Electron Bomb

Sweetwater.
Format : Kurzweil CDRom

Review by Clif Marsiglio
Monday, March 13, 2000

With current memory prices low and resources for free or cheap samples readily available, most of forget that our Synth is actually a Synth. Having recently been overwhelmed by a few works that rely only on the Kurzweil 2000's ROM, I decided to look more patches that utilize only the synth architecture and built in ROM. What I found simply amazed me.

About a year back, I attended a Sweetwater VAST Seminar and received a disc for my troubles. I'd listened to it and over the years used it as my textbook for creating patches to go along with my personal samples. When I had first bought my synth, it was simply a device to mangle my sound creations in real time, nothing too complex but enough to give static samples new life. For the first year or two, I didn't even bother with the built in patches as I felt apathy for any thing that everyone else had access to.

Those years are behind me and getting the most of my device is the most important rule I have for any of my instruments. Do you want to know what your synth can do? Pull up Sweetwater's "Electron Bomb" and find out. This disc is made up solely of Vast Programs by five very talented programmers, including Sonik's own Brian Cowell. The other programmers on this disc are Gary Phillips, Daniel Fisher, Andrew Schlesinger and Bruce Duncan.

This disc contains hundreds of sounds in various files such as Synthetica Volume 1 and 2, DEEPRAVED, and Techno/Ambient. Also included is the Official Brian Cowell Collection as available for download at http://www.sweetwater.com/. These patches are enough to give your instrument new life and are a tribute to these programmers who are constantly able to bring new life out of a 10 year old machine.

If you are one that loves and uses synth sounds, this is probably the disc for you. Although the sounds are starting to sound a bit dated - these sounds are at least 2 years old - a lifetime in contemporary sound design, one can get a lot of usage out of these.

DEEPRAVED, as the title would imply, is a bank of 100 sounds by Andrew Schlesinger exploring the Rave and Industrial world. Nowadays, these could almost be described as Classic sounds. These types of sounds have infiltrated not only these genres but the everyday music of today and thus could be used anywhere.

The Synthetica Volumes by Gary Phillips are not these, they have a definite edge to them that would work in a NiN/Heavy Metal Electronica type of environment. Techno-Synch has to be my favorite in this area with its bubbling electric blade cutting through your ears. Unfortunately, I couldn't load up volume 2 because I don't have the Contemporary Rom which I can imagine would be even more of the same.

Techno/Ambient, programmed by Bruce Duncan, rounds out the main part of this disc. It seems like a cross between the other two sections. In a sense these are more Meat and Potato type Analogue-style sounds. There are some real gems in this area and if you are into the Analogue sound, this may be the area you want to use.

The last few sections of this disc are sounds that can be found online and demos, not to belittle them in any way. Daniel Fisher and Brian Cowell feature some of their best 'Free' works and put them in a very convenient location. Daniel features several examples of his programming mastery such as his SW KB3, the VAST B3 simulator that was said to be impossible to be done. Brian offers several of his now famous patches that he had offered to the world several years back. As always, Brian delivers the goods with his programming and I'm not saying that just because he is a partner in Sonik. :-)

If you are looking for new sounds that haven't been exploited by the masses yet, and are really into the Analogue/Programmed sounds, this is the disc for you. It takes little or no sample memory (a few patches 'cheat', such as the sampled foment sounds on Techno/Ambient) and the sounds load in seconds, unlike most of the patches you will find out there.

Overall, these sounds take up only a few megs, but don't let that fool you, they are more full of life than most other discs filled to the brim with samples. You'd be hard pressed to find another disc in this price range that offers as much programming and getting as much out of your machine as this.