 |
The sound of FM synthesis pretty much dominated the first half of the 80s. Yamaha had been the top of the tree for some years in the '70s with their analogue polysynths but that market was snatched away from them by the Prophet 5 and later, the Oberheims. But in 1982, they came back with a vengeance when they released their legendary DX7. Almost everyone bought a DX7 (or one of its derivatives) and its sound was everywhere from back-street pubs and cabarets to headline stadium gigs. Every record you heard was littered with DX sounds until Roland and later Korg killed Yamaha's domination with their D50 and M1 respectively. Yamaha tried to hang on with more and more variations on the FM theme but this eventually dwindled to nothing - Roland and Korg's sample-based instruments were the new standard and you could barely give away those FM synths that were once the height of musical fashion. It was a surprise then when, in 1998, Yamaha released their FS1R |
Here was a new, 32-voice FM synth module with not a sample in sight! But this wasn't '80s FM - this was FM on steroids with more operators, more algorithms, new 'formant' operators, multi-mode resonant filters and multi-effects. It was also a surprise when, with over a thousand almost uniformly stunning sounds on-board, the FS1r was not a commercial success and it sank pretty much without trace just a few years later. In collaboration with Dutch FS1r owner, Martijn Buiter, I have a comprehensive collection of outstanding samples that covers the gamut of lush strings, sparkiling electric pianos, spiky clavs and basses, sonorous bells, swirling organs and the high spot of the collection - the expansive, spacious pads which are truly out of this world. But these are not your typical two-a-penny FM sounds - this is FM with attitude! |
|
 |
In his review of the Hollow Sun CDs in 'Sound On Sound' (October 2005 issue), Nick Magnus says of the FS1R collection: |
"This collection is a broad illustration of the FS1R both in classic FM guise as well as its more unfamilar, other wordly personas; clanky basses, delicate electric pianos and shimmering bells rubbing shoulders with evolving pads, haunting sound effects and warm, analogue-style textures.... the real inspirational content of this set is to be found amongst the various pads, organs and sound-effects-type texture." |
|
| The FS1R Collection is available for S5/6000 in a 'native' format CD that will just pop into your sampler's CD-ROM (or Mac/PC for use with ak.Sys) without any form of installation required. Also, of course, fully compatible with Z4/8 and/or MPC4000. See below for further compatibility notes | |
 |
$55 USD (plus $8 worldwide p+p) | 
|
| Audio Demo | An MP3 segue of some sounds selected randomly from the collection. No effects of any type were used on any of the sounds - no reverb, chorus, flanging, whatever... not even any EQ! Also... there's no layering of different programs - WYHIWYG.... just individual sounds as they were selected, played and recorded. |
4.8Mb |
| See sound list | A list of the sounds included on the CD |
|
All company, trade and brand names shown, listed or implied above are the property of their respective owners. COMPATIBILITY All these sounds are fully compatible with the Akai Z4, Z8 and MPC4000. These sounds are also known to load directly into Kontakt 2.2 and Mach 5. The actual samples themselves should also be able to be loaded into other samplers though you will have to do the keyboard mapping, etc.. Given the differences in feature sets and/or user-interface implementation between the different sampler formats, 100% compatibility cannot be absolutely guaranteed and some minimal 'tweaking' of some sounds may be required depending on the chosen destination format. Of course, you will probably want to tweak the sounds to your requirements anyway. |
| Loops created at Hollow Sun are seamlessly powered by Antares Infinity
|
