Loopmasters News & Reviews

Resonance Sound SOR Club Revolution Vol. 1 Review At Music Tech

The value of a good samples pack can often be judged on three things: the quality of the sounds, the amount that they inspire, and the ease with which you can incorporate the sounds into your own tracks.

German sound wizard Oliver Schmitt spent nearly a year painstakingly creating all of the sounds and loops for his first sample pack, Club Revolution Vol. 1, which easily ticks all these boxes. The pack covers drums, basses, synths, more than 550 kick-free loops and a massive collection of extremely usable effects. The main samples comprise 650MB of 16-bit, 44.1kHz WAVs. While this may not match other packs recorded at 24-bit resolution, it allows for twice as much content – and the sound quality is excellent. Also included are 522 patches for Kontakt and EXS, which map every single sample and loop to the keyboard.

This really is a professional pack made by a producer for a producer, and this is backed up by the long list of testimonials from cutting-edge artist who are fans of Oliver’s work. There’s no hand-holding either: what you get are hundreds of individual hits, sweeps and loops that you can incorporate into any style of electronic music. Oliver clearly understands exactly what kinds of sounds make up a complete dance track and has covered every single base with staggering variety. The only drawback is that, with so many quality samples on offer, you’ll find it hard to decide which ones to use.

Verdict: An essential toolkit for anyone writing electronic music.

Rating: 10/10 plus the Music Tech Excellence Award

Resonance Sound SOR Club Revolution Vol. 1 Review At Computer Music

Although it claims to be aimed at a wide spectrum of dance genres, you`ll find the 140bpm loops and tough single hits particularly suited to hard trance, hardstyle, hard house, hardcore, and probably just about anything else you could stick the word "hard" in front of. This is a serious contender for the best hard dance sample CD we`ve ever heard.

The sounds lend themselves more towards trance-based genres than house. Either way, Oliver Schmitt has done his job well, crafting over 2,700 unique samples, all of which sound wide, deep, punchy and ready for use in cutting-edge dance music.

Rating 9 / 10

Jazz Drums Vol1 - Mark Fletcher Review At Computer Music

A huge libabry of muiltitracked jazz drum loops (most of them accomapnied by mixed bounces) preformed by UK sessioneer Mark Fletcher. Fletcher’s hard, driving style brings a cartain level of contemporary groove, while the kit sounds open and lively. We’d have preferred the sticks/brushes ratio to be rather more in favour of the former, but great stuff nonetheless.

Rating 8/10

Simon Baker Classic Deep House Review At Future Music Mag

Simon baker made his mark with 2007’s minimal summer smash Plastik before his stunning debut, Traces, arrived in 2011. He also served as an old school clubland apprenticeships, becoming a resident spinner at Leed’s asylum. This collection fuses those points on Bakers time line, allowing him to erve classic sounds with a modern studio sheen.

The 991MB collection of samples, one-shots, loops, drums, textures and EFX will add class to you DAW masterpieces. Bakers uplifting melodies sit pretty on the punchy drums and shuffling hats in the pack, and the bass folders are stuffed with subby and blobby loops that conjure old school club sessions while still feeling current. With some solid combination loops on offer, you’ve got enough of a framework straight out of the box to start building nice music within minutes.

Rating 8/10

Resonance Sound AZS Tundra Vol.1 Review At Wusik Magazine

This release was his first bank for Dune, and it consists of 128 presets. Among these, you`ll find 24 arps, 5 textures, 22 basses, 24 leads, 20 pads, 7 drums and 18 plucks. The presets are grouped by category so they are easy to locate. I especially like that each preset comes with specific comments that mention ways to use the current patch or to modify it to get different sounds. I always appreciate those extra touches by sound designers. With Dune, modulation is the key and each of the presets here explores the modulation possibilities. As you would expect, velocity control is widely used, and the mod wheel is mapped on every preset. However, it isn`t simply mapped to the cutoff frequency on every preset. For many of the patches, the mod wheel gives you extra control over such parameters as the FM amount, the FAT control, properties of the envelope, oscillator balance, and the LFO properties. There is incredible attention to detail in the mod matrices of the patches which make the patches feel fresh and alive.

The Arp category is quite varied, and you`ll find use of the arpeggiator not only for notes, but also for chords and modulation. There`s a nice focus on rhythm in these patches, and my favorite ones of the group were "Train of Thought" and "Tunnels" which had driving rhythms that really brought to mind the motion of a train. The Bass category is one of the most varied of the whole set. You`ll find well-programmed punchy basses, FM styled basses, vintage-type synth basses and dancefloor-ready sustained basses in this category. In other words, there are good basses there for pretty much everyone. The Chord, Drum, FX and Key categories are small, but each patch in them is definitely useable. "Glaciers" (in the Keys categoty) is one of my favorites. It´s an electronic piano sound with a sweeping pad that gradually enters into the picture. The LFOs in the mod matrix are well-used in "Glaciers".

