DISCOVERY FIRM

Oct 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Gerry Bassermann

           
 

The Legend of China Discovery Firm's The Legend of China (audio CD; $99.95) is a two-disc set of Chinese instrument and vocal samples, including idiomatic styles and phrases. Musical phrases fill the first disc. The second disc contains 18 sound effects: environmental ambiences, ensemble musical settings, and television and radio samples. Rounding out the collection are individual note samples and playing techniques for the instruments on the first disc.

Use the Source The instrument sources fall into four categories: stringed instruments, wind instruments, percussion, and vocals. All the sounds are exquisite, featuring plucked strings, slippery bowed strings, and wind tonalities that I have never heard before.

The musical phrases are expert and enchanting. Film and video composers will find a lot of material here; you can use the phrases to add Chinese sounds to basic tracks. The sound effects will appeal to sound designers, as they provide more than 16 minutes of background recordings, full of authentic interior and exterior sounds. The phrases with periodic rhythmic events offer remixers and arrangers rare sources of groove textures.

For the truly adventurous, the vocal recordings take the spoken word into the next dimension. I laid a beat under the first Jing Ju vocalization and discovered that I'd never heard anything quite like it. I wondered about what was actually being said (the booklet contains no English translation), but for the most part I didn't care because it sounded so cool.

Real Deal I applaud the inclusion of riffs and phrases because it's difficult to emulate the sounds of these instruments by playing multisamples mapped to a keyboard. A number of idiomatic articulations inherent in Chinese music, especially continuous pitch change, cannot be duplicated with keyboard technique alone.

The best way to create a convincing and authentic track is to use both phrases and single samples. However you choose to work, the musical phrases on disc 1 offer excellent aural demonstrations of the playing styles unique to each instrument.

Documentation for The Legend of China is brief and to the point. Each track listing includes information on tempo, length, and key, as well as a photo of each instrument. Original pitches are indicated for each sample.

Noise Factor A few areas could stand improvement. For one, I noticed some clipping in the samples. Also, the samples have a small component of noise that is only audible on single samples heard through headphones, but more obvious as you play polyphonic chords on the sampler.

Overall, however, the tonal quality of the recordings is very good. The Legend of China is a complete, well-conceived CD set for those with fresh sounds on their minds.