Review: Sound FX Sensation

by: Bohus Blahut


Review by: Bohus Blahut - Modern Filmmaker, bohus@xnet.com

Sound FX Sensation- A CD rom brimming with 15,500 files including sound samples, MODs, and even a clever IFF player program.

 Epic Marketing
 138-139 Victoria Road
 Swindon
 Wiltshire
 SN1 3BU
 UK

 Tel  : +44 (0)1793 490988
 Fax  : +44 (0)1793 514187
 EMail: epic@epma.demon.co.uk
When I got my first Amiga 500 in 1989, I walked out of the store with not only the computer, but the FutureSound 8-bit audio digitizer and Audio Master for sample editing. At the time, I was experimenting with music and I knew that sampling was in the stars for me. I have amassed floppy after floppy of fun samples that I've captured from television, music, and even swapped and downloaded with others through BBS access.

Those days are long gone, but I got the same electric charge when we received the SoundFX Sensation here at AR for review. Hundreds upon hundreds of samples of instruments, movie quotes, and yes the CD represents the venerable MOD in the form of 230 of them, and a number of players. Epic Marketing has destined this CD for both Amiga and PC users. Each platform uses its own file format for sounds. The PC commonly uses the WAV format, while Amigas use IFF. Included on the disc are several utilities to convert between the two standards.

Epic Marketing has created a sample player expressly for the Amiga called BeatBox. The full-screen interface allows you to pick out ten samples that you can trigger using the keyboard's function keys. The interface seems aimed at AGA machines. When I tested the program on AR's 4000T, it worked fine. While I could get it to work on my '040 2000, I couldn't read the program's display. There was no end to the fun that I had playing with these sound FX in the office.

In the root directory of the CD, there are lots of categories of IFF sounds. Categories like: aliens, alarms, bass, beats, breakbeats, breaking (including the Dave Letterman shattering glass sound), cartoon, creature, horror, human, sci-fi, movies, naughty, speech, and several sub-directories. The instruments sub-directory has lots of MOD-ready instruments sorted alphabetically by sample name, but it makes me wish that these samples were also sorted by instrument type. There's also a WAV directory with alphabetical listings of countless WAV samples. These are also only sorted in alphabetical order.

As with any compilation of this size, some of the items are good, others are bad. Some of the samples must be recorded at 4k or lower because they sound terrible. Others seem to have been created with great care. This disc is great for you if you're a musician who's looking for a seemingly endless stream of instruments for your next killer MOD. However, if you're a creator of multimedia, or perhaps games, you should also look into this disc.

The problem comes when you consider that many of these samples aren't really in the public domain. While it's unlikely that a big film company is going to come after you for creating a Scala presentation for your user group using a quote from a movie, if you're creating the next DOOM clone, then you'd better license your effects elsewhere.

Let's not forget the most important factor in choosing this disc. It's just fun to play around with samples. While I'm tempted to blow the dust off of AudioMaster IV, perhaps in the future I'll poke around Aminet and find the latest and greatest in shareware sample manipulation. I'll tell you right now, AM4 will be hard to beat. This collection is hard to beat too, so pair it up with your favorite sampling software and have some fun!


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