The last four categories are Leads, Pads, Plucks, and Textures. The leads are quite varied with most being ready for an upbeat dance track, However, you`ll also find a few vintage sounding leads as well, with "Econosphere" being my favorite. Once again, there are lots of useful patches here. Now, when i think of Dune, i think of lush pads... as it gives users the ability to modulate and fine tune the (up to) eight different voices of the unisio engine. So, in other words, my hopes were high leading into that category. Fortunaley, I was not disappointed as Tundra is full of lush, evolving, and beautiful pads. The mod matrix is definitely used to best effect in these pad patches. The bank finishes with a nice collection of plucks and a few evolving athmosphere patches in the Texture section.

My recommendation: Tundra (Vol.1) is another excellent bank from Aiyn Zahev. There is a great attention to detail evident in these patches, and the presets are top-notch. At its$20 price tag, it`s a bargain and a must-buy for Dune owners.

Resonance Sound CFA-Sound Thrillogy-1 Review At Sound And Gear

Today I?m starting off the new year with a review of a patch library for the Virus TI synths. This is from CFA Audio over at resonance-sound. Let?s check it out!

It?s an electronic/trance style soundbank for the Virus TI series. Pads, bass, leads, plucks, and fx, all geared towards electronic style music. As for me, you know I feel sounds don?t need to be limited to a specific genre even when created with a certain genre in mind. Of course, this is only for owners of any Virus TI synth. These are not samples but presets that use the synth engine of the Virus TI

How does it sound?

These patches have a very deep and very rich sound to them. There are some deep thumping basses, smooth pads, evolving atmospheres and piercing leads. They even included some nice plucks and sfx patches as well. There are some really big sounds in this library that take full advantage of the power within the Virus engine. Many of them are configured with fx ready to be tweaked and manipulated

So what?s the bottom line?

If you find yourself looking for some more patches for your Virus TI, definitely give these a look. Though they are aimed at trance and electronic styles, I find the sounds are just really well programmed and will please anyone that loves a good synth sound.

I give Thrillogy 1 a rating of 4.5 out of 5 subs, really well programmed and great sounding patches

I would have liked to see maybe more of the patches take advantage of the quick adjust knobs specifically on the TI Snow but many of them did provide some quick controls for these knobs.

All in all, it?s a great patch library with some really great sounds.

Rating: 4.5/5

Resonance Sound Audio Boutique Tribal Elements 2.0 Review At Wusik Magazine

Tribal Elements 2 picks up where volume 1 left off with more all-new content. It is the result of the smart minds of Ramon Zenker and Harald Aufmuth - two of the most sought-after producers in the area of electronic music. Tribal Elements 2 is a WAV/Aiff Apple Loops/REX-format sample library with soft sampler programs for EXS24 and Kontakt. The samples come in 44.1kHz/24-bit format and all loops are recorded at 128 BPM for fast and easy integration intro common electronic sub-genres.

With this library, you mainly get killer percussion loops, such as bongos and congas and top loops (kick-free material) that you can add to your own drum mixes. Plus, there are four folders of drum hits should you want to program your own drum patterns. Finally, 45 fresh one-shot transitional FX provide a finishing touch for breaks and btween song sections. Producing progressive house can be a lot easier if you have the best samples available, and this 487 MB library proves to be nice little tool, worthy to be had.

Resonance Sound Audio Boutique Electric Elements 3.0 Review At Computer Music

Producers Ramon Zenker and Harald Aufmuth`s latest collection is a dark, funky trove of loops and one-shots that deserves to find favour with discerning producers of minimal house, techno and electronica. There are no traditional drums, the basslines are simple but effective, the one-shots miniscule and the athmosphere industrial and cold, but the emphasis here is on authenticity and taste.

Rating: 8/10

Resonance Sound Audio Boutique Electric Elements 3.0 Review At Wusik Magazine

After two volumes of Electric Elements, producers Ramon Zenker and Harald Aufmuth are back offering more samples in this, the latest chapter of the Electric Elements series. It is similar to the previous titles but packs 805 MB of total sampling material in WAV, AIFF and Rex format, plus EXS24 and Kontakt patches. All the right ingredients for the construction of TechHouse, Minimal and Electro House tracks are here but with fully up-to-date and fresh loops/one-shots at 127 BPM.

