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DISTORTED REALITY 2
Pro Sound Review
From Spectrasonics comes the highly anticipated Distorted Reality
2 (CD-ROM $199; Audio CD $99). We reviewed volume 1 several years
ago. Without reservation, DR 2 is just as stunning as the first
one. Created by sound sculptor, Eric Persing, this disk literally
creates sounds never heard before. Be forewarned, these samples
are not for the faint of heart. Expect to find futuristic and sci-fi
sounds, noise fx, drones, ethereal pads, altered humanoid voices,
metallic ambiences, reverse fx and plenty of beats, percussion and
rhythms. Sonically, this disk is a impeccable. Also cool is the
Groove Menu (CD-ROM version only). This feature synchronizes and
locks multiple percussion loops together. Spectrasonics should also
be commended for its excellent documentation.
Sounduser.com Review
Distorted Reality Vol. 2 is the third release that we've looked
at from the sample CD producers Spectrasonics. Spectrasonics are
headed by Roland's Chief Sound Designer, Eric Persing, and have
built up the highest reputation for their sampling products from
a sonic quality, presentation and creative standpoint.
Distorted Reality Vol. 2 is described by Spectrasonics as "...an
audible feast of colors created with the very latest in sonic sculpturing
technology. After three years of intense development, you can be
sure that fresh inspiration is in abundance. Spinning metallic textures,
singing oceans, vast amounts of unique loops (50-480 BPM!), crushing
impacts, glorious pads, crystalline galaxies, subsonic low-end and
the many joys of feedback only begin to describe the wonderful noises
in this collection. Sound Design techniques include: neural network
processing, Meta synthesis, physical modelling, transform multiplication,
enharmonic and cellular morphing, sonic dispersion, additive, convolution,
Hyperprism, transwave cycling, phase vocoding, harmonic stretching,
and Virtual Analog synthesis." Phew !
The collection sits firmly in the "weird collection of sounds"
category and is a full price release, typically $99 for the audio
version and $199 for the CD-ROM version. We're reviewing the Kurzweil
CD ROM version, the other CD ROM versions are essentially similar,
but vary in the number of patches etc., and all versions contain
quite a lot more material than the audio version. Spectrasonics
specialise in the CD ROM versions of their sampling products and
do offer an upgrade from the audio to the CD ROM version if required.
I would certainly recommend the CD ROM version if this is an option
for you, apart from getting more sounds, the programming on the
CD-ROM versions opens up whole vista's of sonic manipulation. Virtually
every sound was effected in some way by use of the modulation wheel
or slider.
The CD has been produced by Eric Persing. Persing as mentioned above
is the main sound man at Roland who know a thing or two about synthetic
music production and lists credits with such acts as Michael Jackson,
Bon Jovi, Celine Dion and Chaka Khan.
The CD comes double shrink wrapped with a separate licence agreement
inside the first shrink wrap. Much better than the ones you can't
read until you open the CD which includes the line "By opening
this CD you agree...". It's pretty standard except that the
product requires a specific written credit in any liner notes.
The documentation is excellent, there is a general booklet that
includes the contents of the Audio/ Akai/ Roland format disk and
in this case there is an extra Kurzweil booklet that contains the
specific contents of that CD. Although mostly the same there are
a few subtle differences between each of the formats. Each sample
is listed out with a descriptive title and the sample size, then
categorised by sub-genre and genre. There are also lots of notes,
instrument information, background data and so forth. Very well
put together.
Despite the complexity of many of the sounds in most cases the memory
requirements for the samples is pretty modest. Certainly you can
get most from the CD with 16Mb of memory as there are only two programs
over 16Mb (and even then you can load the individual components).
As ever with memory, more is better of course.
The equipment list used to produce the CD will put most professional
studio's to shame and stretches to two pages, in particular there
are lots of software programs used as well as the outboard gear
you might expect to see. A trend I am sure will increase in the
future as computers get ever more powerful. The synthesizer list
is pretty impressive, just about all the Roland synths as you might
imagine, plus modulars and beasts like the Waldorf Wave, perhaps
the only surprising omission is no Korg Wavestation.
The CD is broken down into 28 categories of sounds, many of these
are further broken down into sub-genres. For example Ambient has
sub-genres of Discordant, Distant, Fallen, Radiant, Sombre, Spherical,
Tranquil and Vistas. By using this detailed categorisation of the
sounds it does make finding sounds of a certain type much easier.
Ambient (54.2Mb)- The CD starts with a collection of 50 or so slow
ambient pad type sounds that are simply brilliant. The CD subtitle
of Darkness & Light can almost be heard deep dark tones contrast
with bright shimmers of sound texture. Light ethereal tones to distant
disturbing distorted pads. Lots of subtle movement and complexity,
some of the nuances only really appear when you really listen closely.
