| WWW,
July 2014 - They have absolutely
nothing to do with (DUB) Reggae as far as
the online information gathered for this
review has shown, but that doesn't really
mean anything as far as (DUB) Reggae goes. A
little cryptic perhaps, but nevertheless
quite accurate when it comes to the three
free female vocal packs reviewed in this
article.
When King
Tubby started to develop the Art of DUB, he
started a technique that would be
incorporated in just about every electronic
musical genre you can think of, from Hip Hop
to EDM.
A few styles like Dubstep or Drum 'n' Bass
even have Reggae phrases incorporated in
their names. This mere fact alone completely
justifies and explains why it could be
interesting for your online (DUB) Reggae
producer to browse a little bit through
sample sites aimed at producers of EDM.
One aspect
of Electronic Dance Music is the use of
female vocals, very similar to the way
vocals are used in Dub: lyrics, words, lines
and adlibs drop in and out at strategic
moments in the mix. This opens up a door of
possibilities for the producer of DUB and
even your non-DUB Reggae, because the
availability of vocal packs for EDM
producers is pretty wide.
For this
review, we take a look at three different
female vocal packs. The packs can be
downloaded for free and they include a
license for use in your productions, even
commercial releases are possible. One nasty
point: one of the packs can only be
downloaded by registered members of Facebook
but then you could get a friend who is
registered at that website to do it for you.
First,
there are two different packs containing the
talented and skilled voice of UK based
singer MANDY
EDGE. They are available for free
download at the SAMPLE RADAR website, you
can find
the first pack carrying 426 mB weight here,
and the
second one (237 mB) can be downloaded from
this page. Then there is a
free Vocal sample pack from UK based Dubstep
Singer/Producer AIVA, which you can get
after liking her on Facebook. That's just
very unfortunate for those of us who do not
have a Facebook account but then, again, you
could ask someone who does.
All three packs contain a really
impressive set of vocal lines, phrases and
adlibs. They
also contain lines and phrases that you
might not want to use: slackness is easy to
extract but then, slackness is always an
easy road. In the same time, slackness is
such a thing where a self-inflicted
blind spot usually functions very well. In
fact, such a blind spot in necessary for all
conscious artists wherever they perform or
produce so let's
take-this-truth-to-be-self-evident.
The samples
come with information about pitch and BPM
included in the filenames and folders, some
are dry and others come with effects. The
effected samples can easily be incorporated
in an already existing tracks you might have
made, the influence of DUB is not just undeniable
present, these are dubbed
vocals.
When used
with care and respect for the singers, the
way it should be done anywhere and
everywhere, are -literary- priceless
additions to your sound library. They can
add an extra dimension to your track(s), and
-depending on your creativity- that extra
dimension does not have to be a "techno
vibe" or something like that.
Just
listen to the following 30 seconds of so
with a Dubroom riddim and two vocal lines
from the Sample Radar packs:
That's just two lines out of really
hundreds that you can pick and insert.
Creative minds will probably hear their own
riddim behind it. Or take this track
featuring two lines taken from AIVA's pack
(among other things described here):
You can even say that just these two lines
give a very special and atmospheric elements
to the riddim, even an identifiable element
in the sense that the lines keep ringing in
your head after the track is done. Three
excellent vocal packs, well, more than
excellent. These are very talented and
skilled singers that control their voice in
an impressive way. When done respectfully,
the samples can bring your riddim(s) further
without dragging everything into slackness
or other evidently cheap abuse of the female
part of our human race.
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