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Home : Products : ILIO: Ethno Techno Home : Liner Notes
 
Ethno Techno


Ethno-Techno Dedication
I dedicate E-T to my children Jelani-Jah and Maia-Efua, Monifa, my Family, and circle of friends and crew. E-T is also dedicated to you, the creative user.

What Is Ethno-Techno?
E-T has lived its life inside of me for quite some time now. Thanks to ILIO, Eric Persing, Louis Alfred III, the Musicians and all the creative forces involved in the making of this project, E-T now has its own life for me, and for you, the user.

I'd describe E-T as "Percussive Fusion," a melding of organic percussive matter and technology, a collision of extremes, a bi-polar contraction, a multi-dimensional voyage, and a mind and time stretching experience.

Conceiving, producing and performing E-T was an enlightening exercise in the cooperation of opposites. For E-T required man and machine, bone and steel, circuit and synapse, culture and chaos, fluid and solid, folklore and fashion, nylon and wood, flesh and metal, attraction and distraction, movement and stasis, flow and friction, absolute and finite, to all perform in concert. Out of this performance comes a useful tool, a unique collection, and a creative expression of sounds, loops and grooves. The application of these sounds, loops, and grooves to film, music and media is E-T's reason for being.

The revolutionary inclusion of Groove Control with this library enables writers, producers, remixers, programmers, film scorers and all creative users, to process and explore their own vision of E-T's sounds and grooves.

I encourage you all to take E-T to places unseen and unheard, to go beyond, to get mad busy with E-T, and to jus' flow wit' it. Here's to makin' good music, serious head-noddin', and havin' fun!

PEACE and JAH LOVE!
Bashiri Johnson

The Process
This library is a first in many ways. It's the first library of live grooves and remixes designed from the beginning with Groove Control(tm) in mind. It is the first to create an intermixture of electronica, primal traditions and avante-garde "found sound" techniques. It's also the first library to bring together such formidable and diverse talents as Bashiri Johnson and Eric Persing in such an intensely collaborative way.

The bulk of the material was recorded during exhaustive sessions at River Sound, Donald Fagen's well-played haunt, five floors up on New York's East Side. Eric produced the sessions culling his years of experience in assembling award-winning sample libraries to get the highest possible impact out of the source recordings. Engineer Louis Alfred III contributed not only his superior engineering chops, but also his musical sense to contribute ideas, both before and after takes.

It was primarily Bashiri's intense need to realize his mental rhythmic images that directed the course of the sessions, first referring to his sketches on a walkman cassette player, then milling about the vast assemblage of hand made, obscure percussion, scooping up the noises needed to fashion the next groove. Each hour revealed more bizarre instruments with names like Kissing Fish, Conundrum and Double Drink, lying scattered with welded metal cones, rods and spirals, an assortment of bells, styrofoam, plastic toys and springs, sticks and bows, all strewn across the floor like a Wal Mart at Christmas. Every time tape rolled, Bashiri sat with, or kneeled over the chosen object and a whole new texture flowed from his hands, the next layer of the mix. Sitting at the back of the control room, one marveled at the birth and maturation of each groove, the intricate pulse of the interweaving rhythms, each evolving into a new living tapestry unto itself.

Once the sessions were done we brought the tapes back to LA and Eric began the task of pouring through, selecting and cleaning up the individual tracks. It was at this point that ILIO's fearless Chris O'Brien began his two years worth of editing and Groove Control processing what would eventually become nearly 10,000 individual samples, each requiring his personal attention. After a fair chunk of the original grooves were Groove Controlled, Eric applied his talents once again to create the series of remixes that would fulfill Ethno-Techno's manifest destiny.

Though the remixes are every bit as rich and complex as the original live grooves, Eric is quick to point out that they wouldn't have been possible without Groove Control. No additional samples were ever used in the remixes. All of the sounds came from Bashiri's original performances, enhanced using Eric's processing and imagination. Since Groove Control allowed independent control over tempo, pitch and feel of the individual tracks, parts from different grooves could be layered instantly, each applied with unique processing. If you're new to Groove Control, make sure you read about it later in this book. Once you try it, it will change the way you look at loop libraries forever!

