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Reviews
Perfofrmance Loops Drums Volume 2
1 Review
| Article |
Rating |
Author |
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| Electronic Musician |
4 out of 5 |
Jeff Obee |
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Drum loops are as common as ants at a picnic, and for good
reason. They provide a basic rhythmic template for songwriting, they're
the foundation of contemporary dance music, and they work great for
broadcast and multimedia projects where deadlines are a
concern.
However, electronic, quantized drum loops can get old
fast. Producers always look for new ways to spice things up and offer
something different. Big Fish Audio's Performance Loops Drums, Vol 2
($99.95), fills that need, employing actual acoustic-drum performances
instead of the usual highly processed drum-machine sample
approach.
Drummers On Acid
The collection pairs an audio CD with
a CD-ROM of Acidized WAV files. This provides the ease of use of a CD-ROM
and the backup and auditioning amenities of an audio CD. Twenty folders of
WAV files contain the essential material, and you get four additional
folders of bonus tracks. The main folders are organized according to
tempo, from 73 to 140 BPM. They include the body of loops along with
breaks, fills, hits, and endings. The performances were recorded to
full-length songs, so they contain the natural musical inclinations of the
drummer.
A few of the folders also contain loop variations: there
are full kits, some with kick and snare only, some with room mic ambience,
and some without. The additional material includes a smattering of
miscellaneous hits, processed loops and hits, and a bunch of bonus
loops.
Pocket Change
Three drummers recorded the tracks in
different studios under differing conditions and set-ups. Nonetheless, the
quality of sound is consistent throughout. The collection presents a good
cross-section of styles and beats, including straight-ahead rock, funk,
and pop rock; straight blues and blues shuffles; various ballads; and
solid dance grooves. I was delighted with the variety of brush
performances*busy brush beats, folk rock styles, and on-top-of-beat,
danceable grooves. I really enjoyed the Brush Folk Rock loops, with their
deliciously in-the-pocket groove and syncopated snare patterns and the
occasional addition of a side stick with the brush hits.
The loops
are well mixed. Many of the snares, particularly those played with brushes
and side sticks, have an excellent timbral quality. The side stick on the
87 bpm ballad, for instance, has a crisp and clear presence with just the
right amount of room reverb. The kicks are punchy and nicely compressed
overall. I heard some slight headphone bleed in some of the tracks, but
Big Fish mentions this in the documentation. Otherwise, all the material
is as clean as a whistle.
Can't Be Beat
As I sit and listen to
the 77 bpm Groove Beat tracks, I remember just how much the subtleties of
a real drummer can add to a piece of music. The little drags and ruffs,
the slight variations in the velocity of snare hits, the way the hi-hat is
played, the way a drummer uses ride and crash cymbals*chaining these loops
and fills together in various ways can provide lots of understated
intricacy to a drum track. Whether you use them alone or combine them with
electronic loops, they'll breathe a bit of life into your music. Go to Big
Fish Audio's Web site and do some
auditioning.
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Performance Loops Acoustic Guitars
3 Reviews
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| Article |
Rating |
Author |
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| Keyboard Magazine |
|
Bob Schleeter |
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Pros: Outstanding performances. Excellent tone. Killer
recordings.
Cons: Lack of fingerpicking material. No mention of
major/minor tonality in loops.
Bottom Line: A great way to get
top-quality acoustic guitar parts.
Yikes, I think to myself. The
cover says "Over 1000 Guitar Loops and Samples." Everybody I know already
plays the guitar. Do we really need these?
I press play on the
audio CD, and I hear something I've never heard before - a 12-string
guitar in tune. Okay, I'm a little interested. Second loop: These things
have beautiful tone. A dozen loops later: Hey, some of these are quite
musically interesting. A hundred loops later, I have to admit that while a
lot of people pick guitar, not many can play this well or get this kind of
sound from their instrument. Second-listener Ken Hughes concurred, saying,
"These loops sound truly faboo. The placement of the stereo mics captured
slightly different tones on each side, so if you wanted to use only one
side for a mono part, there are actually two sounds to choose from.