The usual sounds include solid SFX, down and uplifters, thumping drums and sizzing hi-hats, rough bass loops as well as atmospherics that can make a track full-sounding. Given the attention to detail of the production, Electric Elements is ready to be dropped into any EDM construction because the quality is just hard to beat.

Resonance Sound SOR Minimal Techno Revolution Vol.2 Review At Music Tech Mag

The sound of minimal techno has evolved over the last few years, dropping some of its friendlier melodic elements in favour of a harder, more industrial sound. Programming wizard Oliver Schmitt - aka Sounds of Revolution - has taken these changes onboard in his latest offering, Minimal Techno Revolution Vol.2.

This is a massive 1,49 GB library of cutting-edge techno sounds, with 628 loops and 561 one-shots plus 33 patches for EXS24 and Kontakt. The fill zip version also includes REX2 copies of the tloops, but if you`re after only certain elements, cut-down versions are also available. From throbbing sub loops and clanging, metallic synth grooves to intricate glitch beats and percussion, there is a huge amount of material here. The drum loop folder alone is divided intro nine sub-folders for different types of loop, including clicks, noise loops, vocal chops and SID chip grooves. There`s also a main drum collection called Loop Kits, which contains full beats plus several variations and layers to help aid with arrangement.

Our favourite sections, however, are the immaculately engineered bass and synth riffs, which somehow straddle the line between sounding hard-edged and complex yet rounded and pleasing. There`s also good use of reverb, ambience and stereo effects to help give life and a sense of space to each sound. Moving on, you`ll find a decent selection of drum hits with original-sounding processing, plus glitch-fragments, minimal synth sounds and SID chip bleeps. There are also some excellent futuristic FX sounds that clearly demonstrate Schmitt`s exceptional sound design skills. Topping things off are heavily processed female vocal lines and a handful of lightly processed, vintage move samples to add character to key points in your track, which not quite as polished and useful as the rest, are a nice addition to what is an already impressive package.

Once again, Schmitt has crafted a stunningly produced example of cutting-edge electronica. This is a large and well thought-out library packed with immaculate engineering and club-ready sounds.

MTM Verdict:

An excellent collection that`s packed with quality loops and exquisitey engineered modern techno sounds.

Rating: 9/10 + MusicTech Choice Award

Resonance Sound SOR Minimal Techno Revolution Vol.2 Review At Computer Music

Most of Minimal Techno Revolution Vol.2 is exactly what you`d expect: polished drum hits, abstract noises, sophisticated bass loops and the like. The variery comes in the form of some unusual (and great) crunched-up SID chip noises and some rather over-the-top vocal snippets (pretty cringeworthy). Overall, a decent package, through not groundbreaking or essential.

Rating: 8/10

Resonance Sound SOR Clicks and FX Volume 1 Review At Waveformless Blog

Glitchy sounds obviously aren't going to appeal to everyone, but this particular set would probably appeal top a wider range than many. Producers of techno, minimal, electro, tech-house and other "techy" styles of music will get the most mileage out of these for sure, but honestly, any electronic style looking to add some unusual, attention-grabbing sounds to their grooves will find something to like here. As with all their libraries, the sounds and loops are full produced and ready to drop into your arrangement as-is, making it super easy to use in addition to sounding great.

Rating: 10/10

Resonance Sound CFA Sound - DSP Drums 01 - ACE Review At Waveformless Blog

So what genres does this suit best? I could hear any of these sounds working really well for minimal and tech house, not to mention retro synth-pop styles. The percussion would work great in electro house and anything looking for a high quirk factor. There?s a lot of creativity in the sound design, the sound quality is top notch, and the price is very reasonable. Have a listen to the demos and download the demo samples first to see if these are a good fit for the kind of music you make. I?d love to see a future volume include some wilder, more sound-design-y use of effects, as it would really stand out. As it is, this is a great collection, very professionally done.

Rating: 9/10

Resonance Sound CFA Sound - DSP Drums 01 - ACE Review At Audio Desk

This sample pack supports you with extremely subby loops that made our studio monitors and headphones go crazy ? and the dancefloor ain?t any different for sure. The low freqency region is literally shaking every membrane. Furthermore the product delivers crisp and experimental drumshots from claps to kicks to various percussion elements, which makes ?DSP-Drums ACE? probably one of the best choices for a very unique electro production including never-heard sounds: almost every sample is inspiring as such, besides the sounddesign being top notch: precise cuts, very different sounds (no "let?s deliver 1 GB of samples, only the data amount counts"), and also includes a Logic EXS24 and Native Instruments Kontakt version for creative loop experiments.