To finish up the project, Chris Groove Controlled Eric's remixes, assembled the vast percussion menus, and weeded through the session DATs, which rolled continuously throughout the original River Sound dates, to find theretofore unused gems that could be added to the bonus sections.

As you can see, a lot of sweat and passion went into this library. At times it seemed as if it would never be finished, but our perseverance paid off and we believe that what you now hold in your hands is a truly individual and masterful meeting of technology and inspiration that will undoubtedly stoke your flames for years to come.

Bashiri Johnson

* Whitney Houston Band Percussionist/ NYC Studio Percussionist
* Artist / Producer / Songwriter
* AN' THA BEAT GOES ON and ON and ON...
* Staying busy is a constant part of Bashiri Johnson's rhythm and flow, as he continues to play a part behind today's top recording artists, records, movies, and commercials. Bashiri also has on-going production work at his fully equipped 48 track analog/dig recording studio: The LAB / Bash-Man Prods.
* Live: Whitney Houston, Spice Girls, Saturday Night Live, Lisa Stansfield-Jay Leno, Jonathan Butler, Lionel Richie, Madonna, Alana Davis, Michael Bolton
* Record Albums: Celine Dion, Boyz II Men, Spice Girls, Michael Bolton, Grover Washington Jr., Aretha Franklin, Eiko, Olu, Diana Ross, Vanessa Williams, Diana King, Angelique Kidjo, Dionne Farris, Maxwell, Gloria Estefan, Peter Wolf, Miles Davis Movie
* Soundtracks: In and Out, Kingdom of the Sun, Mission Impossible, When We Were Kings, Chairman of the Board, Godzilla, Story of a Bad Boy, 54, Shaft
* Commercials: AT&T, American Express, Folgers, MCI, Sears, Crest, Doublemint, JC Penney, Rite-Aid, Dr Pepper, Sherwin Williams, Certs, Good Morning America, Coca Cola, Terra
* Productions: "Move To It" track for "Do You Wanna Dance" soundtrack, "Hip Hop Multiplication" Album-Lightyear Ent., Bashiri Johnson's "Love Notes" Book and CD, Akim N'Dlovu Project, Ana-Ste-Jah Project, Madison Square Garden Network Legends Spot, Gatorade, "Supreme Beats" sample collection, "Ethno-Techno" sample collection.

Eric Persing

* A Sonic Magician
* It is almost impossible to go a day without hearing the work of Eric Persing. The thousands of original sounds he has created are used constantly by top composers and musicians from all over the world.
* Persing is the founder of Spectrasonics, a company specializing in developing World Class sampled sound libraries on CD-ROM since 1994. He has produced over 25 of the industry's top selling titles. Eric's ground breaking Distorted Reality series of sample libraries are the best selling and most widely used collections in the world.
* In addition to being the Creative Director of Spectrasonics, Eric has been a consultant and the Chief Sound Designer for Roland Corporation Japan since 1984, creating the key sounds for many popular Roland synthesizers, samplers, CD-ROMs, expansion boards and devices, from the vintage Super Jupiter and Super JX, to the D-50, D-70, JD-800/990, R8, S-series samplers, JV series synths, the Sound Canvas, JP-8000, MC-505, V-Drums, the latest XV series and Variphrase instruments.
* As a studio musician, producer and composer/arranger in Los Angeles, he has also contributed to numerous Grammy award winning albums and Academy award winning film scores, working with an eclectic group of artists including Marcus Miller, Sergio Mendes, Luther Vandross, Quincy Jones, Danny Elfman, Herbie Hancock, Riverdance, James Newton-Howard, Eddie Jobson, Michel Columbier, Diana Ross, Arif Mardin, Mezzoforte, Chaka Khan, Bette Midler, Roby Duke, Denice Williams, The Katinas, Larry Carlton, Sandi Patti, Hans Zimmer, Leonard Cohen, Adam Cohen, Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, Richard Souther, Randy Newman and Celine Dion, among many others.
* Eric's lifelong love of the creative process is the driving force behind his pursuit of musical excellence.

