Plughugger Review: Loops & Snippets
If you are on the lookout for some tasty kick-less drum loops and crunchy old-school percussive sounds - Loops And Snippets is a library well worth checking out.
German producer Jürgen Driessen is a fellow with a penchant for all things I love: electronic drum sounds, old analog equipment and synthesizers, and in Loops And Snippets Vol.1 he combines his passion into a handy library of 120 loops and 260 sounds.
While Inspire Audio themselves describe the direction of the library to be Deep House and Tech House - I'd rather expand on it, saying they are cool for most kinds of electronic music styles where you want to step up from traditional commercial club rhythms without going into pleasing the analytical minds of the electronica connoisseurs. In other words - the loops are more complicated than the mainstream, but still well within borders of what you can expect to hear in a club.
The loops are divided into five categories: JDs Weird, Percussion Loops, Synth Loops, Tech House Loops and Tops and Tweaks. The "Weird" loops isn't really weird - just a bit more experimental than the rest. As I already mentioned before all loops are without bass drum, something that in my book is always a good thing. If there is anything I can complain about is that they contain little variation - but since the contents of the loops are quite sparse - it's really not a big thing to complain about - you can easily bend these loops to your will and taste.
Still being in my complaining mode - most of the single drum sounds feel so-so. It's mainly sounds we've all heard a million times before - sure, there are some unique elements and equally sure - they are packed together so you easily can create deep house-ish beats in no time. I am not saying the sounds are bad in any way - just that the kicks, claps and hats felt like material I already am loaded with a thousand times over. But that's me.
But with that said - the percussion sounds are simply brilliant. Five out of five possible points. They got attitude and a style of their own.
CONCLUSION
My favorite sounds in this library quickly became the percussion sounds - which have been treated with some reverb and are coated with that crunchy sound of old samplers. The loops also left a very positive impression on me - partly by walking that thin line between the abstract and mainstream - but also by being so cleverly executed. These are loops that doesn't fill out every corner of the frequency spectrum. They are sound good and are interesting. All i all - Loops And Snippets Vol.1 is a library well worth checking out if you are out for some really tasty percussion sounds and loops.
