DJ FOOD VOLUME 4 ••••

This 20-track set with plenty of exposed samples is mainly aimed at the DJ into scratchy techno-jazz. Mostly programmed by 'PC', but under the watchful ears of Matt & Jon, Volume 4 follows neatly in the footsteps of previous releases. The tunes are fresh, funky and funny. I recommend them for Xmas party warm-ups; play as the guests arrive, just loud enough to make conversation difficult. Play 'spot the record that sample was lifted from'. Lose. Favourite tune titles include 'Popnotised', 'Thermo Nuclear Tax' and 'A Nice Blunt'. Light hearted but with depth, easy going but with serious intent, hot yet cool, this record will not tire quickly. Of particular interest to samplists will be the short selection of hits and snatches, ready trimmed. 'Sexy Bits' has some nice loops, Yaws harp, flute, Gregorian chanting and loads of other funky stuff. The hi-hat loop alone is worth a few quid. Multi-purpose, and great VFM, DJ Food Vol. 4 is probably the best yet.

DJ Food Volume 4 £under a tenner.

Ninja Tune, (Contact Details).

BERNARD PURDIE'S RHYTHM CENTRAL/DNA BEAT BLOCKS ••

Canadian Company WC Music research's DNA Beat Blocks have been regularly featured in Sample Shop. Regular viewers will have observed me questioning the practicality of 10,000 hard-to-load Cubase groove templates. Well, WC have been listening to criticism. From now, on each product will offer a single template per pattern, with all those relating to a single CD track simultaneously loadable. Much as you could already do with the MIDI files, in fact.

Having secured the services of the legendary Clyde Stubblefield, DNA have now persuaded the great Bernard Purdie to come quietly into the studio. Also an ex-JB, he has adorned recordings made by Steely Dan, Quincy, Miles, Duke Ellington, Marvin, Aretha and The Supremes. Walking history.

I'll skip the intro. There are 72 loop tracks with around 10 two-bar loops per track. These are grouped into 'Remix' sections by Frank Heller, Jason Miles and Noel (Gadget) Campbell. After the loops comes a comprehensive library of the remix drum sounds used.

The trouble is, there is nothing on this CD that sounds like a drum kit being played live. Instead we appear to be offered sequenced loops, presumably using MIDI file data generated from Bernard's playing to trigger samples. Which beggars two questions. Did Bernard actually play a kit, or was it a KAT? And why bother offering loops at all, when sequence data and samples would suffice? The most telling shortcoming of the sequenced samples syndrome is evident in the snare work. Busy snare patterns, and especially drop shots and rolls tend to sound mechanical. It's very difficult to achieve detailed realism this way unless you are prepared to go the excessive lengths of the Real Drum Co, who multisample every dynamic nuance.

All loops are cleanly recorded in conventional kit stereo. Tempos are given to one decimal place.

Track 2, 'Cobra', is a bit funky drummerish; four loops have acoustic samples, then the same loops appear with electronic Simmons-type sounds. Tracks 3 and 4, 'Snake', are similar in tempo, style and sounds to track 2, with 14 loops apiece. (A remake of 'Snake' appears later at a slower tempo with different sounds.) Moving on to tracks 12 and 14, we find a 909 employed. Doesn't sound right doing those loose hiphop beats.

'Youth' (track 20) is a slow, funky, ballady groove programmed to run at 68 BPM. The kit selection is natural, but snare rolls again give the sample game away. More or less the same set of 16 sequences is employed on no less than four occasions, albeit at different tempos and with different samples. The 808 employed here sounds incongruous playing in free time: it's a drum machine, godammit!

On track 26, Frank Heller gives way to Jason Miles, whose taste in drum samples leans more towards rock. Like Heller, Miles kicks off with the 'Cobra' and 'Snake' patterns. I can perhaps detect velocity switching on the snare: has some attempt at realism been made? Certainly the snare detail seems less obviously mechanical.

Track 37, 'Alien', is a mid-tempo hiphop set employing 'Kit 5' for the first time. This kick drum I like. In fact this track contains the first loops I'd consider sampling. 'Crawl' (track 40) has an interesting but ultimately irritating detuned tight kick.

Now the exact same patterns and sounds are offered all over again, this time sans Kick! A bit cheeky, that.

Last to loop is Mr Gadget (Any relation to Inspector?). He calls his contribution 'Garage Underground'. By this he means he detunes his grungy samples. He does have one good trick, if my ears deceive me not: a timed short reverse reverb, which injects what Jonathon More would call 'Slurp' into an otherwise decidedly sticky mix. Sounds are changed with almost every pattern, which makes for a more interesting listen, but demolishes the objective of supplying self-consistent loops within any one track.

The 200+ single hits that make up the loops voices are presented as a series of kits: Kick, snare and hi-hats. Sounds range from 16-bit drum machine-esque to detuned grunge and clangs, some off D record, some from 8-bit antiques. Not a bad selection overall, but not earth-shattering either.

CONCLUSION: After the delightful Clyde Stubblefield release I expected much of Purdie's product. I'm afraid WC Music Research have let him down. Not only do you not get to actually hear Bernard's drums, but also the feel of his playing has been all but lost in the translation from live drumming to MIDI sequence to samples. In my humble opinion, much of this CD is a complete waste of time. After all, what is the point of having the feel limitation of using sequences and samples to recreate loops without the compensating flexibility of being able to edit the programming yourselves? If somebody inadvertently gives you this for Xmas, sample the kits, load up the MIDI files, and forget the rest.

