Zero-G World Pack - $35

[Reid Rosefelt]

 

Zero-G sales are usually not my thing, as I'm rarely interested in loops, but I am very interested in World Music.  And the truth is that Ethnoworld and World Suite each come with a lot of loops, and they are extremely useful, as they show how the instruments are meant to be played. 

This is over 5900 loops in Apple Loop and Acidized Wave formats.  Over 5 GB, but obviously it will be half that, for whatever format you use. 

Get the World Pack HERE

This is only available for the next three days or so.

A close reading of the description shows that this is not a collection of the libraries they mention, but a curated selection.
 

• Afrolatin Slam (African, Latin, and Afro-Latin fusion loops).
• Celtic (Loops of celtic instrument performances from Ireland, Scotland, etc).
• Deepest India (Superb, evocative and inspiring instrument/ vocal/ ensemble loops from India).
• Ethnic Volume 1 (A diverse selection of 'world' loops from many countries and cultures).
• Ethnic Volume 2 (A diverse selection of 'world' loops from many countries and cultures).
• Flamenco Sounds (The world's finest library of Spanish Flamenco loops).
• Middle Eastern Sounds (A brand new varied collection of loops from North Africa and the Middle East).
• Sounds Of Polynesia (A wonderful library of loops from the South Pacific islands and Australia).
• Pure Brazilian Beats (An incredible collection of Latin rhythms with an infectious feel).
• Pure Tabla (An unbelievable range of sonic beats created entirely with tabla drums!).
• Tribal Elements (A brand new diverse library of samples from across the African continent).
• Vindaloops (Wonderfully expressive and expertly played Bhangra loops)

Edited August 13, 2019 by Tiger The Frog

[Matthew Sorrels]

Bought it, but the download is only the Apple Loops.  No Acidized Wave Formats at all.  I've sent them an email.  They used to have Acid versions of this and the Dance Packs and the Pro Pack.  The Pro Pack I bought (long ago) on disc from Time&Space and it is Acidized, but they seem to have punted Acidized in favor of Apple Loops.

[Reid Rosefelt]

19 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

Bought it, but the download is only the Apple Loops.  No Acidized Wave Formats at all.  I've sent them an email.  They used to have Acid versions of this and the Dance Packs and the Pro Pack.  The Pro Pack I bought (long ago) on disc from Time&Space and it is Acidized, but they seem to have punted Acidized in favor of Apple Loops.

Wow, that really sucks.  It's very clear on the page that it is supposed to include the Waves. 

I've already been in touch with them about how much of Celtic is included (apparently almost all) so I will write too.

[Matthew Sorrels]

Their support sent me another Connect code and download links for the AcidWav version.  I think they don't give this out version often though, because the RAR files (and the directory it makes) are missnamed (ZeroG_World_Parck_AcidWav without the dash between Zero and G and pack misspelled).

So I'm happy but kind of sad.  Apple loop format isn't documented (publicly anyway) and no one supports it but Apple.  I think a Apple Loop to Acid wav converter that translates the BPM/Key/Transients is possible.  One of the handful of projects I may someday get around to hacking up.

I know the advertising copy talks about taking selective parts of the included products but for Celtic the wav files come to 834.8MB, which is very close to the 862MB they claim the full Celtic is.  At least with the Pro Pack the included packages are the whole thing, they say it's not but I've had some overlaps and they check out 100%.  Of course most of those older titles are actually audio CD's (or a mix of audio and wav files).  Looking at the content's PDF I think everything listed is included.

[Reid Rosefelt]

Good.  I sent them a letter with a link to this page and they said it DID include the Wav files.  

So if I do buy it, I guess they will include the link. 

My main curiosity about this package is that, because only half of it is wav files, what kind of quality are they?  Is this just a lot of really old stuff?

Also, I got the Zero-G Ethnic Flavours as a freebie with another library.  And it was basically useless because of how poorly organized and labeled the files were.  Using the PDF, I took a lot of time creating folders and dragging files into them, so I knew what everything was.  That's time-consuming for one library, but if all these libraries are like that, it's something I know I won't ever do. 

I find the best way to use these kinds of loop libraries is to drag them into  Kontakt and make NKIs out of the stuff that interests me the most.  

If you explore these libraries before the sale ends, I'd love to hear what you have to say about them.

