You know I’m always looking for the best tools, that get out of the way and let you work.

One of my gripes with the current choice of drum sampling software is their inability to understand how simply we want to layer sounds.

Many folks just want to drag a sound to a pad, then another, and another, and have instant access to each layer to tweak and create new composite sounds.

Unfortunately, many of the products out just don’t get that. Most make you go deep into the keymapping setup to layer sounds on the keys, or they don’t allow layering at all, or it’s so complicated you just say forget it and just play each sound on it’s own, layering “in sequence”!

Enter Poise…from an independent developer one small clue…someone who, like me, must have been fed up with the current crop, bloat, and “just don’t get it” operation of the majority of software drum samplers out now.

What we need is something  that’s simple, cost effective, lean, clean…and to the point.

So what is Poise?

In my mind, poise is the drum sampler we’ve all been looking for.

Poise is what I would make if I could write software….

Poise is a simple, 16 pad drum sampler that lets you quickly add layers, manipulate the layers, and come up with new sounds.

Poise is NOT a sequencer.  You can NOT sample into it.

from the site:

Direct, straightforward, no frills and no bloat! Poise aims to make working with drum samples quick and painless, allowing you to focus on making music.

sounds good to me, so good I had to keep it under wraps until I could actually SHOW you what it did.  It’s not new, it’s been around, but I just found out about it and I know many of you will love it, because I get the same questions from folks looking for an easy drum sampler that let’s you layer your drums quickly and tweak each layer.

Why I think Poise “gets it”

Why do I think it’s the best? Let me list the reasons.

• It’s easy to layer sounds, just drag them onto the pad, and a layer number will appear in the window
• layers can be played in round robin, layered, or velocity switching mode
• You can have up to 16 outpus, enough to send each pad to it’s own track in your daw if you want
• It’s easy to setup to work with your midi controller
• You can have note on or oneshot mode for your samples
• It has mono mode, so you can get down like on your hardware, making pads cut each other
• You also have “cut groups” so you can set pads to cut each other off
• You can link pads… so you can quickly layer multiple sounds just by linking the pads together
• You can save your own kits quickly
• You can tweak aeach layer on a pad separately or together
• you can use wav, aiff, or mpc snd format sounds
• It’s lean and cpu efficient
• It’s 49 bucks

What about the interface, is it easy to use?

Very easy, very clean, very straight forward, and very intuitive.

It has everything you need to layer and play with your samples, and nothing you don’t.

No sequencer screen that you won’t use getting in the way.

No complex menus of keygroups and mapping to mess with.

16 pads, each with 8 layers, knobs to tweak each layer/sound…and not much else.

right-clicking on a pad let’s you access things like note on/oneshot mode, or mono mode, pad linking, etc.

It’s really simple, and everything you would try to do naturally, it just does it…this is the way a simple drum sampler should be…not a bunch of bells, whistles, and balloons.

So you really like it huh?

Uhhh….yeah.

This plugin is 5 subs all the way around in my honest opinion…I could hardly contain myself when I found out about it.

Try it and tell me it’s not what you’ve been looking for. You can layer, edit start and end points of samples, send each pad to it’s own output in your daw for simple tracking….tweak each layer, save your kits….really what else do you need in a drum sampler?

I honestly, so far, can’t think of anything I would change about it. It does what it needs to do…allow quick playing and manipulation of samples.

check it out at One Small Clue, download the demo, and see for yourself.

let me know what you think of course, leave a comment below.

So you ready for another set of samples to be reviewed?

This time I’m on some Arab music….I love ethnic samples.

Problem is, I don’t like clearing samples from records, and I don’t feel right not clearing them.

So I stay on the lookout for royalty free sample food.

Arabian Breaks, inspiration all day and all night

When I looked on the platinumloops website, I saw TONS of content.

But the new arabian breaks product looked very interesting.

The demo on the site proved they sounded pretty good, so I had to review them on the site. They kindly sent it over for review.

So what’s in the collection?

You get some loops, fully produced loops too. Not just single sitar loops, or single arabian drumloops.

These loops are full and authentic sounding, just like all those middle eastern records in your crates…only they don’t have the dust.

We can fix that with fx though

They also put various one shot samples in here.

Hits, stabs, short riffs, and single notes…so you can get your own creation even more unique.

How do they sound?

They are very good.

I really like how well produced they are, even down to the smallest detail, it’s like they came straight from the source.

The strings, the drums, the voices, all mix together perfectly to give you an authentic middle eastern flavor.

They are not distorted in any way, not overly effected, they are just right.

What’s the bottom line?

The bottom line is this is one of my favorite sample packs this year!

The variety of the various produced loops gives you tons of music to samples.

The fact they are fully produced and not just single instruments also gives you a more authentic sound.

I’m giving this collection 5/5 subs because it’s just a must have for anyone that likes to have some world sounds in their music.

Go over to platinumloops.com and checkout arabian breaks….

tell em Joe sent ya, maybe they’ll gimme some samples or something

So what do you think about these arabian sounds?

Let me know below by leaving me a comment, I want to hear your opinion.