Bravo!"
Most of the loops have a folk-rock feel, but they are full
of nuance and variation. They exploit two of the great things about
acoustic guitars - open-string resonance and strumming rhythm patterns.
Each track (or set of WAV files) contains several iterations of a basic
phrase, with variations in accents, touch, chord movement, picking
patterns, arpeggiation, and muting. I pasted three different sets into Pro
Tools and had instant, seamless tracks that exhibited many of the nuances
of a real player. There's a good variety of tonalities, harmonic
progressions, and tempos. Both pitch and tempo can be manipulated using
Sonic Foundry's Acid. The documentation includes an insert containing
track, key, and tempo information, plus .htm files for each set that
credit the player and list the instrument, microphone, preamp, processing,
etc.
This package is done as about well as it can be done. What's
missing? There are really no fingerpicking loops, though a couple of the
nylon-string latin/jazz patterns are played fingerstyle. Not everything is
played to a click, so while you can celebrate the joys of human timing
fluctuation, it may mean that the loop you love needs extra tweaking to
work in certain types of productions. Tracks are listed by key center but
no distinction is made for major or minor. The biggest drawback is that
despite the large amount of variety, you're likely to find yourself
needing a chord progression or rhythm that's not included. That aside,
what's here is rich, musical, and very appealing.
There may be 1352
guitar players where you live. Likely only a handful will be able to play
as well and sound as good as this
collection.
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| Article |
Rating |
Author |
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| EQ Magazine |
|
Craig Anderton |
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The "performance loops" concept strings together compatible
loops to create complete compositions. The loops are taken from
multi-track recordings of songs, yielding various chord progressions but
also, several loops are repeated with small variations. The loops are
basically rhythm guitar parts using 6-string (474 MB; mono, stereo, and
double-tracked), 12-string (112 MB; stereo and double-tracked), and nylon
string guitars (53 MB; various samples). Several styles are represented
(ballad, rock, folk rock, some country, funk rock, some Latin, etc.) in
both audio and acidized WAV form (the acidization, which is hard to do
with sustained sounds, is very well done).
Recording quality is
excellent, but more importantly, there are variations to the guitar sounds
- some of the acoustic guitars are bright, others have a somewhat more
"midrangey" sound. All of them work well. Mode-wise, although the voicings
are generally major, there's liberal use of tonic/fifth and suspended
chords so they're compatible with minor moods.
The main advantage,
yet also disadvantage, of the performance loops approach is that the loops
define the song. For example, in the 100 BPM 12-string selection, there
are several chord progression loops (A to C, A to G, C to D, D to A, D to
E, F-D-G-D, G to C), and loops that vamp on D, E, A, and C. If you want to
go from, for example, Am to F, you can't get there from here without
transposition and cut/paste.
This type of CD really shines for
situations where you need to come up with a quick acoustic guitar track
("Hey, we need 2 minute of acoustic guitar to accompany our promotional
video 'Napa Valley Wine Tasting,' can you get it to Fed Ex by 5 PM?" With
this CD, you can say yes.) However, because of the variety of loops and
the acidization, you can get more versatility out of these parts than
expected. There are sprinklings to individual chord hits and other goodies
to add more interest.
This is a fine example of a
production-oriented CD. Songwriters will find it of very limited use - but
those doing audio-for-video, or who need to add acoustic guitar accents to
existing tunes, will find it useful indeed.
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| Article |
Rating |
Author |
| |
| Interface Magazine |
8 out of 10 |
Dave Huizing |
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|
The second edition of the Performance Loops series has
arrived. In the first issue, there were acoustic drumloops, but now it's
up to the guitars to roll.
As the title implies, this is a box of
loops played with acoustic guitars. Which guitars were used, we can't
really tell anywhere*, but for sure BFA used different players with
different guitars. To please practically everybody, there is a huge
variety of style captured in this box. You'll find styles like rock, folk,
country and many others, all with more than enough variations.
