Deep Tech and Minimal House review from Music Tech
Andy Lee has previously worked with Loopmasters on the highly successful Elektro House Producer sample library. A professional producer with an enviable pedigree, he has been releasing deep and funky future house productions for many years, and started his own Barcoda label in 2006.
As with all of Loopmasters’ releases, this DVD covers all the popular formats, comprising 580MB of 24-bit Apple Loops, WAVs, REX, Reason ReFill and Ableton Live packs. Also included is 180MB of playable basses, synth chords, drum hits and one-shot effects and vocals for ESX24, HALion, Kontakt, NNXT, E-mu X2 and SFZ. Most of the loops are divided into 126, 128 and 130BPM folders and all have an excellent grooving feel to them, with the drums featuring solid kicks and simple snares, plus hi-hat and percussion rhythms.
There is a thankfully restrained use of reverb and ambience effects that simply help to create space and variation between the more upfront funky beats and the deeper, more techy ones.
The basses are fairly simple, featuring very usable rhythms that, while arguably under-produced, would prove highly effective over a big club PA system. The real selling point of this pack is the brain-melting collection of sequences, chord patterns and synth patches. With some nice subtle filter movement and delay effects, these sounds may also be of particular interest to Liquid D’n’B producers. Of course, they will also find a place in myriad other styles, but the one we mention will certainly be a good candidate for them.
Overall this is a good-value, well-produced collection. While the sounds don’t leap out at you and there is nothing hugely inspiring, the grooves could be used to form a solid foundation on which you could make your mark.
Verdict: A good library containing some great grooves and a basic but sold toolkit for deep tech house productions.
Rating: 8/10
