Steve Steven Guitar Sample Collection

Steve Steven Guitar Sample Collection
EastWest
Format : Audio CD
Review by Clif Marsiglio
Friday, August 21, 1998

Steve Stevens was the guitarist for one of the 80's greatest rockers, Billy Idol and was infact responsible for alot of the sound and mood of Idol's records. This disc is nothing more than all his signature sounds, chords and otherwise for the world to use. As a result of this, the liner note menton that any usage of these sounds need both written approval of East-West as well as the appropriate credits give to Steve Stevens... I kinda believe that once you give up sample rights to the world one doesn't need to particularly need to credit someone. If the disc were priced closer to somewhere near the $25 point I could see this kinda licencing (yeah yeah, its a freelicense but if you produce something EW doesn't like they could refuse to give written authorization). Several years ago, George Clinton released several outtake discs for the sole purpose of sampling. These were priced around $12 a piece and required a seperate license if you wanted to use it in a commercial recording. This I can understand...well enough bout my bitching about licencing issues.

I got this disc several years ago when I first got into sampling and then decided to get rid of all guitarists out of my life for good...since then I decided this is not entirely a good thing so I took up guitar myself and inturn sample myself quite a bit. For someone who can't play guitar or doesn't have several thousand $$$s worth of equipment this disc is a godsend. This disc not only documents every chord (played chromatically for a few octaves), every effect and cabinet, the guitar it was played on but also loop points. The loop points are good in theory but I've nver been able to get them to come out correctly usually choosing to pick my own. The problem is that one never quite knows where the sample is going to start and if you are sampling every damn note into your machine one is likly to record at a grungier bandwidth than the standard cd quality (well ok ram is cheap now adays, but alot of us still have older machines we like to hook up every so often).

The first section is played on a Music Man Edward Van Halen Guitar into two marshall amps sound nice and thick. Again think of the older Billy Idol stuff or even Dirty Dianna by Michael Jackson (great friggin song even if MJ did it). Everything is sampled from D1 to G3. The next section are the chugs. They kinda sound week on the disc, but once you throw them into your machine and start jammin with them your going to hear their potential.

Next on the agenda, ya have Dive Bombs...yeah those cheeseass metal sounds of the 80's. These are great and they seldom sound the same as the last. Plenty of variety to choose from. The sound very SSish. Good feedback and ambiences. Some are a bit too cut off as I would have liked to hear the ambience ring out a little longer but one can play with these. More Special effects follow the dive bombs. Ya get fuzz scrapes...ya know where ya take yer pick and drag it hard edged against the coils of your guitar strings...throw on a bit of delay and ya gots some real metal sounds. Every fucking metal player in the world does this at some point...chiched yeah but then again why buy this disc if you didn't want some chiches. These sfx tracks are nuthing more than chiches put to disc...I still haven't mastered most of these on my own so when I need some bad cheese I pull up a few kurz patches I've developed with these samples and trigger the fuckers.

Tracks 19 - 22 are the harmonic drags...just a bunch of noises to throw in for the authentic sounds we all need to make the guitar sound real. The Doubles (track 23 - 25) are about the same kinda statments but with an even great pull on the strings. The triads of track 26 start getting back to the normal chord like sounds we are all used to...unfortuantely only one octave of these but then again if your playing chords on the guitar your not always lookin for range. These are cleanly recorded and show enough variation to make your tracks sing. From here we go into the open and power chords...again meat and potatoes kinda stuff. If I can't get a clean recording from my geetars at home I go right for this disc (then again since purchasing the sansamp, I don't deal with micing no more...think this box is a must for any person trying to create their own samples or variations on others samples...it can go from a warming effect to analogue sounding to bad digital with only a few turns of the knobs).

Lead Guitar Tracks 33 - 40. These are very clean and ring out enough for one to loop them at a number of places. Again they were recorded with the EVH guitar, but this time into a peavey 5150 (more van halen influences???) amp and a Marshall 1984B Cabinet. I cannot strees how clean these sounds are. Some kinda end before I'd like them too as there seems to be some kinda interesting sound going on, but as I said, you can find plenty of looppoints to choose from.

Tracks 41 through 48 are done with a new guitar...hey the first one got us halfway through the disc. More than enough to keep the same kinda vibe goin. These are the ultra Fuzz Guitar samples player on a Pensa Surh gtr with MXR Distror+, Fuzz Face and Univibe Pedals. Several other auxilary exects are listed but they don't have that much impact on the sound. This is the really thin Stevens sound but I can't recal any songs that used it off the top of my head...I don;t like them as well as the thicker ones earlier on in the disc, but they serve their purpose well.

Tracks 49 to 50 are FLESH Chords... same gtr but this time run stright to a direct box. Clean and almost acoustic in nature. Slowly picked chords but I'd have a hard time putting these into anything I'd write. Too much personality...you'd have to restructure your track to these. No chord listings are given so its a guess what exactly he is playing. Once you get to the Minor 9ths (51 - 52) they list the chord names but this isn't a great help on the other section. Univibe chords follow and for the most part sound like an effected version of the flesh and minor 9ths. These chords all lend and ambience and a washed out kinda sound to the listener but once you get to the univibes it strickes you in the face. Almost a transition sound. Along the same lines is the Pitch Shifted chords. Same guitar but with more fx. I couldn't immaging transitioning to these with either the flesh or univibes but they sound great.

After these come the harmonics and the wah chords (with pitch shift). Again thes sound great...the producers really know how to get a good sound out of just a guitar...well I mean just a guitar coming for a synth background...this is not just a guitar by any stretch of the imagination. As a nonguitarist-guitarist I can play certain sounds but never get the exacting results of these even if I had all the right tools. The next several tracks go into Tremolo Guitar. These are recorded at E1 through C#5. These are all single notes and I have to add that if you have a sampled trem going on, you are going to want every note you play to have the same trem. This just wont work by pitch shifting a sample up or down a few notes. It just don't sound right. These come out perfectly everytime (well if'n ya have enough ram left)...The same goes for the next few octaves of the single noted univibe guitar. Kinda boring sounding on the disc, but they make a great patch.

Tracks 76 to 83 are the Sitars, the Jerry Jones Coral Electric Sitar to be exact. All single noted and let to ring. Most of these have a loop notation but I wouldn't loop these...just let them play as it stands. Same with the Ramirez 1976 Flaminco Guitar...I have to admit, anyone can play single notes on a guitar but it does add to the collection. the Flaminco guitar is presented both fingered and picked for your enjoyment...at the very least it will give you a good acoustic to work from.

This disc is well worth the money if you are after a certain type of sound. I would have to split it up into three sections and almost eveything within each section will work well with the others in that area. The EVH Guitar (first half of the disc) is the most Steve Stevens sounding, next with the Flesh Chords and other argeggiated type sounds, and finally the single noted Sitar and Flaminco guitars that culd have just been left off this disc (hey if they're going to fill spce I'd be glad to take a great multisampled acoustic...I'm not complaning). I would recomend this disc to anyone needing a good pop guitar...for 90's agressive heavy metal styling look elsewhere (and its easy enough for a nonguitarist to figure out anyways..turn up the distrotion, figure out how to play a powerchord...look it up...and add a small bit of delay. Do the same thing for a few mutes, record direct and you have 90's agressive...) For emulating SS and the whole Billy Idol sound this will get you there in style.