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Fans and supporters continue to fill the Big Fish Audio booth!

Jazz icon Stanley Clarke stops by to show support.

Singer Daniel Bedingfield used Big Fish Audio sounds on his upcoming release.

Grammy Award winning Gospel legend Smokie Norful stopped by with Grammy Award winning producer Josiah Bell to get the latest from Vir2 Instruments and Big Fish Audio.

David Das demo’d Fractured: Prepared Acoustic Guitars at the Big Fish Audio Booth at NAMM 2012 with attendees who were eager to figure out all the juicy details of its potential.  Fractured is Vir2′s brand new instrument that is full of creative and esoteric presentations of acoustic guitars.  This new VI contains around 2.3 GB of compressed samples and over 100 patches that will be sure to spark your creative imagination.  These patches are broken down into 5 different categories: Chromatic Kits, Tempo Sync’d, Melodic, Drum Kits and Pads & FX.  The response to this follow up to Violence was an overwhelming response.

Big Fish Audio kicked off the first day of the 2012 NAMM show.

Check us out at the 2012 NAMM Show! Big Fish Audio will be at the 2012 NAMM Show showing off the latest in loops and virtual instruments. Visit us at booth 6514 in Hall A to catch live demos of Neo Soul Keys, Vir2′s latest instrument Fractured plus upcoming releases. Hear the latest loop titles including Ambient Skyline 2, Off the Hook Legacy, Rock Cinema, Country Roots, Guitar Soundscapes and more. Also on hand will be Ultimate Sound Bank with live demos of their new releases Gypsy Jazzy, Emulation II, Ultimate Electro House and more. Get an up close and personal look at their UVI Workstation 2 software!

NEW AT NAMM 2012!

Check back here for news and updates throughout the 2012 NAMM weekend!

Happy 2012 everybody.   With 2011 behind us we reflect on a great year of amazing titles.  We put out some outstanding new titles last year, including our top selling hip hop library The Crate.  In addition, our 2011 releases include some great rock titles like Indie: Rock Collection Vol.1 and Pop Rocks!.  We also created pop libraries like Risque’: Pop Kits and Off the Hook Radio Pop, as well as a number of anticipated sequels to some of our top selling libraries like, Epic Drums II, Suite Grooves 2, and Kings of the South Vol.2.  2011 was definitely a jam packed year for our production staff and 2012 certainly holds more of the same.

This month we want to highlight a Hip Hop and R&B product that is jam packed with amazing sounds just waiting to be used to their fullest potential.  Off the Hook Legacy is latest in the long line of  ”Off the Hook” products.  Since the year 2000 we have released 12 “Off the Hook” products that all feature a team of A level producers who don’t just create the “same-ol” hip hop and R&B sounds.  This stuff is truly legit with a sound  that would hold up to any big label production quality.  Off the Legacy features 8GB of premium loops and sounds with 16 Hip Hop kits and 19 R&B kits.  A ton of time goes into not only the production of these kits but also processing each sound with great precision, allowing you to focus on the music and not spending hours just trying to get a mix that will work.  These loops and sounds come in acidized wav, rex, and apple loop formats, as well as our custom kontakt KLI format.

The final month in 2011 saw Guitar Soundscapes hold on to the top Loops spot for the second month in a row. Closing in next was Epic Drums II, Suite Grooves 2 and Country Roots. Also in the Top 10 Loops for the first time this December was Ambient Skyline vol. 2. This offering is the second in a series of ambient & cinematic chill-out loops, rhythm beds and samples. 6 GB of 24-bit original content, 796 loops and 892 one-shots allow you to quickly create the perfect musical bed and ambient masterpiece.

On the Instruments side, Fractured: Prepared Acoustic Guitar managed to reach the top position within a few days of its release in December! This new collection of instruments featuring creative and esoteric samples and manipulations of various acoustic guitars is innovative and ear-catching. Fractured features 2.3GB of compressed samples and more than one hundred new instruments with numerous variations and effects built into each. Also in the Instruments Top 10 for the first time was Gypsy Jazzy. This new library from UVI  is the first exclusive product dedicated to Gypsy Jazz, blending the traditional with modern genres like electro-swing and swing-house.

TOP 10 LOOPS	TOP 10 INSTRUMENTS
1. Guitar Soundscapes	1. Fractured: Prepared Acoustic Guitar
2. Epic Drums II	2. MOJO: Horn Section
3. Suite Grooves 2	3. Electri6ity
4. Country Roots	4. Q
5. Pop Rocks	5. Acoustic Legends HD
6. Rock Cinema	6. RiG: Urban Workstation
7. Big Bad Horns	7.Violence
8. Ambient Skyline 2	8. World Impact: Global Percussion
9. Quirky Guitars vol. 2	9. Gypsy Jazzy
10. Americana Country	10. Tutti

Why we made it in the first place?

We wanted to capture the wide range of styles and emotions that the electric guitar is currently creating in todays’s Film and TV.

We love creating libraries that capture that nostalgic sound; but from the very beginning of our planning for this library we new that there was a real need for creating a guitar based library that would really be able to capture what is current, fresh and happening right now in Film and TV.

The goal was to create a library that would be equally adept at setting the mood in any type of media whether it be Film, TV, Sound Design, Documentaries, Games, Film Trailers, Commercials and of course Contemporary Cinematic and Ambient records.

So we looked to see what composers and musicians like Michael Brooke, Tyler Bates, Coldplay, Hans Zimmer, Explosions in the Sky, John Murphy, Gustavo Santaolalla and way too many others were doing.

How it was made?

