature’s Evalon. I had fun doing it, but, frankly, I like pough’s song better. I creatively called my demo, “Perc_room_demo”. Nice title, huh? www.wusik.com/song.php?id=1687

www.joshgemmell.com/Content/ Audio/KvR/Say%20Goodbye%20 Mastering%20Export%201.mp3

Drum Review

There is an audio demo on Pendle’s website, but I also found a really cool song that shows Steel Drum Percussion Room at its best… at least to me. The song is “Say Goodbye”, and it’s by KVR Audio’s own pough. You can find “Say Goodbye” here:

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Drum Review

Steven Slate 1.5 My love of music originates from hip-hop. Because of this, it seems I am on an endless search for new and exciting high quality kits.

This search led me straight to one of the more exciting drum libraries in recent memory: Steven Slate's 1.5.

Wusik Magazine

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by Paul Evans

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Steven Slate 1.5

The kit for me is almost flawless. Unfortunately, only WAV and GOG are formats are provided.

Also, it is made up only of snares, kicks, and toms. All of the hits are expertly designed and engineered. But this skillful craftsmanship has me dying for some hi-hats and cymbals from Steve, along with some percussion!

Mr. Slate, thankfully, had recently announced on a forum version 2.0 which will have many more formats along with some cymbals.

This forum is the KVR sampling forum. If you head there you can find a lot of demos for his new kit.

As far as drums are concerned, Steven Slate is very skilled indeed and seems to have a lot to offer the sampling world.

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Another aspect I found very nice with these drums is that included is a pamphlet; it’s not big, but they made every page count. It gives very nice tips on how to use the samples. It gives you Drumagog tips on when and how to use them with it. Also is explains how they were sampled, the mic positions, etc. It is a lot of useful knowledge and

information that is helpful for getting the best out of these samples.

Wusik Magazine

Whether you do metal, rock, pop, or hip-hop these drums can be of a lot of use. These are simply good! I have

found and used a lot of drums in my "search" for great drums. As far as sound and being able to work in the mix, these fit the bill very well. Steven Slate has proven yet again that crafting good drum kits is a fine art that involves a lot of work.

With his knowledge of mixing and music, it has allowed him to craft this kit into a modern marvel in terms of today’s standards of drum sample libraries. The heavy processing he did to these and various micing setups paid off dividends. You get hard punchy drums, and a lot of them at that!

Drum Review

The 1.5 edition of Steven Slate include finely crafted acoustic drum kits. The hits are organized and labeled in what is called the "Z" system.

It is an intricately sampled and ready mixed drum library of very good quality. The Z-system is four different micing setups of the samples.

As well different processing for each Zset, they have samples for real room ambience, tight close micing, and very strategic micing set-ups to help shape these samples. These are all pre-processed to a degree. The reason behind this is Steven Slate says where a lot of drum libraries fail is in using dry samples for the kits. He made these to fit into a mix and sonically slice through.

He has a pretty good idea on how to do this as he is an engineer and drummer himself.

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www.nomadfactory.com

Drum Review

Kenny’s Hi-hat Loop Library

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

by David Keenum

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The details are interesting, but how do they sound? In a word, great! I

used them at a variety of tempos and they all worked well. In fact, I had the loops less than a day when I used them in a song, and I’ve been using them ever since.

Having the two different types of hi-hats (Zildjian and Paiste) is also a bonus. It helps you customize your hi-hats to the drum set.

I don’t know how you feel about spending $25 for some hi-hat loops, but when they are this good, I recommend it highly.

To quote Kenny, “If you must use machines, please use my hihats!”

Details Kenny’s Hi-hat Loop Library Contact: Kenny Gioia Price: $24.99 Format: REX2 and WAV Website: www.homepage.mac.com/pro duceher/hihatlooplibrary/inde x.html

Wusik Magazine

When I try to recreate human-like drumming with MIDI, I am many times left a little unsatisfied. There are subtleties of drumming that are difficult to emulate. Now I don’t know about ghost notes, or the timing of fills, but I’ve found something to help your hi-hat playing: Kenny’s Hi-hat Loop Library!

This library consists of more than 130 loops, recorded at 10 different tempos ranging from 70bpm to 160bpm, and 4 different intensities. The loops are played by a live drummer with full kit micing and use both Zildjian and Paiste cymbals. In addition to the hi-hats, there are ride loops and crash one shot samples. Most of the loops are 16 bars long. Kenny’s Hi-hat Loop Library comes in both REX2 and WAV formats.

