Soundclash

Awarded 5 STARS out of 5

by Sound On Sound Magazine, UK

Awarded 5 STARS out of 5

"Zero-G's Soundclash comes with the subtitle 'The very best of nu-electro dance' and aims to provide a fusion of dance-music styles, combining house with elements of electronica and various live instruments. The collection has been produced by Sharooz Raoofi, and a wide range of software and sampler formats is supported on the single DVD-ROM. I auditioned the Acidised WAV files (using Acid Pro 6), which comprise about 1GB of samples, spread over nearly 2000 files.

Given the amount of content, the samples are split into a number of sensible folders. The 'Construction Kits' and 'Combi Loop' folders provide a good starting point. The former contains 17 full construction kits, generally based upon a dozen or more loops, while the latter are almost 'mini-construction kits' that contain various drum, percussion and bass loops that could easily form a rhythmic bed to which other material can be added. There is some excellent material in both folders. For example the 'NYC Rockers' kit combines dance with pop-rock, and the 'Bleep Hop' kit wouldn't sound out of place next to something from Madonna's 'Confessions On A Dance Floor' album. Other material reminded me of the Scissor Sisters and earlier Madonna. There's also a plentiful supply of straight-ahead electro-dance that would go down well in any club context.

Aside from the construction kits, other folders contain drum hits, drum loops, synth hits, synths loops, some FX and atmosphere sounds, and a small number of processed (mainly via vocoder) vocal phrases. The 500 individual drum hits cover snares, kick, toms, cymbals and percussion instruments, of both the electronic and the acoustic variety. There is plenty of good stuff here to build your own loops, and if you own one of the sampler formats that is supported, suitable programmes are included to make use of them to build your own loops. The 500 drum loops are also split into 'mini-construction kits', rather like the 'Combi Loops' but without the bass loops. Variations here include loops minus the kick or snare drum (which is great in a dance context). The various synth samples are equally good, and there is plenty of material to get your teeth into if you are a dance producer.

All the samples are provided in a stereo, 16-bit, 44.1kHz format, and while some might prefer 24-bit audio, to my ears, at least, the quality is uniformly good throughout. I'd certainly have no reservations about using these samples in a commercial context. Audio quality aside, there is also an abundance of musically interesting material here that ought to get the creative process off to a good start. Zero-G generally seem to have the 'value for money' box well ticked and this release is no exception. For budding clubland producers, Soundclash is well worth auditioning. Awarded 5 STARS out of 5"