Afro-Cuban Percussion CD-ROM  Review by Electronic Musician
By Zack Price
Electronic Musician, Nov 1, 2001

Joe Galeota is the owner of JAG Drums (seller of handcrafted African percussion instruments) and plays all the instruments for Sonic Implants' Afro-Cuban Percussion ($99.95) sample CD-ROM. The collection features a variety of percussion instrument samples for NemeSys's line of GigaStudio software samplers. Producer Dave Quattrini recorded Galeota at multiple velocity levels for realistic tone when playing softer and louder notes. Furthermore, Quattrini recorded the instruments using close- and ambient-miking on two DAT decks. According to Quattrini, the ambient microphone was set up about three feet away from the source. Even though that is a relatively short distance for ambient-miking, it is enough to guarantee a full yet more natural instrument sound. Using both recording techniques on all the instruments ensured a consistency in sound. Additionally, you can easily mix and match ambient- and close-miked sounds.

Bells and Whistles
The sounds in the library are divided into three groups: Bells, Shakers, and Scrapers; Hand Drums; and Stick Drums. The sounds in those groups are further subdivided into ambient- and close-miked categories. In GigaStudio, copy the folders on the CD-ROM to the drive in which you store your Gigastudio files. Create a new folder on that drive and name it Afro-Cuban Percussion. The CD-ROM samples are neatly organized into folders and subfolders, which makes them easy to find anytime you reopen GigaStudio to update the library.

Inside the Bells, Shakers, and Scrapers group are the following instrument sounds, arranged in single-instrument GigaStudio patches: Afoxe, Agogo, Ankle Bells, Caxixi, Cha Cha Bell, Claves, Cowbells (low, mid, and high), Frogs Eggs, Guiro (Cuban and merengue), Large Basket, Maracas, Reco Reco, Samba Whistles, and Sencero. The Hand Drums collection contains Birimbou, Bongo, Conga, Conga Quinto, Conga Segundo, Conga Tumbadora, Cuica, Finger Snaps, Pandeiro, and Vibraslap. The Stick Drums set offers Jam Blocks, Repenique, Surdu Bombo (played with felt-covered and bare-wood sticks), Surdu Cortador, Surdu Macana, Tamborim, Timbales, and Timbalitos.

Percussion Ensemble
In each case, all of the variations of an individual instrument are mapped out across a group of keys. For example, Bongo contains low bongo hits (muted and open), low slaps, high bongo hits (muted and open), and high slaps. Unfortunately, the CD-ROM contains no documentation regarding the mapping of each individual sound. That means the user has to discover by trial and error which note triggers a percussion sound, which is not the preferred modus operandi in a studio situation in which time is money. Keymap documentation would also help in setting up a MIDI percussion controller. Nonetheless, the sounds are mapped in such a way that the user often can perform realistic instrument phrases by playing the keys scale wise in three- or four-note groups.

Inasmuch as each of the instruments are separate Gigastudio files, the user has to load each instrument into a separate MIDI channel. That is a good thing because it provides the greatest amount of control possible for each instrument. The larger the percussion section you create, the fewer MIDI channels you have for other instruments — that shouldn't be a problem in GigaStudio 96 or GigaStudio 160, which have 32 and 64 MIDI channels, respectively. Gigastudio LE and GigaSampler 64 are limited to 16 MIDI channels, so users of those programs may need to conserve resources when creating a large percussion section.

Authentic Sounds
As for the lack of documentation, Quattrini says that keymapping information should be available on Sonic Implants' Web site by the time you read this. A few Performance patches with more common Afro-Cuban percussion ensemble groupings would be nice too.

Overall, the sound quality is excellent, and playing the sounds is relatively easy despite the lack of mapping info. Although I appreciate the inclusion of close- and ambient-miked recordings, I gravitate toward the ambient sounds. Whichever you prefer, the Afro-Cuban Percussion library is a worthy addition to your Gigastudio instrument collection.

Overall EM Rating (1 through 5): 4.5

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