Earth Tone World Percussion Boston MA

BIG FISH AUDIO: EARTH TONE

World percussion libraries are useful to have around, because just about any type of music—from hip-hop, to rock, to electronica, to drum 'n' bass—benefitsfrom having a frosting of persuasive percussion.

Earth Tone has ten folders of loops organized by tempo (from 72 to 135BPM),with two additional folders for 190 and200BPM. There are different instruments in the different folders, but stretching is reasonably good (even theAcidized files), so you can mix among the various foldersfairly easily.

One aspect I particularly like is that these have real dynamic range, and don’t slam the dynamic range extremes,either. This helps them fit into a composition really well, aspercussion generally is softer than the main rhythms. Of course, you can always normalize and/or limit them in yourDAW if you want a more aggressive sound.

This is indeed world percussion: Some loops sound more African, while others have a Middle Eastern or Latin flavor,making this a versatile collection that also lends itself tosome interesting cross-cultural mash-ups. What’s more, the loops-to-dollar ratio definitely works in your favor.

There are many world percussion libraries, but they often focus on one particular part of the world. Earth Tone is afine general-purpose collection, where the odds are goodyou’ll find something that works for you.

BEST SERVICE: CLUB REVOLUTION VOL. 1

With 2,099 one-shots and 642 electronicdrum loops, you can think of this collectionas a filling station for MPC-type groove boxes—it can provide loops on some of thepads, and one-shots on others for accents.As if to underscore the point, five out of the six loop folders don’t have a kick, encouraging you to lay down the loop, but get original with the underlying beat.

The one-shot collection is wonderful—bass, claps,snares, kicks, effects, synths, toms, percussion, choppedvocals, and the like. They’re also great companions fordrum modules, like Battery or Impulse. Most sounds have atough edge that’s more techno or hard/progressive housethan “classic” house, and they cut through a mix. Melodicfiles have the key in the name.

The loops are of the “get up and move!” type. I’drecommend boosting the highs a bit on some of them, butthe rhythms are spot on. All of them are fairly short and runat 140BPM; they aren’t Acidized, and REX/Apple Loop versionsaren’t included—if you want to stretch the tempo,you’re on your own.

For dance music productions, Club Revolution is “collagefodder”—some assembly required, unlike “mix andmatch” loop collections. The downside is you need to puta little more work into putting the bits together, but theupside is a more original, creative end result—and that’s agood thing.

FUTURE LOOPS: INFINITE SOUNDS FROM A FUTURE COSMOS

Not only are virtual instruments sproutingbig libraries: Infinite Sounds is 17GB ofmaterial that, had it been around duringthe 1980s new age boom, would havelikely ended up in a zillion segments ofHearts of Space. Each of the ei...

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