Drum Review

Kenny’s Hi-hat Loop Library

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Drum Review #021 January 2008 Wusik Magazine

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Kenny’s Loopy Song Starters

by David Keenum

Kenny’s Loopy Song Starters

Mandy Moore - "Crush" LFO - "Every Other Time" & "Life Is Good" Brooke Hogan - "Everything To Me" Lee Ann Womack - "I Hope You Dance" Radio Mix Marcy Playground - "Sex & Candy" Willa Ford - "Did Ya Understand That" Paulina Rubio - "The One You Love"

In my opinion, the loops stylistically fit Kenny’s description as “inspired by the smash pop singles of today.” The live loops have the sound of today’s bands.

The drums are played tight and punchy with a hint of R&B. The Mixed loops are, maybe, even more toward an R&B feel.

Think John Mayer’s latest CD. The Programmed loops are flat out funky! Even the faster, 4-on-the-floor type loops have a “funkier” feel to them.

Maybe it’s that New York attitude coming through.

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I did find a problem with the WAV loops. The normal loops were edited very well, but the Crushed, Gated, and Filtered all had problems. Loop points were set, but the loops > >

Wusik Magazine

So Kenny knows something about modern pop music - and he is offering a glimpse into his personal loop library.

His website states, “The loops were inspired by the smash pop singles of today, mostly from Billboard's Top 200. I tried my best to capture the feel, syncopation and tempos of today's modern grooves while keeping the sound quality at a level consistent with my rigid standards.”

The loops come in 3 folders, Live (36 loops), Mixed (36 loops), and Programmed (28 loops).

Each loop contains 4 variations: Normal, Crushed, Gated, and Filtered. So there are a total of 400 loops. The loops come in both REX2 and WAV formats.

Both are 24 bit, 44.1 kHz.

Drum Review

Kenny Gioia has been around in the music business. His resume includes credits as a songwriter, producer, engineer, and mixer.

According to Kenny’s MySpace site (www.myspace.com/kennygioia), he has written and/or produced the following songs:

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Drum Review

Kenny’s Loopy Song Starters

were not trimmed. Kenny is aware of the problem and will fix it. In the meantime, if you are interested in the WAV version of the loops, contact Kenny for more information. By the way, I found none of these issues with the REX2 loops.

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

Many times we hear loops from our loop collection in other people’s projects.

Here, with Kenny’s Loopy Song Starters, we have a fresh, unique set of loops.

And you get a peek into the loop collection of a successful pop songwriter/producer. Cool!

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Details Kenny’s Loopy Song Starters Contact: Kenny Gioia Price: $39.99 Format: REX2 and WAV Website: www.homepage.mac.com/produce her/loopysongstarters/index.html

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

Drum Review

Jamstix 2

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Confessions of a mind

By A. Arsov

Hi! I'm Alex Rayzoon Jamstix 2.

mind

and

I'm

addicted

to

Drum Review

Confessions of a

(Everybody: Hi Alex!)

Alright, I suppose I have to tell you a story, so I will try to reconstruct for you some details about how I stepped on this road of sweet perdition.

Wusik Magazine #021 January 2008

A month or maybe even two months ago we decided to make a drum issue. You should know that I was (at the time) a musician in desperate need of a realistic drum library module. My fellow writers, Paul and Ginno moved faster and have already got BDF and EZ drummer together with Addictive drums, three of the most known acoustic drum modules. So, I put a curse on both of my colleagues and started looking around for some appropriate substitute on the net. Five minutes later I found the Rayzoon site detailing the Jamstix 2 drum module. I read additional info, listened to demo songs and was pretty impressed with all that I had heard and read.

According to the info, Jamstix 2 is not only an acoustic drum module it is also a virtual drummer with some sort of integrated brain.

I don't want to be offensive here and will not try to blemish real drummers by comparing brains, but let's just say at this point that real drummers are the fellows who confront other musicians. They’re big boys who constantly joke around instead of playing in rehearsals. Anyway, it is nice surprise to find a musical brain that is not complaining and arguing.

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Drum Review #021 January 2008 Wusik Magazine

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Prologue After getting this new toy I explored it a bit and found that it has a bunch of high quality multi layered sounds, along with a real time groove composer containing 50 included drum styles. Pretty soon I found that it can also import midi grooves, and all those grooves - internal or imported ones can be used with one of the ten human drummer models. Yes, I know, it sounds tempting and very promising, but to be honest, I was a bit skeptical. I'd heard the demo songs on the site and they sounded very real. I also showed them to my heavy metal cousin who has never heard of the word “commendation” or “compliment” so he never uses them. Yes, that is my dear “this is not good” cousin Nenad.