Rating: 92%

Resonance Sound CFA Sound - CableDance Review At Computer Music

CableDance is one of three new soundsets for u-he`s ACE modular synth. It comes from German sound designers CFA-Sound and is a very focused affair, with just 64 patches designed for electro, house and minimal producers. It`s divided into basses, drums, effects, sequences and synths. The vast majority of the patches fall into the bass and synth categories, and range from fat round (CableGuy Bass) to the bright and edgy (SmackSnack Synth). Overall, sounds are very crispy and responsive, demonstrating ACE`s architecture well. The only thing lacking is a few more sequences and effects patches. #

Rating: 8/10

Resonance Sound CFA Sound - CableSphere Review At Rekkerd

I really enjoyed Futured Episode 2 Expander for Native Instruments Massive, CFA-Sound?s previous ambient/soundtrack effort. Even though Massive and ACE are two different synths entirely, I was hoping for a similar experience with CableSphere.

Maybe I set myself up for it but when I first checked the CableSphere set I was really disappointed. Not that CableSphere sounded bad, it just didn?t blow me away like the FE2 set did at all.

Overall the sounds are really good, useable and unique, but there is not as much diversity of sounds as I would?ve liked. The pad section includes 17 patches that have quite a few similar sounds. Same goes for the sequences. Highlights for me are some of the plucky synth patches and the wavetable ones. The fx are also really well done.

The second time around I went in with realigned expectations and only then did I realize how unfair I had judged this set of sounds. That amazing fat sound of ACE that I liked so much when I first tried the synth is still there. With CableSphere Martin at CFA-Sound again shows he is a talented sound designer, well capable of delivering quality sounds for any synth.

In short CableSphere is a solid set, but make sure to listen to the audio demo to see if it has the type of sounds you are after. For a more complete array of sounds it might make sense to get the whole Cable series of soundsets instead. Also, don?t forget to get the free CableBass and CableDrum sets featuring 32 sounds each. Again quality sounds, very generous.

Hip Hop Instrumentals 2 Review at Music Tech Mag

When we first reviewed the Hip-Hop Instrumentals pack from Loopmasters back in issue 111 we were entranced by its lo-fi melodies, dusty vintage grooves and atmospheric beats. Now London-based producer Chemo is back with the second instalment, which contains ten laid-back instrumental hip hop construction kits plus a handful of bonus loops and drum kits.

The focus this time round is more on atmospheric textures and drums, with plenty of field recordings of trains, supermarkets and other spaces helping to bring an organic feel to proceedings. In total there is 812MB of 24-bit content and 27 instrument patches in a large variety of audio and sampler formats and, notably, the addition of 14 NI Machine Construction Kit programs.

The bulk of the content comes in the form of the ten main tracks that range from 70-114BPM and all fall into the downbeat, chilled-out and atmospheric side of Hip-Hop. Each kit is divided into constituent parts with full and individual drum loops, echoing guitars, crushed vocal snippets, live and electronic bass loops and some stunningly beautiful Rhodes and piano lines. Every element has been heavily processed in some way to give it plenty of character, with good use of panning, delays and reverbs to create width and space.

We were particularly fond of the over saturated bass lines, which sound warm rather than distorted kind of way. We did however feel that some of the drum elements, particularly the hat loops, took the lo-fi noise aesthetic a little too far, with loud mains-style hum and hiss slightly overpowering the actual loops.

Accompanying the construction kits are two folder containing additional drum loops and atmos beds, plus what we felt was the strongest part of the pack, the drum kits. These include individual hits taken from each track, plus nine extra kits, and are filled with original, uniquely processed hits.

Although this collection isn’t quite the inspired treasure trove of melodic riff and hooks its predecessor was, it’s still a highly original and inventive pack with some excellent lo-fi hip-hop drums and sounds.

Rating 8/10

Hip-Hop Instrumentals 2 Review at Future Music

Looking for some sample fodder? Yeah, you know me. Well, Loopmasters at any rate, as they are back with a 816MB instalment of Hip-Hop Instrumental goodies to beef up your street beats. Crisp neck-snap snares and punchy kicks abound in this collection. Again, it comes with enough boom-bap, original Rap to make a young Premo proud.

The melodies, SFX and hooks are very early nineties – deep, slightly unsettling and very atmospheric, you can imagine getting dope results layering Mobb Deep acapellas over them. For the bass heads, the team has boned up on its low end theory. The subs on offer boom with enough doom to rattle the windows of any jeep you happen to be cruising in. In short all your smokier genres could benefit from these dusty, crackly, classic sounding samples. Word to your Moms.