Because there’s such a wide range of styles we wanted to present in this library, we knew that we would have to spend quite a bit of time mapping out the styles that are currently popular, figuring how they tick, the particular vibe and feel that each of the genres give, and what type of studio, gear and players would be needed to make this project absolutely slammin. After mapping out what would be the recording schedule and process, We spent some time writing, arranging and coming up with the core ideas that would become each of the library’s kits. Guitar Soundscapes was created at two different studios, one in  Los Angeles and the other in Nashville (the reason for the different studios this is because we try really hard to use the appropriate players, studios and gear for this library) Then after the core ideas were locked in and finalized we spent many, many days of recording and overdubbing parts.

What was the gear used on Guitar Soundscapes?

Amplifiers: Bad Cat-Hot Cat 30, Gibson GA 20-RVT, Elmwood-Modena 90, Mesa Boogie-Tremo Verb Dual Rectifier

Speakers: Marshall JCM 800 Cabinet (Shure SM57 Microphone), Gibson GA 20-RVT (Audix I-5 Microphone)

Guitar Pedals: Morley Wah, MXR Dyna Comp-Modification, Visual Sound H20, Boss DD5, Strymon-Blue Sky Verberator

Plug-ins: Soundtoys – Echoboy, TL Space -Trillium LAbs, iZotope RX, Steven Slate VCC and FG-X

Guitars: Paul Reed Smith (Customized), Tyler Strat, Gibson Les Paul Standard, Yamaha AES-1500

Xtras: Glass, Metal Slides, Ebows and lots of coffee!

What does the library contain? 

It was absolutely imperative that we create the Kontakt  KLI version for the Guitar Soundscapes library. We wanted to really be able to access all of the amazing features and functionality that the Kontakt allows. They library contains 20 kits packed full of luscious delayed guitars, gorgeous shimmery pad guitars, ebow guitars, haunting echo guitars, ambient guitars, chilling slide guitars, rhythmic pulse guitars, distorted reversed guitars and so many more. Each of the kits in Guitar Soundscapes contains three separate and distinct guitar sounds/parts with multiple song sections for each of the guitar parts;  giving you total creative freedom to tweak the amount of depth and texture to your hearts content!

One of my favorite things we’ve included is an enormous 1 GB of Xtra Guitar Pads, Sound Effects, One-Shots, Melodies and Noises categorized into various emotions like anger, horror, hurt and many more; as well as ebow guitar, guitar harmonics (pinched and hammered), guitar chords (major and minor with chord inversions), guitar slides, guitar string noise and pulse guitars which can be used to add rhythmic texture to tracks.

Here are the details for Guitar Soundscapes

- 6.6 GB of material (3.3 GB of 24-bit WAV files)

- 1867 files in WAV, REX and Apple Loops (843 WAV Loops)

- 20 Massive Construction Kits

Each kit contains a demo mix, each and every melodic, rhythmic and textural element broken out into stackable song sections, allowing you to mix and match and tweak to your hearts content.

- 1 GB of Xtras of 24-bit WAV files (332 WAV files)

Guitar Pads, Sound Effects, One-Shots, Melodies and Noises categorized into various emotions like anger, horror, hurt and many more.There is a section of ebow guitar, guitar harmonics (pinched and hammered), guitar chords (major and minor with chord inversions), guitar slides and guitar string noise. There is also a large section of pulse guitars which are categorized by bpm and can be used to add rhythmic texture to tracks.

If you haven’t had a chance to check Guitar Soundscapes out yet, head on over to Product Page and download the Free Sampler Pak!

Vir2 Instruments’ “Fractured: Prepared Acoustic Guitar” is now shipping!

Fractured: Prepared Acoustic Guitar is an innovative new collection of instruments

featuring creative and esoteric samples and manipulations of various acoustic guitars.

Following the tradition begun by Violence, Vir2′s virtual dismembering of a solo violin,

Fractured features 2.3GB of compressed samples and more than one hundred new

instruments with numerous variations and effects built into each. Each patch

features the organic goodness of the acoustic guitar, but stretches its timbre in new

directions to create previously unheard musical effects. Drum kits were made from such

varied techniques as hitting the guitar with a mallet, scraping strings with

fingernails, cardboard, or copper, and for one patch, rice was poured over the guitar.

Long evolving pads were built from acoustic guitar samples that blur the line between

electronic and acoustic. Fractured also features playable and dynamic rhythmic loops

and patterns, multitimbral arpeggiated creations, huge cinematic impacts, gritty electronic

drums, gnarly and etherial melodic instruments, and more innovative sonic goodness.

 

Depending on the instrument loaded, appropriate knobs for tweaking the instrument appear

in the interface, such as:

 

- Quantization

- Envelope controls (attack and release)

- Stereo spread

- Lopass and hipass filters

- Layer blend controls

- Effects (reverb, delay, drive, flanger, vibrato, rotator, wobble, and others)

- Autopan control

- Repeater

What an amazing year of releases for Big Fish Audio! 2011 has been a busy and successful year of loop library and virtual instrument releases. We’ve picked the top ten products based on sales, reviews and customer feedback. Here is a look at the top products for 2011.

1. Electri6ity - The ultimate virtual electric guitar instrument.

2. Rig: Urban Workstation - A complete rig of Instruments, Loops and Sound FX for Urban Production.

3. MOJO: Horn Section - The heart and soul, of funk, pop, jazz, and big band horn sections.

4. Q - Instruments and sound design for the big screen.

5. The Crate: Ultimate Urban Samples - Nearly 7GB’s of pure and raw urban samples.

6. Ambient Skyline - An inspiring and unique collection of moody and atmospheric loops and sounds

7. Modern Country - Modern Country construction kits.

8. Pop Rocks - Rock, Pop Soul, and Adult Contemporary.

9. Epic Drums II - Bigger…badder…cinematic percussion.

10. Pop n’ Soul Guitars - An exhaustive collection of R&B, Soul and Pop Guitar loops.