Reviewed by: Computer Music, January 2009
Radiophonica
Inspired by the old-school sound design antics of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop,
Ian Boddy's Radiophonica takes us back to a time when Dr Who still had some semblance
of geek chic and the ring modulator ruled the sci-fi roost. The now-archaic analogue
vibe of the pre-digital era has been captured, and the low rumbles, scorching high-end
stings and crunchy effects all reek of nostalgia. As well as being an enjoyable blast from
the past, Radiophonica is chock full of eminently usable sounds for film work and
electronic music, and it's not too outrageously priced either. Definitely worth checking out.
Rating: 9/10
Reviewed by: Future Music, January 2009
Airwaves and Radiophonica
Ace sound synthesist Ian Boddy is back again with a couple of themed sound packages.
Airwaves is a collection of samples recorded through a radio transciever and the result is
552Mb of wacky sounds seperated into the broad categories of atmospheres, backgrounds,
noises, signals and voices. I suspect that the vast majority of the samples are aliens'
attempts to communicate with me but I haven't figured out what they're saying yet.
Sticking with the Sci-Fi theme, the analogue synth sounds of Radiophonica are a tribute
to the work of the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop and it's a slightly better all-round
package as there's a bit more variety to the samples.
Everything is delivered in 24-bit 44.1KHz WAV format and Kontakt instrument files. It's not
immediately apparent what type of music you could produce with these, so they won't be for
everyone, but they're both worth a listen if you're after something unusual that's still slickly
produced and well recorded.
Rating 7/10
Reviewed by: Music Tech, June 2009
Drumalogue
The digital drum world seems to be flooded at the moemnt with realsitic sampled instruments
and vintage drum machine loops, but there are only so many sounds you can make with an 808.
Respected UK sound designer Ian Boddy has been producing sample libraries since 1992, and
for his latest release he has hand-crafted a huge collection of drum, percussion and one-
shot hits using vintage analogue synths and modular systems.
Drumalogue comes as a low-priced 360Mb digital download that contains more than 1,000 WAV hits
at 24-bit/44.1KHz resolution plus an additional folder of programs mapped out in Kontakt 2
format. The programming is excellent, offering an astonishing choice of sounds. The kicks are
all deep and solid and the one-shots range from low rumbling shudders to shrieking overdriven
thuds.
Although some of the hits may be a little too unusual to fit into your productions, there is
enough variety to achieve a host of extremely usable effects alongside what is possibly the most
creative use of white noise you'll ever hear.
Among the gear used to create the sounds are classics suchs as the Roland System 100-M, Doepfer
A-100, Minimoog and Metasonix TM-2 tube BP filter. They were recorded via an RME Fireface
400 audio interface.
This is a great collection in which all of the sounds have been produced-up sufficiently to
give character, but left simple enough should you wish to apply your own effects. If you are
looking to build an original electronic drum sound that is a little different from the norm,
then this pack could be exactly what you need.
VERDICT: More than just a collection of synth drums, this is the ultimate catalogue of short,
simple synth noise.
Rating 8/10
Reviewed by: Sound on Sound, January 2010
Airwaves
This new download library from celebrated electronic sound-designer Ian Boddy is one of his new
Waveforms series, and features about 100 24-bit audio loops of between 10 and 50 seconds in length,
weighing in at 550MB of content in total. All the loops come from courtesy of the exotic sounding
Yaesu FT757GX HF and Yaesu FT757AT, but before any analogue-synth completists break out in a cold sweat,
these aren’t obscure keyboards – they’re the two parts of a high quality radio transceiver which Boddy
and his mate Paul Stokes have tuned and mangled to create a series of evolving soundscapes.
Given the provenance of the audio and Boddy’s penchant for the unorthodox, it should come as no
surprise that many of the sounds feel as though they might just as well have emerged from some kind of
hallucinating droid, or the abandoned communications console of a space-age Marie Celeste. Distorted
interference signals wash in and out of various flavours of radio hash, while drifting side-bands,
hints of spoken announcements and smatterings of Morse code briefly approach the surface before being
sucked back in. Perhaps it’s because these kinds of sounds have so often accompanied scenes of technical
isolation that such a strong mood of detachment and even despair prevails most of the time, although not
without the odd moment of illumination in the form of purer, higher register tonal drones, suggestive of
contemplative higher alien lifeforms at a distance.
So maybe not the first collection you may leap towards for the next Girls Aloud single or indeed anything
else destined for a forthcoming Now! compilation, but at the same time very evocative in the right
circumstances – darker emo or electronica, perhaps, or retro sci-fi soundtrack work. What’s more, I can’t
immediately think of anywhere else you could immediately lay hands on such a range of this kind of material,
short of tweaking your own Yaesu (which sounds uncomfortable), so I reckon Airwaves has got to be considered
good value in its field. Kontakt 2 patches are provided too, which will simplify mapping and triggering the
samples for some users – you get each sample mapped across the whole keyboard with pitch-shifts, as well as
“menu” patches with the loops within each of the products five notionally themed folders laid out alongside
each other. However, I did feel that there was a lot happening later on in many of these loops which could
have been edited out into a series of shorter one-shots for improved usability.
If you like what you hear in Airwaves, then check out Ian Boddy’s other Waveforms titles, which include
Drumalogue, a 1000-strong drum one-shots library designed from scratch using analogue synths rather than
drum machines, and Radiophonica, a personal tribute to the heyday of the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop.
Rating 4 Stars