After hearing the metal pack presentation, he was so confused he forgot to be himself and said by a mistake:”Sounds good. It is not bad, really, not bad at all.” Ten seconds later he woke up from the first shock, realized he could lose his reputation of a mumbling man who's always been above everything, and started complaining about things that made no sense: “I don't like when hats are fuzzing around 12 kilohertz” and similar ‘out of the blue’ statements.

mind

Act 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4

Drum Review

Confessions of a

For the first few days I tried to discover how this wonder worked, by reading the manuals and trying various styles. I figured out that it had separate outputs for all samples. From four to seventeen, if we are precise. The Compressor and EQ were on the first four outputs. It also had a real time fill generator, advanced feel modeling and some human simulation they call, “triangulation of hand movements�, which ensures that the grooves are always humanly playable. In practice this means that if you import some of your midi grooves into the Jamstix 2 brain, some hits and variations will be added depending which drummer model you choose. And how does this sound? Bloody excellent, if you ask me. But ok, I'm maybe not the right one to ask considering my addiction.

Wusik Magazine #021 January 2008

As time passed by, I'd discovered more and more interesting details about this exciting instrument. I started to play around with the bar editor, adding some beats and experimenting with a song sheet along with the bar timeline. I began reading about and managing the brain control, tweaking various knobs in the groove, accent and fill section, loading various kits and experimenting with other drum modules. Oh yes - I’ve obviously forgotten to tell you that Jamstix 2 can sub-host other drum modules, so you can use all the advantages of Jamstix 2 along with drum module of your choice.

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Drum Review Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

These drum kits can be combined with Jamstix’s internal kits thus allowing you to make a dream kit for yourself. And step-bystep I spent more and more time with my new toy. At first I was only late for lunch and supper, but after finding that Jamstix 2 can export whole parts with fills and all other trumpery as a midi file for additional editing, and that Jamstix 2 also has a level knob which changes not only the level but also a character of a playing style, well, that was the moment when my family lost me.

I didn't have any time for the kids and wife anymore; sorry, not tonight. I started giving various excuses for spending more time with Jamstix 2. It was the beginning of the end.

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mind

Epilogue

Drum Review

Confessions of a

To make things worse I decided to give it a try and stop wondering how it would sound if I changed some preprogrammed or imported loops in my current songs with Jamstix 2 ones. What a catastrophe. It sounds so good that I totally lost sense of time and started neglecting my other obligations. My list of undone things is becoming bigger and bigger.

On the brighter side, I must admit I haven't missed anything in my beloved Jamstix 2.

Of course I couldn't resist getting additional kits: the metal pack which adds some excellent kits with heavy kicks and few cool drummer models, along with XL pack that also added some must-have kits like Rock and Fusion along with a big electronic kit among others. There will also be a hand percussion and Bonzo kit in the near future.

I didn’t start writing this because I needed your compassion. To tell you the truth, I don't need it. I just want to boast that I have Jamstix 2. To heck with the whole world, as long as I have my virtual drummer!

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Drum Review

I'm not a solo artist anymore. I presume that next level in human invention will be some sort of a virtual wife (limited edition, with small vocabulary and quiet voice). Hm‌ I presume there will also be a market for a virtual husband, of course only XL edition because women already think that the real ones are already limited (one way or another).

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

But let's leave that for some other time and some other article. I have my wife, but I'm pretty sure there will also be some use of the virtual one. Ralph, you are a talented programmer and one with the best customer support I've seen so far. So, what do you think about Rayzoon Wife 2 with artificial brain module? Tell me ... Honestly?

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:

eck h c o tml t h . r 2 be stix m m e a j om/ Rem c . n o o ayz r . w ww

Catharsis

mind

Drum Review

Confessions of a

I can openly acknowledge that I have no troubles with my addiction any longer – as long as I have my Jamstix 2. It is definitely one of the most innovative pieces of software I've ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot.

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The Way They Work It

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

Feature

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The Way They Work It

by R(t)O

An Interview with

Paul Robb of

Information Society

Information Society: the name invokes big hair, a big guitar, and, most importantly, a big, high-tech sound. While Information Society could tear up the dance floor, they were not just another dance band; rather, they were a rock band that used synthesizers. They were about catchy melodies first and the dance floor second.

