Computer Music Issue 137 (April 09)
24Bit Songwriter's Toolkit Samples: Unpacked = 2.54GB
2040 samples: This huge collection of samples is comprised of inspirational backing loops, kits and riffs, all in WAV and CMplay formats. Enjoy drum beats, guitar chords and loops, basslines, electric pianos, and more!
Create a virtual backing band with the loops, chords and beats in the CM Songwriter's Toolkit.
Cyclick Samples: 1.14GB WAV Files
For this sample collection we have focussed on acoustic guitar essentials. Firstly there are a set of loops in three tempos: 90, 105 and 120bpm. They are all 2 or 4 bars long and each tempo folder contains loops in 6 keys (A, B, C, D, E and G) as well as a few percussive strums. The loops are a mixture of single chord strum patterns and simple chord progressions/modulations. These have been collated into patches for CMPlay by key and tempo as well as overall multis for each tempo (i.e. all the key and percussive loop patches assigned to different MIDI channels). The second part of the
acoustic guitar collection is a selection of chords divided up by key. Each key contains single strums of the following chords: major, minor, 7th, major 7th, minor 7th, 9th, 6th, sus4 and power chord (i.e. root, 5th and octave). There are a few positions for each of these chords which are demarcated by the suffix number in the filename (1 and 2, with some having third and fourth variants if open chord fingerings are available). The letter after the suffix number (‘a’ and ‘b’) pertain to the strum type:
‘a’ is a fast strike and ‘b’ is stroked slowly. As well as the acoustic guitar loops and chords there is a selection of acoustic drum loops that were used to record the guitar loops to.The Takemine acoustic guitar used was recorded with three microphones, all preamped through the Focusrite ISA 828. The Calrec CM1050 and the Chameleon Labs TS-2 were setup in a mid-side pair configuration, with the CM1050 (cardioid) front facing and the TS-2 in figure-8 polar pattern positioned directly below and perpendicular to the guitar. These were then summed through a mid-side decoder plugin in Nuendo. The third mic, the Royer R-121 ribbon, was placed directly above the CM1050 and aligned in phase. This was used to fill out the lower body of the guitar tone to minimise EQing later. The mid-side pair and the R-121 were then mixed through a very gentle compression (2.5:1 with slow attack and release reducing gain by a maximum of 3db on peaks).
Gear Used:
Takemine EAN45C Acoustic Guitar
Royer-R121 ribbon mic
Chameleon Labs TS-2 valve condenser mic
Calrec CM1050 condenser mic
Focusrite ISA 828 preamps
Focusrite LiquidMix
Cognition Audioworks Samples: 452MB WAV Files
Bass Loops 80-110 BPM, Bass Arpeggios Major/Minor, Bass Free Pitch & Tempo,
Bass Ringing Open Fifth Chords, Bass Tones Long & Tremolo, Guitar Chord Loops 80-120 BPM
Groove Criminals Samples: 976MB WAV/Rex Files
Folders containg Multi-Part Samples = Accoustic Bass, Electric Bass 1, Electric Bass 2
Drums, Hits, Loops 80-120 BPM, Electric Piano Chords,Electric Piano Multi, Electric Gutar Chords.
