SOFTWARE INSTRUMENTS: PRO TOOLS HD & LOGIC

Today's virtual instruments offer incredible realism together with sophisticated programmability. Our collection numbers over 50 top quality plug-ins (in addition to those bundled with Pro Tools and Logic) and occupies almost 1 Terrabyte(!) of disc space, so you can be sure to find pretty much any sound you're looking for, whether it's a multi-sampled reproduction of an acoustic instrument, or a complex virtual synth patch.

Although most plug-ins now come in all formats, not all of them actually work(!), or at least work together - the icons below tell you which we have working with either Pro Tools, Logic, or both.

Pro Tools

Logic

• Bass
• Drums
• Ethnic
• Everything
• Keyboards
• Orchestral
• Synths
• Samplers
• Vocals

Bass

Spectrasonics Trilogy Trilogy incorporates an excellent acoustic upright bass sampled in extremely high detail, several multi-sampled electric basses, and stacks of analogue-style bass synth sounds, from Moogs to Oberheims to TB303s.

Drums

Digidesign Strike Realistic high quality drum parts with ease - Strike not only allows you to select the kit, room, mic placement and even leakage level of your desire, but also features real performances from virtuoso players which you can adjust to your heart's content, with control over groove, dynamics, intensity and more. East West Storm Drum 2 Pro Although there are some 'smaller' sounds included, Storm Drum's forte is huge sounding drums and percussion, from regular kits to all sorts of ethnic specialties aimed directly at Hollywood - it also comes with a large variety of MIDI performances which can be tweaked to taste. Native Instruments Battery A sample playback engine aimed specifically at drums, with a huge range a features that make it simple to assemble the perfect kit for your track. Includes an excellent 12GB library, and can also import almost any other sample format. SampleLab Broken Beats SampleLab are well known for producing some of the highest quality loop libraries around. Broken Beats features dirty and lo-fi breaks to give your tune an egde. SampleLab Discography The modern house sound done with aplomb. Sample-accurate tempo-matched loops of drums, percussion, bass, guitars and more. SampleLab Drum Fundamentals Over 2000 individual drum hits sampled at very high quality, focused on acoustic and electronic sounds with a modern feel.

SampleLab iLoops The best of the SampleLab loop library in the easy-to-use AppleLoops format. SampleLab Luscious Grooves Smooth sounding grooves in a variety of styles, but always of top quality. SampleLab Luscious Grooves 2 The second in the Luscious Grooves series - a 5-star award winner from Sound on Sound magazine, like many of the others in the range. SampleLab Spatial Awareness Ambience par excellence. Other-wordly sounds and more that are great for chilled-out styles and soundtracks alike. Spectrasonics Stylus RMX 1000s of loops occupying over 7GB in a huge variety of styles recorded with the utmost fidelity. The individual sounds that comprise each loop are presented separately too, so it's easy to modify them to your exact requirements, or add fills.

Ethnic

East West Gypsy Gypsy features all the sounds associated with the Flamenco style, including guitars, acccordians, cimbalom, bandoneon, solo violin and trombone, as well as percussion and plenty of floor stomps, all recorded with East West's customary extreme attention to detail. East West RA Described by Sound On Sound magazine as the best collection of ethnic instruments they had ever heard, this huge collection was recorded at the world-famous Ocean Way studios and includes both individual instruments and complete ethnic ensembles.

East West Silk Over 25GB of unusual string and wind instruments from the 'Silk Road' (Persia, India & China) including a 30-piece string orchestra, all with true legato and a variety of microtunings which allow for the production of very realistic performances.

Vocals

East West Voices of Passion Beautiful solo female vocals from around the world - Wales, Bulgaria, America, India and Syria. Patches use words, vowels, morphing vowels, phrases, breaths and whispers to add an instantly evocative element to any track.

Uberschall Liquid Ad-libs Well over 2000 male and female vocal ad-libs in a variety of styles, made extremely useable by the inclusion of Melodyne's 'Liquid' technology, which allows phrasing, pitch and even formants to be modified with the touch of a mouse.

Everything

Digidesign Xpand! Rapid access to over 1000 presets covering a huge variety of sounds, but with a small footprint - a great ideas pad. East West Fab Four As the name suggests, 'Fab Four' presents the sounds of The Beatles' guitars, basses, drums and keyboards, played on period instruments and recorded on period equipment with a true fan's attention to detail. Made with the help of Ken Scott, one of The Beatles' main engineers, and complete with screaming girls  :-) East West Goliath If you can't find the sound you're looking for in any of our other libraries, you're almost certain to find it here - over 32GB(!) of extremely high quality sounds covering just about anything you can imagine.

East West Ministry of Rock Huge rock drum, bass and guitar sounds recorded in East West's famous Studio 2. Capable of extremely realistic performances, the library also benefits from being clean-shaven and guaranteed not to chat up your girlfriend. Native Instruments Kore Not an instrument in its own right, but a method of bringing together all Native Instruments' products under one roof to make finding the right sound a doddle, while facilitating amazing sounds built from multiple sampling and synthesis engines.

Orchestral

East West Orchestra Platinum Pro Plus East West's vast orchestral library is the first choice of the large majority of Hollywood film composers, and it's easy to see why - awesome sound quality recorded from close, mid and long distance (or any blend in between), together with the Platinum Pro version's numerous articulations for virtually every orchestral instrument imaginable.

