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HitSound Pascal Gabriel Sample CDArticle from Sound On Sound, January 1992 |
Paul Ireson listens to the first of AMG's Producer Series of sample CDs.
Paul Ireson samples the personal sound library of remix maestro Pascal Gabriel.
The first of AMG's Producer Series of sample CDs to appear is Pascal Gabriel's Dance Samples; Gabriel is a producer and remixer whose credits include S-Express, Bomb The Bass, Coldcut and EMF, and this CD contains virtually the whole of his personal sample library.
The CD kicks off with a selection of programmed, sampled from record and (I think) studio recorded drum loops. The choices are off-beat, quite distinctive, and highly usable. Better still, you almost certainly won't have heard any of them before (although at least one of the vinyl loops has been famously copied as a programmed rhythm, and some CR78 patterns will be familiar). I approve of this selection policy: I'll take quality over quantity any day, and if you want a boring pattern, go program it yourself.
The next set of tracks offers percussion loops and the selection is, like the drum loops, lively and eclectic. All loops are listed in the CD booklet with their tempos and, again, some loops have been taken from vinyl, others from studio sessions, so the loops appear in a range of acoustic environments.
Next up are single hits, comprising 40 kick drums and around 60 snares. A few of the 'hits' are actually short fills or trills. The range of sounds is excellent, from Simmons SDS and quite extreme electro sounds to acoustic drums, although there's not really much to suit ballads. Hi-hats and Patterns presents a useful selection of hi-hat sounds, both in isolation and in patterns. Acoustic Percussion offers congas, finger cymbals, shakers and so on, with a few oddities such as 'Biscuit Tin' thrown in for good measure. The Electronic Percussion section that follows covers all non-snare/kick electronic drum and percussion sounds, and would probably have benefitted from being larger, but there are nevertheless plenty of decent sounds to liven up your tracks.
Assorted Single Hits contains all the percussion-ish sounds that you'd probably file under 'weird' in your collection ('Oil Tank 1-4', '8-bit Burp', that kind of thing). These are a good deal more useful and memorable than the short, OK-but-boring Brass section that follows. Film & Atmospheres is also brief, with handy and quite evocative 'mood' and effect samples. The Guitar section provides a handful of licks and effects - hardly a substitute for AMG's own HitSound Guitar CD, but what little there is is worth having.
Three different types of vocal are provided: spoken, sung, and computer synthesized. You don't really have that much to choose from, and it's in the nature of such vocal snatches that finding something to suit can be a pretty hit and miss affair; still, a few more snatches are always handy.
The Orchestral section was something of a revelation, being far better than I'd expected on a primarily dance-oriented CD. The samples are all stabs, atmospheric chords and the like, rather than single note samples intended for instrument recreation, but they are uniformly excellent choices, and highly usable.
Sound FX also provides plenty of first class material, with some very prominent stereo effects on samples such as a helicopter. Stops & Stabs gives you a choice of 20-odd pieces of musical 'punctuation' to choose from, lifted from several styles of music.
Synths brings together a motley collection of single notes - powerful, interesting sounds as a rule, rather than 'standards' - and a variety of space-age effects. The (all synth) Bass sounds are all fairly percussive, and generally well-suited to cutting through a mix quite effectively. My only complaint is that they're not all tuned to the same note.
The CD finishes on a high note with a selection of RSS-processed versions of many of the preceding samples. For some samples the position in the soundfield is fixed, whilst others zip alarmingly round in the 3-D sound picture — forget the former and try the latter for percussion breaks or sound effects that are guaranteed to liven up a mix.
Overall, this collection is of more general interest than the 'dance' label suggests, an eclectic and exciting collection of samples that could provide the basis for many a hit. The only problem is that well have to wait until Gabriel has put together another personal sample library before a 'Pascal Gabriel's Dance Samples' volume 2 appears.
Further information
£49 inc VAT.
Advanced Media Group, (Contact Details).
Review by Paul Ireson
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