Released in 2019 without much hype, the 01/IV (pronounced zero-one-four) by The Division Department is a unique and flexible four voice drum synthesiser. From deep kicks, snappy snares, crisp hats and classic cowbells, to all manner of zaps, clicks, bloops and cracks, the 01/IV is capable of a wide variety of sounds, with each of the four voices being the same - you can set up four kicks if you wanted, or a kick/snare/hat combo with a bass tone, it's up to you. My personal favourite thing about this device is the attack envelope – those kicks can be so deep, and the repeating attack stage makes the coolest claps but can also be used to make the sound of marbles in a bag or even sounds reminiscent of karplus-strong techniques. It would be fun to do the soundtrack and sound effects for a videogame with the 01/IV, from lasers to item pickups, explosions to earning continues – all the sounds are in there!.

This pack features 92 samples - 16 kicks, 16 hi-hats, 16 snares, 16 claps and 32 unclassifiably weird sounds! The samples range from muted and vintage to crisp and bright, and everything in-between. Perfect for electronic dance music such as techno and house, but equally at home in broken beat and hip-hop roles. All individual samples are provided in both 24-bit and 16-bit versions to maximise compatibility with samplers, and are all presented at 48khz sample rate. All samples are royalty-free.

Secondly, there are the Sample Chains folders, which contain all the above one-shot samples but sorted into multiple long chains of sounds. For those not accustomed to using sample chains, they allow for multiple samples to be accessible from a single ‘slot’ of a sampler via slicing. There are many samplers which do not offer sample slicing options such as the Elektron Analog Rytm or Polyend Play, in which it may be more efficient to use the one-shot samples instead.

Elektron Octatrack users will be happy, as the Sample Chains are accompanied by .ot files, which apply the relevant slice points to each chain, allowing users to get stuck in with a minimum of fuss. These Sample Chains are encoded in 24-bit/44.1kHz to maximise compatibility with the Elektron Octatrack, however they should work in any sampler – if you have a sampler which is not compatible with 24-bit.44.1kHz files, and if no automatic conversion takes place, consider using free batch conversion software such as MediaHuman Audio Converter to quickly convert all the files at once, or alternatively reach out to me directly and I will happy send you converted files to suit your needs.

These sample chains can be used on any sampler which allows the user to slice up samples, such as the Elektron Octatrack, Akai MPCs, Roland TR-8S/TR-6S, Native Instruments Maschine, 1010 Music Blackbox, Pioneer Toraiz SP-16, Isla Instruments S2400 and many more. They also work very nicely in software samplers such as Simpler or Sampler built into Ableton Live, and EXS24 built into Logic.

Finally, there is an Ableton Live Drum Selector rack (will work in Live Suite 11.2 and above) which allows you to program a pattern and change the sample with the turn of an encoder, as well as alter decay, pitch, distortion, compression and more with ease.Each individual sound has been uniquely tweaked with dynamic EQ'ing and careful limiting they sound really full and alive right out of the box, but allowing enough headroom for further processing down the line.

These samples are presented royalty-free, meaning you can make any music you want with them without having to cut me in on any of the profits. I would appreciate a shout-out but this is not required. What IS required is that you do not re-sell this pack as your own work – don’t be a jerk!

Listen on:
Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/lostlvls/tracks
Bandcamp: lostlvls.bandcamp.com/releases
YouTube: youtube.com/UCPCjYFrKMNuQc5sHaczvDuQ/videos

© R Gallagher (LØSTLVLS) 2022 (updated 2024)