East West Symphonic Choirs Fabulous choral sounds including separate men's, women's and boy's choirs, complete with the incredible 'WordBuilder' application that actually allows your choir to sing real words of your choice (not just 'oohs' and 'aahs'), even in Latin!

Keyboards

Digidesign Velvet If you're a real player and you want a Rhodes sound, we do have the real thing, but for programming and alternate electric piano sounds such as the Wurlitzer, Velvet excels. East West Pianos If programming suits you better than playing (for which we have a Yamaha C3 grand piano with MIDI), then the 68,000 samples occupying 263GB(!!) of disc space which make up this incredibly detailed library offer excellent reproductions of a Bechstein D-280, Steinway D, Bosendorfer 290 and Yamaha C7. Sound on Sound magazine said 'Superb', Keyboard magazine said 'Wow'. Native Instruments Akoustik Native Instruments' Akoustic offers the piano sounds of the Steinway D, Bechstein D-280, Bosendorfer Imperial and Steingraeber 130 upright in very realistic detail, along with convolution technology to put the instrument in the acoustic space of your choice.

Native Instruments B4 A great Hammond sound is a requirement for many tracks - Music Tech magazine called B4 'the best software B3 emulation available', and it's certainly very close to the real thing, Leslie and all. Native Instruments Elektrik Like Digidesign's Velvet, Elektrik offers excellent Rhodes and Wurlitzer sounds, and adds a great Hohner Clavinet. Synthogy Ivory Offering the sounds of the Yamaha C7, Steinway D and Bosendofer 290, we keep Ivory for its excellent sound quality, and what will be a familiar interface to many users.

Synths

Access Virus Indigo The Access virus is widely regarded as the best 'virtual analogue' hardware synthesizer, and Indigo is the plug-in version which uses exactly the same alogorithms. It is also one of the only soft synths which runs on Digidesign's TDM DSP cards (as opposed to CPU power). Applied Acoustics Tassman Tassman produces its unique sounds with physical modelling technology - completely new, yet natural sounding instruments can be created by manipulating parameters such as string length, tube bore and skin tightness. Additive, subtractive and FM synthesis techniques can also be employed to create some very interesting hybrids. Arturia ARP2600 V Arturia specialize in emulations of classic vintage synthesizers, and their creations not only look the part, but also sound amazingly close to the original instruments. The ARP2600 is everyone's favourite semi-modular, and the plug-in also adds the 1601 analogue sequencer. Arturia CS-80V Yamaha's CS-80 was physically huge, and had a huge sound to boot - considered by many as the ultimate poly-synth (it was certainly one of the last). As used by Stevie Wonder, Ultravox, Vangelis and more. Arturia Jupiter-8V The Jupiter 8 was the most powerful analogue synth Roland ever made - Arturia's emulation has all the features of the original, plus it allows many modulation routings not possible on the original. Arturia Minimoog V Personally, we think our MiniMoog Voyager covers pretty much everything on offer here, but it's not polyphonic, and sadly we have only one! Arturia Moog Modular V Modular synths are highly prized these days, especially those carrying the Moog name. This reproduction was made with the full blessing of Bob Moog. Arturia Prophet V The Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 changed the face of synthesizers when it was introduced, offering 5-note polyphony, a huge sound and programmability. This plug-in also emulates the equally ground-breaking Prophet VS which introduced wave-sequencing to the world, and has a Hybrid mode which combines both models.

Native Instruments Absynth Absynth has become a modern classic - particularly popular with dance producers where its almost infintely definable envelopes and multitude of other parameters combine to produce a really fat sound. Native Instruments FM8 Yamaha's DX7 remains the biggest selling synthesizer ever - this plug-in uses FM synthesis to do all the DX7 could (you can even load original Yamaha patches) plus an awful lot more - a distinctively different sound. Native Instruments Massive Specifically designed for bass and lead sounds, Massive does exactly what it says on the tin! Native Instruments Pro 53 Sequential's Prophet 5 is one of the most highly regarded analogue synths of all time, and this emulation is extremely faithful to the original while also adding new features such as a high-pass filter mode. Native Instruments Reaktor This plug-in is a sound-designer's dream - you could probably spend the rest of your life exploring the possibilities of its multiple synthesis methods and modular structure, and still only have got half way. Fortunately, there are plenty of stunning presets to choose from if you're in rather more of a hurry! SampleLab Analog Archive A collection of samples of some of the rarest analogue synthesizers ever made, including the Moog 3C, Roland System 700, Emu Modular, ARP 2500, and Waldorf Wave. Most samples are of single notes which are sorted into sound categories to help find just what you're looking for. SampleLab Analog Archive 2 Using the same vintage synth collection as the original Analogue Archive, Volume 2 employs them in combination with each other and with original analogue sequencers to produce a wide variety of swirling and bleeping loops. Spectrasonics Omnisphere Massive but very useable sounds, particularly in the area of pads and textures. Omnisphere contains over 40GB of samples and combines these with multiple synthesis methods to produce some stunning results.

Samplers

Digidesign Structure Structure is a sophisticated software sampler with excellent Pro Tools integration. It has its own built-in sample editor and comes with a great library of almost 20GB of sounds.

Native Instruments Kontakt Probably the most advanced sampler in existence, Kontakt features incredibly detailed editing facilities, along with over 33GB of sound library and the ability to import virtually any other sample format.