If
you read the booklet, you can see that the recordings are made with an O2R
mixer. That has resulted in beautiful, clean recordings that sound very
open and dynamic. Sometimes the recordings are maybe a bit too clean, but
noises like the attack on the strings and shuffling on the frets are very
well captured. Among the rest you'll find that the guitars are placed very
well into the stereo field.
This box is ideal for using at once and
replacing those expensive session players.
* Extensive
documentation is included on the CD-ROM in simple HTML format, including
detailed session notes within each performance folder stating the session
player and the type of guitar used.
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Scott Rockenfield Queensryche Drums
1 Review
| Article |
Rating |
Author |
| |
| Sound on Sound |
4 out of 5 |
John Walden |
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|
This is a recent addition to Big Fish Audio's Performance
Loops series. The basic format of this series usually takes a complete
performance from a single instrument type (all the drums, for example, or
all the acoustic guitars) and then splits the performance into a number of
shorter loops that can then be rearranged as required. However, this
format is given a bit of a twist here. Over their more than 20 years,
Queensryche have built a considerable following for their particular brand
of heavy rock, and this sample collection essentially reproduces the
entire drum performances from 17 tracks from their back catalogue
(including tracks such as 'Silent Lucidity', 'Walk In The Shadows' and
'Eyes Of A Stranger', all of which appeared on the 1999 Greatest Hits
album). And to ensure the authenticity of the playing and sounds, the
tracks were played by Queensryche's drummer, Scott Rockenfield.
Each CD contains over 750 files (640MB), mostly as loops, but also
a couple of folders of single hits. On the first CD the loops are wet,
with some room mic ambience added, while the second contains the same
loops dry. Loops are subdivided into folders based upon the original song
title and, usefully, each folder name includes the original tempo. Within
each song folder are, on average, more than 30 loops, and these generally
vary from one to four bars in length. The loop names have been very well
chosen, and this makes it easy to identify straight loops, fills, intros
and endings.
The recordings themselves are excellent, with a good
solid kick, and a suitably tight, but punchy, modern snare sound. The
cymbals also have just the right amount of top end, without too much
sizzle - all in all, the kit sounds great and would work in any modern
rock style. The dry loops are right in your face, while the wet loops are
not too wet (which personally I liked), but if you want something in
between, it is simply a matter of running both versions together and
adjusting their relative levels - this worked easily enough in Acid .
However, as all the loops have been especially recorded for this
collection, from a user's perspective the big plus is how easy it is to
mix and match loops from the various songs - the kit sounds very
consistent between the song folders. Of course, all this is topped off by
some excellent playing and, while there are some straight-ahead loops
here, there is also an abundance of intricate and quite subtle detail in a
lot of the performances. One characteristic of Scott's playing is the
ghosted snare rolls that sit between the beats, and there are plenty of
examples of that here, which add a distinctive flavour to the drum tracks
created.
Usefully, a good range of single-hit files (both dry and
wet) are also provided. Aside from about a dozen very nice cymbal swells,
these are dominated by single hits, covering the full spectrum of the kit.
In the case of the kick and snare, this includes a series of four hits
that could be used to create velocity layers in a sampler programme.
Again, the recording quality is excellent across the board.
If
rock is your thing, and you want something just a touch different, then
this library is well worth exploring. The only significant downside is
that the licence does not permit use in a library/production-music
context. The collection contains plenty of excellent loops, and it is very
easy to build a complete drum track. Despite the rather unusual basis for
the loops, the end result works really well and the playing has plenty of
character. While I'm sure these loops would appeal to a wannabe
Queensryche tribute band, they would also sit comfortably behind a range
of rock styles, from Audioslave to Linkin Park and all shades in between.
