Produced by Spectrasonics
Roland, SampleCell, Akai/Emu, Kurzweil and Audio

Distorted Reality is the first release that we've looked at from the sample CD producers Spectrasonics. Spectrasonics have been around since 1994 and are headed by Roland's Chief Sound Designer, Eric Persing, and have built up a very high reputation for their sampling products from both a sonic and creative standpoint. Even to the extent when I've had two other rival sample CD companies comment on their quality!

Distorted Reality was one of the first Spectrasonics releases from 1995, and is described as "Distorted Reality is a one-of-a-kind library that explores an experimental world of extraordinary colours. Featuring Cutting Edge Textures, FX, Batterie & Loops; from altered 3-dimensional atmospheres transformed via true harmonic Sound Morphing, to incendiary fuzz mutations exploding with corrosive energy. Trance-inducing ambiences, visceral grunge loops, enormous modular drones and astonishing timbral contortions make this an essential resource for the producer, composer, sound designer & industrialist in search of the magic noise!".

We're reviewing the Kurzweil CD ROM version, the other CD ROM versions are essentially similar, but vary in the number of patches etc., and all versions contain quite a lot more material than the audio version. Spectrasonics specialise in the CD ROM versions of their sampling products and do offer an upgrade from the audio to the CD ROM version if required. I would certainly recommend the CD ROM version if this is an option for you.

The CD has been produced by Eric Persing, with additional material from Ryeland Allison. Persing as mentioned above is the main sound man at Roland who know a thing or two about synthetic music production and additionally lists credits with such acts as Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, Celine Dion and Chaka Khan. Ryeland Allision's biography reads "Arranges simultaneous particle vibrations to proclaim "Resonance". Resonance is to some extent qualified to contented apportion within disassociative continuance, preceding space. When converged in a synchronous locus, he at once regenerates toward fluidic empathy." Exactly!

The CD comes double shrink wrapped with a separate licence agreement inside the first shrink wrap. Much better than the ones you can't read until you open the CD which includes the line "By opening this CD you agree...". It's pretty standard except that the product requires a specific written credit in any liner notes.

The documentation is very nice, a 24 page booklet with information on the producers, background, format specific issues etc. The actual contents of the CD are a little patchy with the Kurzweil version, though with the Roland and Akai versions there is a separate booklet which can also be found on the Spectrasonics website. Here we essentially just get a category listing which isn't terribly useful. There is a note stating that "If you need a comprehensive sound listing, please contact Spectrasonics specifying what format you have". A quick printout from the Spectrasonics website of the Akai version though makes things a little clearer, but still not ideal. You'll need realistically 16MB of sampler memory to make the most of this collection, if you've 8 Mb you'll still be able to access a big slice of the samples but there are numerous examples that are between 8-16Mb.

The equipment list used to produce the CD takes up two pages of small print, so comprehensive is an understatement ! Aside from the Roland products one might expect there are host of others from Moog, Waldorf, Korg and Oberheim....

On to the sounds...

The CD is broken down into no less than 25 categories.

Ambient (66.5Mb) - The collection starts off with a wonderfully evocative collection of slow, evolving pad sounds. Excellent movement and evolution of the samples in places, from simple breathy type pads to complex raindrop type effects, deep rumbles to alien landscapes. The patches are subdivided in to Dreamies, Evolvers, Sweepers, Lunar and Voyages which very neatly sum them up. Would be perfect for ambient/space type music or for anyone looking for a kind of "spaceship passes a planet to find something ominous behind it" kind of effect. Excellent, I spent way too much time with this section !

Bells (2Mb) - Couple of very nice "bell" sounds, excellently ominous at lower octaves.

Beats (47.6Mb) - Loops that range from a mere 39 BPM to 170 BPM, fairly well spread over the entire range of 60 of samples. There is quite a variety to the loops, from straight quite light sounding dance loops, to madly distorted industrial types. There are certainly some cracking loops in here, with some great "big" sounds, interspersed with some rather more anonymous ones. Compared to much of the rest of the collection I wasn't particularly inspired too much here, perhaps suffering from the excellence of other parts of the collection.

Chords (.2Mb) - Vinyl cracking soaked kind of siren effect...

DJ Noises (2Mb) - Maybe once human voices made to sound like a speeded up and slowed down effect loop, together with a stop effect, not bad at all.

Drones (18.3Mb) - Another truly excellent collection of synthetic sounds, dark deep slightly evolving sounds that rumble and shake the foundations. Some of the rumbles are almost sub sonic, while the marginally more upscale drones sound wonderfully ominous, ideal for creating an atmosphere.

Drums (31.7Mb) - Not your regular dance kits here !, the "Space" and "Ambient" kits feature huge drums sounds dripping in effects. Cavernous really meaning that. Apart from these there are some Distorted Reality versions of some classic Roland TR505, 808 and 909 kits that certainly add a little variation to these sounds. Whilst I wouldn't see people making a whole loop from these kits they would be ideal for adding some variation or as a spot effect, another excellent section and rather more useful that the collection of individual hits that some sample CD's include.