 

 

[Matthew Sorrels]

It's pretty decent.  Not just a bunch of percussion, includes lots of regional instruments loops.  Fair number of vocal loops from the various regions.  The loops are loops though, no way around that.  I'm pretty fond of using loops with ACID so I don't see that as a problem.  It does have a directory called "World Pack Instruments" which seems to contain various instruments used for the loops as wav samples.  So for example the "Celtic Norhern Pipe" directory has the following files:

Northern Pipe Multi 1-G#3.wav
Northern Pipe Multi 2-A#3.wav
Northern Pipe Multi 3-C4.wav
Northern Pipe Multi 4-D4.wav
Northern Pipe Multi 5-D#4.wav
Northern Pipe Multi 6-F4.wav
Northern Pipe Multi 7-G4.wav
Northern Pipe Multi 8-G#4.wav
Northern Pipe Multi 9-A#4.wav
Northern Pipe Multi Drone-A#2.wav

These samples could easily be mapped in Kontakt, though I think the quality might be a little lacking ( you really can't make a good instrument from a handful of samples).  Oddly enough these instrument samples don't seem to exist in the Garageband/Apple Loop version.

The old Zero-G titles aren't quite like modern stuff though and it's usefulness is always going to be kind of iffy.  But with the AcidWav versions I'm pretty happy with what I got vs what it cost me.  I feel the same about the AcidWav version of the Pro Pack (which I'm not really sure you can even buy except at T&S).  If you have an interest in the Celtic, Deepest India, Sounds of Polynesia, etc products I think this is a better deal at a better price.  If they are cut down I'm not really seeing it (my Deepest India directory is actually larger than the single product's size).  The content lists from the full packages seem to match what is in this World Pack.

[Reid Rosefelt]

I've thought about it and I think I will let this go.  I don't really use loops much.  It would probably just sit on my hard drive, with my other zillion loops. The thing that would interest me more would be the Omnisphere version of Celtic, which is currently only $17.  I will wait to see what it costs the next time Time+Space offers me a coupon.

For the moment, I'd rather take this $35 and put it towards an instrument like Indiginus's  Lap Steel for $49 that I know I will get a lot of use out of. 

[Matthew Sorrels]

You can't go wrong with Indiginus.  It's a whole better class than the old Zero-G content.

[Reid Rosefelt]

22 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

You can't go wrong with Indiginus.  It's a whole better class than the old Zero-G content.

Yeah, I'm definitely going to get Lap Steel.

One final question about the World Pack.  I don't know why, but the Magix deal may be increasing my interest in Acidized loops.

Is it your impression that ALL of these loops are Acidized?  It doesn't say so in the separate libraries.  And I don't know how you'd be able to check that.  But if there's anything you can share, I'd like to hear it.  

Thanks!

[kitekrazy]

On 8/14/2019 at 7:26 AM, Tiger The Frog said:

Good.  I sent them a letter with a link to this page and they said it DID include the Wav files.  

So if I do buy it, I guess they will include the link. 

My main curiosity about this package is that, because only half of it is wav files, what kind of quality are they?  Is this just a lot of really old stuff?

Also, I got the Zero-G Ethnic Flavours as a freebie with another library.  And it was basically useless because of how poorly organized and labeled the files were.  Using the PDF, I took a lot of time creating folders and dragging files into them, so I knew what everything was.  That's time-consuming for one library, but if all these libraries are like that, it's something I know I won't ever do. 

I find the best way to use these kinds of loop libraries is to drag them into  Kontakt and make NKIs out of the stuff that interests me the most.  

If you explore these libraries before the sale ends, I'd love to hear what you have to say about them.

 

 

 I bought the Celtic one some time ago and it came with soundfonts.    I wonder if those are the full libraries.  I do like Flamenco Sounds and used it to make a backing track.  I'd give it a pass unless it was under $20.  

[Matthew Sorrels]

You can tell if a loop is ACIDized because it will have the word "acid" near the end of the file if you "strings" the binary .wav file (use a unix-like utility app to extract strings from a binary file).  You can also load them into Sound Forge and check. The problem is that acid section doesn't tell you if the transients and key/bpm were set correctly, just that it is there.  Every file I've checked has an acid signature at the end.  And everything has seemed to have correct settings in ACID Pro 9.0.

Here's an example:

 

[Reid Rosefelt]

2 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

You can tell if a loop is ACIDized because it will have the word "acid" near the end of the file if you "strings" the binary .wav file (use a unix-like utility app to extract strings from a binary file).  You can also load them into Sound Forge and check. The problem is that acid section doesn't tell you if the transients and key/bpm were set correctly, just that it is there.  Every file I've checked has an acid signature at the end.  And everything has seemed to have correct settings in ACID Pro 9.0.

Here's an example:

 

Thanks, Matthew.

[sarine]

Now that that's sorted, can we discuss the Notepad++ spellchecker?

[Matthew Sorrels]

2 hours ago, sarine said:

Now that that's sorted, can we discuss the Notepad++ spellchecker?

I'm way too busy thinking about fixing TextFX to work right on 64bit Notepad++.  I really should just lock myself my office until I do it, how hard could it be?