Glam Rock
Electronic Musician, February 2011
www.emusician.com
"This is definitely a specialized library—but Glam Rock accomplishes what it sets out to do, and then some."
Glam Rock is a ’70s time machine—think T.Rex, Gary Glitter, Bowie, etc.—arranged into four sections: 19 construction kits with three drums/bass/guitar variations per kit, 18 break parts, 16 intros, and 10 collections of additional rhythm guitar, solo guitar, bass, and organ licks. The loops are deconstructed into individual looped parts (including dry and room drums) that map across a keyboard; this gives the option within a DAW environment to program parts, or play them in real time.
The loops play back via Ueberschall’s Elastik audio engine, which offers pitch/time stretching, per-loop filtering, reverse, stand-alone operation, and other features. While not the only possible workflow, the more I use Elastik, the more I like to combine improvised playing with bouncing loops to audio, which I can then drag around an arrangement.
The playing nails the glam musical genre, but the production quality is bigger and more in tune with today’s musical aesthetics. As a result, individual loops can slide easily into various types of rock music. This is definitely a specialized library—but Glam Rock accomplishes what it sets out to do, and then some.
By Craig Anderton |
Fri, 18 Feb 2011