Aquatic Adventures 2
In this new section, we plunder the C Vault to bring you classic sample collections from our 21-year history. Time to go underwater once more…
Welcome to a new inclusion in
Computer Music where we bring you some classic samples from the mighty Vault, a huge hard drive stuffed full of all the audio that we’ve given away over the last two decades. Last month, we brought you the first half of Aquatic Adventures, so here’s part 2, a 1.37GB collection of loops, atmospheres, drum hits and more.
Robbie from Cyclick Samples put the collection together…
“This may be the most idiosyncratic of sample collections to date. It is made up of 15 multisampled instruments (in SFZ format for the Alchemy Player CM and anything else that can load SFZs), five drum/ percussion kits, loops and lines across four tempos, EFX loops/oneshots, and a set of Water Pad chords. The beats were made from layered hits which have been culled from various analogue and digital drum machines and synths over the years. These have been processed and mixed to make sure that they don’t get all modern and blown out, but instead possess the requisite ‘skippy lightness’ that would have kept feet tapping throughout the innumerable levels of the games of yesteryear.
“Accompanying the beats are looped lines from a set of sine wave basses, plastic pianos and blippy leads, with some arpeggiated loops from the basses and leads too. The Water Pad Chords are a set of seven chord shapes (major, minor, 6th, 7th, 9th, sus4 and minor 6th) in three keys (A,C and E) across four super-chilled pad synths. Real water was involved in these as the convolution reverb impulses that help smooth the pads out are in fact recordings made in water using a hydrophone (I have a collection I made for a soundtrack).
“What gaming sample set would be complete without EFX. Most of these loops and one-shots were made from LFO modulated selfresonating filters processed through a variety of reverbs, modulation effects and delays (the aquatic reverb impulses were put to work here as well). There is also a whole heap of Sample & Hold filter control going on to fit in with the gaming theme.”