QUICK PICKS

Oct 1, 1999 12:00 PM, Dan Phillips

           
 

UNIVERSAL SOUND BANK Raricussions (Mac/Win) Adding some tasty percussion can give an entirely new dimension to a basic drum track. Tried-and-true standbys such as tambourines and shakers are all well and good, but sometimes grooves call for something out of the ordinary. At times like these, Universal Sound Bank's Raricussions ($99) might come in handy.

Raricussions, aptly named, is a collection of unusual percussion samples, including hand drums, rattles, shakers, jangles, bells, and more. My favorite is the tchango tche, which sounds like the happy love child of a particularly successful encounter between a ping-pong game and a baby rattle. Close runners-up are the floor percussion, with its flat metallic rattle, and the fedounoum, a deeply resonant hand drum.

Other standouts include the twangy, percussive berimbau (imagine playing a jaw-harp by hitting it with a stick); the dry, high slap of the cruche; and the light, almost clicking tone of the cajon. There's also a surprising selection of pitch-bending metallic instruments, including the kutu wappa, water bells, the "box," and strangely sliding glockenspiels. Shakers, rain sticks, a bass kalimba, more bells, talking drums, baja drums, and bowed metal and cymbal effects round out the set.

A two-disc package, Raricussions offers about 300 MB of loops, as well as individual hits for almost every instrument-all provided in Akai and audio formats. The CDs also include a set of almost 250 Standard MIDI Files in PC and Macintosh formats, each of which is matched with its own dedicated set of single-hit samples (in Akai format only).

These MIDI files are perhaps the most interesting part of Raricussions. The matched MIDI patterns and samples produce very realistic loops, with the advantage of allowing you to easily perform instant time stretching by changing the tempo in your sequencer. The package has some imperfections, to be sure. For instance, some of the individual samples include multiple hits, limiting the range of effective tempo change; a few of the samples contain some manner of grit in the recording; one set of patterns simply doesn't groove; and a couple of patterns have mild clicks. By and large, however, the MIDI files sound great and work well.

The "old style" sampled loops boast plenty of feel and energy, are skillfully recorded, and offer a wide variety of tempos. The individual hits are plentiful and often include a wide range of performance nuances, but most could be better organized: they sometimes seem to be mapped across the keyboard at random. The documentation is minimal and contains a few small errors; perhaps I've been spoiled by Spectrasonics' outstanding CD booklets. These faults are minor, however.

Raricussions delivers cool, unusual percussive textures and rhythms and gives you several good ways to use them-all at a reasonable price. If you're looking for percussion beyond the pale, this collection is definitely worth checking out.

Overall EM Rating (1 through 5): 4

CIRCLE #446 ON READER SERVICE CARD