Hey guys,
Here’s an original I knocked up yesterday in my day off work…
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=10084127
I ended up buying Claustrophobic totally on impulse, it was half price at DV247 just after christmas, I figured for £22 it was worth a shot as I liked the demo tracks on the Toontrack site.
I’ve literally had about 5 hours play time with it (the amount of time it took me to write/record/’mix’ this track to my abilities) but my impressions are that it both sounds great and is quite versitile in the box.
All of the sounds are very dry on their own, which will really work for certain vibes, and I really like how different the kicks are in contrast to the other Toontrack libraries I’ve heard. In particular I peresonally find the hihats and snares to have some nice tones. Ignoring the effects Claustrophobic EZX would probably best be suited to Hiphop/Rap etc type tones where you want a super dry kit. The extra clap/stomp/click samples would also be great for these genres, so if that’s your style I’d reccomend Claustrophobic EZX as it covers that base very well.
However what I really like about this pack is the effects it comes with. It also comes with a huge library of useable presets to showcase them.
Of course its possible to route out individual drums to comp/reverb/distortion/attack effects in your DAW but I find having them available in the superior mixer (or EZ if that’s what you use) massively speeds up workflow. Not to mention I think the tones you get from those channels is already quite nice and very usable in my opinion.
On this track all drum sounds are stock sounds with no extra EQ, except the kick which i routed out and changed the EQ a little using an EZ mix preset..
The intro is also an EZ mix preset for reverb and something else (EQ I think) just automated along with the level control… again its possible to do this with other effects in the DAW but EZ mix really speeds things up sometimes as its all one patch.
I left the Distorted snare and hihat in on its own at the end after the track fade so you can hear their tone as it is in the box…
Hope someone enjoys my piece of music or finds my mini review helpful… Claustrophobic EZX was a happy impulse buy for me. I hope to write reviews for Evil Drums and Metalheads in the future (when I get more days off and inspiration for an original track :D)
