EastWest Releases Dave Fridmann-Co-Produced Virtual Instrument, The Dark Side
EastWest has released “The Dark Side,” a 40 GB collection of virtual instruments — some dark and eerie, and many highly processed — mangled, distorted, or effected out of all recognition.
The Dark Side interface
Created and produced by EastWest founder/producer Doug Rogers and Grammy-winning producer/engineer Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, MGMT, Mogwai, Mercury Rev), The Dark Side has been designed to work for everything from alternative to symphonic rock, film, TV, and game music production.
“The Dark Side idea came to me when I was mentoring a young alternative group about some demos they sent me. To my ears, the tracks didn’t sound tough enough for their intended market, so I told them they needed to toughen up their sound,” said Rogers. “I looked around for sounds that could accomplish this and found absolutely nothing.”
He decided to make it his next project, and partnered with Fridmann, admiring his sonically unconventional work with The Flaming Lips, MGMT and Weezer (among others). Fridmann’s “no rules” style of production was exactly what Rogers was looking for to help produce The Dark Side instruments.
In creating the collection, mass aural destruction was the name of the game. They turned traditional instruments into highly processed drums, percussion, basses, guitars, ethnic, keyboards, strings, and FX, all organized into instrument groups for easy audition and recall.
The Dark Side creators: Rogers (left) and Fridmann
Rogers and Fridmann not only tapped into a wealth of recording and producing experience for The Dark Side, they also had the gear to match, between EastWest Studios in Hollywood and Fridmann’s Tarbox Road in upstate NY.
Many individual instruments were processed through 5 or 6 effects units, some of the vintage and esoteric tube variety owned by the pair.
The more distorted and mangled Dark Side instruments are reportedly intended to be used with cleaner instruments to make them really stand out in a mix, or to disturb the senses. “With today’s brick-wall limiting,” the press release relays, “distorted instruments may be the only product trick left to make an instrument stand out in a mix, a successful production technique used often by Radiohead, Muse, Nine Inch Nails, etc.”
The Dark Side includes EastWest’s PLAY 2 software, which can operate standalone or as a plug-in inside DAW hosts that support VST, Audio Units, and RTAS.
The Dark Side is available for Mac and PC for $395 MSRP. Complete product information, demos, and ordering information is available at http://www.soundsonline.com/the-dark-side.