Ah, yes: Books and their covers. Given the title and the evocative woodcut-style cover art by Nancy Nimoy, here I was expecting an African-influenced percussion collection. Instead, this library contains 50 construction kits well suited for a film composer or adventurous ethnic-hybrid producer, providing alternately lush cinemaesque landscapes and urgent chase sequences. Although heavily percussion-driven and indeed tribal in flavor, there are also several melodic parts both percussive and instrumental, plus massive “pads” (sustained chords and other musical textures) to fill out the compositions.
The construction kits range in tempo from 65 to 190 bpm (beats per minute), centering in the 85 to 130 range. There are 8 to 25 component loops per kit (giving a total size of over 1.5 gig for the 24-bit 44.1 kHz AIFF or WAV versions), which is a generous number that allows for the creation of complex, varied compositions. The keys as well as occasionally the chord progressions are listed for each folder. Three of the kits are also in time signatures other than 4/4 – an all-too-rare occurrence in sample libraries.
Overall, the arrangements are a heady blend of multiple acoustic instruments plus occasional synthetic lines, decidedly more ethnic than Western orchestral in flavor. As a person who regularly seeks out ethnic percussion libraries to perform and compose with, I was quite pleased with the drum components alone of Primal Drums; the melodic parts are a wonderful bonus that takes this library into film scoring territory. As always, I suggest you check out the product’s web page to hear the demo and decide for yourself if it’s worth the $99.95 list price.
Hi Chris, just wanted to say thanks for addressing the issue of music creation for those of us who are editors or graphic artists but not musicians.
Garage Band doesn’t really cut it for any serious work. But it’s hard to understand how all the music composition tools work together. I tried to start doing it several years ago.
I use Pro Tools LE for mixing the video projects I edit. I purchased several music tools, Reason, Motu Ethno, Garritan Personal Orchestra, Toontrack Easy Drummer, Sample Tank. Plus some expansion packs for them.
I have been looking at the Digidesign instrument packs and a couple other ones.
But understanding how it all works together in a DAW is a challenge. I mean, reaching a proficiency level that gets the operation out of the way and lets you compose. Especially when you have so many divergent music tools running under one DAW.
Any suggestions for us bonehead editors to learning how to get it all working?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/27 at 03:16 PM
Sorry to post twice, can’t see how to edit a post.
Continuing,
I mean some tools are loops as you have mentioned. Some tools are instruments that you “play” via a midi controller or manipulating the sequences with the mouse. And then there are pre-made midi sequences that you apply to instruments. And a multitude of midi controllers.
There seems to be lots of tutorials online for various individual software titles, but none to get it all going.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/27 at 03:22 PM
The keys as well as occasionally the chord progressions are listed for each folder. Three of the kits are also in time signatures other than 4/4 – an all-too-rare occurrence in sample libraries.
Posted by Square peg web on 06/28 at 03:21 AM
First off, I would be careful of being too dismissive of certain tools for “serious” work. I’ve created short underscores and soundtracks inside After Effects and longer pieces of music in Premiere - neither being serious music programs (smile) - so I firmly believe a good loop library and basic music skills (as outlined in my Loop-Based Music piece) make it possible to slap together a score in almost anything.
I’m a ProTools user. But I think it might be overkill for a non-audio-engineer trying to slap together a score for their video. By the same token, I wouldn’t start out by trying to get several music composition tools to work together; that’s for an advanced composer. For basic soundtracks, again, I rely on some good loop libraries, and a program like Ableton’s Live or Apple Soundtrack Pro. Then as a person gets more serious about music composition, they can start to look into something like Logic or ProTools with the addition of virtual instruments etc.
- Chris
Posted by Chris Meyer on 06/28 at 11:53 AM
Thanks for the info Chris!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/29 at 03:21 PM
Overall, the arrangements are a heady blend of multiple acoustic instruments plus occasional synthetic lines, decidedly more ethnic than Western orchestral in flavor. As a person who regularly seeks out ethnic percussion libraries to perform and compose with, I was quite pleased with the drum components alone of Primal Drums; the melodic parts are a wonderful bonus that takes this library into film scoring territory.
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Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/17 at 03:55 AM
There are 8 to 25 component loops per kit (giving a total size of over 1.5 gig for the 24-bit 44.1 kHz AIFF or WAV versions), which is a generous number that allows for the creation of complex, varied compositions.
square peg web
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/22 at 11:13 PM