Papa B. Susso

* Master Kora player, African historian, storyteller
* Papa Susso's father taught him to play the Kora when he was five years old. The ancestral Susso family of the Mandinka tribe of the great Manding Empire invented the Kora. It is a 21-stringed harp-lute unique to the western most part of Africa and is meant to be played only by the Jali (professional musicians, praise singers and oral historians), who were traditionally attached to royal courts. Papa is a direct descendant and guardian of this ageless tradition.
* He has performed at New York City's Carnegie Hall twice, and across the U.S. and the world with major symphony orchestras, and for several heads of state. He was the premier performer in the "American Classic African Portraits" by Hannibal Peterson. In 1991, Papa Susso was appointed as Regents' lecturer in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, participating in discussions with students and faculty.
* Susso applies his lifelong spiritual commitment and reverence for history to every project he takes on.

Vinny Adams

* Drummer, Percussionist, Dancer, Singer
* Vinny is a multi-instrumentalist, dancer and singer trained as a musician at Brooklyn Music School, The New Muse, Baruch College, and Brooklyn Conservatory. Under the tutelage of such jazz veterans as Walter Perkins and Andre Strobert, he built on this foundation as a drummer and percussionist. Having been performing for 25 years (since childhood), he has shared stages with and/or been influenced by the music of many other seasoned players and popular performers like Steve Gadd (his favorite), Tony Lewis, Onaje Allan Gumbs, Bob Baldwin, Johnny Kemp, Lionel Hampton, cousin Eric Adams and countless others.
* Primarily self taught as a dancer, some early appearances on stage lead to a principal role in the smash Off-Broadway show, STOMP. Since then, he has appeared on national television with the STOMP cast, has performed with the dance/percussion company, SLAM! in Hawaii, for PEPSI Cola, and has freelanced as a choreographer for small video and stage projects.
* Being afforded the opportunity to work with Bashiri Johnson is a distinct and exciting privilege that is long overdue and far beyond some of his biggest dreams.

Zeleka Jenkins

* Zeleka, who plays the M'bira on Ethno Techno, is a member of the multi-cultural group, Spirit Ensemble.

Engineer's Notes
Combinations of vintage and new technologies were used to record and mix the sounds you are experiencing on this library. A vintage Neve 8078 with Flying Faders, and a Yamaha 02R were used as recording and mixing consoles. Recording was done to an Alesis ADAT/BRC combination. Mixes were printed to a Panasonic 3800 DAT machine through a Wadia WA4000 analog to digital converter. A Neve 1073 mic pre-amp was used in conjunction with the O2R.

The following mics, signal processing, and effects were used in realization of the sounds on this disc:

Microphones: Neumann U87, AKG 414, 460, D112, Sennheiser 421, Shure SM57, SM7

Equalizers: Focusrite 215, Neve 1073, Console EQ from the Neve 8078 and Yamaha 02R

Mic-Pre's: Focusrite 215, Neve 1073, Console mic-preamp from Neve 8078

Compressor/Limiters/Gates: dbx 160, 160x, Summit TLA-100A, UREI 1176, Drawmer DS 201 Noisegate.

Effects Units: Lexicon 480L digital reverb, PCM 42 digital delay, AMS RMX-16 digital reverb, T.C. Electronics Fireworx multi-effects processor, Yamaha SPX-90, SPX-900, REV-7 multi-effects-processors.

The following processors were among those used by Eric Persing to create many of the mixes and remixes:

Eventide DSP-4000, Boss SE-70, Boss GL-100 Distortion, Boss NS-50s, Roland SRV-330 reverb, Innovonics Limiters, API 5502 Equalizers, Langevin custom Equalizers, Summit tube mic-pre's, Roland S-760 samplers, Boss Dimension C Spacializer, Roland RSP-550, Aphex Gates

At ILIO, for editing, Groove Control processing and mastering, we used a number proprietary software tools on Macintosh and PC systems. Also used were Bias Peak, TC Works Spark, IK's T-RackS and Sonic Solutions.

