Hey there, back at you again with another instrument from East West/Quantum Leap.

This time we’re getting a little bit diverse and checking out some ethnic/world instruments.

Today I’m going to be reviewing their monster ethnic instrument RA.

What is Quantum Leap RA?

RA is perhaps the most definitive rare, world, and ethnic virtual instrument available on the market.

It covers the globe from Africa to Asia, Middle East to Australia, India, Turkey, and even the Americas.

It’s not just a library of loops and grooves, though you can find some pretty authentic ones in here.

It is a full library of your very own ethnic and rare instruments, playable as a standalone or in your favorite daw.

The PLAY engine takes the sounds and expression to a new level.

I’m really a fan of how the PLAY engine interacts with the individual player.

Quick Specs

• Content: 14gb of ethnic and rare instruments
• Format: PLAY engine (standalone, vst, au, rtas)
• Price: $355

How does it sound?

Amazing!

The sound quality and authenticity is by far some of the best I’ve heard when it comes to ethnic samples.

I love ethnic sounds, especially middle eastern/asian and indian.

What I really liked about the way this library was recorded is that it not only captures the authentic sound of each instrument, but it also captures some of the natural imperfections, making it sound that much more realistic.

In addition to the high quality recordings of the playable instruments, there are also tons of riffs, loops, and grooves that you can play across the keyboard.

But, the one thing that I feel sets this sound apart compared to other libraries, is the micro tuning.

Basically this allows you to change the note/tuning of your controller from traditional western tuning to African, Indian, Egyptian, or whatever!

This allows you to play much more realistic sounding parts in your music.

In addition to the solo instruments, they also recorded ensembles…so it captures the real feel of a true ethnic ensemble and not a bunch of solo instruments layered on top of each other.

Some of these like the Indian string ensembles are fantastic.

I think my favorite type of ethnic sounds are always flutes or winds, and the collection in this instrument will please even the toughest critic.

The drums could have been in their own library, they are that good, and the plucked instruments sound like they are straight out of a movie score.

So what is the bottom line, what are your final thoughts on RA?

If you think instruments like these are strictly for movie scoring professionals you would be sadly mistaken.  I don’t know one genre of music that couldn’t benefit from the addition of these authentic tones.

The layout of the instruments allow you to choose by region or type, making it easy to find exactly what you need.

The ease with which you can dial up authentic tuning to go along with the instruments truly takes this to the next level.

If I had to pick one instrument or point to improve in the vast library, it would be the guitar section.

Granted, there weren’t very many of them, but the few that were there weren’t all that amazing, especially compared to the rest of the library.

But that’s fine, you wouldn’t buy a world/ethnic instrument strictly for guitars anyway, especially when they produce such amazing guitar libraries like Fab Four and Ministry of Rock.

When it comes down to it, you just can’t find a better collection of ethnic instruments all in one spot….period.

I give this a 4.5 out of 5 subs, it’s really a great library, easy to use, loads fast, and sounds incredible.

Make sure you go over and checkout the demos, and if you’re looking for an all around instrument that covers all the ethnic sounds you need…look no further.

Head on over to soundsonline.com and checkout Quantum Leap RA

Leave a comment below, let me know what you think about it.

Is it Friday already!?

Dang!

Well it’s time for another edition of Big Fish Friday…time to take a look at some more samples sent to me by big fish audio.

This week, we’re gonna get a lil jazzy on ya!

Talkin all that Jazz…

This isn’t one of those “hip hop jazz hybrid” collections, this is straight up for people looking to compose jazz music.

This is perfect for us! No matter if you’re not making jazz, a lot of urban producers like to sample jazz records, myself included.

So anything that can give us an authentic sound without worrying about royalties and sample clearance…bring it on baby!

What’s in this Jazz Session?

My personal description would be ” a gang of smoke flowing hole in the wall bare chicken bones on a napkin type sounds”

But that’s not really technical enough so, here’s what they say on the site:

Jazz Sessions is a unique sample collection bringing you all the vibes you would hope to hear at any great jazz club, and adds swing, soul and solid jazz attitude to your productions!

Featuring a huge 3Gig library of jazz samples played by seasoned professionals and captured with maximum realism and authenticity. Jazz Sessions is the consummate tool for jazz-influenced producers worldwide, whether you are looking to make pure traditional jazz, nu-jazz, broken beats, or are looking to melt a pure jazz feel into another style of music – Jazz Sessions will deliver what you need.

Okay, that sounds good but what does it actually sound like?

Dopeness, pure finger snapin, diggin in the crates, authentic jazz dopeness!

Seriously, the riffs,  licks and loops are well played and definitely have a certain “feel” about them.

Heck man, I heard the breathing and foot tapping when demoing some of the flute riffs!

Like I said, it’s not jazz with a hip hop affection…it’s straight up jazz from the horns to the drums.

