|
Drum & Bass Page 2/3
The collection is broken down into three areas.
Construction Kits - The first part of the collection is given over to seven very comprehensive drum & bass construction kits, these use the time honoured method of presenting a full version of what is here virtually a full track, and then giving you a breakdown of individual samples. You get not only a basic loop, but all the other elements too, short of any vocals. Apart from a fair variety of percussion there is also sax, rhodes, bass lines, synths and a splattering of spot effects.
There certainly are a lot of elements, the first has no less than 40. You don't just a straight selection of elements either, some of them you get variations of, for example a saxaphone riff with and without effects, drum loop variations etc.
The clever part here is that not only do you get all the samples, with some variations, but then they are all tied together with the midi file. In this manner you can recreate the track in your sampler easily and then customise it from there. Your not going to get too far away from the original of course, but does allow you to mess around with the track to your hearts content, and in particular you can deconstruct the track, see how it is all put together. Very useful if your a beginner for sure or looking to put something together quickly.
The sounds themselves are fairly standard drum & bass fare, at 160 or 170 BPM and a little clean and anaemic for my taste, but well recorded and presented and great fun to play around with. I got a "did you do that!" within about 30 minutes...
Loop kits - Continuing on the construction kit themes, these are somewhat simpler, just consisting of the drum loop. There are still a lot of elements provided, around 15 is the average. There are 15 at 160 BPM and 8 at 170. Once again there are some variations provided.
Together with the supplied midi files you can easily put together a drum track in no time, the big plus here of course is that its simple to introduce variation. Makes producing a completed track from the supplied material a much more simple and realistic proposition than just a short loop.
Whilst not getting away from drum & bass styles here the producers have introduced a little bit more in the way of cutting sounds. Certainly a bit more punch and get up and go here. Again well produced and not a bad little collection at all.
Individual sounds - The last part of the CD is given over to a range of individual sounds that you might find useful either with the earlier material or in it's own right. You get delayed percussion effects, moog and sub bass lines and hits, bass fx, jazzy keyboards, pads, sax riffs, sfx and individual hits to round out the collection.
Once again the usefulness of the section is increased by the inclusion of midi files for the bass lines and keyboard riffs. Very solid section, nothing that is going to set the world alight and within any given area, as you might expect, you don't get a lot of variation, eight sax riffs for example. Not bad at all though.
