Best Service Oliver Lieb Samples
Jun 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Remix Staff
Trance artists and producers are generally a secretive bunch, hiding away in their studios for weeks at a time and emerging only when their supply of Red Bull runs low. So if you're at all interested in the genre, it's definitely worth seeking out this sample CD released by Oliver Lieb, one of the top trance and progressive house artists, producers, and remixers in the world.
Best Service's Oliver Lieb Samples disc ($99.95) is the next best thing to spending a few days in the studio looking over Lieb's shoulder while he works on a tune. In case you're not familiar with his work, Lieb has released dozens of successful singles and a handful of albums under his own name as well as pseudonyms such as LSG, Spicelab, Ambush, and Ecano. He's also remixed tracks for Energy 52, Art of Trance, Da Hool, System F, and many other artists.
Instead of offering yet another "Trance 101" CD loaded with all the familiar and overused cliches, Oliver Lieb Samples provides hundreds of extraordinary and unusual atmospheres, effects, pads, loops, riffs, and sounds. Many of the samples are gloriously mutated with extensive (and expensive) processing, adding to their distinctive character. Judiciously applied, these samples can give life to an otherwise flat track or inject personality into an ordinary tune.
Most of the sounds on this disc are generated by analog and digital synths, although there are a few sample-based sounds as well. The best way to describe these sounds is "electronic," and this disc will appeal as much to techno, ambient, and experimental musicians as it will to trance fans. The pads are particularly impressive, sweeping dramatically through a variety of textures over time. Most of the pads are quite long, so you'd better make sure you have plenty of RAM in your sampler if you want to take full advantage of these tones.
The synthetic drum and percussion sounds include several deep, throbbing kicks, punchy, nasty snares, and tripped-out cymbals. There is also a variety of short effects hits that you can use on their own or combined with the drum sounds to create outrageous-sounding drum kits. The atmospheres, textures, and longer effects have a hypnotic quality that's equally effective through a set of headphones or blasted from an EAW system at 4 a.m. to a crowded dance floor. Several sounds are delivered in both processed and dry versions, so you can experiment with your own effects settings.
Though this CD contains only 55 minutes of material, there are more than enough sounds to keep an imaginative and adventurous producer busy for quite some time. And if you're looking for sounds that lean toward the eccentric and unusual, it's hard to beat the samples offered here.-Chris Gill
Overall Rating (out of 5): 4
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