Big Fish Audio London Orchestral Percussion Giga

*** I submitted this review but somehow this bottom section got cut off. I am resending the very bottom half of the review starting at the timpani.

Timpani
LONDON contains three banks of timpani sounds. The first two use a set of Adams Symphonic Timpani recorded with general and hard mallets and the third uses a Walter Light Metropolitan Timpani recorded only with general mallets. The Adams set has more complexity to its sound with more overtones and a slightly thinner sound. The Walter set sounds rounder with fewer overtones. The general mallets produce a warm, rounded tone. The hard mallets produce a more focused tone with more attack and overtones. Each of the three banks contains individual instruments for each performance style: a) hits, b) rolls c) hand muffles d) 3 stoke patterns and e) crescendos. Because of this, there is not a composite instrument available. [Christian explains that" having a complete composite timpani available would eat up too much memory." Therefore, I have used Donnies programming as a starting point and have made a composite banks that will give me access to my most used articulations-- hits, hand muffles and rolls. If I need a swell, Ill load it on the spot.] Notes are sampled at F2, A2, C3 and D#3 for all articulations. Hits are layered with four velocities and mapped across the keyboard as left hand hit samples (D2 to G3) and right hand hit samples (D4 to G5, but sounding D2 to G3). This makes for very easy performances. The tone of the hits is very accurately captured in all velocities making rolls easy to play and crescendo or descrescendo changes easy to implement. The rolls are also presented in four velocities and are approximately 7" long. By quickly retriggering the note, you can get a seamless continuous roll if needed. However, because the rolls have a release trigger associated with them, if you hold the key until the end of the roll (into silence), the release sample is heard as the key is lifted. The three stroke ruffs are layered in four velocities but due to the fact that these are rhythmic performances, there are noticeable differences in speed across the samples key range. The muffled hits (a hit in which the player stops the tone with his hand immediately after playing the note) are layered in eight velocities which allows for exceptional realism by virtue of not using the same hit over and over again. As with the cymbals, the length of the hit decay is controllable by the mod wheel, allowing you to fully tailor the notes so that they dont ring over too much. The crescendo banks contain a fast swell (approximately 2") and a slow swell (approximately 6") which are KeySwitched using C4 and C#4. The timpani banks are like no others Ive heard. They make achieving a realistic performance much easier than ever before, providing great depth and realism to your orchestration.

Bass Drums and Concert Toms
A Ludwig Concert Bass Drum and a Yamaha Concert Bass Drum are presented with an extensive array of articulations and playing techniques as shown by the keymap schematic below. The Ludwig contains the most articulations and is the workhorse of the collection. The three large "cannon" hits possess a huge amount of power and move a lot of air, unlike any bass drum samples Ive ever heard. The ff flam and three stroke round out the louder samples. The mysterious thumb rolls are great to add a special effect to your music. Chamois muffled hit and muffled hit are presented in four velocities and are the most useful for traditional playing. The quietest of these groups are perfect for softer pieces that need the feel of a bass drum hit without it being too conspicuous. The excellent looped rolls (also with four velocities) provide incredible power and low end for music that requires this unique sound. Also included are three crescendo rolls in two dynamics (f and mp). The rolls are short (1.5"), medium (2-2.5") and long (5.5") and are very evenly played. The Yamaha drum contains less performance options but the most useful articulations are available. Th

Paul Gilreath is the author of "Midi Orchestration Guide"

MusicWorks - The MIDI Orchestration Guide Paul Gilreath


London Orchestral Percussion (LONDON) is a four CD library released by Big Fish Audio. This is the first of a planned series of "London" releases that will include solo strings, brass and section strings. Producers Donnie Christian and Sean Lane, formerly of DS Soundware, have been responsible for recording and releasing exceptional percussion libraries. Now, teamed with the Big Fish Audio production staff, they have made London Orchestral Percussion, which is their best library to date. It continues where DS Soundware?s Ultimate Orchestral Percussion left off, providing all the bread and butter orchestral percussion instruments with an astounding number of performance and articulation options. But LONDON takes things up a notch, improving on the earlier library. This is perhaps due to the wisdom that was attained after producing Ultimate. LONDON is virtually perfect, providing easy to use, well recorded instruments that will enhance all MIDI Orchestrations. Donnie and Sean are percussionists and know how to record them in a manner to achieve wonderfully rich and accurate sounds that are easy to use.

LONDON represents the most comprehensive percussion library ever put together, incorporating 2.7 GB of percussion samples and more than 80 GigaStudio Instruments. The help file, which is read with an internet browser, contains photographs of the instruments, descriptions of sounds, listings of articulations and potential uses. The samples are well recorded with very little room noise. They have an openness to them with little to none of the compression that inundates lesser-quality libraries. Donnie explained that the goal with the "London" series is to provide libraries with the traditional "Hollywood" sound-- large sounding orchestral instrumentation that would be appropriate for film soundtracks. I believe that this first volume sends them squarely down this path.

LONDON is conveniently grouped into six categories: 1) Chromatic (Chimes, Crotales and Glockenspiel), 2) Cymbals (Crash and Suspended), 3) Auxillary (Latin percussion, wood blocks, sticks, triangles, tambourines, etc.), 4) Snares, 5) Timpani, 6) Bass Drums and Toms.

Chromatic
Two sets of chimes are included: the Deagan Chrome and the Musser Brass. The Deagan Chrome set is the brighter of the two, while the Musser chimes are slightly thinner and sound as though they are recorded from a slightly greater distance. The same articulations are presented for both sets with the exception that the Musser set does not have the staccato articulation. As a bonus however, there is a bank in which the Musser chimes are played with a xyLondonhone mallet. This is an unusual sound and sonically very interesting. The Deagan samples are mapped from C4 to C5 and sampled at C#3, D#3, F#3 A#3, C#4, D#4, F#4, A#4 and F#4 in three velocities (p, mf and f). The Musser samples are mapped from C4 to C5 but they are only sampled at C3, F3, C4, F4 in two velocities (mp and f). This makes the Musser?s break points more obvious. For each set, there are two banks and each is based on the type of mallets that were used-- rawhide or soft. The rawhide mallet programs are bright and cut very well through a loud orchestration. The soft mallet programs are less bright and provide a warm sound for softer passages. Each bank contains seven instruments for each mallet type: 1) a composite instrument made up of three velocity dynamics, (p, mf and f for the Deagan and mp and f for the Musser), 2) an instrument containing both pedal up and pedal down samples that can be selected with the controller?s sustain pedal, 3) a staccato program in which the chime is muted after sounding and 4-6) three instruments with each containing only one dynamic (p, mf and f).

There are two glockenspiels sampled. Both have a range of F3 to C6 and are sampled in minor thirds. The Deagan bells are presented as separate banks sampled