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Greg Adams' Big Band Brass
3 Reviews
| Article |
Rating |
Author |
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| Future Music |
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| Few instruments are harder to reproduce through the traditional sample-played-on-a-keyboard method than trumpets, saxophones and other brass. Perhaps only the guitar, with its very particular "guitar" articulations, is harder to emulate with a sampler and keyboard. Nevertheless, manufactures continue to explore ways to bring playable horn samples to producers, but unless you're a very adept keyboardist, even the best multisampled horns can sound lame if you play them on a keyboard. Great strides have been made recently with LinPlug SaxLab, Big Fish First call Horns, Artuia Brass and AMB Kick-Ass Brass virtual instruments - some of which you can read about in "Soft Machines" in this issue's Power Up! section-but for my money, if you really want convincing, realist horns on your next recording, the best way to go is still good ol' prerecorded loops and samples, played by solid horn players.
Among the very best horn sample collections to emerge recently has been Big Fish's Greg Adams' Big Band Brass, a massive DVD's worth of loops and one-shots that packs over 4600 big band-style loops and samples, including a huge library of short solo phrases for flugel horn, trumpet, sax and more that is worth the price of admission alone. Greg Adams is a founding member, arranger, trumpeter and composer of Tower of Power, one of the great horn brands of all time, and his expertise and experience clearly go into these loops, which are recorded with stunning fidelity by producer/engineer Stephen Sherrard. Culled in large part from Adams' own Big Band arrangements, and recorded with the Greg Adams Jazz Orchestra's 14-piece horn section, this is the absolute cream-of-the-crop: the classic big band brass vocabulary, presented in both Acidized WAV files and AppleLoop AIFF format for low-impact time-stretching. Prepare to be wowed.
Most of the major horn section riffs and phrases are recorded both in close-mic and room-mic proximity, a subtle distinction that makes all the difference in a mix. In addition to the horn section folders - essentially construction kits in a particular key - there's a folder just for big horn chords and chordal phrases (paradise!), those inimitable big band falls, all manner of exciting hits and stabs, even more solo instruments, as well as one shots for programming your own lines and phrases from trumpet, sax, trombone, flute and flugel horn. For the jazz traditionalist or commercial producer looking for top-flight horns, it'd be hard to find a collection that rivals this, especially for what amounts to a straight-up steal: $99! For the more electronic-leaning DJ/producer, this is the mother lode of horn samples, recorded simply and elegantly enough to be processed, tweaked and morphed without losing the majestic vibe that great horn sections and soloists add to a track. Try doing that playing triads on our USB controller.
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| Article |
Rating |
Author |
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| Computer Music |
8 out of 10 |
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| Trumpeter, composer and arranger Greg Adams has worked with the likes of Rod Stewart and Elton John, and he's the driving force behind this finger-snappin' DVD. The content is duplicated in Acidized WAV and Apple Loops formats, giving you a total of more than 4600 loops and samples.
A 14-piece horn section was used for the recordings, and consequently, the sound is impressively full.
This isn't for the electronica fraternity, but if you're itching to shake your jazz hands, this is a great, if very traditional, brass solution.
8/10.
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| Article |
Rating |
Author |
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| Music Tech Magazine |
7 out of 10 |
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| Greg Adams' Big Band Brass is the latest release in the Performance Loops series, which takes performances of complete songs and slices them into loops to provide samples and loops which don't have the stale feel inherent in many other samples collections.
This latest release takes a number of recordings made by producer Stephen Sherrard with the Greg Adams Jazz Orchestra and provides the user with more than 4,600 loops and samples cut from the original recordings. The complete song is included alongside the loops and samples to help the user identify where the samples originated from and how they can be used in a mix. The theory behind this method of sampling is simple: while recording loops can be a boring experience for the musician - resulting in stale samples - a full recording environment can stimulate a performer - and if the recording is good enough to be used by Greg Adams, then it should be good enough for everyone else. While not all theories work in practice, of course, the samples that make up Greg Adams' Big Band Brass go some way to support this one - they're brimming with energy and swing.
Everything needed to create a big-band jazz track can be found here, although why anyone would want to create big-band music from samples we can't think. These samples are much more likely to be found in hip hop or dance tracks. While big-band composers are unlikely to turn to a samples collection, if hip hop or dance is your bag, this collection could seriously enliven your sound. 7/10.
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