WIZOO

Oct 1, 2002 12:00 PM, By Dan Phillips

Wizoo's Platinum24 Electronic Drums offers a simple concept that is executed almost flawlessly. This relatively inexpensive CD-ROM ($99.95 for Akai S1000, EXS-24, Halion, or Gigasampler formats) takes sounds from Roland's venerable TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines, adds a dash of distortion and a splash of reverb, and hands them to musicians on a silver platter. I tested the sounds on my E-mu E6400 Ultra sampler.

Both the 808 and 909 are presented in several variations, many of which represent kits treated with different amounts of distortion. The 808 kits include Clean and Drive, as well as a Soft kit that is friendly for ballads and layering. For the 909, you get kits named Clean, Drive, Distorted, Tiny, and Noisy — think of them as the five dwarves of electro.

Switch Hitter

I was surprised and pleased to discover that the hits are all multisampled. For instance, the snares in the 909 Clean kit offer three basic tones, each with six different samples in a Velocity switch. The Velocity switches sometimes capture dramatic changes in tone, such as the sound of sweeping a snare's filter cutoff. Other samples provide more subtle variations, just right for capturing the slightly random changes of these primarily analog drum machines.

The sounds are worthy of the attention to detail. The Clean programs are crisp, punchy, and noise free. I also like the Drive programs. The 909 Drive includes just the right amount of grit, and the kick in 808 Drive has the thick, buzzy tone of a half-blown woofer — perfect. I do wish for a clean 808 kick with an extralong decay; none of the samples quite produce that familiar, endless sine-wave boom.

The One After 909

There are also a few genre-inspired kits that have samples such as Club, Goa, Techno, Hip-Hop, Fusion, and Synth, as well as programs with reversed samples and special effects. The Synth kit is particularly cool, with a solid, zaplike kick and juicy noise-burst hats, and the Hip-Hop kit is deep and meaty. I would have liked to have samples from other classic Roland drum machines, such as the CR-78 and TR-606; for those, you'll have to look elsewhere.

All of the 808 and 909 kits are completely dry. Separate reverb-only programs offer samples of “clean” 808 and 909 hits with just reverb and no dry signal at all. According to the liner notes, the reverbs are from the studio-standard Lexicon 480L; they certainly sound great, including several lengths of hall, gated reverb, and the classic Brick Wall program.

The Grand Wizoo

To use the reverb-only programs, you simply layer them with the dry programs and adjust the volume balance to suit. This works well for all but the most distorted dry kits; the “clean” reverb on “dirty” signal caused too much cognitive dissonance for my taste.

Platinum24 Electronic Drums delivers a near-encyclopedic rendering of the 808 and 909 (although I wish it had that extralong 808 kick). Documentation is accurate and complete, if not especially colorful. Its simple but clear concept is crafted with precision, resulting in an eminently useful product at a reasonable price. Who can argue with that?

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Overall EM Rating (1 through 5): 3.5

Wizoo GmbH; tel. 49-421-701-870; e-mail info@wizoo.com; Web www.wizoo.com