Fab Four questions

[crandak]

I own Colossus and now MOR. I have to say I'm blown away by the sound quality enough to get in a little deeper. I am going to purchase the composers bundle, but since I already have Colossus I don't see the need for the composers bundle complete.

Here's my question to fab four users. I have been scouring the internet looking for user reviews. All I could find are on Harmony Central. The consensus seems to be that the drums are great but the guitars are useless. I would like to hear a few more opinions on this, because I'm still seriously thinking about buying it along with VOP. I love synths and want to get a few from NI, but the kind of music I write lends more to natural organic sounds and that's why I'm thinking fab four would go really well with MOR, but hoping the guitars are a little more than useless.

I'm also very interested in the forbidden planet. Looks like a great synth to add to some other great sounding instruments. I'm guessing it probably won't be released until late fall though.

Thanks for any help.

[Doug Rogers]

Originally Posted by crandak

I own Collossus and now MOR. I have to say I'm blown away by the sound quality enough to get in a little deeper. I am going to purchase the composers bundle, but since I already have collosus I don't see the need for the composers bundle complete.

Here's my question to fab four users. I have been scouring the internet looking for user reviews. All I could find are on Harmony Central. The consensus seems to be that the drums are great but the guitars are useless. I would like to hear a few more opinions on this, because I'm still seriously thinking about buying it along with VOP. I love synths and want to get a few from NI, but the kind of music I write lends more to natural organic sounds and that's why I'm thinking fab four would go really well with MOR, but hoping the guitars are a little more than useless.

I'm also very interested in the forbidden planet. Looks like a great synth to add to some other great sounding instruments. I'm guessing it probably won't be released until late fall though.

Thanks for any help.

Kevin,

It's always a good idea to listen and judge for yourself when you see comments like this that oppose what others are saying ... there are demos and video tutorials online, do the guitars sound useless to you?

One poster claimed to have Fab Four and wrote there were no velocities (dynamics) for the drums, when in fact there are up to 16 with both left and right hand. When I challenged him about this, and invited everyone in the thread to check out the start of Fab Four video tutorial#2 at the product page on soundsonline.com where this is demonstrated, he disappeared, such is the nature of these forums that tend to attract naysayers!

On this very subject, here's what MIX had to say ...

"Fab Four sounds categories include Bass, Drums, Guitars, Keys, and a Miscellaneous folder that offers screaming girls and sitars. Although the drums and basses were recorded with the same scrupulous attention to detail (Ken Scott, an engineer who worked on multiple Beatles sessions was a member of the team that recreated the original signal paths), I found them to be of less interest than the keyboards, and in particular, the guitars in this library. That’s not to say that these others are not excellently recorded- the drums, for example, include up to 16 velocity layers, with round robin alternations of left and right hand strikes.

But ah, those guitars! The Fixing a Guitar Solo guitar sound captures its forebear so perfectly that after several run throughs I was almost unable to tell whether George Harrison’s line was coming from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in the CD tray or the software I was using to play along with it. If you’re a Beatles freak (who isn’t?) you’ll flip over I’m A Blackbird, Ticket To Guitar, I Will Play A Guitar, and other drop dead guitar recreations. With just a little tweaking, of the ADT in particular, you’ll be dialing in other Beatle guitar sounds as well. Jumping up and down, declaring “I’m in The Beatles!” would, needless to say, be frowned upon by the discriminating company you most certainly keep.

Given their beauty, and the ease with which they can be molded, the bulk of the Fab Four samples are both outstandingly accurate reproductions of sounds that helped create some of the most memorable music in the history of rock, and sample sets that can be turned into aural tapestries that evoke an earlier era without being tethered to it. It takes a bit of cheek and a lot of skill to attempt such a task, and the producer/engineer tandem of Doug Rogers and Ken Scott deserve high marks for their efforts."

From this months KEYBOARD review ...

"Standouts for uncanny realism include, well, pretty much the entire library — the guitar sounds are so authentic they could have been lifted directly off the original multitrack session tapes. Fab Four absolutely nails the iconic instrument sounds created at Abbey Road Studios by the Beatles, George Martin, Ken Scott (who worked on engineering Fab Four, in fact), Geoff Emerick, Alan Parsons, and other producers and engineers on the Beatles’ many brilliant albums. It should also be said that if you’re looking to recreate the Beatles sound with other libraries, you really have to know what you’re looking for. In Fab Four, so much of the work has been done for you that, uh, all you need is love . . . of the Beatles! Bottom line: Fab Four is a major accomplishment, and entirely worth the money."

