Wow. Theres just so many good things to say about the Doru Malaia sample libraries. I was skeptical when i first bought superdrums8000. I thought that 8,000 sounds for $29 there must be something wrong, but i was wrong. It was fantastic, so i recently purchased the FX percussion series and the all new 230 Ethnic Drums & Percussions. And the quality is very very good. -I produce electronic music and do some film composition and within 2 days i already found myself using some of the sounds. For the FX percussion, all i can say is BUY this NOW! for only $29 you get over 26,000 incredible samples (how could you pass this up) I have found so many uses for these sounds in Reason, from using the metals to create filtered electronic rhythms to using the reverbed and effect sounds for sound design. And for the 230 Ethnic Drums & Percussions, all i can say is that this is a phenominal value, and dont be fooled by the $29 price, the sounds are very high quality. There are excellent variations on every instrument so you never have to worry about using that same shaker, or cabasa sound, like you do with most libraries. And dont think that you have to like world music to use these sounds, i recently used some of the african drum sounds on a progressive trance release. They also shipped very fast, i live in Florida and received it in about a week. I give the entire library an A+ and another A+ for the new Ethnic set. to Doru Malaia- keep up the great work, i love what you and your team give to us musicians.
I'm not use to buy CD/DVD samples but 230 Ethnic Drums & Percussions was caught my attention for the quantity and diversity of the samples of the world. I haven't found such library of samples altogether. I use them, apart from launch them directly in my sampler, as source sound generators in several VSTi instruments which expands the possibilities to the infinite. Thanks Doru for what great job.
This review is slightly biased, as I have used Superdrums 8000 in nearly every track since I purchased it a loooong time ago. Suffice to say Ethnic Drums and Percussion is more of the same (in a good way). More of the same quality and more of the same abundance of sounds and instruments, although I am not trying to imply the instruments are the same....one quick glance at the instrument listing will prove otherwise. As advertised, these are ethnic sounds, and there's TONS of them (many of which I have never heard of). The samples are all loud, clear, sound great, and most importantly are extremely usable. Shipping was crazy fast for being out of country as well. I honestly don't think I can properly express how good a value this actually is, and how wonderful an asset Doru is to the music community. I dare anyone to find a better deal, as this is an untouchable cost to content ratio.
Charlie CynicalSmile on kvraudio.com United States of America
Having already been familiar with Doru Malaia's Superdrums 8000 refill for Reason, I obviously had high hopes for the new 230 Ethnic Drums and Percussion refill, and thankfully I am not disappointed. Whereas Superdrums has become an everyday staple for me when I'm putting together beats, I imagined that the ethnic drums would be something a bit more esoteric that I would only use occassionally. After listening to the sounds from this new refill, however, I am convinced that this sample set will also become a necessary and much used part of my arsenal. I own other ethnic and world percussion sample libraries and none compare for this price. The quality of the sample recordings is superb, the variety, not only of instruments but of sounds within each instrument, is unbelievable, and the usability is practically unlimited. These are all one shot samples, and while it might have been nice to have a few patches for the NN-XT sampler or ReDrum ready to go right out of the box, even a beginning Reason user should have no problem finding usable combinations of instruments in ReDrum, and more advanced users can build their own NN-XT patches custom fit to their particular style of music. The fact is that it is wonderful to be able to put together ones' own combination of sounds without being limited to presets, and that means that these sounds can work in everything from hip-hop to folk music to acid jazz to techno. you can add that little bit of exotic intrigue to a breakbeat or layer these sounds with your more traditional sounds to create all new, never before heard sonic insanity. the possibilities are only limited by your imagination!
In his latest effort, "Doru Malaia - 230 Ethnic Drums & Percussions", Doru gave me a great opportunity to explore percussion around the world. I got the chance to explore instruments that I never dreamed of, or in some cases, never even heard of. I spent hours just listening to them. They are clean, the tails are long enough for editing without wasting space, and they are just plain fun. I'd look at a wave form, listen to it over and over, and think about how I might use it in my music. With the wealth of samples he provided, I am building drum kits that are giving me exotic sounds for my music. And all this, for very little out of my wallet. I'm coming back to music after a long break and it's because of efforts like this to make really great sounds affordable, I don't have to think small. What more can I say, buy it. You won't be disappointed.
Doru Malaia's 230 Ethnic Drums & Percussions dvd is exactly what I was searching on the web for. Each instrument is meticulously organized making it easy to search through. There are so many drums and other percussive instruments here its amazing. And now I have each and everyone of them right at my finger tips literally. Each sample is of the highest quality. Better sounding then most I have acquired from others. It would take someone years to find each of these instruments to sample. Doru took the time to give us all the opportunity to own a copy of his library. I will soon be purchasing his other collection of samples. These are an asset to every recording studio and musician\composer.
Doru's done it again! 230 Ethnic Drums & Percussion is a treasure trove of world instruments, many of which are quite difficult to find elsewhere. The quality of the recording is very high, and there is a sufficiently variable set of samples per instrument to make this an extremely musical sample set. Within minutes of receiving this disc, I was sequencing "Gahu," a dance tune from the Ewe tribe of Ghana, using the correct instrumentation - generally not possible without gathering lots of costly instruments and an ensemble of specially trained musicians. This is easily the best musical purchase I've made in years. Hats off to Doru, the sampling master!
