Zero-G Guitar Odyssey features electric, acoustic and synth guitar licks, riffs, notes and chord patterns. Great for use in House, Trip Hop and Drum & Bass - but the possibilities are endless.

To give up a promising career in brain surgery to pursue a musical dream in pre-glasnost U.S.S.R. says what kind of phenomena the producer of this stunning collection is. The respect he earned throughout Western Europe gave him the confidence to defect in 1993, fleeing with his family to England.

Dr Ika has played with most of the big name DJs in the UK. This award winning sample library captures the essence of what he does live, the loops illustrate his effortless speed & accuracy. Also included are sustained chords and FX.

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• Acid
• Rex

• WAV

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Press Reviews

If you make the sort of music which needs...

by Sound On Sound Magazine, UK

If you make the sort of music which needs competent rhythmic guitar parts and you don't know any tight guitar players (and I'm not talking about never buying a round of drinks) who own a multi-effects unit, this CD is exactly what you've been waiting for. Beautifully recorded and intelligently laid out, it covers a wide range of styles in a comprehensive selection of keys. In fact, it's jam-packed with just about every flavour of wah-wah, overdrive, distortion and flange known to man. Track 1 starts at 80bpm and the tempos gradually make their way up to 1 72bpm by track 74.

Each track is index-linked to as many as 40 different samples in a wide range of keys (predominantly anchored around A/Bb minor/C/E/G) and subtle variations. This gives you a lot of flexibility to construct a guitar part which won't sound sampled. Apparently - or so the sleeve notes say this CD is the work of Dr Ika Kikvadze, a Russian ex-brain surgeon who moved to Cardiff to become a top semi-pro guitarist after the pre-glasnost KGB had made his life a misery. But frankly, who cares? The sleeve notes also talk of classic equipment such as Vox AC30, Fender Twin, Peavey Classic, Lovetone Meatball Autowah, Electro Harmonix Electric Mistress and Golden Throat, and Morley wah-wah - the overall sound really does come across as a history of classic '70s and '80s cliches, noodling with great precision around the pentatonic scale.

It forms a comprehensive library of jazz/funk guitar sounds, which is by no means a bad thing. I mean, what use would the Noel Gallagher guitar sound sample CD be to anyone? This is a very usable tool which can easily fill out, with real class, the rhythmic elements of a wide range of musical directions, from every conceivable Chuck-A-Wah Shaft feel (including some that actually sound like the original) right the way down to evil dirty funk licks, with a few too many voicebox samples thrown in.

Everything is recorded in glorious wide-band stereo, especially the heavenly echoes and phase/flange shifting. Some samples split the rhythm part in two, hard left and right, and there are also tons of feedback, wobble-bar and harmonic effects to play with, tacked on the final couple of tracks of the disc. One slight annoyance is the difference in output levels of some of the heavier tracks in comparison with the rest - it can be quite a jump. But since Guitar Odyssey is only available as an audio CD, judicious use of the input volume control on your sampler will make this a minor problem rather than a digital sampling disaster. That aside, this CD is a triumph in usability and over the top, bad-taste, guitar sounds, played in time with plenty of balls. What more could you want?

Exiled Russian neuro-scientist Dr Ika Kikvadze...

by Future Music Magazine, UK

Exiled Russian neuro-scientist Dr Ika Kikvadze (no, really!) is the man responsible for this collection of guitar samples, and a damn fine bunch they are too. Using an array of very cool effects boxes including Electro-Harmonix phasers and flangers and the Lovetone Meatball autowah, fed through classic amps like a Fender Twin and Vox AC30, Dr Ika lets rip with some superb riffs, sequences and plain bizarre effected guitar samples.

It has to be said that a few of the guitar sample CDs on the market leave something to be desired - guitarists being notoriously unwilling to let their best moves fall into the hands of the sampling public at large - but in this case you get the full deal. There are bags of clean jazz and funk sequences and riffs, distorted rock stuff, Hendrixian workouts, arpeggios, truncated breaks and a huge range of odd effects.

It's also a surprisingly versatile assortment. There are groove fuzz loops that scream big beat, jazzy wah sounds which would be perfect for anything from trip hop to funky house, more conventional playing plus bags of wacky samples, the use of which is only limited by your imagination. Everything's clearly tempo- and key-tagged, and the effects and amps used are noted for each sample which is handy if you want to know how these sounds are arrived at. A highly recommended disc for anyone with six-string needs.

