Cyclick Samples - Arabian Nights Volume 1 [24Bit WAV]_Sin

In this collection, we’ve used Middle Eastern and North African rhythms and sounds to
create a set of percussion and instrument loops that conjure up the requisite atmosphere.
Without proficiency in traditional instruments of these areas, I created the loops with
more familiar sources and treated them to give a more ‘Eastern’ tonality.

Having often heard this sort of music through recordings on film and from archives,
the sound quality I was going for is distorted, peaky and warbled from old tape and film
reels. I arrived at this kind of effect using the wow and flutter of tape simulator
plugins along with some heavy EQ curves and various saturation and distortion sources.

Two drum and percussion kits were collated and processed to make two sets of basic loops,
presented as mixes and individual instruments.The rhythm mixes were printed a second time
through an amp simulation-focussed process for a more evocative sound. The rhythms are all
4/4 here, though this is not as standard a time signature in this context as it is in Western
popular music – rhythms and phrases in 11/8, 19/4, 5/4, 9/8 and 17/8 are common, but I
thought it’d be better to use some of the accenting found in these rhythms to keep them
in 4/4. The two kits used are also included in hit form in the Drum n Perc Kit folder.

The instrument loops were started with phrases written and recorded on an old classical
acoustic guitar I have (I call it The Dog). As this music is unfamiliar to me, I spent
some time playing along to a variety of Middle Eastern and North African pieces to pick
up general phrasing ideas and scale and mode preferences. The most regularly used modal
signature utilised here is the minor second (a semitone above the root) combined with a
major third, minor sixth and minor seventh. The guitar phrases are included clean and in
‘bad tape’ format. Adapted sample-based instruments (including my own church harmonium patch)
were then played to match the guitar phrases, which seems fitting as often this area of
music seems heavily reliant on unison relationships.