Big Fish Audio | Sound On Sound Magazine Paul White | Alma Flamenco Product Review
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Alma Flamenco | Sound On Sound Magazine

Reviewer: Paul White Back to Alma Flamenco product details

This library kicks off with the kind of fast nylon-strung guitar strumming traditionally associated with Flamenco, and these examples cover a range of chords so that they can easily be stitched together to create something credible. The recording quality is extremely good (as is the playing skill), and in addition to strums there are lots of fast finger-style passages and chordal arpeggios, as well as instantly recognisable Spanish-style chord progressions. Fitting these together is pretty easy, and could be used to knock up a couple of holiday TV themes or advert soundtracks quite quickly. Where more authenticity is desired, you can layer on other Spanish sounds and voices from later in the CD, but do try to avoid the worst of the film cliches, please!

After the guitar parts comes a wide selection of impassioned male vocals, some that work a cappella and some that could be slotted in over or between the guitar flourishes. Again the recording standard is very high, and the performances are professional and authentic sounding. The main vocal lines are followed up by a few harmony phrases and then the obligatory angst-filled female vocal phrases - why is it that Spanish women always sound cross? Once again, these are dripping with authenticity.

Once the ladies have given voice to their woes, there's bongo percussion (loops and hits), hand drums, claps, finger snaps, and of course castanets. These layer beautifully with the guitar parts, or you can use them to underpin your own compositions. Finally, the guitar makes a bit of a comeback with some seriously virtuoso playing and some single-note multisamples. While single-note multisamples are very useful to create your own riffs to link the included phrases, not having them arranged as ready-to-go sampler programs means that you'll have to do a little work before you can use them. However, they shouldn't need looping, so it's not too daunting. In all, this is a great Flamenco construction kit that can add depth and authenticity to any music that has a Spanish flavour.

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