Wow, 4.16GB of raw 24-bit high quality ethnic drums in wav format. What more could you ask for? I've been searching endlessly for a good ethnic percussion library--something very hard to come by. Now I have Moroccan, Odaiko, and tabla drums; plus another 200+ different ones to choose from.
The samples on this CD will wet anyone's appetite, especially the film producer types. The variety is astonishing for $29US. Doru could have easily charged $199US for this collection. All in the all, the most gratifying 30 bucks I've spent in a long time. I will definitely consider purchasing the Superfx Percussion to complement this set.
I purchased and am very pleased with the selection and quality of Doru Malaia Ethnic Drums and Percussion samples.
I wanted some of the gamelan instruments (my primary reason for the purchase), which are well represented, but the range of tonal expression in many of the other instruments gives me a whole lot more to play with. It really is a great sounds set and instrument selection and not a rehash of the same sounds I see over and over again in other sample products and specialty synths (from licensing deals, I imagine)
I got 24 bit samples on a DVD. Really good price as well.
I purchased the ethnic disk and the superpercussion disk a few weeks ago, and I haven't had time to go through all the samples yet, but what I have heard is amazing. I had no idea that most of these instruments existed, and with the help of Reaktor they are being transformed into soundscapes I couldn't have imagined. Thank you Doru! I look forward to spending lots more time with these libraries! Having a huge library of ethnic percussion available seemed like a good thing, and at the price of $29 I did not hesitate. I have not yet used all the instruments (a monumental task in itself), but the samples I have used are of the highest quality. For the price, I cannot imagine any percussion library to give better value for money."
This is s simply massive collection of ethnic percussion. It's the largest selection of its kind I have ever seen. I have never heard of many of these instruments, and part of the fun is just adding all of these things to your collection and discovering what sort of noise some of the more obscure instruments make. Even if I never get around to using some of these 230 instruments in a song, at least I now know what a kkwenggwari or a teponaxtli sounds like.
I'm very pleased with this purchase. It's a great way to get a huge selection of ethnic percussion for a very low price.
Up until now, I have never bothered using samples as I've never liked the whole data management aspect of sampling. It always struck me as being more like science than having anything to do with art. Somehow or other, I was looking into ethnic drum samples though, as I have always loved using non-rock drum sounds and my trusty Yamaha RY-30 Ethnic Drum card was starting to sound a little overused to me. Whilst surfing, I came across Doru's name and found a hyperlink to his site and there were many site testimonials as to the quality of his samples. I've never been interested in loops as it has seemed as a lazy man's route to composing, so when I saw that his 230 ED&P sampler had no loops and that it was a mere $29, I ordered it. I use a combination of listening including through my M-Audio 1814 soundcard and through my Soundcraft LX-7 32 channel board and Audix monitors. So far, I have used the sounds by loading onto the Partition E of my hard drive. This really increases the speed of loading of the sounds into my Reason Redrum. From there, I can use it as a drum looper, or as a track within Cubase.
Overall Rating: 10 After ordering the CD, I got it inside of 7 days all of the way from Romania. It doesn't get any faster than that! The sounds are absolutlely clean and pristinely recorded. He offers them in a couple of formats, 16 and 24 bit formats; mine is the 16 bit. Each of the 230 categories of sound folders has from 5 to 143 different and distinct samples. There are a total of 6400 one shot samples. They have no effects added and they are loaded alphabetically on the CD for easy locating. If you've ever needed ethnic sounds of any stripe, you owe it to yourself to pick up this incredibly cheaply priced CD. I don't have a favourite yet, as I just haven't had enough time to get through all of them. I also have never heard of scores of the instruments sampled, but the variety is stunning and highly usable. Thanks Doru!
When I first came across Doru's web site, I have been very surprised to see all those free sounds. I have downloaded them and - waow ! - what a quality ! Percussions are really percussive, special effects are really special. It's 100% professional. No doubt. I've used some of the free sounds in my compositions - especially the substitutes for a snare - and, trust me, it's punchy and full of energy. I wanted more, so I ordered the "SuperDrums 8000" CD and the "230 Ethnic Percussions" DVD. I recommend every musician to get these ! I have discovered a lot of new instruments I did not know before. With such percussions, my music is now more exotic, I can feel a different mood, another sound. It's magic. I have used the taiko drums for a percussive jingle at the end of a show, in the style of Bronx Drummers or Stomp. Superb ! Thanks, Doru, for all this work. Good resources are very important for musicians. When I listen to the sounds, either the free packs, "SuperDrums 8000" or "230 Ethnic Drums", I'm more motivated, I've got a lot of ideas to work on, I've got wings... Musicians are like painters, using different colors to draw something beautiful. The sounds you give to musicians are still more colorful... Thanks to that, I can draw the musical lines of my dreams !
I bought Doru Malaia's "230 Ethnic Drums & Percussions" and have been very impressed with the quality and the great value for money this sample disc provides. The possibilities are mind-boggling. If you are ever tempted to create a new anvil chorus, you're all set with 20 anvil samples. How about a Tibetan singing bowls sonata using the 38 samples provided? The long sustain on gongs, cymbals, bells, and Tibetan bowls makes them very usable. Up to over a minute on one bowl and Chinese gongs running up to 28 seconds. The very large variety of shakers is great to have on hand for adding flavor to a mix. I'm no stranger to percussion, but I'm astounded at the number of instruments on this disc which I had never heard of. This is a keeper, I expect to get a lot of use out of this collection.
