Earth Tone: World Percussion | EQ Magazine

World percussion libraries are useful to have around, because just about any type of music-from hip-hop, to rock, to electronica, to drum 'n' bass-benefits from having a frosting of persuasive percussion. Earth Tone has ten folders of loops organized by tempo (from 72 to 135BPM), with two additional folders for 190 and 200BPM. There are different instruments in the different folders, but stretching is reasonably good (even the Acidized files), so you can mix among the various folders fairly easily. One aspect I particularly like is that these have real dynamic range, and don't slam the dynamic range extremes, either. This helps them fit into a composition really well, as percussion generally is softer than the main rhythms. Of course, you can always normalize and/or limit them in your DAW if you want a more aggressive sound. This is indeed world percussion: Some loops sound more African, while others have a Middle Eastern or Latin flavor, making this a versatile collection that also lends itself to some interesting cross-cultural mash-ups. What's more, the loops-to-dollar ratio definitely works in your favor. There are many world percussion libraries, but they often focus on one particular part of the world. Earth Tone is a fine general-purpose collection, where the odds are good you'll find something that works for you. -Craig Anderton