ONE-SHOTS
Apr 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Jason Scott Alexander
BIT WORD WAVEFRONT
HYBRID SYNTHESIS REFILL FOR REASON 3
Award-winning sound designer Marc Van Bork is best known for his highly imaginative, complex tones and unusual, colored noises on the EastWest Vapor virtual synth. That same expertise translates well into Bit Word's first major Reason ReFill. At just more than 4.5 GB, Wavefront is as impressive in scope and quality as it is in size, offering everything from multisampled analog and digital single-cycle waveforms, complex pads, choirs, strings, textures and electro-ambience to drums and mangled, metallic impacts. Though the sources are not revealed in the liner notes, fans of the PPG, Synclavier, Fairlight and Waldorf wavetable-type sounds that evolve from grating to crystalline should have a ball perusing the wealth of new waveforms. I love the healthy stash of cheap 8-bit sounds, spiky blips, noise bursts and complexly layered yet surprisingly musical ambient padlike field recordings of crows, city buses, insects, water and more.
Conveniently broken up into two manageably sized wave-data ReFills, all samples have been mapped as NN-19 patches, which can also be imported into the XT sampler. Easily the most refreshing — and at times esoteric — new cache of raw waveform material to hit Reason in a long while, serious tweakers should lose plenty of sleep staying up late building new patches from this starter material. Those looking for instant gratification, however, should head straight for the third ReFill file, containing only patch data. Here, a whopping 2,222 preprogrammed NN-19, NN-XT, Combinator and ReDrum programs draw upon the sample pool with careful attention given to modulation-wheel assignment on every program. Throwing the wheel might modulate shimmers to a pad, morph a granular lead or change the tempo of the LFOs. With so much for so little, Wavefront is a must-have ReFill.
BIT WORD
WAVEFRONT (REFILL) > $129
At a glance: More than 4.5 GB of ambient and impact waveforms, patches and drums for Reason 3.0 or higher.
Contact: www.bitword.com
UNIVERSAL AUDIO NEVE 33609 & 1081 EQ
SHORTCUT TO YOUR DREAM CONSOLE
With all the sheen, clarity and superpresent character of the original console module upon which it was modeled, the 1081 offers dual-concentric parametric midrange bands, with selectable Hi-Q for tighter boosts or cuts, as well as high shelf to 15 kHz and low shelf to 33 Hz, each of which may be switched to bell shape. Five-frequency highpass (27, 47, 82, 150, 270 Hz) and lowpass (18, 12, 8.2, 5.6, 3.9 kHz) filters and a -20 to +10 dB input gain control, phase reverse and EQ bypass button are also featured. Based on Neve's highly revered 1969 bridged-diode stereo-bus design, the 33609's separate compression and limiter sections each sport their own threshold, recovery and bypass controls, with selectable slow/fast attack on the limiter, five ratio settings on the compressor with 20 dB of makeup gain and two program-dependent auto-release settings on each dynamics processor. Enhancements over the hardware 33609 include an additional output control with 20 dB of stepped gain, ganged left/right parameter control and a headroom switch that allows DAW users to gain seemingly endless room to boost without clipping.
These plug-ins have uniquely musical characters and love to be manhandled and generously boosted in good old rock ‘n’ roll fashion. Anything but sterile or transparent, the sound of 33609's modeled diode bridge is simply gorgeous with its characteristic nonlinear auto-release stage, which follows program material with a warm and organic glide. I especially loved the way that drums sounded full and natural through both plugs chained and that sub-master and stereo mixes glued together perfectly. You can really hear the added harmonic energy and punch from fusing both together on strong, sustained signals such as bass, guitar and vocals. Together, the Neve 33609 and 1081 plug-ins bring the righteous sound of a '60s- or '70s-era dream console to the UAD-1 DSP card platform.
UNIVERSAL AUDIO
NEVE 33609 & 1081 EQ > $249 EACH (INCLUDES DSP-OPTIMIZED SE VERSION)
At a glance: Impeccable Neve-authorized replicas of the 33609 stereo bus dynamics processor and 1081 4-band EQ. Requires a UAD-1 card and version 4.5 of the Powered Plug-Ins software.
Contact: www.uaudio.com
ZERO-G THE BIG REASON
6,500 SAMPLES OF PURE PERSUASION
Composed of seven brand-new sample libraries all rolled into the price of one typical ReFill, The Big Reason is about as close as you'll get to the ultimate electronic-music production toolkit. In an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord approach, the compilation spans many musical styles but always stays true to a strong urban/dance and ambient-electronic theme. With more than 4 GB and 6,500 samples, the libraries are categorized by Reason playback module and sound type. What's extra cool is that all the files are left unpacked, so anyone can use the raw samples in a DAW or looping program. Binary Finary, the first of seven, is a trance treasure trove programmed by the UK dance maestros of the same name, who brought us the floor-filling hit “1998.” Featuring Malström and Subtractor patches, NN-XT bass, lead and pad sounds, ReDrum kits, REX2 loops and effects programs for RV700 and Scream, this was used extensively on Binary's recent comeback album. Percolated Beats and Planet Bliss Loops provide ample selection of inventive urban-crossover and exotic electro breaks from 70 to 170 bpm in REX2. Chemical Comedown is a deeply trippy NN-19 excursion into experimental pads and sound design, while G-Funk Era and Guitar Lab lay down some infectious NN-19/XT/REX grooves and funky live guitar riffs, not to mention hundreds of dripping Malström and Subtractor bass and lead sounds. Organic Chemistry provides dark and dissonant imagery through heavily processed and looped pipe, string and drone instruments, from decimated hurdy-gurdies to tribal whispers and bagpipes with a bad case of indigestion. All in all, The Big Reason is a fantastically deep reservoir of electro-acoustic beats, phrases and instruments.
ZERO-G (DIST. BY EASTWEST/SOUNDS ONLINE)
THE BIG REASON > $129.95
At a glance: Seven great libraries rolled into one. REX2, NN-19, NN-XT, ReDrum, Malström, Subtractor and WAV files.
Contact: www.soundsonline.com
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