This page contains some reviews of our product range from respected magazines and web sites, plus any relevant endorsements. We'll be adding more as soon as they arrive!

MusicTech review EQ Uncovered

MusicTech reviewed EQ Uncovered and allocated a 9/10 award.

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Eddie Bazil’s had a long and distinguished career in the music business, working in capacities ranging from programmer and producer to sound designer and consultant, so
he’s more than qualified to have penned this new addition to PC Publishing’s lineup.

Written in an engaging and friendly yet concise style, Eddie kicks off this 112-page edition with an introduction to EQ, ensuring you have from the outset a clear idea of what exactly this often misunderstood term actually refers to. He then splits it further into corrective equalisation and creative equalisation, laying the framework for better understanding of the
following chapters.

Next up is an analysis and exploration of sound itself, taking you logically through each element and its contribution to the generation and hearing of sound. It’s now when you should follow the link printed in the book and download the accompanying audio files from PC’s website.

It weighs in at around 90MB and contains nicely compiled examples that perfectly highlight the techniques referred to in the book. As such, it’s invaluable for truly getting to grips with the concepts and techniques explored.

Chapters four to nine deal with the ‘nuts and bolts’ of EQ – topics covered include fundamentals and harmonics, when to cut and boost,filters, flavours of EQ and phase,
completing the foundations of your knowledge base.

Eddie then takes us into the real-world application of all this theory, explaining how to apply EQ to individual instruments as well as vocals.

The walk throughs, in keeping with the rest of the book, are informative and easy to follow,
perfectly rounding off what is a recommended read.
LB

Samplecraze create Albino Sound Library

Dark to Light.

Freddy Fresh endorses Samplecraze products

Endorsement:

"When I need some dope beats that I can depend on, I hit up Samplecraze - these guys have the dopest joints!!"

Audio Blueprint endorse Samplecraze Sample Packs

Audio Blueprint is the production partnership of producer/songwriter/Platinum recording artist Geri King and Platinum producer/songwriter/composer Kimo Kaulani. Their work has been part of Grammy nominated, Dove Award nominated and various other award nominated projects worldwide.

Emu/Ensoniq have endorsed and released the best seller 'Street Kits' for both the Emulator X and Proteus X. 

Samplecraze has teamed up with Emu to bring you the new reformat of the highly successful Street Kits library. Hundreds of searing and thumping drum kits and percussive shots, spanned and layered for ease of playing and dynamic realism, for both Hip Hop and Dance, Street Kits is now available for Emulator X and Proteus X.

Endorsement

Samplecraze - Drumm 

Originally published in the March 2004 edition of Sound on Sound.

This huge collection comprises 514MB of single drum and percussion hits organised into 24 categories, where each category may contain anything up to half a dozen different sound sets. I tested the EXS24 version, where the hits in each sound set are mapped to consecutive keys across several octaves of the keyboard. From what I can tell, all the sounds are complete one-shot samples with no looping and no velocity layering (though there are velocity crossfades/layers and mapping on the Emu ESI32 version).

 

Although this might not sound overwhelmingly exciting, the quantity and quality of the sounds demands closer attention. I was especially impressed by the huge range of bells, chimes and bell-tree sounds, both straight and treated. Interestingly, some of the samples have generously long tails while others have been tastefully truncated, presumably to allow those with limited RAM to have as much fun as the rest of us. However, from a selfish viewpoint I would have preferred all the samples to be full length.

 

While the regular drum-kit sounds are available tucked away amongst this collection, they come second place to Latin, Indian and other ethnic percussion sounds, though there is an impressive selection of hi-hats, plus both crash and ride cymbals as well as triangles. Tom hits are also in evidence, but for acoustic kicks and snares you have to rummage amongst the Dan ce Kicks and Snares categories, where you'll find a few nice acoustic samples lurking amongst the usual (and some less usual) electronic contenders. Again, many of these sounds are processed, but most are useful in the right context and range from thin and piercing to deep and powerful. There are also R&B Snares, Kicks and Hats sections, as well as some great shakers, congas, tablas and timbales, but what I also appreciated was that within each section there were some oddball (but definitely inspirational) sounds that seemed to have been squeezed in by dint of having nowhere else to go.

