Electronic Sound May 2015 (Regular Edition) | Page 46
TECH
DAVID
FANSHAWE:
EARTH
ENCOUNTERS
VOLUME 1
SPITFIRE
AUDIO
A great sample library of field recordings
from the archives of ethnomusicologist
DAVID FANSHAWE
Words: LUKE SANGER
UK sampling connoisseurs Spitfire Audio have been knocking it out of
the park recently. You might have seen me getting all excited over the
new Hans Zimmer percussion library in the last issue of Electronic Sound,
so you can imagine my glee when their latest product dropped into my
inbox.
‘Earth Encounters Volume 1’ is a collection of field recordings taken from
the extensive sound archives of British composer and ethnomusicologist
David Fanshawe, who died in 2010 at the age of 68. As a keen field
recordist myself, I was chomping at the bit to get this loaded up.
‘Earth Encounters’ is in Spitfire’s Signature range, so once installed it
appears proudly among the list of products in your Kontakt library (and
if you don’t own Kontakt, you can use the free Kontakt 5 player from
Native Instruments). The samples are arranged into four main categories
– atmos, edna, loops and single hits. These are then further split down
into folders named after the geographical location of the recordings,
which illustrate how far Fanshawe travelled to capture such a wide range
of languages, instruments and music, many of the languages having since
become extinct.
The sounds themselves are really something special. In fact, this is one
of the most unique sample libraries I have ever used. It’s actually a great
privilege to be able to access such beautifully recorded sounds so easily
and have the freedom to manipulate them with looping, pitching, time
stretching and so on. The samples range from subtle percussive loops
that could add an interesting layer to a composition, to rich location
recordings that deserve to be listened to as musical pieces in their own
right.
My only minor gripe with this product is the bizarre decision to use
two different interfaces for some of the library. The “standard” view,
used for the majority of sounds, is lovely and complements the overall
feel of the pack, which includes a picture of Fanshawe himself. Then,
strangely, Spitfire have chosen a totally different interface for some of
the other sounds. Yes, it provides more manipulation options over the
samples, but visually it’s a really ugly red and black that’s reminiscent of
Winamp skins from the Windows XP days and it seems quite out of place
alongside the other view.
That shouldn’t distract from what is a fantastic, intriguing and unique
collection of field recordings, though. There’s no doubt that it will
inspire many current day producers to include these sounds in their own
compositions and it might even encourage some of them to try out some
field recording themselves.
‘Earth Encounters Volume 1’ RRP £199 (plus VAT)
www.spitfireaudio.com