virtualurth DVDs, Music and Poetry

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Dragon Dance - Loops For Acid

Marc Anderson’s Dragon Dance - Loops For Acid
Sample CD Review
By Cezanne Huq

Format: PC CDROM (.wav files for Sonic Foundry’s ACID)
Price: $59 us
Number of discs: 1
Sonic Foundry Website

Sonic Foundry Loops for ACID™ presents Marc Anderson: Dragon Dance. A student of African percussion instruments, Marc Anderson’s historical knowledge and performance skills are matched only by his technical expertise in revealing the mystery and beauty of instruments through imaginative sound recording and processing techniques. Dragon Dance contains essential single solo instrument sounds and performances as well as blistering walls of tribal thunder that have made Marc Anderson one of the most distinctive and original percussionists working today. Unique in the world of percussion libraries, Dragon Dance is the perfect marriage of ancient and modern sounds and technologies, crafted by an artist with an intimate understanding of both. (586 Loops/465 MB)

Dragon Dance is filled with hundreds of specialized .wav files running the gamut from pop culture audio-spheres to ethereal ambient percussions. Marc Anderson proves that studying the craft of African percussion and working through the years with Steve Tibbetts, James Plattes, etc., wasn’t just a mere circumstance. He provides you with a palette of sounds painstakingly treated and processed using imaginative recording and sampling techniques. Ever want to echo the plains of Serengeti and reveal the streets of modern day are conveniently indexed, mastered and packaged to go. Add elements like dumbek, djembe and cahons are just a few worldly instruments that inhabit this CD-ROM. All of the sounds were processed and finalized using 16bit resolution and recorded at 44.1khz.

Virtual Urth Excellence Award Virtual Urth Ratings (Scale 1-5):
Buck Value: 4.5
Sonic Quality: 4
Features: 5
Programming (disc layout): 4
Availability: Now!

Final Verdict: VU Gear Of The Year (95%-100%)

Sample CDs are always hard to gauge and finding the right one can be frustrating. What makes the Loops For ACID a must for musicians looking for new elements to inject life into tracks are the sample songs that examples the sounds possibilities. We spent hours copying the basic template provided on the CD-ROM and replacing and adding our own sounds mixing with Marc’s. Granted this a feature only ACID users but it’s a phenomenal way to experiment and finalize your ideas.

Built on the premise that sounds are Acidized, ACID allows the .wav files contained within the CD-ROM to be loaded and implemented within your music within seconds. More importantly, each and every sound is embedded with special properties, information like beats per minute, looped or not, are pre-installed. This allows ACID to load the sounds with parameters that originally reflected Marc’s intention for the sound.

In conclusion, the loops and samples on this disc are solid as a whole, to make for quite a value packed product, all for around 60 bucks. Its great to use if you own some of Sonic Foundry’s line of ACID products, but even if you don’t, it’s a nice variety of loops and grooves that you probably won’t want to pass up if you’re an enthusiast in creating loop based music. Of course, you’ll need a PC if you’re intending to load any .wav samples off these discs, which is kind of a drawback if you don’t intend to use this disc with any of the ACID products. But then again, you probably shouldn’t be buying this disc if you aren’t intending on using it with ACID, since you’d be really missing out on all the ACID enhanced features the samples offer.

Q-Tron

Electro-Harmonix Q-Tron Product Review
By Cezanne Huq

New Sensor Corporation

Pass The Q-Tron Please

It’s amazing how we go through life oblivious to our surroundings while taking for granted the very things we enjoy and need. The fact is we never really know what they are until someone puts it right in our faces. Ever sit back and really listen to the sounds that seem to embellish your life? Musicians are guilty of exploiting these elements and incorporating them into their compositions. Musicians aside, have you ever stopped to listen?


Well Mike Mathews did. He took $1000 of working capital and a head full of radical ideas to form Electro-Harmonix. EH is now one of the most famous, innovative and prolific sound effects company in the history of music. Ubiqitous to the industry, EH is the backbone and embellishment of almost all of tube amps and pre-amps powered by tube technology manufactured today. You could say they are synonymous to effects in the music industry as is Intel to the microchip in the computer industry.


Meanwhile, 1972 was a cornerstone for the music industry, Mike Biegel fresh out of MIT introduced the first self-contained envelope controlled filter, Mutron III. Due to its “automatic wah” sound Mutron III quickly became an important element in funk and rock genres. Countless musicians embodied their recordings with Mutron III giving it an eternal home in music.


However, the fun didn’t start until the two, that is, Mike and Mike got together to create the first new Electro-Harmonix product in 15 years. The Q-Tron envelope controlled filter is the first successful installment of a new EH campaign to further dominate the market.


Q-Tron’s opto-electronic design delivers the same liquid smooth, organic vowel-like wah wah sound as the Mutron III. Q-tron however, sports an increased frequency response, improved signal-to-noise ratio and sensitivity. The squeaky clean sound of this stomp box is, needless to say, “out of this world.”

Q-Tron’s strengths are in it’s simplicity, design and user-friendliness. Allowing the musician to immediately jump right in and start experimenting the Q-Tron is an indispensible tool for musicians. The Q-Tron isn’t restricted to guitarists, keyboardists have been using them since the first analogue synth was introduced. Presently musicians who are part of the Electronica genre (recycled combinations of acid, techno, disco, industrial etc.) are incorporating real-time envelope filters to give their sounds an organic feel. Q-Tron is a stand alone stomp box that can treat your sound and give you a unique and evolving quaity to your sound. Before we finish up this review let’s clear up some terms and explain some of the key features the Q-Tron has to offer.

There are seven onboard controls
1. Drive Switch (up/down) This selects direction of filter sweep : up (wah) or down (ow).
2. Range Switch (Hi/Low) Emphasizes vowel like sounds in low position, overtones in high position.
3. Gain Control (0-11) Functions as both a volume control and a filter sensitivity control in boost mode. In normal mode it acts only as a filter sensitivity control, unlike the Mutron-III which also changes the unit’s output volume. VU uses the gain control switch in real-time in our studio to give signals a dynamic feeling.
4. Boost Switch (Normal/Boost modes) Normal mode allows setting the Gain control without changing the output volume.
5. Peak Control (0-11) Determines frequency peak of filter. Makes more “effected sound” when turned up more.
6. Mode switch (LP, BP, HP, MIX) This will select the frequency range for the filter to sweep. Low Pass is lows, Band Pass is midrange, High Pass is treble. MIX mode (new feature not on the Mutron-III) combines BP with dry unprocessed sound.
7. Bypass switch (in/out) Turns effect on and off without shutting off the output of the source signal.

Hits