 

The same is true of the Hits section, which is a mixed bag of orchestra stabs, dance hits and the plain weird. And if oddball is your thing, over a third of the disc is given over to the Perc Effects folder (241 MB), full of special effects, strange sounds and weird noises that fit in well with both dance-style music and TV/film music. Definitely worth exploring. More 'weird' is on offer in the Reverse/Scratches section and amongst the Tom/Timp/Effects examples, so don't feel this is just more 'same old same old'. In the main, these sounds are fresh and bang on the money.

 

My only whinges concern the truncation of some of the examples, and also the fact that there are no velocity-layered sounds in the EXS24 version. It might also have been helpful to provide a further section of playable kits made up from the existing samples (a future product perhaps?), but it's my guess that most users would program sounds like these a track at a time anyway. You can never have too many drum sounds, and when you consider what it used to cost for a drum sound module with a far more limited choice of sounds, Drumm is certainly attractive and very affordable.

 

Paul White, Sound on Sound.

 

 

Online review in October 24, 2004 on Future Producers

The CD contains over 1300 samples in WAV and SND format. The sounds are organized in various neatly named folders. Names like "Krunchy Kicks, Crusty Snares, Dirty Snares and Filthy Breaks". The back-cover of the disc lists 13 categories. I am happy to report that this CD contains both loops AND individual drum hits. There are 90 break beats organized in 3 categories.


It is easy to get started with this CD. Basically you can browse and listen to the samples on your computer (WAV files), copying what you like to your MPC or any other sampler that works with WAV files. I copied some of the folders to a Compact Flash card and loaded it into my AKAI MPC1000. I was then able to load the sounds from the card and start assigning them to pads, within seconds. You can easily copy the entire CD on your computer if you have the space, so you can have all of the sounds available at hand later on. There are so many sounds there that you can't really listen to all of them in one session.

You can hear the great vintage compressors used during recording. I incorporated a few drum tracks to a project I am currently working on which involves vintage electronic textures (Micromoog), and enjoyed hearing that all the drum hits cut through the mix without any effort. The quality is definitely top notch and the emphasis is put on the very processed sound. You get exactly what is described in words: crunchy, crusty, banging, soft, hard. It is hard to listen to all of the sounds, so after scrolling through a few pages I did a bit of random picking. Whether or not you check each sound 1 by 1 or pick random ones, the sounds are always right in your face, crisp and usable.

Even though this CD seems targetted at MPC users, it is safe to say that anyone who can load WAV files in their projects or samplers will find it very useful. To many people, the "MPC" title may mean "hip hop"; although a lot of the sounds will definitely work for you if you are composing hip hop, they would also do great with any project involving drum machines and samplers.  

 

Manuel Clement, Future Producers

Very rarely do you get a sample CD that is so versatile that can be used everyday. Well Eddie at Samplecraze has done just that.

Featuring 24 folders, 600 megabytes jammed packed with different drum one shots. There is a total of over 5100 samples featuring everything you will need to create your next dance hit.

The drums are clean and some of the one shots are without a lot of effects applied to them. This is how I like them either dry so I can add the effects and process them how I want them to sound or already with effects so I can just drop them in my productions. There are many variations of different drum components. Some are electrical (without sounding computerized), some acoustic, some gated and various different styles including hip hop.

I feel that Samplecraze have spent a lot of time creating these one shots and mastering them to perfection and this in turn will help you create that perfect drum loop for your next production.

The CD is set up into different folders by instrument names and include Cymbals, Shakers, Skins, Snares, Hats, Kicks, Percussion, Claps, Bells and more.

Personally I think it would be hard to beat the Sample CD. I have found it very useful with the wave files being easily imported into Reason and Fruity Loops for use.

The Drumm sample CD is available in many formats including, wave/aiff, Emu, Reason, Kontact, SF2 and Logic Audio. The CD is priced from £29.99 + P&H for the wave format of £49.99 + P&H for the other formats. Postage is quite reasonable for those living outside of the United Kingdom.

This is a must have sample CD if you create your own drum loops and can be purchased online from Samplecraze using Paypal and Credit Cards.

DJ Scott-e, Remixing.Info

Propellerhead endorse Samplecraze Drumm