9/10

Indian Sessions Vol. 4 Review at Future Music

Shh, hush your mouth – Loopmasters are back with another master class in Indian sample sourcing. Like the previous instalments, gifted players have been drafted in to get their freak on for those out there that want to add some spice to their beats, but don’t want to risk the tummy-ache of hopping on an Air India flight to recruit a world renowned table player. Here, 172GB of 24 bit Indian samples await you.

Perfect too, as they are in the easier to programme 4/4 style, without losing the authenticity of their roots. The low frequency these guys can reach alone will be a boon for Dub architects of every walk.

9/10

Soulful House Vocals Review at Electronica

YET again Loopmasters come up trumps when it comes to cutting-edge vox.

Soulful House Vocals is the ideal 'grab it' collection when you need to add that extra pzazz to your track.

You get the proverbial shedloads of content too, so whether you are in dire need of an ad-lib or full verse, then this pack is for you - and all the sounds are royalty-free which is another bonus.

Even though the title is 'Soulful House' you can use the content in almost any genre known to man, although it would be pushing it a bit to slap a glitch-vox loop into an opera track. Suffice to say that whatever track you are constructing, you are bound to find a sound here which will easily slot in.

And don't ever forget timestretching. Up or down, the sounds are almost indestructible so you will have no qualms if you fancy slowing down a verse or three over a chillout track or upping the tempo for a trance slammer.

As for the nitty gritty: Soulful House Vocals is 180MB and includes 203 24Bit samples, with loops ranging from 122 - 125 Bpm, also included are 63 ready to play patches for Reason NNXT, Halion, EXS, SFZ and Kontakt compatible soft samplers. In detail you get 60 ad-libs, 10 Chopped Vox FX loops, 107 One Liners and 26 Full Verses.

Phil Kieran - Analogue, Electro & Techno Review at Computer Music

Weighty electronic sounds from the UK producer/remixer. Stylistically unfussy and sonically powerful, this primarily electronic library focuses on drums (most of them presented ‘mulittrack’) and bass, but also takes in vocals and music loops along the way. It’s a bit repetitive in places but does the trick overall.

8/10

Indian Sessions Vol. 4 Review at Computer Music

From the fingers and palms of KV Bala Krishan comes this 740-strong library of loops, preformed on a wide variety of Indian percussion instruments including table, dholak, ghata,dukki and nagara. The recordings are lush and frequency rich, the only negatives being the inclusion of some electronic kicks, snares and hats, and the slightly overwhelming file/folder structure.

9/10

Underground Trap Tool Kit Review at Future Music

Trap: Some may dismiss this new hybrid kid on the block as the next fad style, but its low-end, Old School Electro swagger has been pushing it to the front of the hippest jock’s crate for little while now. To meet the demand, the sonic Mechanics team have compiled enough tough and searing synth sounds, one shots, drums and low frequency ammunition to give wannabe Trap stars the kind of sonics made popular by Baauer, Chief Keef and Flosstradamus.

This varied and crisp pack contains over 2gb of data, including patches for Native Instruments Kontakt 4+, EXS24, Halion and Soundfont 2 files.

8/10

DJ Sykopath Slice Vol 3 - Vocal Kutz Review at Future Music

The Industrial Strength mob have invited back the charmingly named DJ Sykopath to provide all you crunked up Hip Hop Hoodlums with some shed worthy vocal samples to pepper your productions with.

Like the rest of the slice series, this potty-mouthed set is chock-full of the kind of post watershed language that is perfect for DJs and producers to cutup, mangle and generally put through the blender. If it’s in-your-face club stings and Gangsta shouting you’re after, it’s a good port of call.

Warning: This sample library may contain rappers doing Mystikal impressions making X-rated demads of your audience.

7/10

Strings Ultimate Collection Review at Future Music

This 750MB collection of solo and ensemble string riffs and loops will certainly be a welcome addition to the library of any producer wanting to add a touch of class to their productions.

Over 300 samples have been recorded through a range of vintage ribbon mics to capture that depth and warmth you’ve been searching for, and then bounced at 44kHz and 24-bit to maintain the high-quality of the original material.

With these sounds being notoriously difficult to recreate digitally, producers wanting to add the rich sound of strings to their compositions will find this is a cost effective alternative to hiring a professional orchestra.

8/10

Phil Kieran: Analogue, Electro & Techno Review At Soundista

Producer and DJ Phil Kieran is known for his deep analogue techno sounds on original productions like “Empty Vessels,” collaborations like “Snakes Crawl” (with Bush Tetras), and remixes for artists like Inner City and Green Velvet. His new “Analogue, Electro, and Techno” sample pack, available from Loopmasters, gives you the chance to integrate some of Kieran’s retro-future tech vibes into your own productions. The pack includes pretty much every format you’d ever want, including Reason, Kontakt, and Logic Patches; all the loops come in both REX and WAV formats (the whole pack is also available as an Ableton Live Pack, Reason Refill, or as Apple Loops).