When the society went silent, it was a sad day for synth enthusiasts.

Wusik Magazine

The silence was only temporary. Paul Robb has brought the band back from the ether with an awesome EP titled Oscillator and its full-length big brother, Synthesizer.

Recently, I caught up with Paul, and he took time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions for the Wusik crowd. > >

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An Interview with

Paul Robb of

Information Society

Q1. It was 1993 when the label decided to move away from Information Society, what have you been up to since that time?

We all went our separate ways in '93, and all three band members left New York. I went back to Minneapolis, where I proceeded to have two kids, and work on my HAKATAK projects (Think Tank and Brother Sun Sister Moon).

When BSSM unexpectedly got signed to Virgin records in 1997, I moved out to LA, where I've been ever since. I divide my professional time between doing music for film and television and working on new Information Society material.

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Q2. What were the factors that led to you deciding to bring back Information Society?

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Well, for one thing I was bored with my own professional projects, and I felt like I needed to work on something I could feel a bit less mercenary about.

Also, I was starting to get excited (and still am) by some of the new, creative avenues electronic music has been

taking lately. Throughout the 90's and up to about 2005, electronic music was a vast wasteland divided between really mindless dance music and really pretentious "electronica". Now, however, it seems like some new ideas (surprisingly similar to some old ideas) have been injected back into the enterprise, and I am finding, much to my surprise, lots of electronic music, including dance music, which I really like.

Q3. Information Society has a new line-up. Would you tell us a bit about the members?

INSOC doesn't really have a new lineup. We have added a few new people to expand our horizons and flexibility in performing and recording, but the group started as a collective, and remains a collective.

Q4. It seems to me that lousy journalism has led to the spread of some misinformation about the band (both past and present incarnations). Kurt has, for his part, addressed it on his > >

An Interview with

Paul Robb of

Information Society

website.

What are your thoughts on the situation? Also, is there anything that you feel needs to be set straight?

Not really. Kurt went to a lot of effort to debunk the reality of some so-called "reality" TV shows, but for the rest of us, it was really just a nice way to get together and have a night out.

Q5. The new CD, Synthesizer, is out (will be at the time this is published). Would you tell us a little bit about the artistic direction and the making of the CD? I would like to think that SYNTHESIZER represents a return to our roots. We are and always have been a synth band.

Both of those words have been sullied in the last ten years, but we can't get around it. We aren't DJ's, we aren't producers, we are a band. And we play synthesizers.

Music non-stop. Electro pop!

Q8. Is there anything you would like to add that we haven’t touched on?

I would just want to encourage everyone to check out the new record.

Even Kurt said: "I found myself tapping my foot in a surprisingly tolerant manner." :-) So, there you have it.

Information Society is back with a vengeance and doing the sound that only they can do. If you get lucky enough to catch a live show, then go and enjoy it.

If you can’t, then check out the new tunes.

On the Web: http://www.informationsociety. us

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There will probably never be another full-fledged Information Society tour. We will continue to play interesting live shows when the opportunity arises.

I have piles of analog synths from the old days, which I supplement with scads of VST synths and effects from within Cubase. I love the immediacy of software synths, but I also love the big beasts. I've been hauling a new Korg Radias to shows recently, and I love it.

It's like my own private disco light show!

Wusik Magazine

Q6. Are you planning to tour in support of the new CD?

Q7. Information Society really pushed the technology envelope in the late 80's and early 90's. What kind of gear are you using today?

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Audio Bomb/Best Service

Dancehall Vibes Vol. 1

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

by Ginno 'g.no' Legaspi

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Dancehall Vibes

Jamaica might be a cool place for culinary experience (ed: I just love their jerk chicken and ox tail dish! Ya mon!), but the island nation is also known for its cool, vibey and dancey music. Reggae has been with us for decades. It has put Jamaica on the map.

Another sub-genre from the island called dancehall has also been topping the radio charts. Both types of music are somewhat similar in terms of sound and the way they are played, but the dancehall movement has really popularized the Jamaican music scene. Though it is performed a bit faster than reggae, dancehall music is fitting for parties because of its raw, energetic nature.

Countless dancehall acts such as Shabba Ranks, Sean Paul and Elefant Man have released megahit records and have crossed-over to the U.S charts.

