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WWW, JULY
2014 - In what could very well be the first
review of the product, we take a look at Mad
Professor's Reel to Reel Reggae Part Two as
it was just released by Loopmasters. They've
been visiting the Professor in his Ariwa
studio once again and came back with some
very, very interesting material. Read all
about it, at least download a demo for free
and find out how your productions can be
served and improved by the package.
Without a
doubt, part two goes further than it's
predecessor. It has several things that you
could only crave for and probably did, which
gets clear at the beginning. So let's start
there. Unlike part one, you can choose to
buy certain segments rather than the whole
pack which can come in handy when you're not
able to purchase everything in one go or
when you're simply just interested in
certain aspects. Here they are:
- Drum
Loops
- Bass
Loops
- Music
Loops
- One
Shots (with sampler patches)
For this
review (and of course for the Dubroom's
musical productions) we've purchased the
Music Loops and the One Shots. For the drum
and the bass, we simply took a listen to the
streaming demo's and dived in the
downloadable 55 Mb free demo pack. In the
the knowledge that we're dealing here with
stuff from Mad Professor's Ariwa Sound
Studio, and with reference to Part
One, we find ourselves having a solid
foundation for our examination.
The first
thing you're looking for is stuff that
wasn't featured before. You're going to find
it, and the most striking are the two vocal
sections in the One Shots package. Lee Perry
fans, for example, have the choice to use
several, well, utterances by Scratch. Soaked
in echo's, that is. There are other vocals
as well, but don't look for Aisha's famous
riff as used by the Orb back in the days.
You will find some harmony, some female
vocals and some male. It's a bit disappointing
that there's hardly a dry part, but to those
that look for an instant vocal Dub vibe in
their tune this is a very much coveted
thing.
Take the
other vocal section. Very, very dry. Very,
very Mad Professor. Wait: it is the
Mad Professor. In what can easily be
recognized as an original move from
Loopmasters, they included no less than 5
1/2 minutes of Mad Professor talking about
his early works, his ideas and opinions
about Dub. Divided in 17 different files,
plus the ability to edit the audio in an
editor: this is really some thing that can
cause you to let your creativity go Beyond
The Realms Of Dub.
Next to a
fair amount of Dubscapes (dubby soundscapes)
to give you track an instant dub vibe, the
One Shots pack comes with interesting Drum
kits and other samples for bass, horns,
flute and loads more. You can use the
Sampler Patches or create your own, in any
case you will find some nice extra
instrumentation to your sampler's Sound
Patch collection.
The Music
Loops: A 360 Mb weight pack nicely organized
in Horn and Flutes, Keys (Piano/Organ),
Guitar and a folder named Mixed Music. This
folder contain skank or riddim sections with
all kinds of combinations of guitars,
piano's, organs and other instruments. The
guitar folder contains both skanks and the
"pucking" guitar, while the Horns
folder contains more themes than Part
One offered (even a riff from Michael
Prophet's Rootsman Album, one of the
all-time favorites of yours truly).
You have
nothing to lose and everything to gain from
a visit to Loopmaster's
product page of Mad Professor's Reel To Reel
Reggae Part Two. Listen to the excellent
3 minutes demo, perhaps even when you're not
a producer at all and landed on this page
thinking it's about a new Mad Professor
Album. Or check out the three musical
tracks produced only with material from Reel
to Reel Reggae Parts One and Two (with the
exception of the vocal parts).
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