ONE-SHOTS
Sep 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Jason Scott Alexander
D16 GROUP NEPHETON
DEFINITELY AN 808 STATE
Hot off recovering from this Polish company's 909 emulator, Drumazon, D16 dropped another hit of acid, this time done up Roland TR-808-style. Nepheton's photo-realistic GUI stays true to the original, using creative license where necessary to adapt for modern function. A full-fledged drum machine (not merely a sound module), Nepheton synchs to a host, or its step sequencer and internal clock can run freely (30 to 303 bpm). Two banks of patterns — simple and extended — provide 112 possible beats to load into memory at any given time. Simple patterns are used in Host mode, triggered in any order by MIDI note commands to assemble phrases and arrangements. With Host mode off, extended patterns can contain as many as four segments each, selectable from 12 basic patterns and four intro/fills. This is where Nepheton gets to show off its fun side as a creative drum machine. I absolutely love the smart, new Randomizer function, perfect for injecting subtle pattern variation per drum part or crafting entirely new beats either from scratch or from basic rhythmic guidelines.
To my ears, Nepheton's 17 fully synthesized percussion sounds are spot-on. (A special Laser Gun effect is a bonus instrument.) Using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) spectrum and wave analysis of the original, D16 has captured every nuance and detail I can recall of the 808 voices, many with additional controls for much more tweaking potential than provided with the classic. All instruments now feature dedicated level, pitch and tune/tone depth, and decay controls, allowing for deeper and more radically pitched frequency envelopes. You can trigger real-time intros and fill variations using the Tap button. Output is highly flexible; each of the rhythm instruments can be mono or stereo and routed to any of the 17 outputs for individual or group treatment within your DAW.
D16 GROUP
NEPHETON > €139 (APPROX. $192)
At a glance: Emulation of the Roland TR-808 sound and function, with modern amenities. Internal sequencer with smart randomization per part. Mac and PC VSTi only; Audio Units version coming soon.
Contact: www.d16.pl
AUDIO DAMAGE REPLICANT
IT SLICES…IT DICES…IT EVEN LOOPS
Still trying to master glitchy IDM sounds the old-fashioned way of splicing microscopic regions together? Perhaps you're really old-school and are still MIDI-gating for that stu-uh-uh-tt-ter effect. Come on, wake up, gramps! We gots tools to do all that shiz today. Replicant is a delay-based beat slicer, dicer and looper effect available for Windows and OS X (10.3.9 or later) Universal Binary. The beauty isn't so much in what Replicant allows you to do; it's in what Replicant will do on its own. With a GUI divided into four sections — Looper, Motion, Filter and Levels — you can quickly achieve anything from a simple beat-synchronized delay or panning effect to programmable randomization of beat intervals and direction. Words can't really describe the fun this plug-in is to operate. With only a few highly specific controls in each section, creating deadly stutters, filter drops or glitched triplet turnarounds based on specific criteria is simply a matter of highlighting target beats (or divisions) using the opportunity bull's-eye and then tweaking a few knobs to tell it what to process on those intervals. Setting loop length hideously short at 128th note and number of repeats to randomize around 10 to 15, I threw in the juicy lowpass and highpass resonant filters and totally destroyed a fairly pedestrian rock groove. It ended up a very musical-sounding kaleidoscope of heavy metallic grinding tones, moderately squelched and reversed fragments of individual beats and completely unprocessed material intelligently left to jog the ear with familiarity among all the mayhem. A handy Hold button stores sequences you will really love for future use. Absolutely wild for this price.
AUDIO DAMAGE
REPLICANT > $49
At a glance: Intelligent-sounding delay-based beat slicer and looper effect with novel weighted-randomization functions on all major controls. VST and Audio Units.
Contact: www.audiodamage.com
BIG FISH AUDIO PUNK AND INDIE ROCK
SLAMMIN' SOUNDS OF SO-CAL
Your music's loud and proud, but your bandmates are off getting their eyebrows pierced every time you want to jam. This 4 GB DVD caters to all that's raucous and often heard emanating from trashed pool parties across middle-class Southern Cali. Presented in WAV/REX/Apple Loop format, the 42 key-referenced construction kits serve up 1,056 unique loops and hits from 81 to 254 bpm, mostly falling around 140 to 170 ticks. You get a full mix, plus all of the elements broken out by verse, chorus, bridge, breakdown and endings. Each kit also contains a Drum Tracks folder with individual elements of the drum loop.
Leaning much more toward the commercial punk and signed-indie-rock scenes than the noisy underground, these raw and hard-hitting tracks lead the charge with truly awesome playing (drummer Jon Mattox is destructive), experienced arrangement and an ear for catchy hooks from guitarist/bassist/producer Dan Diaz. The high-energy drum grooves and bass lines are superbly tight. Though rhythm and lead guitar set a solid foundation for each kit, plenty of melodic space is left for building around the general theme. Everything's left nice and dry. The guitar tones are pretty much the same from beginning to end, but some creative EQ and processing fixes that. In fact, well-recorded material like this is great for brushing up your mixing skills if you aspire to be (or produce) the next Green Day, blink-182 or Sum 41.
BIG FISH AUDIO
PUNK AND INDIE ROCK > $99.95
At a glance: 42 construction kits and broken-out drum tracks ranging from 81 to 254 bpm. AIFF/Apple Loops, REX, WAV, RMX.
Contact: www.bigfishaudio.com
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