If subtlety isn't your thing, though, you'll love "minidamoocha," an over-the-top, funky toilet-plunger patch that is perfect for 1930s band arrangements and cartoon soundtracks. Another patch lets you change the filter setting in real time for subtle yet effective expressiveness. Kickin' Brass A couple of the trumpet patches do a wonderful job of capturing the cool Miles Davis muted sound, allowing you to switch between long, evolving sustained tones and short staccato notes. Of course, these multilevel patches can be quite large, but they offer an exceptional degree of real-time control. In one patch, for example, the Mod wheel in the down position offers three levels of staccato in the up position it offers three levels of sustain. Several patches combine the Mod wheel with Velocity switching to provide an even greater range of expressiveness. For example, you can quickly change from doits to shake falls in one solo trumpet patch, from short falls to long falls in another, and from plunger wah to flutter wah in yet another. (For the hardware-sampler formats, many of the Mod-wheel-controlled patches have been split into multiple patches.) The clever use of the Mod wheel offers some exciting real-time manipulation of patches. Mod Squad The GigaSampler version of Quantum Leap Brass (used for this review) is especially noteworthy for its many patches that employ the Mod wheel for sample switching, crossfading, and filtering. The hard work clearly paid off: this is a stellar collection of samples that mix together beautifully and encourage creative brass writing. Samples were restricted to the natural instrument ranges (though some of the outer limits do seem a bit strained), and special attention was paid to properly capturing the all-important attack portion of each sample. Loops were avoided to allow the sounds to evolve naturally over time and to blend realistically in chords. Producer Nick Phoenix aptly describes his collection as a "purist, no-compromise library with an emphasis on expression and dynamics." Armed with a variety of high-quality ribbon and condenser mics, Neve and Manley preamps, and Apogee converters, Phoenix recorded all of the samples in large rooms and small to medium halls. The five-disc collection (six discs for Akai S1000) includes an assortment of solo trumpet, three-part (unison) trumpet section, solo flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet, three-part trombone section, solo tenor and bass trombone, solo tuba, solo saxophone (soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone), and four-part (unison) French horn patches. The Quantum Leap Brass library ($695) is offered in formats for GigaSampler, Unity, Akai S1000/5000/6000, Kurzweil, Roland, and E-mu. Quantum Leap Brass, on the other hand, truly revels in the unique sounds that brass instruments make. In most sample libraries, you can find a modest assortment of solo trumpets, trombones, and saxophones, but few offerings explore the full range of expressive and idiomatic techniques that brass players use. Desktop musicians who strive for variety and verisimilitude in their jazz and symphonic scores inevitably fall flat when it comes to adding convincing brass parts. With a very user-friendly interface, CDxtract 3.3 promises to be another must-have for anybody who wants to maximize the use of their sound library investments, on any Windows 95/98/NT4 & 2000 with SCSI or IDE interface.AKAI S5000 | 1.91 GB Quantum Leap Brass East West's Quantum Leap Brass fills an important void in most orchestral sample libraries. This expands the compatibility of our DSP based samplers even further." says Michael Ruf, Product Manager at CreamWare. "The new version of CDxtract gives the users of PowerSampler and the STS-3000/4000 sampler plug-ins easy access to the renowned Roland sample library. The program parameters, such as mapping, velocity switch, tuning, panning, envelopes, and LFO, are also converted Of course CDxtract is not just a sample converter. And with a built-in database that can store the contents of up to 200 Akai CD-ROMs, it has never been easier to search for the perfect program or sample. By simply clicking on a sample, it can be displayed visually and played instantly, directly from CD. Musicians can use CDxtract to convert professional Akai, SampleCell PC and Roland sound libraries to other formats such as WAVE, AIFF, MP3, Soundfont, MESA, Akai S5000/S6000, Pulsar, GigaSampler, and Reaktor.ĬDxtract is also the fastest way to browse your Akai, SampleCell PC, and Roland CD-ROMs. CDxtract 3.3 allows users to browse Akai S1000/S3000, Roland S7xx and SampleCell PC media (CD-ROM, Zip, Jazz, MO, etc.) on a PC, and convert them to STS-3000/STS-4000 Sampler format (.p/.s files).Īmazing Sound's CDxtract is the best conversion tool available for Windows 9x/NT/2000. CDxtract 3.3, Amazing Sound's latest product update for CreamWare's Pulsar, PowerSampler, and forthcoming SCOPE /SP systems is now available.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |