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The Best Samples of 2009
It's one of the anomolies of the sample business: while there are heaps of awards on offer for pro audio hardware and software, no-one ever rewards the best sample collections. So we thought we would.
Best Newcomer Award
With FatLoud bursting onto the scene in 2009 - bringing with them some of the tightest hip hop beats we've heard in a long time - the Best Newcomer Award looked like a done deal. That is until Riemann delivered its first Kollektion. Operated by producer and label manager Florian Meindl, the label's first release went straight into the charts at the top spot and didn't shift for a month. The subsequent volumes kept the quality consistently high. The recipe is a simple one: offer 150-200MB of fresh-as-hell house loops and then invite a producer enjoying critical success to contribute 50-80MB of unique additional sounds. The result: sounds built from the ground up to rock the dancefloor. You don't get much more credible sounds in house circles. Add them to your own Kollektion. More >
Zeitgeist Surfer of the Year Award
Best Service released Voodoo Grooves around a decade ago. Dedicated to all things tribal - with awesome vocal ensembles and percussion grooves recorded live and raw in the field - it found a legion of new fans in 2009 among tribal house and techno producers looking for an injection of authenticity into their tech-fuelled productions. And so years after its initial release it once again cruised up the charts, garnering a mass of fans in the process. If you've not checked it yet take a listen: 1,000+ downloads really can't be wrong. More >
Best Freebie Award
This one was a no-brainer. FatLoud were already tearing up the urban sample scene with their fresh, warm, and uber-fat hip hop and RnB beats. Then they went and commissioned an entire 800MB multiformat collection - just to give away! A winning collection in its own right, which garnered a 4.5/5 review over at the soundsandgear blog, After Hours features an awesome cut of beats, basslines and synths, and comes free when you buy any of their products. If you've not sampled FatLoud's sounds yet there's really no excuse. More >
Labour of Extreme Love Award
Mutisampled collections of real instruments inhabit a strange hinterland of the sample world. At some stage most producers browse for a great piano or Rhodes sound, but with so many high quality modelled VSTs around it's tempting to reach for the model instead of the real thing. realsamples go the other way. They sample instruments with incredible care - offering as many as 32 velocities for each note in some of their packs - and they hunt out the very best instruments, going as far as visiting museums to record the authentic sounds of often very rare and delicate pieces of antiquity. Their 'Edition Beurmann' collections include a superb Grand Piano and Pianoforte, with harpsichords, Rhodes and guitars also in their product line. Although S2S has always had a bias towards dance music, these collections are simply stunning examples of what happens when passion and care combine. Highly recommended. More >
Renaissance Award
What happens to great sample collections from a few years back? The very best end up on S2S. And why the hell not? A great disco collection is a great disco collection - and if it was made a decade ago then chances are its got more old-school analogue credibility than any of the more recent all-digital pretenders. Soundscan had been putting out awesome collections at £20 a time for years before turning their attentions to bigger things. But their product line lives on, and has proved to be an instant revival hit. Covering organic sounds from disco through funk to latin and world - with even a harmonica pack for those kooky electro moments - these are packs whose sounds you can gaurantee aren't on half of the Beatport top 10. Made using classic analogue circuitry and some top session musicians, both musicality and originality is assured. Well worth checking out. More >
Sickest Label of the Year Award
We knew all about Lenny Dee before he approached S2S in May with a batch of demo sounds from his first D&B Special Edition collection. He'd been putting out filthy hardcore records that tore apart Scottish raves back in the 90s. And as his sample label, Industrial Strength, grew, so the sounds got sicker. Ripping reese basses, bin-blasting beats and sleazy synths became the cornerstones of his label, with each release getting ever ballsier. In a word, these sounds are just nasty. Garnering a host of fans, and sitting unchallenged in the S2S D&B and dubstep hotspots, Lenny and his crew continue their labour of tough sonic love and are promising lots more mischief in 2010. Prepare the eardrums... More >
Best collection: Non-dance
There were so many to choose from here, but in the end it was the exquisite grooves in Zero-G's Classic Disco that took the gong. As disco hits the mainstream again interest has returned to this near-perfect collection, featuring 35 construction kits - nearly all of which would sit credibly alongside a Barry White or Stevie Wonder set. The musicianship in these kits is of a supremely high standard, with funky wah guitars, slinky basslines and tight beats galore. Brass, keys and percussion - even occasional vocals - finish off the pack with a flourish. Zero-G rarely under-deliver and here they are on their very finest form. More >
Best collection: Dance
OK, so we're slightly biased, but on sales figures alone this award could go to no-one else. After his work on Sample Magic's Minimal Techno and Progressive House, Finnish sound designer extraordinaire Sami Liuski joined the SM team once again for Tribal Tech-House, an 870+MB workout fusing elements of tribal, minimal, techno and house on a journey that garnered a host of critical awards and delivered more than 3,000 downloads. Crafted in his (nearly) all-analogue studio, the sounds exude warmth, originality, inspiration and credibility in equal measure. A true runaway success. More >
And finally... Niche Product of the Year Award
Carefully sampled toy pianos aren't high on many sample labels' priorities, but Sonokinetik thought people would be interested, and they were, making for an unlikely hit. Featuring two different toy pianos, sampled with three to four velocities for each note, Toy Piano: Bells & HonkyTonk found interest among hip hop, RnB and chillout producers looking for something a little different for backing and lead lines. It's packs like these that fill the gaps in personal sample libraries with unique content. We look forward to more in 2010. More >
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(c) Sounds/To/Sample 2010