Bernard Purdie's Rhythm Central £64.95.

Time & Space, (Contact Details).

KEITH LE BLANC'S KICKIN' LUNATIC BEATS •••••

Renowned for his work with The Sugarhill Gang and Tackhead among others, Keith is the only drummer ever to have held my attention during a one hour drum solo. I was simply amazed by his technique, which involved playing along to self-triggered sequences and samples with superhuman accuracy and inventiveness. To say I was looking forward to this CD would be an understatement.

The set in question was recorded in Orinoco studios. The drum sound is tight without being constricted, and not particularly big, especially around the bottom. This might not impress at first, but all will be revealed when you match KLB's kit up to a 909 or samples therefrom. Running time is nearly 80 minutes, and there must be around 1500-2000 bars of drumming. Eack track is one continuous take, and apart from the occasional effect, programmed percussion and variation in the mic mix, the drum sound does not change much. I think the kit remains the same throughout.

First comes a track where every four bars or so the effects processing is changed. Most are ordinary, but there is a section of detuned drums... how did they do that? The beats? Keith coasting somewhere between funk and hip-hop at 107. After this display of the engineer's favourite programs on his most expensive studio toy, effects are used rarely. Track 2 sees some cowbell action — clean and crisp without being clinical. Track 3 is slow with offbeat kicks and snares focusing on beat four; track 4 is funky and dry with ride cymbal, a shade under 120 and a little dated. Track 5 has a hip-hop beat with KLB's double hi-hat technique showing up. The next few tracks fall into a similar category, hip-hop with one or two hats. Track 10 includes a little percussion loop playing agogo bells, clap and congas subtly behind the kit, and Track 11 has the same percussion, only upfront and in stereo. Onto Track 25, which sees the first sound change for ages: more ambience. Straight snare, busy kick. Track 26: dry now, with plenty snares going down. Track 28: hip-hop beat with a triplet roll at the end of every other bar. Track 32: sounds like a demo for the HR16, but some stunning snare work. Track 41: efnik sounding roll with the snares off. He makes it all sound so easy. Track 42. After Keith says 'lemme do that again' the level suddenly shoots up by 200dB and 200% distortion emanates from the speakers. Some kind of joke? Track 43 onwards: more pretty normal beats ensue, with the same kit sound that adorns almost all tracks. By 50, a number of patterns are starting to have a hint of deja vu. I'm aching for a radical change in drum voices. Track 53 is a program loop of agogo, pan lid and hi-hat; 55 is an interesting and usable two-bar pattern with the usual variations, solid snare and complex, yet unbusy kick. 56 is sort of slo-go-go, with a trippy-up kick fill midway... Track 70: a simple hat strokes time for some impossibly difficult snare work. This would make a fine feathery bed kept low in the mix. Track 71, 'Fat Boy', nowt special. Not until track 79 does Keith give the full picture of what he's really about: playing along with heavy sequenced percussion. Man and machine are panned hard left and right and the ensuing result is devastating. Tracks 80 and 81 adopt the same format. Moral: don't judge the rest of the CD 'til you've tried the loops out in the context of sequenced music.

Two more tracks of what is rather inaccurately called 'Reggae' follow. The second is a peach. Track 84, 'Standard Go Go', has killer kick drum work. Track 85 is a Tackhead special — hard left and right again, live drumming duels with what sounds like digital feedback. Echo effects appear on tracks 86 and 87; the latter has some inexplicable but gorgeous slurping noise being triggered by the snare, which also sports an entertaining resonant static flange. Track 88 is a drum solo a la Tackhead again, with programmed clap and that digital feedback sound again. A couple of slow beats with really strange effects follow. The resonant chords sound like a guitar!

Tracks 91-95 are single hits. All are on the same kick and snare, though with the latter the acoustic varies. There is a metal hit, a few hi hats and many cymbal strikes. Finally come the tom-toms.

CONCLUSION: I was prepared for the best when I put Kickin' Lunatic Beats onto the CD turntable. I left feeling slightly disappointed: I could have done with much more of the panned drums and percussion, and also with some of Keith's own samples. Hopefully these will appear on Volume 2. Still, I shouldn't judge this CD on what I know to be missing, rather on what I hear. If you don't love Keith's drumming, you haven't listened to it. He is the man machine, easily coping with beats only drum machines should be capable of. Having been playing along with sequencers since before they were invented, he is a consummate timekeeper. You will not have to apply pitch bend or timestretch to make these loops lock into your track, just tune them to the beat. To be honest, some of the tracks sounded rather similar, and a change of kit would have been appreciated. From 90 tracks you could get about 800 two-bar loops, (more if you cut them up non-linearly). More realistically, expect to unearth around 50 truly distinctive patterns with a further 250 variations on these. If you give us what we want on Vol. 2 you'll break the 5-star barrier, Keith. This time around, though, it's got to be four and a bit.

Keith Le Blanc's Kickin Lunatic Beats £49.95.

Advanced Media Group, (Contact Details).

And a last seasonal word: There are a group of samplists in Finland (Hi there) who buy everything! They have a contest to see who can find the worst sample CD. I'm afraid they are well off the mark with Paul Hardcastle. For plumbing depths untouched even by the Godfather of Sampling are the Dance Series 1 and 2 from Megamidi.