The CDPD Public Domain Collection for CDTV 4

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Text File | 1994-06-20 | 12KB | 273 lines

m __________ __________ /_________/\ /\_________\ \_________\/ T H E X - S T A T I C G O L D M I N E \/_________/ oOo reviewed for AM/FM by André Meyer oOo <=================================> This sampling-collection comes on two CDs with exactly 3023 dance- samples and a little book with some information about the sounds on it. It is a pure dancefloor CD, so musicians who do not like hiphop, techno, rave etc. very much shouldn't take a look on it. On the CD are 512 drumloops, 1103 single drums & percussions, 512 speech samples, 640 basses and synthsounds and 256 FX samples. That means 700 (!!!) megabytes of high- quality and totally new sound material and a playing-time of over 2½ hours. I think that should be enough to sample for the next time. Both CDs are divided into several categories, so let us take a look on it: CD 1: Track 1 - 32 - Drumloops 33 - 93 - Drums & Percussion 94 - 96 - Demosongs CD 2: Track 1 - 8 - House & Rap Vocals 9 - 17 - Basses 18 - 24 - Ravers 25 - 32 - Synth FXs 33 - 40 - Back to D 70's 41 - 48 - Swirls 42 - 56 - Robot Vox 57 - 64 - Snatches 65 - 72 - Vox Mix 73 - 96 - Effects As you have surely notices, the first CD is splitted up in bigger categories. Each track has also a title, which describes the samples on the track a little bit more. On both CDs there is a spoken copyright notice and a reference tone which helps you to set the maximum input gain on your sampler. Unfortuantely there is not many space between the sounds and so it is sometimes a little bit difficult to sample. But if the producers had not done this, it would not have been possible to put so much sounds on both CDs. That is also why no samples are repeated. The producers of the CD suggest you instead of it to use the repeat-option on your CD player. _____ _____ <____<> CD 1 <>____> Demosongs --------- Three demosongs have been included. They were made by using an Akai S1000 and an Alesis Quadraverb. Unfortunately they are not very long and good in my opinion and they do not show what you can really do with the huge amount of samples. Drumloops --------- CD 1 begins with 512 drumloops. They are divided into several categories (hiphop, techno etc.). The styles are Techno & Tekkno, House, Hiphop, Old school, Funk, Dub, Rave, Clonk, Hardcore, African rythms and Latin. All loops are sampled over two measures and provided with a name and the speed in bpm, so you will not have any problems with sampling. You have access of a real wide range of drumloops. For example there is the drumloop from the song 'Gonna Make You Sweat' from C & C Music Factory or from the song 'Y.M.C.A.' or very typical loops from Snap and other well known dancefloor groups. You will find almost every drumloop you have heard from ANY song. Drums & Percussion ------------------ The second big part of CD 1 is the drum & percussion section. The sounds of the first part were taken from drummachines, of the second part from records and other drums from archives. Altogether 1103 different samples are available. The sounds from the first part were taken from the Roland Cult Beatboxes TR-808, TR-909, TR 727, TR 606, CR 78, CR 8000, DR 55, Rythm 33 and Rythm 77. The drumsounds from TR-808 and TR-909 are multisampled. All tracks are entitled with the names of the beatboxes the samples were taken from. Here a short view to the rich variety of sounds: bassdrums, snaredrums, hihats closed, hihats open, toms, electoms, cymbals ride/crash, cowbells, claves, handclaps, rimshots, cabasas, shakers, congas, bongos, timbales, agogos, sidesticks, whistles, bells, kalimbas, triangles, fingersnaps, gongs, tambourines and many other sounds whose names I have never heard before... To the drum sounds is to say that a lot of them are provided with names, they are entitled with 'room BD', 'techno BD' and so on. The sounds of the second part were taken from records. Unfortunately the drums were not entitled like those ones of the first part, so you will be confused with the names 'bassdrum1', 'bassdrum2'... 'bassdrum74' and so on. I think the drums should have been given a name like 'KLF snare' for the snare which sounds like that one from KLF. As the drums were taken from records, sometimes you hear something in the background (a short voice or something else). The rest of the samples is not worth to mention, just a few nice drums (bass- and snaredrums, house- and ravehats as well as hiptoms and electrokicks) _____ _____ <____<> CD 2 <>____> Speech samples -------------- CD 2 starts up with 512 speech samples. On track 1 - 8 there are 128 house & rap vocals which are really interesting. It is quite comfortable to find a particular sample, as all speech samples are given in the book. Most of the sentences are well known: 'Let D Bass Kick', 'Yo, What's Up', 'Check Out D Bass', 'Yeah boy!', 'Get Up N Party', 'Turn The Music On', 'Let's Go', to mention only some of them. Also robotvoices are on the second CD which are saying the whole alphabet, numbers or typical words: for example the word 