Full Phat

Full Phat
AMG
Format : Audio CD
Review by Clif Marsiglio
Friday, September 25, 1998

This is yet another disc in the Terminalhead line, if ya liked the first two you are definitely going to like this release. It employs the same production, same timbres and keeps the same audience. These are the B sides. It isn't quite as good as the first, but still pretty damn usable. I have been abusing underfire since receiving it and this one in now in my perminent collection as well.

The first several tracks are labled Pete's Drum Loops. Pretty much all live drums in an assorted flavor of BPMS. All sound like they are done with the same kit and all sound like variations of each other. If you don't like the sound of the kit or it won't fit into the work you are doing you are out of luck. Grab another disc if all you want are the drums. I like the fact these are all of the same timbre and sound like they come from the same session. The only warning I'd give is that if you use these beats prominately in your work layer some other kits on top so ya don't end up sounding like you are remixing the same song over and over or at the very least edit and alter them with your favorite audio tools.

Tracks 14 through 19 are the gated FX. I love these sounds...I kinda hope AMG doesn't end up selling many of these discs as most of these will find their home on my hard drive. I would hate to hear my favorite sound on someone elses track. There's one on track 18 I've already got burned to one of my private cdroms in case anything ever happen to my HD...take these, loop them add some resonance and or other filters and just grab a key and open when ready. The only thing I don't like about these are they take some of the fun out of creating music as they are too easy to use. The disc advertises them as gated sounds for hooks and killer riffs. These can be flown into a remix without much work and if used properly, great sound tools.

Next two tracks are SH101 riffs. Raw is about the best thing I can call these. These are looped long enough the vary your output and find happy bits to play with. Grab some analogue and have at it. After this are the Dub FX. As with my other review of Terminalheads discs, the dub fx don't do much for me so I'm just going to mention that they are just sound fx mostly atonal kinda things that you can throw into your songs. Track 25 does have an unearthly ambient track that I may throw into my sampler, but I really don't have much use for these things.

Tracks 27 to 32 are rhythmic riffs and phrases. These are along the same lines as the gated fx and have lots of loops ready to fill in your empty spaces. Several months ago I didn't like sound loops of this nature prefering for the realms of creating everything but the actual sound by hand. I've since changed my mind and believe these are great inspiration and used correctly one does not have to sell ones soul to use loops. Alot of vendors like to take prepackaged 'songs' cut them up into different sections and claim you have something you can work creatively with. Sure with right tools one can take a zep tune and turn it into hip hop but most will take such tracks and rearrange and resplice the damn things and think they have done something new and creative.

Back to rhythmic riffs, these are good and raw. Produced just enough that you won't need too much clean up work, but not enough that you are going to build entire tracks out of them. Thank you Terminalhead?these will do just fine.

Effects 33 and 34 are hmmm...effects. Along the lines of the Dub Fx but less rythmatic and less musical. I like these more than the DubFx but still hard to think of a track from just these sounds. There is one ghostly hit on 34 thats just right on for something I was working on (too bad my song was crap to begin with.)

35 Synths are just synth sounds and rythms. Some you may be able to build as a patch thats useful for creating your own chords and song fragments, others are prebuilt for ya.

Gated scratches file the next several tracks. Definately not the scratches one would find on something like one would find on an old Run-DMC album. Not that I don't like these but you may have a hard time fitting these into preexisting tracks (or at least I did). I had to restructure stuff to get it to fly right, now for having great unnpredicted synchopation I like these but ya have to rememeber these aren't going to be exactly what ya expected. Then again I used to study the works of Charles Ives and several of his recorded compositions work on one disc but not on the same composition on another because of the unpredictability of how things would synch up. Being that most who use this disc are working in the recorded medium, they will have the advantage of being able to throw out the train wrecks and you will have plenty finding one that works for you.

40 - 48 are shortwave recordings. I don't know the legality of some of these tracks as some sound recognizable and copyright may be held and asserted by by others. The small print was too small to be read and the color contrasts didn't help much either. Maybe AMG can clear some of this up with better documentation of copyrights and ownership of such. Then again unless you are doing something offensive with a sample or get really popular you don't have to worry about getting sued. I think it was Negativeland that recently had their master tapes repossed by a disc manufacturer because they could not prove the legitimicy of their sources. Then again in all fairness to all parties involved in that situation they probably did infringe upon someones copyright (they always do). I likes their stuff anyhows.

The last tracks before the test tone are the pads and sweeps. Great bits of analogue sounding stuff that would work in Enyaesque works or just intros outros and breaks. Alot of these are not useful for synth patches as they stand (chords never work very well when you try to start moving around the tonic...nevermind you figure out the harmmonic theories yerself). Few will make great synth patches and some are only useful only at its original pitch. Overall you're likely to find something ya like in here is you try.

Overall I liked this disc. There are some things I like and some I didn't... when considering this disc to be a companion disc to the other Terminalhead these become moot points. The first Terminalhead disc I received I though had skipped about (sonically, not defectively) and tried to offer everything one would need to record this kinda music but not enough to make on happy if you were only looking for one thing.

For example the drums on this disc sound like variations of each other...when considering Underfire v.2 one sees you have twice the drum sounds to choose from. I like the synth stuff and would choose from this the limited amount of tracks this disc has to offer and those from the other discs in this series. If I were pricing this disc, I would price it as a companion piece and let it go a bit cheaper. One would probably make up in volume from anyone that had bought any other Terminalhead sampleware as this will nicely fill in any gaps they might find. I'm afraid if someone already has one of the others, at full price they might be tempted to buy something completely different and maybe expand their musical horizons.

Knowing what I do now, I'd have probably picked this up at full price but would have been tempted to look at something completely new. If you are a fan of the new alterno-electro rock, this disc will fit nicely into your collection. If you are a fan of the last disc, then get this as well.