AWARDED THE FUTURE MUSIC PLATINUM AWARD.

Put a guitar in the hands of a neurosurgeon who...

by Keyboard Magazine, USA

Put a guitar in the hands of a neurosurgeon who defected from the U.S.S.R. to pursue his jones for "subversive Western guitar music" and what do you get? Not brain salad surgery. In the case of Guitar Odyssey, it's hundreds of exciting and inspirational sonic goodies. Dr. Ika Kikvadze is the neurosurgeon in question, and the man knows his way around the fretboard. In simple terms, he rips . . . and covers lots of timbral territory: funky wah-wah rhythms, fuzzed Jimi Hendrix lines, clean echoed passages, farting guitar-driven synth bass, fast chukka-chukka rhythm patterns, a few choice acoustic chords and licks, and more. As associate editor Ernie Rideout pointed out, the electric guitar is "mostly a very clean sound, like a Fender Stratocaster - appropriate for the styles covered. Although there are some beefy distortion tracks, you won't find anything with a thick, warm, tube sound."

Zero-G's superb documentation details keys, tempos, and the effect and/or guitar amp used for each track. Many tracks have multiple events, but embedded index markers allow quick access to individual events. The rhythm patterns are only one or two measures long, but Dr. Ika plays numerous variations on most themes. Rarely are the chord progressions as simple as l/IV/V. A couple that found intriguing are Cm/Bm/Am/Em/B/A, played with a very plucky sound through a Morley wah-wah pedal, and "Babywhatyou upto" - Cm/Bbm/Am/Fm/Fm/Em, which features expressive talkbox processing (an Electro-Harmonix Golden Throat). My favorite slice is the six-second BL/C/D Mellotron-on steroids ditty "Ultimatecheese."

Most tempos fly at an energetic pace. Ika starts moderately - 80 to 97 bpm - but begins pressing by the 20th track, revving from 120 bpm up to a burning 172 bpm. Although all of the samples are in stereo, there isn't much panning, so you can grab lots of the material in mono to save sample memory. Ernie and I both appreciate the wide variety of processing and effects used. He also pointed out that "musically, the collection is pretty straight ahead. There's not much outside the A.o.R. rock and club R&B realms, although you could fly a lot of these licks into any dance mix." Whether you're after terrific guitar tracks to get your creative juices flowing, or some fret-driven icing for what you've already put together, Guitar Odyssey delivers big time.

Awarded 8 out of 10

If you had the choice of whether to be a brain...

by The Mix Magazine, UK

If you had the choice of whether to be a brain surgeon or a guitarist, which would you choose? Well, luckily for us, Dr. Ika Kikvadze chose the latter, even going to the extent of defecting from his home in the former Soviet Union to avoid the KGBs scrutiny of his interest in "subversive" Western guitar music. And so to Guitar Odyssey, Ika's first sample CD. He was spotted by the Digivibe team (who produced Guitar Odyssey) playing in a jazz club in Cardiff, but a common ground was not found until they saw him jamming away with the house DJ at one of their parties.

The CD is a collection of samples that capture what Ika does live and has been created by breaking down many of his improvisations into single and double bar loops. A few sustained chords and effects are also thrown in for good measure. For each sample the style, FX/amp used, bpm, and key are listed. An abundance of effects and amps have been employed here, and these gadgets, along with Ika's naturally fluid yet funky playing style, have been used to produce a CD with some of the most original and best played guitar loops around.

The target user for this collection is the dance producer- it's already been used in some house, trip hop and drum & bass tracks, but the potential for creativity with this CD is large. However, if you are looking for a collection of rock guitar riffs, you should look elsewhere. There are certainly some loops with a rock feel.

This is more of a funk-fest, with every loop having the sort of feel and fluidity of playing that most guitarists struggle for years to perfect. Most of the sounds are heavily effected, some to the point of being barely recognisable as guitars, but this in no way detracts from the useability of the CD. It would be fair to say that Dr. Ika Kikvadze is the best thing to come out of Russia since Smirnoff Black Label.

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If you make the sort of music which needs...

Exiled Russian neuro-scientist Dr Ika Kikvadze...

Put a guitar in the hands of a neurosurgeon who...

If you had the choice of whether to be a brain...

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