The most incredible thing is that only one sample is over 3Mb in
size, a testimony to Eric Persing's programming and production skill.
Spent quite literally hours just playing with this section, and
this is just about one tenth of the collection. Sounds like "Unsettled",
"Void" or "Vapour Chimes are just brilliant mood
setters. Excellent.
Bells (22.3Mb)- No less than 16 different "bell" samples,
Carillion, Gothic Towers and Strange, or more descriptively Actually
bell like, big dark powerful menacing bells and once was vaguely
related to a bell type sound. Very good, Dead Ringer in particular,
perfect for when someone asks for a "big dark bell".
Beats (150.2 Mb)- Although not detailed in the inlay card specifically
the beats section comes in two section. Firstly "Groove Menus",
using a vaguely similar system to that employed in Chemical Beats
basically for each of the four "Groove Menu" programs
different samples are loaded into across the keyboard. Different
BPM programs are given, though these do alter pitch. You then just
hold down 1, 2, 3 or more keys together and you have dozens and
dozens of different loops in no time at all. It's a lot of fun and
in to time you can come up with a dozen track ideas. There isn't
too much in the way of orthodox percussion as you might expect,
but perfect on their on own nonetheless or layering with a more
orthodox loop. Excellent.
If that wasn't enough there are another 120 or so "regular"
loops from 57 - 480 BPM, though most are in the 70-130 range. These
carry on the theme of the collection, light on anything orthodox
but lots of brilliant ideas and sounds, either on their own or in
conjunction with another loop. The loops tend to fall into 2 camps,
either quite light sounding loops that would be ideal used as layers,
or loops that were I suspect quite ordinary sounding once and then
processed beyond recognition. Certainly felt this section is an
improvement on Distorted Reality Vol 1, the Groove Menu programs
in particular are a great source of inspiration. (Note: The Groove
function doesn't work on EMU samplers)
Beds (14.2Mb) - 17 bed sounds that have an aquatic feel to the section,
somewhat more aggressive in nature than say the Ambient section.
Haunting whale song and dolphin type sounds mixed in with some bubbly
type effects. Definitely not from Flipper though, very good. Behemoth
in particular would be perfect for a deep sea monster thriller,
perfect deep, ominous drone with a water bubbling, washing type
sound.
DJ FX (1.6Mb)- Just three odd samples a mutated voice and a couple
of distorted melody lines that you might find a use for.
Drones (44.5Mb)- Real foundation shakers, deeper and darker than
the Ambient section, though every bit as good. The deeper tones
drift into subsonic depths, while the slightly more upscale versions
offer vista's of dark sonic texture. Modulation in particular in
this section colours the sounds significantly, usually from a stutter
to a slowly evolving texture. One or two of the sounds have a degree
of "sameness" about them but still an excellent collection.
Fuzz (31.4Mb)- I've got a fuzz box meets synthetic textures to produce
a whole range of sounds, from whale song to a siren like sounds
and all sorts in-between. Blow-out sounds like a synthetic rendition
to the beginning of Hawkwind's Silver Machine, very good, perhaps
the most abstract sounding of the sections. Hits (10.3Mb)- Huge
hits, some are orchestral based, others of the sledgehammer on concrete
type, all with interesting decay effects. As a contrast there are
also 7 "retro" hits, perfect for that 60's cinema commercial
sound.
Human (1.3Mb)- Three off the wall distorted once human voice samples,
not bad.
Mallets (7Mb) - Several cymbal/gong type samples with a couple of
soft gong like hits ideal for spot effects.
Metals (26Mb)- Nice variety here, simple metallic hits, deep slow
complex pads with a metallic edge and shearing grating walls of
metallic sound. Very good.
Misc FX (4.7Mb) - Four oddballs that don't fit anywhere else, the
most useful of which will be the "cartoon boings", a collection
of samples ideal for comic "hits" or "falls".
Noise (10.7Mb)- Perhaps the harshest processed of the sounds on
the collection, grating ambiences and noisy textures, the least
musical as well, though still very good.
Orchestral FX (4.3Mb)- Four samples of what was once something orchestral,
processed beyond any real recognition, interesting.
Pads (22Mb)- If possible even better than the Ambient collection,
powerful, thick complex pads, samples like "Organic",
Reflection", Gesture" & "Shiner" are simply
brilliant sounds. Rich walls of sounds, with enough movement and
evolution in the sounds to keep the user interested in the soundscape
being created. Excellent.
Percussives (56.3Mb) - A whole range of percussive sounds, booms,
drips, distorted effects, odd hits, clangs, bangs, whooshes and
fat splats. Not a regular percussive sound in sight, if your looking
to produce some original loops or spot effects there is a wealth
of material here.