'techno', the same robotvoice like that one which was used in 'Das Boot' by U96 or 'Virtual Reality' or 'Cyber Space'. If you need vocoder voices, you will also be happy. Really great vocoder voxes which might be useful to use in a song. On the CD: More different speech samples from different areas called 'electronic', 'soups', 'star-trekking' (the original words from Captain Kirk and Spock), 'disturbed', 'naughty', 'psychos', 'hysteria', 'Jamaican Style' (English words spoken from Jamaican guys, sounds bloody good indeed). Have you ever listened to Enigma? Then you surely know the Gregorian choirs which are also on this CD as well as Islamic Prayers and other ones from all over the world (China, Japan etc.) Need some scream??? Want to hear how a screaming psycho path sounds like (by the way: very funny to listen to! hehe)? Also you can hear groaning (the noises a man and a woman make when they are together in bed. Hope you know what I mean!) Bass sounds ----------- The bass sound section begins with 16 bassline loops in true Acid style. They were made by using some of the 112 basses and are provided with the speed in bpm (like the drumloops) to make using easier. The basses are in several styles. To make your dancefloor production really good, pulse-, solid-, fat- and subsonicbasses can help a lot. Also fonk bass (very good I think!), slide bass, numb bass, square bass etc. are useful. Unfortunately most basses are very, very simple and consist mostly of a simple wave, but I think that it is exactly the right for techno. All in all 'bassy' and 'full' basses. Ravers ------ Ravers are hits, chords, piano dits, blips, bleeps etc... Well, there is not so much to tell about them. Some orchestra hits are well known (for example that one from 'Das Boot' by U96) and especially the piano dits are very useful. Altogether 128 ravers take place on the CD. Synth FXs --------- These FXs are also useful for other productions than dancefloor. Especially for people who like typical synthesizer-music a la Jean-Michel Jarre these effects are really interesting. First you can hear some sounds called 'Time Warp', 'Zap', 'Intergalactic Call' etc. by the German musicgroup "Kraftwerk". Then there is a section with many science fiction-sounds (good for setting of movies). Back to D 70's -------------- Back to the 70's does mean 'normal' samples like brasses, trumpets & trombones, horns, saxophones, flutes, strings, guitars, organs and choirs. The strings are not recommandable for people who are searching for string-samples in a good quality. They were sampled really bad, but that is for dancefloor so much the better! Swirls ------ 128 'swirls' have been included on the CD. That means bells, chords, drones, choirs and other frightened sounds which set your song in the right mood. Some sounds are very useful indeed! Effects ------- Ok, let me come to the last big part of CD 2: the effect section! Well, I want to describe the sounds a little bit, as it is really hard to find names for it. The first part of the effect section is called 'percussive FX'. First you hear that someone puts icecubes in a glass, a drop is falling into water, 'tick tack' of a clock, then explosions, punches, destructions, a big splash etc. The next part is called 'electrix FX'. Here you have some signals, tones, melodies, clicks and calls from a telephone, sounds from computer games, machine noises, then some alarm- and science fiction sounds, 'laser beams', a laser-UZI etc. After that there are 'power FXs'. That means creaking doors and wood, machine guns in action, sirens of American police-cars, horns of cars, several noises of cars whose engine does not function, cars while driving and more. The last part of the effects-section is called 'mother earth's FX'. You can hear chirping birds, a swarm of bees, the noises you hear during the night, in the jungle, insects, fire, rain, thunder, a river, waves, a swimming guy, under the water (sounds very impressive!) and several different winds. Last words ---------- At last I want to say that the CD is really worth its money. For £79 GBP you get a bloody good sampling-collection, one of the best ones at the moment, I think. People who do not like hiphop or techno should not buy this CD. Of course the 'Back to D 70's'-section includes some nice 'real' samples and also the effect section is good, but because the sampling-frequence is not always so high, I do not recommend this CD to those people! For musicians who like dancefloor (and I suppose that is the most of you readers) I can only say: BUY !!!!! And for all of you which have done the right decision, here is the address for ordering: TIME + SPACE P.O. BOX 306 BERKHAMSTED HERTS HP4 3EP ENGLAND / UK Tel +44-(0)442-870681 FAX +44-(0)442-877266 You can pay by Access, Visa, Mastercard, American Express or by enclosing an international cheque/girocheque/Eurocheque or postal order made payable to "TIME + SPACE". Price: £79 plus porto + packing (£5 for airmail and £10 for express airmail) For further information write, phone or fax to TIME + SPACE. I hope you liked my little review. Let D Bass Kick And Keep Coming!!!