A Little History First…
Having had to sell off some old drum machines and my Otari MX70 tape deck a few years ago due to a move overseas I had started to miss having access to some of the classic sounds I was used to.
I was happy to find then a New Zealand based company called Goldbaby which specialized in bringing these types of old school sounds back to life with a collection of inspiring sample packs.
Vintage Samples and Processing
The general premise of his packs is to take mostly older and sometimes a few modern drum machine sources and then apply further processing in the way of tape machine, vinyl or resampling into vintage samples to further enhance the sounds and give them even more of the feel they are known for based off of the recordings that made them famous.
Many libraries already existed of the actual drum sounds themselves but these were generally taken from the source in a more pristine format. But anyone who’s trying to emulate some of the drum sounds of old records knows that it was more than just the sounds themselves but the processing applied, sampling to drum samplers, recording to tape and then pressing to vinyl that was also responsible for the sound that made up the final product.
Although plugins exist to emulate the types of processes used it’s always best to stick to the true hardware methods when possible and Goldbaby’s samples give you just that.
In this review I’ll go over two of the products Goldbaby offers to give you a taste at what you can expect after purchasing. Although widely known for the 808 and 909 packs I’m going to look at the XRB Sample Pack and Tape Drum Machines Vol 2.
XRB Sample Pack
First up is the XRB Sample Pack which I believe is the most varied and full featured one of all the packs on offer coming in at over 2000 samples. Although some of the other packs focus on a list of specific drum machines and type of treatment the XRB Sample Pack is more of a grab bag of various drum and percussion sounds.
As an overall collection you get a load of useful sounds to go through sometimes using various (although unspecified) processing.
If I was to recommend just one pack it would definitely be this. With a price point of just over 30USD it’s great value for money and something to dig into for years to come. Sounds range from clean, saturated, warm, crisp, and wide.
Although aimed somewhat at the vintage market these sounds can be used in modern productions very easily. There’s an assortment of tuned electronic percussion perfect for today’s minimal and techno sounds for instance. As a bonus there are even some FX type sounds and REX files that consist of loops produced with the samples that appear in the Refill version of this soundset.
You really can’t go wrong with this pack and would easily make a great addition to any producers’ library regardless of style or genre.
Tape Drum Machines Vol 2
Next up is the Tape Drum Machines Vol 2 package. This set utilizes the following drum machines: Linn Drum, CR-78, TR-626, DDR-30, Bohm, DR-55, RPM-40, RX-5, KPR-77 and the Synsonics Pro.
Then these sounds are processed with either of the following: Ampex valve 1/2 inch 2 track, Otari MX5050 1/4 inch 2 track, and the Hitachi 3 head Cassette deck. All in all almost 1900 samples are included. The bulk of these numbers comes from the various degress in processing that Hugo has applied.
Samples are marked according to the type of tape used for instance. Also ‘round robin’ and velocity layer type samples are given to allow for more complex drum kits to be made as opposed to a single static sample per midi note.
This gives you some options for more dynamic drum sample interactions going on and to emulate the inconsistent behavior of some of the original machines. The processing ranges from fairly clean representations of the drum machine sounds themselves all the way to ruder sounds rich with saturation and distortion.
Although maybe a bit more specific than the XRB Sample Pack the Tape Drum Machines Vol 2 package can also be implemented in about any style or genre given a little creativity on the producer.
Conclusion
All in all the Goldbaby packs are highly recommended and there’s something for everyone looking for a little character in their drum sounds.
At the moment most of the sample packs today are focusing on very clean and bright sounds so it’s been a godsend to have something that represents the other side of the spectrum.
You can’t beat the price and support wise Hugo has always responded quickly with helpful information the few times I’ve had an inquiry regarding his products.
Recently he has added a couple of synth based products so drums aren’t the only thing bearing the Goldbaby treatment anymore.
Get These Samples Now
Go check out the website now to look over the already mentioned packs as well the rest of the line and don’t miss some free downloads on offer in the Free Stuff page.
More for information go to: Gold Baby Samples.