We don't advertise in these magazines and get no favors.

However, if you are looking for Def Leppard, you won't find it here (well, maybe "revostortion" comes close), these are as close to the original sounds as Ken Scott and I could get, given that we had the exact same recording equipment and period instruments/amplification. And just like any raw sound, they need to be processed in a mix just like the Beatles did in their finished tracks. I think some of these people load up one articulation, and write it off. There are up to twelve articulations provided for the guitars that will suit what you are working on, but like instruments themselves, you have to learn these to get the best results. Here's an example of the articulations for "I'm A Blackbird Guitar", RR means Round Robin where every successive note triggers an alternate sample to avoid the "machine gun" effect - Fingered, Sustained Pick RR, Fingered + Leg, Sustained Pick RR + Leg, Slide UP WS Vibrato, Slide UP HS Vibrato, 4ths RR, 7ths RR, 9ths RR, Maj RR, Min RR, Sus4 RR, Short Scrapes, FX.

The guitar sounds are generally not as "modern rock" as MOR, but they have a unique character and color to them that the Beatles used so effectively.

Fab Four is pretty new, user demos will surface soon, in fact we might start a new contest here limited to all of the new PLAY instruments so we have more user demos online.

Cheers,

- Doug

[crandak]

Doug,
Thanks for the response. I have to say that if it's the same quality as MOR going through my lynx and dynaudios then it's a must have. I'm now thinking that even though I have Colossus I would really like to have Stormdrum too. I'm also pretty freaked by VOP. I really really want that.

I own a motif es and a few other libraries but these samples are in another league. You guys suck!!!! I'm getting addicted and extended.

[nickysnd]

Here is the humble opinion of a happy user: for anyone interested in the Beatles sound, Fab Four is the next best thing to The Beatles.

'nuff said.

[rimskykorsakov]

I've already wrote something similar in a former thread :

FabFour is currently my favourite library for songwriting.

The guitars , keys , drums and basses and the Effects are made with lots of love.

FabFour sounds very musically and has a kind of "Attitude" .
The instruments are really inspiring.

Of course you can use the ibrary for re-creating the Beatles sound .
Or try it for re-creating other styles of the 60's and early 70's ,
and you can use it as AddOn for contemporary Production-styles.


If you expect a kind of a "Colossus" or "Goliath" library , that covers
a huge range of different instruments & styles, than of course you
might be disappointed.


Listen to the demos , and you know what you get.
Listen to the instruments and just open your mind and
try to imagine how you could use these kind of instruments in
other production-styles.


My ranking is clear : FabFour gets 10 out of 10 points.

No doubt.



Cheers

Gerd


EDIT:

FabFour and MOR are a great combination (!)

[Doug Rogers]

Originally Posted by crandak

You guys suck!!!! I'm getting addicted and extended.

[Bondtana]

The consensus seems to be that the drums are great but the guitars are useless.

That consensus got pwned as they say...

[crandak]

Originally Posted by rimskykorsakov

If you expect a kind of a "Colossus" or "Goliath" library , that covers
a huge range of different instruments & styles, than of course you
might be disappointed.

I'm not expecting it to be anything other than it is. I'm looking for flavors to add to the arsenal. I don't want to recreate the beatles, I just want lots of colors for my own stuff, which I wouldn't categorize as either 60's or 70's.




Cheers

Gerd


EDIT:

FabFour and MOR are a great combination (!)[/QUOTE]

[crandak]

one thing you guys don't have that I need and wish you would make for me are backup singers... rock... pop... R&B... soul... Gospel. That would round things out pretty nicely. Throw in a little word builder, call it backup and make a billion dollars.

[crimson dynamo]

Doug,

if you get a second, maybe you could take a look at some of my Fab Four questions posted under the heading "need some very basic advice". I have never been tempted to leap into the world of sample libraries or any kind of sequencer stuff before this product. I think the sounds are fantastic and the possibilities of altering them endless. The ADT stuff alone makes it incredible.

That said, I really wish there was somewhere in the packaging or tutorials that actually showed one how to use the product to make music. I appreciate the tutorials on how to edit the sounds, but how about a little beginner info for folks like me who are being lured into this realm of production because of the Beatle association. I think it's the nature of the product that you are going to convince a lot of old farts like myself to take the brave step into the future. With that in mind, hook a brother up, eh? I've now got an awesome sample library and no earthly idea how to use it to record music.