Ian Boddy is a sound synthesist. Don’t ask me what that means exactly, but what I do know is that Ian has been doing electronic music for almost 3 decades.

Besides being quite a prolific musician, Ian also has been working as a sound designer for some 25 years. His works include sample libraries like Zero-G’s Malice in Wonderland and Outer Limits, Transmission-X for Sample Magic, and patches and samples used in LinPlug, Camel Audio & Rob Papen products.

Last year his Something Else Music Limited label launched the Ian Boddy Waveforms, a series of tightly focused downloadable sample packs.

Ian Boddy Drumalogue

The third title in the Waveforms series is Drumalogue, a library of 1,000 analogue drum, percussion and one-shot hits.

However these are not taken from vintage drum machines (of which there is already plenty of content available elsewhere) but rather all the sounds are hand crafted by Boddy on vintage analogue synths and modular systems. They run the full gamut from thunderous bass drums, crisp snares & hats through to abstract synth hits & FX and even weird glitchy & industrial sounds.

Drumalogue features

  • 1,000 samples at 44.1Khz, 24 bit in WAV format (stereo & mono samples).
  • Raw audio recorded from the following analogue synthesisers: Roland System 100-M, Analogue Systems, Doepfer A-100, Analogue Solutions, Livewire AFG, VCS3, Minimoog, Metasonix TM-2 tube BP filter.
  • Recorded directly into Apple Mac using RME Fireface 400 audio interface, samples edited in Bias Peak Pro 5.
  • Native Instruments Kontakt 2 support provided.

The Kontakt 2 programs (with a basic envelope and low-pass filter) provide an easy way to access and use the samples.

Ian Boddy Drumalogue in Kontakt

Ian Boddy Drumalogue in Kontakt

The Kontakt folder is divided into three sections:

  1. Audition – All the sounds per category (20 categories) with one sound per key starting at C1.
  2. Kits – 18 patches follow as closely as possible the General MIDI Percussion Key Map from B0 (Key35) to B2 (Key59) and provide a convenient way of playing some of the sounds as “drum kits”.
  3. Patches – 34 sounds key-mapped out in patches.

Drumalogue is available as a download from various distributors for £24.95 GBP / $34.95 USD / 27.95 EUR.

So what do I think?

Drumalogue won’t replace the vintage synths, modular systems and analogue effect processors used to create this sample library. The hands-on experience of tweaking knobs and patching sounds just isn’t going to be available in a collection of samples.

What Drumalogue does provide is an excellent collection of samples for those of us who can’t afford this type of equipment, or perhaps don’t have the space to fit all that gear into our music studios. Either way, Ian Boddy delivers on quality and versatility with Drumalogue: Raw, glitchy, bleepy analogue goodness!

Just listen to the demo mp3s and you will know what I am talking about. If your drum sample library has room for something different, I can highly recommend Drumalogue.

More information: Ian Boddy Drumalogue