Single Hits

The single-hit drum samples aren’t incredibly numerous, but they’re nicely varied: the kick drums, for example, range from long and deep 808-style bass drums to short, clicky, attack-y kicks. The snare samples have a warm grittiness to them that adds some body to the backbeat. The hats and shakers have a lot of analogue roughness in their tone; depending on the style you’re going for, you may need to process them fairly heavily. All of the drum hits definitely benefit from being layered together, rather than being played on their own. The bass single-hit section is fantastic, with everything from buzzy to deep to wobbly bass tones included. They all have that rich analog fullness to them, and they’re all long enough that you can drop them into a sampler and play nearly any style of bassline without worrying about looping the sample. The synth hits section of “Analogue, Electro, and Techno” also has some nice spacey-sounding analog tones; many of them have heavy LFO modulation, so you’d need to do some warping if you want to sync the modulations up to the beat. Phil Kieran’s sample pack also includes a set of FX, risers, and vocal samples; the sweeps and risers especially have a warm and fuzzy analog feel to them.

Loops

Like their single-hit counterparts, the bass loops have a nice variety of analog timbres. There’s a heavy emphasis on single-note basslines, so these loops would be most useful when played through a sampler or with a transposition envelope. The synth loops are more musically varied; there are some fantastic string-like samples in here that may not sound incredibly impressive on their own, but seriously fill out the mix when you drop them into your production. Every loop is also helpfully tagged with MIDI-friendly musical key markers. As for the drum loops, the Phil Kieran sample pack contains both a set of full, bounced-down loops and a collection of stems separated into kicks, snares, cymbals, and so on. The stems are grouped into kits, making it east to quickly find complementary loops. Finally, the pack includes a small set of wordless vocal samples and loops, which work nicely when sidechained to the kick.

All in all, Kieran’s “Analogue, Electro, and Techno” pack is definitely worth a look if you want to add some rough analog warmth to your productions. Given the range of sounds displayed in the loop and synthesized hits sections, a few more single-hit drum samples might have been a nice inclusion — but you can always cut up the loops and make your own hits.

Rating - 4/5

Progressive House & Mainroom Review At Audio Desk

Loopmasters is well-known for their wide range of edm-style sample and sound libraries. One of their last products is Progressive House and Mainroom“, created by David Lubner, who was already involved in the creation of other products like Big Room Anthems, Funky Deep Grooves, Tech House Pleasers and Progressive House Bombs.

Progressive House and Mainroom comes with a weight of over 2 GB content, including the main content in wav format, next to Apple Loops & Rex2 as alternative formats for the loop content, which are all key and tempo labeled, finalized by sampler patches for Kontakt, Halion, EXS24, SFZ and Reason NNXT. The library is also available in different split-packages like „Bass Loop Pack“, „Drum Loop Pack“ and others for a lower price.

Bass Loops – 64 loops in total, they go from distorted and experimental to classic and simple. Most of them using very basic melodies, several bass loops using the same melodie, which makes it easy to use them in the production, by exchanging them quick or layering them.

Drum Loops – 160 loops in total, in our eyes the best part of the package. All loops are punchy, clean mixed and rich of details. Every main loop comes with different variations, which allows an easy build of complex drum arragements.

Percussion Loops – 218 loops in total, wide spreaded facettes, same clean and dynamic as the drum loops – a great ressource of addon and fill material.

Synth Loops – 107 loops in total, same as on the bass loops, some of them using the same melodies or coming in several versions. The difference between the several versions is sometimes a little bit to small. All in all you can find here basic sounding synthlines but also some really nice earcatches.

Drums and FX – this folder contains 126 drum hits, where we would have liked some more samples in there, compared to the big amount of drum and percussion loops. Next to this you can find 50 SFX samples, again very clean and good sound quality. As last part of the package there are 25 vocoded stabs, which sounds good, but for our taste, not enough „vocoded“.

All in all, Loopmasters has delivered once again a solid sample library for edm musicians, filled with many essentials and creative loops, all them in a clean and good sounding quality.

Sound Quality - 90%

Content - 85%

Value For Money - 90%

Lenny Dee - Drum Shots Vol 4 Review at Computer Music

ISR Founder Dee brings on his fourth collection of one-shot electronic drum and cymbal samples as, WAV's and in a variety of sample format.

Some very high end gear was deployed in their making and great (apart from a superfluous and disappointing trio of tabla sounds). If you drum sample library needs bolstering, this would be £15 well spent.