A Message to Audio CD Users
You'll find that much of this booklet pertains to users of the Sampler CD-ROM version of Ethno-Techno only. This is because only the Sampler CD-ROM version comes with Groove Control, a revolutionary way of working with drum loops that allows independent control over tempo, pitch, feel and mix of the grooves using your existing sampler and sequencer. We invite you to read about Groove Control in this booklet, but remember that many of these capabilities aren't available on the Audio CD, just the CD-ROM version.

If you wish to upgrade to the Groove Control CD-ROM version at any time, simply contact ILIO or your local ILIO distributor to unleash the full potential of this library.

Groove Control(tm)
We are very excited to include this exclusive feature on the CD-ROM versions of Ethno-Techno. Groove Control gives you a simple and high quality way to change the tempo, mix and feel of stereo loops right from your own sequencer. Groove Control products are available exclusively from ILIO Entertainments and Spectrasonics.

Groove Control Creative Tips
Because of the flexibility of Groove Control, think of these loops as a starting point for your own creativity. Here are just a few possibilities to get you thinking:

1. Change the tempo of the grooves without changing the pitch.
How? Just change the sequencer's tempo.

2. Change the pitch of the grooves without changing the tempo.
How? Adjust the GC Program's coarse and fine tuning parameters in your sampler.

3. Change the feel of the loop to match the feel of your track.
How? Quantize the GC sequence with the same settings as the other tracks in your song.

4. Tighten up the players' performances.
How? Gradually increase the percentage of Quantization on the Groove Control sequence.

5. Turn a straight feel into a shuffle or visa versa.
How? Use a swing quantize setting or increase the percentage of the shuffle parameter in your sequencer.

6. Change the time signature of the loop.
How? Move the sequence loop point to loop in the new time signature. Move the position of the downbeats and backbeats with the event editing capabilities of your sequencer.

7. Create an alternate version of the loop.
How? Using event editing in your sequencer, reassign one or two MIDI note numbers to other numbers, triggering alternate samples.

8. Change the "pushes" in a pattern.
How? Move the position of the downbeat percussion slice in the pattern forward by a sixteenth. (Event Editing)

9. Build your own pattern from scratch using the sounds from the loop.
How? Sequence the parts yourself by playing the GC sampler programs.

10. Create Gating FX by changing MIDI gate times.
How? Change the MIDI gate values, Gate Time parameter or Duration parameter in your sequencer.

11. Change the levels of certain beats or parts.
How? Change the MIDI velocity levels of the related slices.

12. Replace individual instrument sounds with different samples.
How? Copy the whole sequence to a new Track/MIDI channel. Delete the sound events you want to change from the first sequence, then delete everything BUT those same events from the second track. Assign second track to trigger different samples.

13. Randomize your grooves.
How? Load up a sequence and select various GC sampler programs whose names don't match the sequence. Try different sequences with a single GC sampler program.

14. Make your own breakdown.
How? Reassign busier events to shaker or ambience slice events.
15. Create syncopated or displaced groove combos by shifting the starting point of each loop by a 16th note.


16. Create echoing grooves using MIDI delay.
How? Copy the track and sampler program to multiple channels, offset the copies by the length of echo you want and lower the velocities of the copy tracks.

17. Lower the pitch of the one instrument in the loop without changing the other instruments.
How? Copy the sequence and sampler program. Delete the Instrument from one program and everything BUT that same instrument in the other. Lower the tuning of the second program in the sampler.

18. Make the loop sound softer and more distant.
How? Change the Attack time of the Sampler Program.

19. Reverse only one instrument in the pattern.
How? Find all the desired slices in the sampler. Reverse those samples in the sampler.

20. Reverse the order of the groove.
How? Play the MIDI sequence backwards (reverse order).

21. Add Electronica style buzz rolls to live loops.
How? Add short 64th note repetitions on certain events, with gradually building velocity values.

 

From the day they opened their doors in 1994, ILIO has been committed to producing useful, timeless and inspiring sample libraries for musicians. Tapping years of experience in sound design and electronic composition, their knowledge of the quality demands of today's music scene is the driving force behind every title they release.
ILIO Entertainments | 1-800-747-4546 | © 2008. All rights reserved.