The wide variety of supplied sounds includes punchy drum and percussion loops, various keyboard phrases, FX sounds, fat basses, synths, horns, strings, ethnic instruments, groovy guitars and more. The samples come in 44.1kHz/16bit WAV and REX2 format. Mapped kits are also provided in HALion, Reason's NNXT and SoundFont sampler format.

#021 January 2008

Contact: www.bestservice.de, www.soundsonline.com Price: $99.95 Format: 2.2Gb of Acidized WAV and REX2 (44.1kHz/16bit).

SoundFont and patches for HALion and NN-XT samplers are included.

Wusik Magazine

Verdict: If you happen to be stranded on an island and are lucky enough to have a laptop with you, Dancehall Vibes Vol. 1 is a good companion to bang out some tracks while getting yourself a tan. With 30 construction kits, this library is well worth auditioning.

If you're into producing dancehall then you might want to take a look at Best Service's Dancehall Vol. 1 sample library. It is packed with the hottest samples and loaded with style. The library includes 30 construction kits with tempos raging from 95 to 119 BPM. Each construction kit folder comes with a mixdown file along with individual loops like drums, keys, percussions, etc.

Additionally, single hits and vinyl/DJ scratches (24 files) are provided.

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#021 January 2008

FUN, FUN, FUN.

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by A. Arsov

Does anybody even remember how funny it was working with old sequencers back in the 80's? Do you recall programming beat boxes and various synths, or drawing notes in old Atari piano rolls? It was quirky science and most of us were just experimenting with musical lines that nobody could ever play on real instruments. A lot of my friends jumped on a musical band-wagon back then almost without any musical knowledge. They only had a musical ear and an innate feeling for the rhythm. Working with these types of primitive grid sequencers was really joyful because we knew what we wanted to achieve, but most of the times the results surprised us in a pleasant way because we could never know exactly how something would sound at the end of the programming process.

I'm not a bad guitar and keyboard player, but have to admit that I get the most interesting musical results when I open the piano roll and draw few notes like in the old days, and have a great time listening to the end results. > >

Wusik Magazine

I had worked with two young enthusiasts in the late 80's (and later in 90's) and they have even released few albums and became a known electro band in our country. Vasja was a rhythm programming genius and Sergej

was one finger keyboard player with big imagination - but no musical knowledge. I remember when Sergej programmed an interesting melody line on his synth and called me and Vasja to see and hear the miracle. He was very excited and told us proudly: “Man, this is totally cool. I've used these tones and it sounds amazing.” We stared at a synth's editor window over his shoulder, and I told them, “Yeah, it is a chord, it is a G major.” And Sergej told me proudly, “Yes, I presumed it was a chord because it sounds so cool.” Maybe it was really just a G major, but it sounded really cool and fresh because Sergej made an interesting and powerful rhythmical pattern with one or two additional tones over the three main chord-building tones.

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Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

SILVERBOX

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SilverBox from Spectralhead is a Roland TB-303 software recreation, and no, this is not just another software recreation of this legendary bass line. I used to have an original in late 80's and I have to say – it was not so easy to program. Trial and error was the name of the game. And, it was a pure nightmare when the time came for pattern programming. The whole band started to play a chorus while TB-303 was still playing the verse. “Hey, can you count, man? This should be repeated 32 times and not 34

times. Come on, can someone change this!” It was time for a break for a half an hour: time for cigarettes and re-programming.

Boys on Spectralhead wrote that Silverbox sounds exactly like its hardware predecessor. Is that true? How would I know? I sold my 303 twenty years ago. Original or not, Silverbox sounds amazingly good. It definitely has the 303 sound and it doesn't sound artificial like some virtual instruments do. It has this recognizable 303 sound - from a depth and punch to the ‘teen and smirk’- like high snarling sound. > >

Control yourself

Despite the great sound, it's not this that makes it unique.

SilverBox has a built in piano roll with dedicated ranks of buttons under the piano roll for every one of the sixteen beats. They are for gate, accent, slide and octave up and down options. With all these controllers on the top of the user interface it is laughably easier to program bass lines (like never before). You can get your original line in a minute. It is one of the most user friendly instruments these days and this makes SilverBox proudly stand out amongst others.

All in all, SilverBox sounds so good and it is so easy for managing that you can easily lose your sense of time while tweaking all those knobs and drawing happy notes. You can have a good time for hours on end. > >

Wusik Magazine

To make things even better Silverbox also responds to midi notes. Just play or draw another note in your main sequencer and the whole line will be transposed to the played root note. It is a very handy feature to make instant changes in the arrangements.

