Axé: Our Biggest Venture Yet.
Axé:
Axé (pronounced ash-eh) it’s a term used in Brazil’s Yoruba culture, and nowadays used in the artistic martial-art capoeira as well as in music to describe “Good Energy”, “Good Vibes”, “Soul” or “Light” - it’s a beautiful word, really, as it works in standalone: You can simply say “Axé!”, and you are instantly wishing all that to someone else.
The Recording:
After almost a year of being born, we dared to do something that to some might sound risky: To try and bring ‘World’ instruments out of that category and into the Epic one. If the Taikos managed make the jump (and for years have been so widely used in western media), why not trying something new?
This is when it landed - along with my friends from ‘Batalá Atenas’, I decided to try and go for big-scale recording of a Brazilian Percussion ensemble. But this time, instead of doing them in solo or small groups, in a cold studio with “perfect” sound, I decided to do it right there in the Hall of Batalá’s headquarters, with a 250m2, 1500m3 size (820 sq. feet, 5.000 cubic feet), - a place with a bright reverb that gives a unique character to this sound.
It was an honour working with ‘Batalá Atenas’, they are arguably the biggest music project worldwide (of this type of music), with over 1.500 players split through 14 countries.
‘Batala Mundo’ at Notting Hill , U.K.
For best results, we needed to create a “mobile” studio with what we had - so my friend Thanos and I went ahead and brought a Mac Mini with Pro Tools equipped, RME Soundcard and RME Preamplifiers, and hell, we needed even more inputs (just 1 Ambisonics Microphone requires 4 XLR Inputs!), so I went ahead and chained a ‘Sound Devices’ preamp to be able to fit all the mikes.
A couple of Ambisonics microphones, a bunch of AKGs, and some dynamic microphones (I think AKGs again?) and then we were ready.
To get as big sound as possible, we obviously needed “as many musicians as possible” - I wanted a massive recording, so we literally went ahead and used every single instrument available: 17 Low Surdos, 17 High Surdos, 17 Dobras, 15 Caixas, 15 Repiques (Repiniques). It was massive, I think nothing like this has been done before?
The first day, we started recording the bright instruments, the Caixas and the Repiques - and boy, did those Repiques have a power. We had to use -10dB pads on the microphones PLUS lower the gain to the lowest to be able to capture those killing transients. It was an unforgettable experience.
The Second day, it was the low-end instrument-day - just, WOW! The sound, was amazing, with every hit those Surdos produced, my clothes would jump on my body, the sound was spectacular!
Mixing the project was another big deal, there was this massive amount of material (including RAW Ambisonics Recordings) so I decided to go ahead and create those 12 Mix Perspectives (4 Immersive, 4 Stereo, 4 Mono), which I’m sure would cover every single need a composer might have, all the way from a small-scale project, to a full Atmos-compatible speaker-array.
Recording some Low-End Surdos!
But that wasn’t enough, obviously - I decided to include some Tonal articulations so that the percussions wouldn’t be so “lonely”, but it was difficult, as I always try to come up with designing sounds using the source sound exclusively and, well - a percussion hit doesn’t have much tonal content.
The results are a weird mix of tonal-ish articulations that play an interesting role, to say the least!
But then it landed to me, what if I made also Sound Design Percussion Kits? I mean, no one has ever done any of this in native Ambisonics! So this could be interesting.
10 Kits were created (from each of the instrument types), so now beefy dry low ends, electronic kits, etc. are now also a thing - IN AMBISONICS!
The results: Well, it’s SO massive, it sounds so aggressive, we wholeheartedly believe this is a solid sample library for any kind of high-scale project. We tried to make things right from the very beginning, even took an IR sample of the hall to be able to match its reverb properties - all for the sake of fidelity.
Listen to Some of the Demos:
In Stereo
In Immersive format (good monitors or headphones recommended)
Addendum
I’ve learned so much from the past 10+ years in the Sampling Industry, but what I am most proud of with Audio Brewers, is that Axé is literally a project in which we were present from its birth, during the recording, the mixing, and the production. All the code of the engine (Including the Smart Sequencer) was written in-house, all the art, all the renders, everything is completely in-house, nothing was outsourced, everything has our personal involvement in every step, in the endless hours of our passion for doing what we know best: Sample Libraries.
Audio Brewers is a very-very small company and this is why we are so eternally grateful to be able to do this, and it is thanks to you - our customers, that we manage to keep doing this, the best we can. Every single sample library was given the time and dedication it deserves, and we will always try to keep it that way: Personal, involved, in love with music.
Axé!
Thanks
I also have to mention all the people without whom this project wouldn’t have been possible:
Nathalie and Thanos for their incredible attitude and support!
Stavros Parceiro for his energy!
And the whole ‘Batalá Atenas’ band!
Stefanos, Maria, Neti, Skaltsas, Anastasis, Voula, Eliza, Ioanna, Katsiki, Xenophon, Koulis, Mak, Tonia, Christiana, Foteini, Kok, Stevi, Kristof, Kimon, Mariana, Boom, Giorgis, Manu and Maroula.