Best Service Cinematique Instruments 2
Price: $260
Format: PC/Mac
The sequel to Best Service’s 2012 hit
comprises 60 patches built from 15 new sampled instruments. As before, the
angle is experimental and, well, cinematic, highlights including the Chameleon
patch (within which six discrete sounds are blended via a channel mixer), the
various drum machines and the guitar harmonics patches. The Upright Piano set
is also worthy of singling out, with its Bowed, Struck and 'FX’ variations.
Running in Best Service’s Engine ROMpler engine, each patch has a small number
of controls for tweaking, and these are well thought out and sufficiently
transformational. Alas, the Huge Tuning Fork isn’t as interesting as it sounds
and the glockenspiel seems a bit superfluous, but there's plenty of highly
usable, original and intriguing content in this well-produced 2.8GB library.
Sonokinetic Da Capo
Price: $391
Format: PC/Mac
Yet another symphonic orchestral library
for Kontakt claiming to “keep things simple and straight forward”. The 7.9GB
(compressed) sound bank is divided up into Strings, Brass, Woodwind and
Percussion sections, each containing three or four instrument types. Each
instrument type incorporates up to five articulations, which can be stacked in
the All Sections patch (Pizz+Sustain, for example), and key switched in the
Ensemble and Lite patches, while four separate mic channels and a convolution
reverb enable basic mixing, with Kontakt’s other effects on-hand for further
sound design if required.
The sounds throughout are absolutely
gorgeous, particularly the strings and percussion, which are as warm and
expansive as they come. And as long as you know what you’re doing
compositionally, Da Capo is indeed a breeze to use, with the four clearly
defined levels of control (orchestra, section, instrument group, articulation)
making workflow quick and easy. There are plenty of orchestral libraries on the
market already, but this is yet another that demands attention.
Soundware roundup - Big Fish Audio Psychedelic 60s
Price: $66
Web: www.timespace.com
The construction kit kings turn their
attention to the Summer of Love with 13 broken-down tracks (comprising 389
loops) inspired by Hendrix, The Doors, Iron Butterfly and their ilk. As ever,
the production quality is impressive and authentic, and if prefab, remix-able
60s-style tracks are what you’re after, these certainly do the job.
www.loopmasters.com
Loopmasters Boxcutter - Cosmic Dub Electronics
Price: $38
An utterly uncompromising collection of
heavily processed loops and hits from the Planet Mu stalwart. Cosmic Dub
Electronics is filthy, full of swing and swagger, and thoroughly plunder able.
Despite the resolutely grimy approach, there’s great diversity here, although
your music will need to be pretty hard-edged to be able to support these
out-there sounds.
Industrial Strength Records Lenny Dee -
Drum Shots Vol 4
Price: $23
ISR founder Dee brings on his fourth
collection of one-shot electronic drum and cymbal samples, as WAVs and in a
variety of sampler formats. Some very high-end gear was deployed in their
making, and they all sound great (apart from a superfluous and disappointing
trio of Tabla sounds). If your drum sample library needs bolstering, this would
be 15 quid well spent.
Sample Magic Terrace House
Price: $53
This superb, well-compiled library of loops
(drums, bass, 'music', synths, etc) and drum hits gets everything right. Fat,
bouncy beats, winding analogue bass lines, uplifting melodies and lush synths
all come across with confidence and great musicality, and while the darker side
of the genre doesn't get much of a look in, no house producer should miss this
one. www.samplemagic.com
Native Instruments Electric Vice
Price: $64
Nl's latest Maschine expansion takes on
electro house. With 34 drum kits, seven 'Special' kits (effects, synth hits,
etc), 13 instruments and 50 Massive presets, it's pretty huge, and the choke
group implementation makes glitchy complextro work-outs a doddle. The sounds
themselves are awesome - powerful, shiny and bursting with energy.
www.native-instruments.com
Puremagnetik Statik
Price: $12
A "heavily circuit bent” Casio SK-5
was used to create these 24 sampled instruments. Obviously, then, we're talking
lo-fi textures and tones of a distinctly retro bent, but that's what
Puremagnetik do best, and the Live Rack implementation is as solid as ever. The
three patches that came from the SK-5 freaking out and rearranging its internal
loops are particularly cool. www.puremagnetik.com
Samplephonics Cooh Presents: Dark Matter
Price: $70
Over 1000 loops and hits aimed at the
daring DnB producer, this is one of the dirtiest libraries we've ever come
across, packed with ultra-distorted breaks, thunderous basses and ear-shredding
synths. The only blip is the Moog Loops folder, which comes across as
positively timid next to the rest of it. Don’t let that stop you, though...
www.samplephonics.com
Producer Loops Future Pop Vol 2
Price: $35
Five more construction kits from the studio
of Simon Rudd, with Producer Loops' usual formatting: dry, with FX tails, MIDI
files, a handful of one-shots, etc. The sounds and production are decent, the
style is sort of pop-house, but as ever with this sort of thing, unless you're
looking to remix these specific tracks, there’s not a great deal of creative
mileage to be had with this library. www.producerioops.com
Big Fish Audio Funk Foundations
Price: $48
Sample libraries don't get more
straightforward than this: live funk acoustic drum loops and electric bass lines
at a variety of tempi (60-140bpm), plus a folder of single drum and cymbal
hits. The performances are solid throughout, and production-wise it’s quite a
retro sound, with dry, tight drums and clean bass-we like! A folder of drum
fills wouldn’t hurt, but if you’re looking for a “real" rhythm section,
this one comes recommended. www.timespace.com
Hollow Sun Pulstar
Price: $30
Marking a step up in price, size and
ambition for Hollow Sun, this 1GB scripted pad and string sound bank for
Kontakt sounds stunning. Two timbres can be loaded at once and blended, and
with 64 multi [sampled (from a range of classic analogue and digital hardware)
waveforms, Z-Plane-esque filtering, a randomize function and plenty of edit ability
on offer, it's satisfyingly programmable and 'synth-like'. www.hoiiowsun.com