Main window contains all classical bass line controllers plus some additional ones.

The Oscillator section is used to choose between sawtooth and square waveforms and also contains a tuning knob for detuning the frequency of the oscillator. A Filter section with cut off and resonance knobs also displays an additional knob for choosing between hi, low and band pass filter types. The Envelope section contains a decay accent and envelope modulation knobs for controlling that classical bass line sound.

There is also an overdrive section where a knob for distortion level and a knob for switching between various distortion types can be found. Some other not so traditional controllers are the Noise button for adding some background noise, VCF tune button along with some global transpose controllers and few more minor ‘toys for boys’ in sequencer section.

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DRUMSTAR

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

Where there is a bass there is a drum.

These instruments are like the police: they always show up in pairs.

One of them can write and the other can read (the police officers, not the instruments).

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Drumstar, by Sonic Sidekick, is a drum sampler - but that's only a part of it. The main reason why it is so special is the sequencer section where you can go crazy drawing notes like in the old days. Maybe it will be better if we say that Drumstar is a sequencer with added sampler ability. To be honest, it is not as intuitive as Silverbox and you have to be a bit of a scientist if

you want to use all the possibilities that Drumstar has to offer, but when the time finally comes to manage the sequencer – only then does all the fun begin.

The pencil man strikes again. I almost forgot how fun it was to draw the notes in a drum sequencer.

The Sampler section contains a browser with sample preview ability and various controllers for managing imported samples. With them you can control the tune of the sample, add drive, manage the ADSR envelope or change the frequency character with the built-in five band equalizer. The Choke function is also there hiding under the name: Exclusive. > >

Samples can be organized into groups and subgroups to set various parameters for each of them. There is also a split function to split the range in various velocities. As you have already noticed, all those fancy names cover the good old multimapping function which allows us to load samples and arrange them on different velocity layers within a sample cell. The main difference is that Drumstar allows various others, not just velocity function mappings. If you are of a more scientific type, then this could be the right field for you.

There is also a cool feature called “Round Robin� that prevents the same sample from triggering twice in a row. Also, all the samples can be freely panned and their volumes adjusted, and may have different aux outputs in order to use the host's effects.

Fancy retro

Wusik Magazine

The biggest window in Drumstar contains a sequencer window which looks like some old Atari game. It looks retro but not dated. Contrary – it is fancy and very useful. You can add a sample in a row with just one click and you can delete it with the right click. There is also a parameter editor under the grid editor. It is designed for editing the velocity or managing some other function, such as: skip, which determines how often a note does not play, alternate, which controls how often the alternate hit is played versus the regular hit, and groove, for changing the timing of individual steps in the pattern editor. There are also plenty of other functions for managing various samplerelated things. And, as this is supposed to be a review and not a user manual, I presume it is up to you to discover all these additional features. > >

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Because Drumstar is a sort of classical beat box recreation in software form, it also contains a pattern editor for arranging your drum patterns into a song. It contains all the functions that pattern editors have: load, save, copy, paste, drag and drop, track, pattern add, save, format hard drive, defrag the drum grid and print the drum rapport. Just kidding. It can't defrag, print or format your hard drive, especially the latter because I haven't noticed any non-stability issues so far.

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

I have to admit, the first time I saw Drumstar I fell in love with it because it reminded me that making music is supposed to be fun. And with Drumstar it definitively is. Try a demo and become a retro painter yourself.

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Happy ending Silverbox costs 49 Euros and Drumstar just 27 Euros/ 37 dollars. Imagine, you can't get so much fun and the joy of drawing elsewhere - not for this money.

Both instruments are not meant only for electro techno boys. They are simply intended for changing your working habits and pushing your songs into some new unpredictable direction. Treat yourself with some real retro fun.

jeremy bible & jason henry

jbjh.experimedia.net info@experimedia.net

Zero-G/Xfonic

Degrees of Abstract

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

by Ginno 'g.no' Legaspi

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t

Degrees of Abstract

The best thing about having a sample library full of abstract sounds is that you can never exhaust its contents. No matter how you manipulate, mutate and process beyond recognition these so-called 'weird samples', there’s always something new that comes out from the original. The same thing can be said about Zero-G's Degrees of Abstract, a library that is unique (pun intended) in its own right.

Producers Dave and Nick Higham designed this library as an audio source to fulfill the needs of media producers, sound designers and musicians looking for that leftfield, downtempo, breakbeat and soundtrack-type samples.

