The Sound Board

This does sound pretty good if I need to pretend to be Sigur Ros:



At 25 euros, might have to bag it.

I do have a very occasional but recurring need to pretend to be Sigur Ros. (Not literally, but you know what I mean: I think the whole 21st century post-rock phenomena is terribly interesting, and Sigur Rose are amazingly good at what they do,)

I'm an EZD person, but after a point balk at purchasing more EZX, because once you have a few it seems like increasingly diminishing returns.Their hip-hop expansion might be their best, because it really isn't redundant... Thanks for the heads-up. Going to check it out and maybe pick it up at this price.

Man, this sounds pretty great to my ears. I feel lots of unsolicited motivation for jumping onto the Toontrack bandwagon lately...

So let the self-isolation-download-buying-spree begin. It's relatively big for an EZX at 3gb, download and install very quick and painless via their Product Manager (is it me or are these download managers actually getting useful these days?).

The room does sound very nice on this one. In general the tone tends to be fat rather than nimble, big weighty snares and toms, though there are one or two higher pitched snares. There's a notable lack of sheen in the cymbals and hats which I guess is part of the overall stylistic choices. There's also a set of brushes and mallets which sound lovely.

The midi is on the frugal side in terms of breadth - only three song families - but rich in depth. What's there really is classic genre stuff, with a really pleasing array of gently building, very human performances. Crucially, it's not structured in the conventional way. Rather than verse / chorus / bridge it is Build-Up, Breakdown, Build-Up II and fills. It's a terrific range from the very subtle and gentle to all out thrash, all within each family. It is, to use an over-used-and-now-despised word, epic. I'm rather taken with it, and immediately decided to go for the extra midi pack with an exciting 12 different families since I had a lone midi serial number spare.

I might find myself writing Sigur Ros rip-offs for a week when my current project finishes...

I bought this too and at first glance quite like it. "Fat rather than nimble" is a good description. The Original Mix has a kind of plodding heaviness about it that lends itself well to droning or dirge-like approaches... Calm, deep and restrained rather than shrill, and the cymbals don't pierce my ears like many v-cymbals do. It's different enough from the other EZX's I have that I don't consider it at redundant.