Plucked (0.4Mb) - Just a single sample, rapid pluck and interesting
decay sound.
Pulsating (2.5Mb) - Again just a single sample, possibly making
use of Roland's random sample and hold feature found on some of
their synths, metallic edged pulsating sound.
Reverse (5Mb) - Several slow reverse sounds that evolve into a loud
crescendo, not quite sure how useful these are, but I'm sure someone
will find a use for them.
Sci-Fi FX (19.7Mb)- Whole abstract collection of alien and space
like sounds, some excellent sustained tones, mixed in with some
weird textures, short shimmers and so forth. What I found particularly
clever about this section is that you could almost picture a use
for every sample, ideal Star Trek XX soundtrack material.
Sequences (0.5Mb)- Just a couple of heavily processed short sequences
that almost seem more like pads than sequences.
Sound FX (10.1Mb) - Not dissimilar to the other "FX" sections,
whole range of offbeat processed sounds, rather more noisy and motor
like, though if your car sounds like any of these your in serious
trouble ;-). Very good.
Speech (4Mb)- Just four short, where once speech samples, that have
been processed to produce something quite manic, ideal for a babbling
madman effect!
Sweepers (16.8Mb)- Around 20 swept samples, from slow ups and downs,
to whizzing around your head, very clever use of the stereo spectrum
in places, just another very good collection of sounds.
Synth Bass (29.5 Mb) - I'm not too sure how many of these you could
use as an orthodox bass sound, most might be a bit too complex for
that, but nonetheless an excellent collection of lower pitched synth
sounds. Viral Deep and Deep Space Bass being my favourites here,
DEEP bass sounds.
Synths (9 Mb) - Some nice fat synth sounds here, from air raid sirens
to thick sounds ideal for bashing out power chords, perhaps the
only part of the collection where I distinctly preferred the Distorted
Reality volume one sounds.
Tekno (6.9Mb) - Eleven shortish spot "techno" effects,
you know the sort of thing. Not terribly exciting, perhaps the weakest
part of the collection, and that's being mean as I have to write
something negative!
Voices (2.9Mb) - Four samples again vastly processed from what they
once were, interesting effects, but only Tunervox I suspect you
could tell was from a voice unless you were told so otherwise.
Phew !, a lot of sounds, and hardly a rogue one amongst them.
Summary - Audio quality is excellent. A few samples have "noise"
as an effect, but this I am sure is totally intentional as otherwise
the production is faultless. There has been a lot of effecting of
the sounds throughout the collection, though in the majority of
cases this it's reasonably subtle, more as if the source sound has
been modified rather than a ton of reverb or distortion applied.
The sounds in the main do retain a "musicness" to them.
It's difficult to describe, but usually with "Weird stuff"
collections there are lots of sounds you wonder "well how could
they actually be used", with Distorted Reality Vol. 2 (and
1 for that matter) that doesn't apply so much.
Distorted Reality Vol. 2 is a work of genius. It's taken me ages
to review, firstly as there is an awful lot of material to get through,
and secondly so many of the sounds just invite you to play with
them. Even though a sound can be so abstract it still sounds musical
in a way, and ten minutes later..... unlike many CD-ROM's where
the sounds are essentially just preloaded for you, here there has
been a lot of effort put into actually programming the sounds so
playing with the modulation settings, slider, twenty minutes later.....
The first volume was very good indeed, Volume 2 is even better,
it's difficult to pin down exactly why, but overall that was the
impression I felt. The amount of effort that has gone into the collection
must have been tremendous, almost every sound has subtle movement,
complexity, depth and evolution to it. The end result is a stunningly
brilliant collection of sounds. Certainly if your going to buy only
one volume I'd suggest Volume 2, but save up for Volume 1 as well
as they are an ideal compliment to each other.
All of the sections of the collection are very strong, I particularly
liked the pad like sections, ambience, pads, drones & sweeps,
the groove loops are brilliant and the loops in general I thought
very good, perhaps a little more usable that the first volume, though
if that is good or bad is a matter of opinion. The other sections
are just a notch behind in what is a truly excellent collection.
Down sides...having to write this instead of playing around with
the sounds !
If your making ambient, space, new age, soundtrack type tracks in
fact almost anything that you'd like a synthetic sound in then I
would but this No.1 on your shopping list. A masterpiece in sample
production, as a sign of how much I like this collection, and I've
got more than most people !, is that this is now my favourite sample
CD of all time. A very clever, well constructed and usable collection
of unusual sounds.
Overall - Value for money 10/10
- Usability 10/10 - Documentation 10/10 - Sonic Quality 10/10. Makes
you happy you own a sampler - 10/10
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