#021 January 2008

The 'Beats' folder contains some good, useable loops that are organized into 80-160 BPM groups. The loops pretty much cover broad musical territory but you'll even find loops that were tortured with processing: I’m talking about crazy and manic beats. I'm very impressed with DnB (160bpm) and Nu Breaksz/Breakbeat (130bpm) because they sound superior and were looped properly. I find the loops under the 'Synths' category are mostly arpeggiated, but the ones in the 'Distorted' sub-folder are crunchy and fat. The 'Soundtrack' group offer good sounds for adding that unique spice to any of your compositions.

The same thing can be said about the 'Pad Effects’ sub-folder but these have an 'edginess' character to them. The 'Bass' folder gives you a good amount of sounds that ranges from acoustic to electronic. The 'Female Vocals' sound nice - especially the ones washed with reverb. And a couple of vocal FX WAVs included are what I would categorize as fitting for vocal hooks in electronica instrumentals. > >

Wusik Magazine

Degrees of Abstract is a huge 2 GB (44.1kHz/16-bit), multiformat sample library that is aimed for the ‘experimental-type' producers. Scanning thru the individual folders, I find that this library has plenty of unconventional sounds but the overall content is not limited to just that. A bunch of inspiring 'radio-friendly’ sounds covers you for any style of music. With over 1300 files, there's plenty with which to mess around. There are 40 construction kits along with a massive collection of individual loops, like: guitar, bass, synths, beats, vocal, etc.

I auditioned the 'individual' loops material via Sony's Acid Pro and had fun listening to them.

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Degrees of Abstract

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

The 40 construction kits are the backbone of this library. The loops (usually around a dozen or more) in the folder provide a good starting point and inspiration to make a track. The kits are, fortunately, recorded in different tempos. There is plenty of good stuff here, like the chilly 70BPM "Summer in Winter" to DnB 175BPM speedster of "What If".

The melodic 130BPM "High Hills" and the experimental glitchyness of "Lump Robot" will surely spark your creativity.

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Aside from the construction kits, the library also contains a 'Drum Hits' folder. If you're into Glitch or IDM electronica then you need to rejoice. Plenty of the 'one-shot' drum hits are useful for building your own drum kit. The folder is spread over 170 individual files with snares, kicks, open/closed hihats and blips. The 'Blips' sounds are my favorite because of their variety and usefulness.

Again, these files were heavily processed like the other sounds.

Verdict: I like themed libraries. This one is special because it focuses on abstract sound. This library really shines because it has massive, useable materials that are not boring. The content is good overall, and the inclusion of sampler patches gives this library a good value. Highly recommended.

Contact: www.zero-g.co.uk www.soundonline.com www.timespace.com Formats: 2Gb of Acidized WAV and Stylus-compatible REX2 files (more than 1300 in total). 1250 sampler patches for EXS24, HALion and Kontakt are provided and comes also with 40 construction kits.

Price:

$99, ÂŁ59.95 including VAT.

Dry Ice Metal Sounds

Dry Ice Metal Sounds

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

by Warren Burt

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Dry Ice Metal Sounds

This started off as more of a science fair project, inspired by such TV science shows as Mr. Wizard (mid-50s) or MythBusters (contemporary) than anything else.

Along the way, though, I encountered some fascinating sounds which I’m happy to share with readers of this magazine. I first came across the idea of exploring the sounds made by placing dry ice on metal about 35 years ago. I believe someone was showing it off

as a party trick for a happening, or a theater event.

Later, I encountered USA-based NPR’s “Soundclips” series, in which sound artists share their favorite sounds with the public. These are available on the web, and are highly recommended! In this one www.npr.org/templates/story/story .php?storyId=12309256 sound effects virtuoso Andy Aaron describes his recording the sounds of metal placed on dry ice. > >

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Dry Ice Metal Sounds

Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide. It is readily available from commercial outlets. In my town, I got mine from a party supplies store. In other places, you may have to go to an industrial gasses outlet to buy some. It’s cheap, too. Here, pellets are available for around $5 Australian a kilo. I’ve heard that in the US, the price is about $2 US a kilo. To record the sounds in this Wusik set, I bought 2 kilos of dry ice. I actually used about 1 kilo.

Wusik Magazine

#021 January 2008

Dry ice is cold. No, let’s make that COLD. Its temperature is -78.5C or -109.3F. That’s cold enough for your skin to freeze to it, if you’re foolish enough to handle it with bare hands.