Fuzz (38.3Mb) - Another excellent collection of synthetic sounds, from the jet engine of "Thruster", via the menacing "Snaris" to the axe man overload of "Power Hungry", lots of distortion and synth meets the fuzz box sounds here. (Insert your own word for excellent ).

Hits (29.3Mb) - Big sounding hits, characterised by varied and interesting tail/sustain effects. Real attention grabbers and speaker busters these !

Human (7.7Mb) - Three very good effects, a baby voice, a manic distorted crowd and a haunting vocal type pad.

Mallets (3.5Mb) - A couple of big soft ambient type hits, ideal for adding a spot effect or rhythm element.

Metals (4.4Mb) - Just a handful of metal saw type pads and great, "hitting a piano string with a hammer" type sound

Noise(19.3Mb) - Not too far in places from the Ambient and Drone effects from earlier, more great sustained sounds, perhaps a little more distorted and effected, ideal for something a little more extreme.

Pads (32.7Mb) - Half a dozen or so stunning pads, from very delicate "Ethereal" pads to a powerful "Fripp" pad with a couple of distorted ones thrown in for good measure.

Pulsating (24.3Mb) - Repeating pulsating samples that give the impression of alien machines and building rhythms. Very good.

Reverse (1.5Mb) - Couple of reversed effects, liked the "custard pie to the face" one especially.

Synth Bass (37.2Mb) - Just a handful of big synth bass sounds, some sourced from a TB 303 and a Minimoog I'd guess, but processed in the Distorted Reality style to produce something rather more different from normal. Very good.

Guitar FX (37.7Mb), Orchestral FX (25.4Mb), Sci-Fi FX (57.6Mb) - I've lumped these together as they're variants of the same theme. In each section you get a variety of spot effects and abstract sustained tones, from lasers, to stabs, bumble bees to cartoon effects. Whilst of course nowhere near a wide a selection as a specialist collection there is a surprising comprehensive selection of very good sounds here, how some might be used of course is a different matter !

Sequences (4.3Mb) - Half a dozen short arpeggio type samples, the running ones sound very Tangerine Dreamesque, very good, not so sure about the others, perhaps a little too distorted for my taste.

Sweepers (61.4Mb) - As the name suggests another comprehensive collection of more sustained sampled that are sweeped up, down and around, from a planet slowly turning to something flashing past your face.

Synths (64.8Mb) - Some BIG synth sounds mixed up in here, the Mega* series of patches in particular are very powerful sounds. Probably more use of multisamples here than elsewhere in the collection, very thoughtfully there are a variety presented in many cases so if memory is tight you can choose a less memory hungry version of the sample. Very good collection, that I'd be praising even more if it weren't for the even greater excellence of some of the other sections.

Talking (2Mb) - Four wildly distorted speech samples that are on the edge of being legible, not bad at all.

Tekno (1.3Mb) - Two "kits" one for Techno type effects and another for Jungle, not just regular percussive elements but also a whole range of short spot effects.

Voices (28.9Mb) - More choral and sustained than the Talking section earlier this much larger collection feature some excellent pad sounds together with some more disturbing distorted variants, some of which are quite distinctly human in origin, others bear only most passing resemblance to anything human. Yet another very good collection.

Summary - Audio quality is excellent, a couple of samples have some obvious vinyl type noise on them which one presumes is an intended effect. There has been a lot of processing involved in most of the samples, big reverbs, fuzz boxes and distortion are much in evidence. It isn't as extreme as some other similar CD's in the main though a few samples do have their moments. I would certainly consider this less of an industrial collection than some others in this category.

Distorted Reality was one of the first "Weird Stuff" type CD's to be produced that are now proving to be quite popular a genre in their own right. Perhaps the best testament that I can give to the CD is that it took about twice as long to review as a sample CD usually takes. Why?, Because I spent way too much time playing around with the sounds. Although the collection is firmly in the heavily processed weird sounds category many of the sounds just invite playing with, which I accepted way too many times. Despite the abstract nature of many of the sounds there is still an underlying musical usability current throughout the collection.

There is hardly a weak link in the CD and the sections such as Ambient, Drone, Fuzz, Hits, Pads and Synths are just excellent with some real stunning sounds. Many of the other sections are just a step behind. You can tell the effort that has gone into the collection, lots of subtle complexity, varying modulation and velocity effects, patch variations and so forth that just demonstrate the work behind the project apart from what your ears are obviously telling you.

Down sides...phew. Nope been sitting here for three minutes and can't think of anything worth mentioning. I suppose that five years after it's initial release a few of the "rave/techno/jungle" sounds are a little dated, though as these make up probably less than 1% of the collection I wouldn't let that worry you, otherwise you would certainly call this a timeless collection.

If your making ambient, space, new age, soundtrack type tracks I'd put this right at the top of your sample CD wishlist, for anyone else who's looking add something extra to their tracks, an experimental or unusual edge then I'd recommend the collection without hesitation as there is just a whole mountain of really quite excellent genreless sounds here ready to be used.

Value for money 10/10
Usability 10/10
Documentation 7/10
Sonic Quality 10/10.


Should be on every samplist's wish list - 9.5/10