AWARDED KEY BUY AWARD

SELECTION: 9
FORMATTING: 9
SOUND QUALITY: 10
DOCUMENTATION: 8
BANG FOR THE BUCK: 9


INFO OVERVIEW
Audio CD, Akai/E-mu, Kurzweil, Roland & SampleCell Mac CD-ROMs Unique and useful sounds created using cutting-edge virtual synthesis, combined with vintage analog techniques. The new Groove Menu system is great for fast remix needs.

It's been three long years since the original Distorted Reality first hit the street -- a product that won glowing praise for its creativity and sound design. To say that the follow-up was eagerly awaited would be an understatement. In the 1997 NAMM report, Keyboard called it "possibly the most anticipated sequel in soundware history." Well, folks, I have to strongly agree with that sentiment, as this second twisted journey into the realm of darkness and light from veteran producer Eric Persing takes bold new strides into territories that the original Distorted Reality only hinted at.

Eccentric, odd, strange, and other-worldly ... these are just a few adjectives I'd use to describe this tour de force collection of soundscapes. Animation is a strong point of DR2, as things here are anything but static. These samples move around the listener, snaking in and out from left to right, and behind and in front of the speakers. Some of them take more than half a minute to come back around to where you think they started. If you have even a slight interest in non- acoustic sounds for remix chores and film work, then you've come to the right place.

It's quite a sign of the times how DR2 was created. DR1 was made entirely using outboard processing and vintage synths, but 50% of DR2 was created within the virtual world of software synthesis processors, using such tools as V&I Software MetaSynth, BIAS SFX Machine, and Prosoniq SonicWorx, among others.

I tested DR2 using a Roland S-760 with 32MB of RAM, but Spectrasonics has formats for most of today's popular samplers. How does the new kid compare to the original? For me, these two discs are a truly marriage made in heaven and, er, hell. Heaven thanks to the lush pads, beds, and ambient textures that abound throughout; hell because of the killer twisted grooves, drones, and sweeper patches. Almost every patch on DR2 stimulated my creative process. A big addition to DR2 (compared to the DR1 sampler-specific CD-ROM versions) is the inclusion of mod wheel effects such as filter sweeps, panning, and crossfading.

Here are a few of the standout samples I came across on DR2: From the Ambient group "Distant," "Radiant," "Tranquil" and "Somber" offer endless, ethereal loops in a style similar to Brian Eno's mid-'70s experiments. All of the Drone and Sweeper volumes are chock-full of instant mini sci-fi movie score ideas. Others such as "Chaos," "Mangle Orchestra," and just about all of the beats and grooves are wild animated trip-hop escapades.

Greg Rule put DR2 to use as well, saying, "It wasn't a question of which samples I should use, but which ones I shouldn't use; there's so much excellent material to choose from." Some of his favorites were "the dry, distortion rhythm loops, like 'Fuzz Pocket.' Trent Reznor would be proud." He also gave a thumbs-up to "the sweeping sound effects in the Reverse category. Great for transitions between verses and choruses, and so on -- á la Ilio's TranceFusion CD. And love those gnarly sci-fi pads and effects in the Fuzz section. There's just too much great stuff here to single out."

A powerful new feature in DR2, called Groove Menu, is found in all of the formats except E-mu and the audio CD. Essentially it's an elaborate system of tuning offsets used to match the grooves to one another. In case you were wondering, the pitch of the grooves does change, but in the context of the DR2 collection, I feel this is a positive rather than a negative. I found the pitch differences to add a unique character to each loop. What's so cool about this feature is that you can play any of the grooves together (voice polyphony permitting), even in a chord, without worrying about one rhythm interfering with another. It's a simple innovation that lets you effortlessly exploit DR2's massive collection of bizarre and powerful groove textures. I came up with dozens of inspired rhythm tracks within the first few minutes of playing with it.

I had a very hard time coming up with anything to gripe about with DR2, but I did find a couple of minor things. First off, there's no mention of the Groove Menu in the manual, which I was told is due to the fact that at the time DR2 was being finalized, Spectrasonics was not sure they could technically achieve this for all formats, so they opted to leave it out. The good news is that there is now some very useful Groove Menu support info posted on the Ilio Web site.

The other was that there are no index points on the audio CD, making it hard to locate the individual samples. When I asked about this, I was told that Spectrasonics does not put index marks in their audio CDs anymore because that feature has been removed on all CD players manufactured in the last five years or so. Their reasoning is that these days very few people have CD players that support this feature.

Spectrasonics is revered for their high standards in the sampling CD world. The Distorted Reality series brings us closer to the exotic and weird domains than ever before. Greg agrees: "The original Distorted Reality is still considered one of the top sources for bizarre, evocative loops and effects. Spectrasonics had a lot to live up to with DR2, and they didn't disappoint." MIKAIL GRAHAM

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THE MAKING OF. . . .

If you've ever wondered how samples like those found on DR2 are created, we have a bit of a treat for you. Check out the four examples listed below as explained in detail by Distorted Reality 1 & 2 producer Eric Persing.

- BED:Behemoth. Painted a shifting additive sweep-type sound in MetaSynth. Processed harmonics and stereo image through a photo of red tomatoes. Added reverb with Hyperverb. Reversed the sample. With Hyperprism's Vocoder, I used this sample as a modulator of a stereo water sample. Subtly shifted carrier/modulator relationship in real time with Hyperprism's Blue Window. Transposed down. Result: Scary Loch Ness monster coming at you!

- HIT:Insurrection. Took Liquid Grooves loop and slowed it down by 200 bpm with Hyperprism's pitch-time changer. Routed Mac output through Leslie. Routed Leslie output through overdriven Minimoog filter. Played unrelated part on Minimoog. Added reverb. Result: Skidding heartbeat thuds.

- NOI:Neuroscan. Recorded an additive synth "drawing" performance from the GRM Tools program (Mac) to DAT. Recorded into Peak. Applied a different plug-in every few milliseconds drawn with radical Premiere envelopes. Repeated 100 times. Result: Head-spinning chaos.

- ORC:Shortwave Strings. Processed live Internet RealAudio playback of public-domain 1930s radio soap opera through Fireworx stereo ring modulator. Time-stretched result and transposed down three octaves. Result: Demented Mellotronish string pad that goes haywire.