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LIQUID
GROOVES
introduction
This library could equally have been called
"amazing journey", both for the creative trip the grooves
have taken, as well as the painstaking process it took to get them
to their final destination here on this disc. One of the most interesting
parts of creating Liquid Grooves has been to try and gauge what
this concept means to different people. To the Jazzer "liquid"
represents a sense of Sparseness, while a fluid Sonic Texture is
conjured in the Techno mind and the Hip-Hop mentality feels a certain
kind of Attitude or "flow". Our goal from the beginning
was to create a fusion of all these ideas. We ended up with so much
great raw material that we had to have an "election" to
select the most unanimously "happening" grooves. Anyway,
if you like this direction let us know and we'll do another because
there's much more great material that we didn't use. The possibilities
in this genre are pretty limitless. The multi-layered approach of
basic tracks, overdubs, sweetening, mixing and mastering seemed
almost more like making an album than a sample library! But I think
you'll agree that all the effort was well worth it. Even before
the mixing and processing stage, the silky-smooth performances of
Master drummers Bob Wilson and Eric Boseman were always guided by
the concept of "Thinking Liquid". When you begin to explore
this disc, you'll find many inspiring gems that don't exist anywhere
else, like the laid-back tempos, unusual re-mixes, the wide range
of styles and feels, and the unique Wavedrum™ grooves &
samples. The inclusion of the Audio CD in the CD-ROM package is
another industry first, and makes this library very fast to use.
Enjoy and please let us know what you think!
Eric Persing
Creative Director, Spectrasonics
THE INSTRUMENTS
In addition to the standard drum kits, some unique instruments were
used to create this disc. Two Korg Wavedrums™ were played
in real-time to create the basis and/or "spice" of many
of the grooves. The Wavedrum™ is a new kind of electronic
percussion instrument that uses physical modeling technology to
create highly expressive sounds. Unlike traditional electronic percussion,
a sound or sample is not simply triggered, but it "resonates'
various computer models of acoustic instruments based on the input
of the player. That seems very technical, but what it means is that
the Wavedrum™ responds to everything the player does and is
extremely expressive and dynamic. We used Hot Rods, Blasticks, Timbale
Sticks, Brushes, Palms, Finger tips and even Eric Boseman's Feet
in the course of our WD experiments! Two foot pedals were also used
as performance controllers to alter the pitch and timbre of the
Wavedrum™ sounds in real-time. Few people are aware of the
potential of this instrument both because it has no MIDI input (remember,
no samples) and it is also a little tricky to record. As you can
tell in this library however, it has amazing potential with the
right players.
The "Rush Sign" is a huge "Rush Limbaugh Fan Club"
metal sign (courtesy of my Mother-in-Law) that can make lots of
cool swishes and warbles that we used on various grooves. Thanks
to Ruth Calvert and the Orange County Chapter for allowing us to
wrestle with it for the afternoon!
Most of the Bottle Grooves were created by close mic'ing large plastic
Diet Coke bottles. The Clay Pots used were all originally intended
to hold flowers and not as groove devices. Pans and large Tubs of
water were played and fed headphone leakage to create the swirling
"Water Pans" effects. The Whale Drums are beautifully
deep, resonant mahogany slit drums carved in the shape of whales.
A wide variety of South African and South American shakers, rattles,
Indian Dholes and Talking Drums, Zulu dancing ankle bracelets, N.African
Dumbeks and large Native American drums augmented the standard Latin
arsenal that Eric Boseman used. Several M'biras from Zimbabwe were
lined up side by side and played with drum sticks to get a tighter
attack with a more tonally random sound. Some of the swishing effects
were created by sandpapering the walls of the iso-booth while marching
in socks! You can probably tell we had fun doing this!
RECORDING & MIXING NOTES
Eric Boseman's Drums, Percussion & Wavedrums were recorded at
our Ultrasonics studio in Burbank. Bob Wilson's drums and Wavedrum
performances were recorded by Dan Garcia at The Hook Studio in N.Hollywood
which features an 8068 Neve console. Multitrack recording was done
with ADAT XTs and then mixed to Panasonic 3700. Microphones included
Telefunken 250s and 251s, Microtech Geffels U70S, AKG D-112s, 414s,
C-12 Tubes and Neumann KM-53s, KM-84s, U87s, M-49s, Russian Tube
mics and a trusty SM-57. Eric Persing's remixes were created using
Logic Audio and employed numerous signal processors including the
Boss SE-70, RSP-550, GL-100 distortion, AMS, Roland and Lexicon
reverbs, Hyperprism Software, Sound Hack. Aphex Gates, Eventide
Harmonizers, a Minimoog, Arp 2600, Yamaha CS-80 and Roland RSS technology.
Compression by vintage Neve, Innovonics and RCA Tube limiters. Equalizers
included classic Langevins and APIs. Editing was done with Roland
S-760 & 770 samplers, Logic Audio, Region Munger, Transfer Station,
Masterlist and Sound Designer.
HINTS ON USING LOOPS:
1.Always retrigger the loops at regular intervals to maintain sync.
The longer the phrase, the more it will drift and become difficult
to sync with other parts.
2.Separate the loops you want to combine on different MIDI channels
or tracks in your sequencer. This lets you slide & shift each
groove around to achieve "perfect lock". It also simplifies
muting, soloing and remixing.
3.Turn off the "loop" parameter in your sampler to avoid
flams.
4.Try triggering some of the loops on "up" & "off"
beats. This vastly expands the potential rhythmic combinations.
5.Use the samplers' Coarse & Fine Tuning parameters to change
the original loop's tempo. One BPM equals between 15 and 25 cents.
Set your sequencer to repeat the pattern while you do the tuning,
until it "feels right". This method does alter the pitch
of the sample, but is generally much faster and more straight-forward
to use than Time-Stretching functions.
6.Remember that each loop will also work at double and half the
listed tempo without any modification.
7.Excellent software programs like Recycle™, Notator Logic™,
and Digital Performer™ are available for further modifying
the tempo and flexibility of these loops.
*For Speed Referencing, use the included Audio disc in your CD player
to quickly audition the grooves. When you have found one you want
to use, simply load it via the CD-ROM disc in your sampler's CD-ROM
drive!
MEMORY
It is important to note that, like other Spectrasonics CD-ROM libraries,
the Liquid Grooves CD-ROM version has been developed to take full
advantage of 16-32 megabyte samplers. If you don't have 32 meg,
you won't be able to load some of the Volumes (or Banks) on this
disc in one load. The "Elements" patch or program for
each groove is less than 16 meg and contains just the instrument
components of each groove (the separate tracks), without the mixes.
Individual patches can be loaded separately for smaller memory configurations.
Contact your sampler's manufacturer for information about compatible
memory upgrades.
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