Some serious effort went into using mod wheel, key switching, and sustain pedal to add useful variations on the sounds; the library as a whole takes advantage of GVI features like round-robin triggering and randomizing. Add that to great recording quality, and Dramatic Percussion doesn’t feel like a bunch of static samples, but a playable instrument. The only hitch was a problem running under ASIO in stand-alone mode—a problem I’ve encountered with other GVI instruments, which in the past has been fixed by updates. It worked fine as a plug-in.

A potential problem is the sheer scope of the options, but an audition preset helps give an overview. You’ll hear boo bams, surdos, split bamboo, crotales, gongs, cassas, concert toms, and much more; what I appreciate most is that the treatments are not only creative, but blend finesse and strength.

For evocative, dramatic, extremely playable percussion sounds and effects, this library is great—check out the audio example to the right, which I put together in under five minutes. With a bit more effort, I could easily score an “on-the-edge-of-your-seat” chase scene with only these sounds. Thumbs way up.

Contact: Digital Sound Works, www.digitalsoundworks.com
Format: Two DVD-ROMs with 6.58GB of content, hosted by TASCAM’s GVI player
List price: $199