Music Tech review Broken Breaks
We've reviewed several sample CDs from Loopmasters Origin series in the last couple of years and they've always proved to be well-produced, well-organised and good value for money. Their latest offering, Broken Beats - a collection of drum loops that covers the most important current breakbeat genres - is no exception. You get two discs: one data CD with Acidized .WAV and REX2 samples and patches for Reason's NN-XT, HALion, Kontakt and EXS-24 samplers; plus an audio CD for convenient auditioning of the various loops and samples.
A wide range of styles is covered, from swingy, jazzy breaks through to heavy soul and chemical beats, but the content is catalogued by tempo (80-170BPM) rather than by genre. According to the CD inlay card, most of the recordings have been made with very light use of EQ and effects; however a good many sounded pretty heavily processed to us. But, we hasten to add, the processing is never over done and adding your own personal touch is always an option. A good many dry and lightly treated kits are also available.
Sadly, all too often with this kind of library the musical content lacks variation and consequently is over-produced to compensate for a lack of originality. Not so with the 680MB of content here, though. This is a very musical set of short loops and hits that should fit seamlessly into many modern styles of music, whether its hip hop, breakbeat, electro or drum'n'bass. In short, they're nicely played, programmed, recorded and produced.
As consistent as ever, Loopmasters has produced another high-quality sample set, this time a breakbeat library, packed with variety and suitable for use in all genres of modern music production
Verdict 8/10 nice grooves. Buy It!
