1:1 copy of the
review,
published in the tracking, music & composing e-zine Our
Place 4/2000
MAZ: vocal construction kit
Prize: around 25 Euro/$
Contributor: MAZ (http://www.maz-sound.com)
Format: XI, WAV
Concept: over 1000 Vocals -
songs, hooks, lines, jingles
Demo: look at http://www.maz-sound.com/products, over
10 MB
Some days before christmas 1999 a new sample CD came out. Many
people were waiting for this, because both the distributor and the
sample-artists are well known to the tracking-scene. All vocals were recorded at
the x-pert media studio in Germany. Some of you may know that these guys were
composing music as "Morbid Minds" :). And I think MAZ himself is one of the
first persons that a tracker gets to know when he has access to the web.
Okay, after I prelistened some sounds on the homepage I decided to buy
the CD. I still think that it was a good decision, and so I want to write some
comments and critics here. Maybe this will help you :).
Most of the
delivered vocals are so called "construction kits". This means that you have
complete lines, hooks, and songs that can be arranged just as you like. For
example you may have the hook 01:
I'M THE FUNKY ABSTRACT BROTHA; I PLAY
MY GAME UNDACOVA
MY RHYME'S SMOTHA LIKE NO OTHA
BETTER THAN YO MOTHA OR
ANYONE ANOTHA
The whole passages are rapped or sang by different people
- male and female. Now you can choose your prefered artist and arrange your
song. For example you may take hook 01 and change it to BETTER THAN YO MOTHA OR
ANYONE ANOTHA I PLAY MY GAME
UNDACOVA; BROTHA BROTHA - MY RHYME'S SMOTHA LIKE NO OTHA.
And it still makes sense ;)). The BPM settings differ from song to song and hook
to hook (BTW: accidently MAZ forgot to deliver a table of right tempos. But you
can download it now from his homepage.), most styles are around 125-135 BPM.
However - the fastest song has 146, the slowest 102 BPM. So the construction
kits are most useful for funky house tracks or songs with some fast rap-stuff.
And if you pitch it up you can also do happycore *g*. To give the average
tracker a chance to make quality stuff all XIs were set up with a typical
vocal-reverb. Sounds nice and isn't to individualistic.
Another thing
are the jingles. These are short and in most cases not directly connected
samples that are processed and effected differently to spice up your songs. Here
are the different folders and my personal opinions:
FUNNY: very
strange vocals, often pitched. Sometimes useful, err... sometimes :o)
LOFI: these samples are dirty. Real d'n'b stuff for some means.
MISC: various other vocals that don't fit exactly into other categories.
Useful.
MYSTIC: dark vocals, partly directly from hell *g*. Lowpitched.
OHH_AHH: things like "uh la la laaa", not directly choirs. Somehow nice,
but hard to use.
PITCHED: well... pitched. Up and down. Partly happycore
stuff here. And progressive techno vocals (if you're from Germany you know what
I mean ;).
SHOUTS: mostly male, sometimes with hard delay. Don't wait
for typical MC shoutings.
SPACE: whoa, robots are speaking :). Quite
nice. NOT vocoder-like.
STRETCHED: s..t..r..e..e..e..t..c..h..e..d....
Yes, really kewl. I think many people can use this for their house tracks, great
to make some bridges and fill-ins.
SYNTHCHOIR: well, synthchoirs can be
found here. But I think these choirs aren't satisfying, sorry. First of all,
there aren't any loops. That's bad. No1 Instruments has the best loops ever and
so I think it should be possible to include them here, too. Secondly, I don't
like the sound quality here. All the other samples are *really* good, but here
it's different. :(
VOCODED: ahhh, this one is kewl :). Vocoded vocals,
hard or soft. I like this folder, because it's easy to find groovy inspiration
here. If you don't have a vocoder at home - take this!
To finish my
article: both quality and quantity are satisfying - and the prize is simply the
best you can get today. A typical vocal CD of this professional style often
costs around 75 Euro/$, this one is available for 25!! Well, I think "vocal
construction kit" is a must have for house/funk/freestyle producers. And all the
others might be really happy with the jingles. To speak for myself: I don't
produce house all day long, but actually I used some stuff of the CD for my
track "Acid Angels" (look at the "Songs"-section of Our Place)... and it was
useful. Also happy hardcore producers might see in this CD a great way to fresh
and individualistic tracks. I personally like it :)).
OK, CU and greets,
BassPlace ^ d-lab42
(bassplace@gmx.net,
http://beam.to/our-place/)
(Text received 2-Apr-2000, written by
BassPlace)