Altsounds Review - Drum Machines 01

The drum sample, one of the most poignant objects when it comes to putting together loop based music.
The Drum Machines 01 sample pack gives you three drum packs in one - obviously saving you a few bob. The drum samples are taken from drum machines such as; Vermona DRM MK11, Jomox AIRBase99, Jomox MBase 11 and Jomox XBase999. That sounds all very fancy indeed, but are these drum machines any good? Do they have the bite to match the bark? There are 1400 drum hits in the Wave Alchemy Drum Machines pack, so more than enough to sink an electronic producers teeth into. Some of the hits have been wined and dined with high-end EQ and Empirical Labs Distressor - so these samples don't need fine tuning (unless you're creatively manipulating them).

The audio demo provided in the pack provides you with an idea of the different audio possibilities that can be achieved with WA Drum Machines. It's all sounds crisp and clean, with a very techno sound.

On Test
Due to this being a samples kit (not loops) it feels only right to hook these puppies up into an on screen sampler plug-in. For simplicity purposes, trial and testing - I'm using the trusty old Logic dog; The ESX24 Sampler. Alternatively you can obviously just drag and drop the samples into you Sequencing software. This gives you chance to have a flick through all of the drum machines samples available in the pack.
The beauty about the whole pack is the pure vast amount of audio clips that there are available. Each drum sample is pumped out and compressed to studio quality - there is just so much to choose from. You can even produce a whole track just from using one part of the kit.

The Bottom Line
An unbelievable sample pack for your money, every producer making electronic, dub, trance should invest in Wave Alchemy Drum Machines. The range is all there, the quality is there and all the sounds stick to their Drum machine routes. When you think about the amount of variation you have within a couple of CD's full of samples, rather than a huge analogue sampler to have to carry around it starts to blow your mind. Anyone looking for a more authentic acoustic pack should steer clear of this one, although it's worth buying just for the bloody price!

Wave Alchemy have done themselves proud with this one, the samples are high quality - don't get me wrong there are a few duds, but there is so much to choose from. You would have thought that converting the anologue sounds from the samplers would make a huge difference in quality, but the guys over at the lab have worked this and made it their own. Well done, and thankyou!