8/10

Boxcutter - Cosmic Dub Electronics

An utterly uncompromising collection of heavily processed loops and hits from Planet Mu stalwart, Cosmic Dub Electronics is filthy, full of swing and swagger, and thoroughly plunderable.

Despite the resolutely grimy approach, there’s great diversity here, although your music will need to be pretty hard edges to be able to support these out there sounds

9/10

Real Strings Vol.4 - Hip Hop Review at Sounds and Gear

As you can see, this volume is dedicated to Hip Hop and Urban music. The series is recorded by Pete Whitfield in his own studio where he records strings for various professional artists, major lables, tv, and media companies.

The idea is to bring high quality authentic sounding string recordings into the hands of musicians of all types and styles. These are real, live played string samples and performances ready to load into your favorite host or sampler.

They even include the full scores and MIDI info.

How do they sound?

These strings sound amazing, totally real and authentic. There isn’t too much space or reverb around them but they aren’t completely dry either. You can tell they were recorded in a great sounding space.

The style of the loops and how they are organized really gives you some flexibility. You get the full loop, then the different parts of the loop like the low strings, high strings, etc. They are labeled by tempo as well as key for quick access.

The most important part though, is how they sound, and I really love the sound of these loops and phrases. They are long enough with plenty of variety to be useful in many situations. And they actual melodies/patterns played are actually quick useful and inspiring.

They aren’t just a bunch of simple, run of the mill phrases, there is some really good use of style and movement that shows the ability of the composer/conductor as well as the players themselves.

So what’s the bottom line?

Can I have some more please? Seriously, they sound good and they immediately got me excited to checkout the previous volumes. I give Real Strings 4 a rating of 4.5 out of 5 subs, they are well recorded, well organized, and most importantly they are usefully inspiring.

I would have liked to see a little more in the phrase category but there’s quite a bit there to work with as is. The only thing that I feel would have taken this to the next level is if they included some multi-sample patches in Kontakt, EXS, and Live formats.

The strings sound that good that I thought of all the melodies I could play with a nice section instrument.

Atnarko Deep House Foundations Review at Future Music

Atnarko has brought his DJ and production know-how to bear his first sample collection for Loopmasters, which combines Deep House loops and single hit material ready-made for a variety of platforms and samplers. Starting with the WAV drum loops, the majority of these are 120bpm and are solid, treading a pleasing line between offering enough originality without being unnecessarily flashy or over busy.

There's a good collection of kick only and kick free loops here too, though if you want complete flexibility, the single hit collections of snares, kicks, claps, hats and percussion elements provide full construction kits.

The sampled bass patches are great too while the FX loops, while not vast in number, showcase a darker sound whose uses could stretch way beyond Deep House. The music loops are inventive too, offering everything from sidechained pads, to dubby elements for late-night sets.

8/10

Dubmatix Dub & Reggae XL Review at Future Music

If you're after the grittier side of Dub and Reggae, this title should interest you, with the remit of sounds here extending easily into Dubstep too.

The drum loops cover a wide range tempi from 70bpm to 147bpm and many are treated to chains of appropriate effects, with reverbs and tempo-sync'd dub delays aplenty.

This is true too of my favourite collection here, a range of deeply tripy Horn Loops which cover a good breadth of tempi and keys too; they simply ooze 'drag and dropabilty'. Indeed, this collection is well stocked with pitched material among the drum s and percussion with well-recorded offerings for Bass Guitar, Keys, Melodica, Organ, Piano and Synths too. so building entire arrangements is possible.

There's little filler in Dub & Reggae XL - if you're looking for a hook to kick-start a new track, this is an inspiring collection.

9/10

Ultimate Fills & Drops 2 Review at Future Music

Looking to spice your productions with extended white noise sweeps, filter-opening effects, lifers, sparkles and much much more? If so, this second collection of Fills and Drops should pique your intrest.

The archeitecture of the 2.46GB of content is simple – the ‘Breakdowns’ and ‘Buildups’ folders do entirely as their name suggest. Within each folder, you’ll find content organised into different categories, with rapidly accelerating drum loops in 4,8 and 16 bar sections, Vocal tricks and reverses and growling Synth Loops just a few of these.

As everything on offer has been captured at 128bpm, this is defiantly Main Room fare, especially as everything is designed to hype, build heart rates and provide all manner of dance-based audio foreplay. However, as it’s hard to separate this kind of content with useful file name descriptions, you might find yourself through plenty to find what you need.

7/10

Real Strings Vol.4 Hip-Hop at Computer Music

This focused library aims to give hip-hop producers instant small-ensemble string satisfaction. All loops are presented complete and divided into High and Low sections (for ease of use),and the production is excellent. A good range of articulations and styles are covered and you also get a set of “one shot” phrases and all of the scores in MIDI, PDF and Sibelius formats.

