Analogue Circuits
Our Ultimate Synths Collection of samples goes down to circuit level with these amazing analogue sounds
Making music inside the computer gives you a perfect signal path of sample-accurate ones and zeros, promising crystal-clear fidelity.
But not everyone believes that this type of ‘perfection’ is always a good thing – when it comes to getting a characterful sound, there are many who think that digital audio counts for sweet 1111 1010.
Sometimes, we need our audio to shine with the imperfections of interesting analogue hardware, rather than the sterile perfection of a purely digital signal path; but we still want to use the benefits of modern DAWs and plugins to go about creating our music. It was with this in mind that we sought out the sample moguls at Cyclick and Groove Criminals to put together this huge pack, spiked with the sound of analogue equipment, exclusive to readers.
What you get in Analogue Circuits is a massive collection of beats, loops, basslines, FX and even multisampled instruments, all spat through a diverse selection of analogue gear – everything from dictaphones to high-end studio processors – to rough them up and give them some personality. Throw some of these samples into your next track as some spicy ear candy, for an atmospheric intro or breakdown, or however else you see fit.
Cyclick
We caught up with Robbie Stamp at Cyclick HQ for a cup of tea (virtually, of course), to see how his electric fingers have moulded this collection of pro-quality samples.
“Everything has passed through at least two serial analogue circuits before re-entering the digital realm,” he says, pushing his way to the kitchen through a low-hanging soldering-iron chandelier. “The result is a collection of rhythm and instrument loops as well as 12 folders of drum kit hits (six kits piped through two different analogue processes).
“We created five analogue chains using gear such as the GSSL compressor, a Moogerfooger RingMod, an Electro-Harmonix PolyPhase and a Focusrite ISA828. The equipment in the chains was pushed to bring each into distortion, and we set up our JDK R24 EQ with nearly matching cuts and boosts at both low and high ends, leading to large phase shifts for some interesting tonality.”
Robbie connects a patch cable between a teapot and his mouth, and offers one to us. We decline.
“After setting the five chains up as external plugins in Nuendo, strapped across group bus channels, we sent the musical material through them, piping guitar riffs, basslines, keyboard and percussion loops in, and getting them out imbued with each chain’s unique analogue whiff.
“Each loop reacted differently to the five processing chains, and we’ve chosen the best two for each, marking them as ‘A’ and ‘B’ in the file names.”
Hook up with Robbie and give him a shout about these samples: @CyclickBob.
Groove Criminals
Oli Bell from Groove Criminals has been adding beats and classic 303 bass synth to his analogue circuits and coming up with the following…
“All the drum loops were processed in one of three ways,” reckons Oli, scuttling around his dusty lab to find his favourite one-microFarad
capacitor. “We sent some to cassette via a consumer Yamaha tape deck, making sure we sent the input signal into the red, before recording them back into the Mac.
“Getting more lo-fi with the tape, we also recorded a bunch of beats on a vintage Realistic mini cassette dictaphone. The last set of beats was run through all manner of overdrives and distortion pedals, ranging from vintage fuzz, handmade boutique distortion, 80s classic rock distortion, and cheap-as-chips budget pedals.”
Oli beckons his assistant to fetch a beaker of snare sounds before describing this pack’s drum hits. “These one-shot samples used similar tape processing, but with the addition of some samples from a couple of 80s classic digital machines and the Alesis HR-16, which we sent to 1/4" tape via our Tascam reel-to-reel.
“The 303-style loops came from two sources: the analogue FAT Freebass 383 and the Roland MC-09 phrase lab (which is a 303-emulation secret weapon). Both of them were distorted using the same array of overdrive and distortion pedals as the beats.
“We also recorded some loops from the MiniBrute onto the reel-to-reel, including some nice driven tape compression and the SH-101 through a Roland Space Echo, again driving the tape in the delay.”
Also included in this collection is a set of Bonus Analogue samples care of Groove Criminals. Enjoy!