Arturia SPARK Vintage Drum Machines Review

Arturia, the softsynth giant who has recently captured the hearts of producers everywhere with the MiniBrute, has also pushed into the territory of drum machines recently with the Spark drum plugin and hardware combination.  They've just come out with a different Spark called Vintage Drum Machines, and I felt it was my duty to check this out for all of you, seeing as how drum machines, especially those of the 80s, are so essential to many producers out there.  If you checked out the press release, you'll know they've got all the classics included-- the Roland 707, 808, 909, the LinnDrum, and lots of other kits.  Now the package of the software comes in at about $99 USD as a download, and $129 as a boxed product.  It's certainly more expensive than samples (which can be found of varying prices and qualities on the net), but is it worth it?  Let's find out.

II. - Banco

Here's a cool one from France.  The group is Ii, or "Un Deux" (I'm not really sure what the English translation is here), who sent me some of their tracks.  Old school Daft Punk style tracks.  And that's always a good thing.  In particular, if you're familiar with the Thomas Banghalter tracks, this is clearly influenced by them.  Check out the rest of their SoundCloud for more.