Hi Alessandro, please introduce yourself and Sampletraxx:
Hi, my name is Alessandro Romeo and I’m from southern Italy. I work as a post-production sound mixer and sound designer for TV series and documentaries. I also design sample libraries and stylized sound effects and have created various sample packs for Samplephonics. And just recently, I launched SampleTraxx.
I founded SampleTraxx to release unique material with a strong sound signature. Sounds that are really time-consuming to produce, dedicated to sound designers, trailer editors, film composers, electronic musicians in need of high quality sounds with an out-of-the-box approach. I love contaminations, shifting concepts, blending sounds coming from different sound fields.
What’s Raptus, and what’s included?
Raptus is a small sound pack of 100+ cinematic cutting-edge sounds centred around distortion and convolution with a very distinctive character.
It features distorted drum hits, layers of percussive elements, distorted impacts, granular shifting ranging from delicate snippets to a devastating mass of sound. It’s perfect for adding a strong sound signature to a visual presentation.
I made massive use of granular processing and convolution running through distortion for this one. I love that ‘time expansion’ feeling that grains can add to the mix.
The library is divided into 4 folders:
The ‘Mutilated drums’ and ‘Distorted impact’ folders, dedicated to cinematic distortions of drums and impacts, crunked-feeling & saturated percussion + a selection of accents of different types and weight.
The ‘Textures’ and ‘Synth Shifter’ folders are the harmonic textures section of the library.
How did you come up with the idea for the library?
Raptus is about digital distortion in many different shapes.
I was looking for a live feeling and something to add movement and a spontaneous feel.
You have to think of Raptus as a selection of the best cuts of different live sessions.
I started with a big Ableton template centered around cascade distortion and convolution chains, a complex set up mostly used to add live texturing so I can easily shape the main character and add details to sounds.
I wanted to keep the mood as live as possible, recording many automation passages of the live mix. I then went on to selecting the best parts and reprocessing them to add some others details.
What was your sound design approach with the new library? Did you record a lot of new stuff for it, or was it more a question of processing and mangling some of your existing sounds?
Basically I did a lot of field recording. I try to bring in the best sounds I can record in the real world to the studio. Whether it’s percussive elements, harmonics or noisy stuff, I love how digital processing reacts to sound coming from the real world.
Sometimes you just have to break a few crates to make a SFX library
Controllers and touch technology have improved the way we shape and let the sounds move. Leap motion is another great example. And this is just the beginning, I think.
In the future we will probably be able to control sounds as an extension of our thoughts.
Do you have a favorite sound in the library? And what’s been one of the most challenging sounds to get right?
I love the sound pack in all its aspects, having a wide range of cinematic colours comprising of soft hits, tension, delicate textures, banging and devastating cinematic waves.
Raptus has a complex sonic signature and most of the time the challenging part was making everything sounds organic and real.
What kinds of projects did you have in mind when you designed the library – and what users do you think the library will be particularly useful for?
The library is dedicated to sound artists coming from different fields. It’s a collection suited for sound designers, trailer editors, film composers, electronic musicians to help them shaping their projects with a raw and intimate new cinematic atmosphere.
Any clues on what’s next from you?
I’m working hard on the second cinematic release. Cinematic sounds let you deal with huge dynamic movement, and I love that. SampleTraxx sounds work well for cinematic projects as well as for electronic music as they incorporate elements of different sound genres.
You have to evolve your abstract ideas into concrete-sounding stuff, and it takes a lot of time to be satisfied until they are as they were in your original idea.
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Great articles, great site – been looking for something like this for ages !