So this would work well for folks trying to actually compose jazz records, but my purpose would be to put together jazz compositions that I can then slice up like I would on from a jazz record!

Works perfect, recorded right, no distortion whatsoever.

One thing I didn’t like though, the release noise on the rhodes multisample…it was pretty loud, but that’s okay, there are plenty of rhode loops and riffs to use, and I’m sure I could tweak the multi in Kontakt if I wanted. But I had to let ya know about that one.

Okay, so it sounds good, sounds authentic, what about the pricepoint?

The price is right baby! Just like a majority of sample dvd libraries, this comes in at 99 bucks, and with all the money you save in royalties…I think it’s a good trade off.

BUT, they also did something very nice, probably for folks like us. You can download separate section from the collection for 29-49 bucks!

So if you want JUST the flutes, or the keys, or guitars, or brass…you can do that. You may not want the drums and bass…maybe you just want the instruments. Go for it then!

Final thoughts on the library?

If you can’t tell by now, I really loved this one. I’m a jazz music lover, even just for listening pleasure, but also for sampling and music production.  To be able to add some nice authentic jazz sounds to your music that actually sound good, it’s always a pleasure. Especially when the library is made for jazz musicians and not “jazzy hip hop samples”

I like those too, but sometimes you just want some real jazz infusion for ya grooves.

This is a 5 out of 5 straight up no questions about it. Great content, tons and tons of samples, multiple formats, and if you don’t want the whole thing you can go with individual sections!

bottom line is, if you like to use jazz samples, you definitely should check this library out.

Go listen to the demo at Big Fish Jazz Sessions and tell em I sent ya

What do you think?  Leave me a comment below.

Yep, Big Fish Audio released another product, and while I don’t post every single thing they release ( and I hope you don’t expect me to, they release hundreds of products throughout the year), I thought some of you would like to hear about this one.

I do not have a review for you as I just heard about it, but it looks to be a pretty dope orchestral wind library for kontakt users, especially if you like to get some film score type sounds going on in your music, or maybe your already doing some soundtrack work.

Anyway, just wanted to post up some general news for ya.

You can checkout the demo here: Hollywoodwinds

This is the new release information I just received about it.

Cinesamples proudly presents HOLLYWOODWINDS, a comprehensive sampling of the orchestral woodwind ensemble. This library’s collection of scales, runs, phrases, chords, textures, trills, FX and full ensemble patches, will get you thinking again about using woodwinds in your next cue.

Hollywoodwinds is cinesamples’ new flagship orchestral woodwind library developed exclusively for Kontakt. Featuring wonderfully organic recordings, and groundbreaking programming HWW is quickly becoming the leading woodwindÊsolution for composers across the world.

PRESENTING THE CINESAMPLES INTELLIGENT TIME ENGINE (CITE): The groundbreaking new method of sync on the fly. Kontakt will automatically recognize your sequencers tempo and playback your scales and textures in time (live). In addition all patches using this engine have samples which have been recorded at multiple tempos. Kontakt will automatically and intelligently choose the correct sample and micro adjust it into place, providing incredibly realistic results and leaving the composer to worry about more important things.

MIC PLACEMENTS: Choose from exclusively Stage Mic patches or Close Mics patches, or using the hybrid patches create your own custom mix – live with no artifacts. Automate your levels using Kontakt 3.5+ or use our presets. Flavor your mix with the 3 Band EQ pre-sets.

INTRODUCING NOTATION VIEW: Using Kontakt 3.5+ you can actually visually see the music you are creating, live! The notation window displays incredibly detailed conductor – piano reductions of your current sample being triggered. Very useful for composers, educators and anyone curious.

AUTHENTIC HOLLYWOOD SOUND: Straight down the chain we have focused our sound to emulate the voice of the Hollywood scoring stages. From the choice of ensemble, the players themselves, the gear, the mix, the orchestrations, the scale tunings… the entire concept is planned to sound with that one goal in mind. Plenty of trial/error, score studying, lunch meeting, phone calling and general research was gathered in pre-production so we blatantly tried to squeeze all the detail and life we possibly could at the sessions and in post. This is the extra step the great hollywood composers and orchestrator’s provide on a daily basis.

KEYBOARD PATCHES: Our method of using tempo synced pre-records with typical keyboard patches is extremely efficient and realistic. The stacked patches, such as the octaves patch, allow the user to voice the ensemble over several different octaves in an authentic hollywood stack (see user manual for details). And of course there is the tutti patch, featuring everybody playing (including the piccolo). There is a whole other half to the library after you check out the GB’s of pre records.

20TH CENTURY TEXTURES AND RUNS: All that creepy stuff the winds do when the spider is attacking, when the beautiful face is morphing, when the eyes turn yellow??? We decided we needed to have that too. From unison ensemble quarter tone bends, to 12 tone cluster stacks to massive collection of Atonal Rips to clarinet “meowing” to multi-piccolo flutters you are sure to find something you need for your track here.