Notice in the photos I’m wearing thick gardening gloves. These were more than adequate for handling it, but after a few moments I still felt the cold penetrating the gloves.

Handle dry ice with care! Since it’s a solid which directly transforms into

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gas, it can expand - so don’t put it in sealed containers - they are likely to explode! What’s more, it’s heavier than air, so the gas will tend to accumulate in low places. Don’t drive your car with dry ice in it without having the windows open.

And use it only in well ventilated spaces. Breathing dry ice fumes (carbon dioxide) can suffocate you.

Once having bought the dry ice, I placed it on the ground on our back patio, and proceeded to place metal objects on it. The sounds were remarkable and immediate. Some objects made sound very well, others didn’t. How the sound was being made was that the heat of the metal caused the dry ice to instantly turn to gas where the metal contacted it. The pressure of this gas pushed the metal away from the dry ice, and without contact, the dry ice stopped sublimating (turning directly from a solid into a gas). The > >

Dry Ice Metal Sounds

metal then fell back onto the dry ice, and the cycle repeated. If this occurs fast enough, the metal vibrates, and you hear the result as sound.

The sounds are wild, and they do give the impression of sounds produced under stress. Monster movie fans (and heavy metal musicians who enjoy the horror and sci-fi scenarios of much metal music) should enjoy some of these sounds as a source of “cries from the pit.”

On a different note, when talking about musical phrasing and how to make a series of notes musically expressive, the German-American composer and philosopher Herbert Brun said “not the gesture, but the stress is the music.” This meant that the varieties of loudness and strength of each musical part of a phrase was one of the things that really conveyed meaning in a sound.

In a sense, these sounds certainly live up to that, being produced by metal undergoing extreme stress by sudden exposure to cold. > >

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Dry Ice Metal Sounds

The objects I found most useful in this session were steel mixing bowls, pliers, a cross-cut saw, a little hacksaw (just its handle), and a larger hacksaw (both handle and blade). These can be seen in the photos. I wanted to try out a large flat, thin sheet of metal, but didn’t have one available.

In the excitement of using tools and kitchen gear, I also completely forgot that just a couple of meters away, in the garage, I had a complete set of copper pipes from a metallophone I’d made about 5 years ago. Those might have made some interesting sounds as well!

Wusik Magazine

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For this Wusik sound set, I’ve made a separate Preset for each sample, and the samples are saved as WAV

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files, so you can copy them and use them for any other purposes. The sounds are not looped - if you want to work with the rhythmic aspects of these sounds (which some people might find irresistible), you’ll have to export them to a sound editor and loop them on your own. There is only one WusikSND sound set (DryIceMetalShorterSounds.WusikP RST) - a preset which has 47 of the shorter (less than 10 seconds) sounds, arranged one to a key from C36 up to C84. No effects are added to the sounds - I wanted to present these sounds as cleanly as possible.

The potential for extending these sounds with effects is, of course, great, but I’ll leave that up to the individual user. > >

Dry Ice Metal Sounds

Most of the sounds are short around 10 seconds or less, but there are several long ones which might serve as musical phrases in their own right. Here’s a listing of them, with their durations: Bowl08 - 16.7 secs BowlLongSequence - 43.6 secs (this is a composed sequence of an extended improvisation with a bowl.

Silence has been spliced out and different sections amplified differently. It’s a mini-composition on its own.)

HacksawBlade02 - 11.2 secs HacksawHandle01 - 18.9 secs HacksawHandle02 - 17.1 secs HacksawHandle05 - 34.8 secs (another long sequence, but this one doesn’t have much splicing) LittleHacksaw02 - 19.5 secs Pliers01 - 13.4 secs Pliers06 - 13.4 secs Pliers07 - 21.5 secs

Listen to these sounds, to their rhythm, to the way pitch changes within them, and to the textures produced by the bouncing, freezing metal. Very little processing, other than volume adjustments (to make each sample about the same level) was done. Most of the rhythms you hear (except in some of the very long samples) were produced by the metal itself, not by splicing. For all the sounds, except the WusikSND compilation, the root key is C60.

Playing higher and lower than this, of course, produces wonderful effects. Fans of music of complex textures, such as the musique concrete works of Iannis Xenakis, should find these sounds useful and exciting. And if this idea intrigues you, you can try making your own.

All you need is the location of your local dry ice distributor, a microphone and a recording device, and some metal objects.

Enjoy!

Wusik Magazine #021 January 2008

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