Making Music
  Computer Music Software and Hardware

Front ends

The essence of this software is that you get lots of top-notch, high-quality sounds in an easy-to-use, yet tweakable interface. Hardcore Bass and Bösendorfer 290 both use a Kompakt front while Stormdrum includes both Kompakt and Intakt versions. Kompakt is a sampler while Intakt is designed to slice, dice and otherwise manipulate sample loops. It is, of course, particularly suited to the generation of drum loops.

The samples for the programs come in custom NI .nks format. These are large shell files holding within them all the sample data. This is why the hard disk requirements are so large. You cannot install just a selection of sounds to save space -  it has to be the Full Monty.

The Kompakt interface offers all the edit features you'd expect of a sampler, even though the samples are limited to those supplied with the program and you cannot load your own.

There are eight instrument slots, together known as a Mutli, and you can change each instrument's settings and save the changes as a new Multi. Each instrument in a Multi can be set to its own MIDI channel so you can play eight sounds at once although you probably won't want to play too many Hardcore Basses together!

You can change an instrument's key range, transpose it, and route each instrument to a different output on a multi-out audio card. Edit facilities include a range of filters, an envelope generator, four LFOs, and a microtuning section to add a touch of realism when mimicking boy bands or a Posh Spice record.

There is also an effects section featuring Reverb, Chorus, Delay and a Master Filter. They have few controls but work well.

I'm hard, me

The Hardcore Bass samples come from Quantum Leap producers Nick Phoenix and Pierre Martin. "What would happen if you turned your bass amp to 11?" asks the blurb. Well, now you can find out. The bass samples are taken from Musicman Stingray and Lakland 5594 string basses using different pick-up and amp settings - a total of 6,600 multi-samples covering every conceivable way of playing the instruments.

The presets are neatly arranged into six bass types and include over 130 bass sounds. They vary from the solid, workaday basses you could use in a wide range of material to OTT bends, and string slides and scrapes that you might use in a wild rock solo just before you take off the bass and smash it into the amp!

Some samples have slides and effects at higher velocity levels. Others, called keyswitch patches, let you play different articulations. All the basses have up and down strokes, some have the up strokes at the top of the keyboard and the down strokes at the bottom. Some alternate between up and down strokes each time you hit a key. The tone of all the patches can be further controlled via the Modulation Wheel and you can quickly and easily create some neat filtered bass effects with this. It's very empowering to play.

You quickly see how much thought has gone into the creation of these sounds. The only slight misnomer is the title. The basses are not just hardcore and not just played with an amp setting of 11. They would, in fact, fit into virtually every area of modern music including ballads and jazz so to think of them only as meaty, beaty, big and bouncy would be to undervalue them considerably.

Play it again, Sam

The Bösendorfer 290 is, as you have probably guessed, a sampled piano. Again, EastWest in the persona of Michiel Post has done a superb job in creating the samples. There are up to 16 velocity layers, and two mic positions (close and ambient), all rolled into over 60 presets.

One of the most appealing aspects of the Bösendorfer - the real piano, that is - is that it has a larger sound board than many other concert pianos and, with it, a larger dynamic range. The sample recordings have cleverly captured the nuances and subtleties of this magnificent instrument with velocity switch points arranged to create an incredibly realistic performance.

The Bösendorfer 290 also uses the Kompakt interface and you might well ponder on the advisability of messing with such a carefully crafted sampled piano creation. Well, if you don't want to do it, the producers have done it for you. Many of the presets have had effects applied to them and the results range from the subtle and tasteful to the considerably processed although it's all been done in the best possible taste. Mostly.

The choice of piano is very much a personal preference. The Bösendorfer is very crisp and bright and rather hard (in a percussive sort of way) in the higher registers. It's superb fun to play and you may have to tear yourself away in order to try other presets and experiment with the Kompakt settings. If you're looking for a solid piano sound - with variations - for your sonic arsenal then you simply must try this.