9/10

Rasta MC Vocals Review at Computer Music

230 Rasta vocals from Razaman – chants, one-shots, phrases and “processed”. Excellent as a source of full phrases and lyrics, but even more useful for the scissor-happy samplist, this is a great resource of reggae, dub, DnB, dubstep and beyond. It’s not all gravy, though: there’s very subtle reverb and delay all over them, which we wish wasn’t there. Other than that it’s spot on!

8/10

Cinematic FX Review at Future Music Mag

Disregard the word 'Cinematic' and this 400MB collection successfully fulfils its remit, constituting a very well produced library of effects, stings and one-shots that's of more relevance to electronic musicians than soundtrack producers. These are synthetic, sci-fi type sounds, rather than cars, guns, breaking glass, real-world environments and suchlike.

Highlights include the Textures and Drones and Heavy Metal Dopplers folders, which are something of a sound design tour de force, let down only slightly by the very abrupt endings to the samples in the former. The Hits and Stingers folder, on the other hand, is a puzzler: it contains some very cool sounds but there's really not enough variation in each subfolder. While cinematic FX isn't particularly cinematic, then, I'd have no hesitation recommending it to anyone in need of a medium-sized library of instant 'unreal' • sound effects at a good price. Ronan Macdonald.

8/10

Terry Grant Deep House Visions Review at Future Music Mag

US producer/musician Terry Grant presents a comprehensive library of loops, hits and multisample sets, capturing his particular Deep House sound. There's a distinctly live, 'real-instrument' vibe to most of the drum loops, for example, which some (myself included) might describe as quite lightweight, particularly in the kick department. The electric basslines are similarly laid-back, but no less tight and funky for it.

It's in the musical elements that this collection really shines, though — the pads and keys are beautiful, while the 24 synth hits cover a broad range of flavours. The overall feel is chilled and expressive, and there's no doubt that this unusual archive resides at the lower powered end of the House spectrum. While I don't mean that as a criticism, potential buyers would be wise to audition the demos on the Loopmasters website.

Ronan Macdonald

7/10

Loopmasters Artist Live 100 Racks at Future Music

If you’re working in Ableton and looking for a huge healthy injection of pro-level content then look no further. Compiled from they synth and drum racks of artists such as Nu-Tone, Dom Kane, Jon Carter, A Guy Called Gerald, Ray Keith, Danny Byrd, London Electricity, Todd Terry, Marshall Jefferson and Meat Katie, the range on offer is therefor rather diverse but it’s the uniform quality and ease of layout and use that ties the pack together.

The 100 racks here remind us of stepping through the presets of a new expensive synth – some sounds come tailor-made for a genre you might not work in, but there’s always something perfect for your needs just around the corner.

It’s quite the party when you dig in, equivalent to treating yourself to a few grand’s worth of new gear but all yours for just £10. Great.

8/10

June Miller Review at Future Music

A beautifully sinister-sounding collection that unites some gorgeously clean mix-ready drums and hits with some off-the-hook super-wide and angry basses and synths. It’s a growling, dark and dank journey into D’n’Bs grubbier underside with a polite nod to its old skool Jazz melodics.

Heap on the reverb (or go for one of the extensive Ambient-themed samples) and let the quality sing out as each sound expands into a lush backdrop for the intense and detailed front-facing top-lines, clicks, pops and slaps on offer. This really is both sides of the D’n’B loaf lavishly buttered.

Moving, dramatic but relentlessly pacey and attention grabbing, it’s a winning all-encompassing state-of-the-scene package. Recommended.

9/10

Bass Pedals score 9 at Music Tech Mag

Bass Pedals is the second meticulously sampled, analogue instrument from ' Wave Alchemy, a company best known for its extensive libraries of carefully crafted drum hits. Where the first instrument took apart the classic Prophet One, this new library delves into the depths of the original Moog Taurus Mk1 bass synth.

The full version totals 4.5GB across 3,207 samples and includes 28 heavily multi sampled patches created with the Taurus itself. There are also individual sampled oscillators laid out in a custom Kontakt GUI, with 40 presets to show off the possibilities on offer. The reason this pack is so large is due to the 3x round-robin samples and long note tails, which help to retain the detail and imperfections of the original unit. For less money you have the option of a smaller version without the 3x sampling; alternatively, there's a Live Pack version, but you'll lose out on the excellent Kontakt scripting and GUI.
The main two editing sections are the Preset page for tweaking the multi sampled Taurus sounds and a Raw page for crafting your own by layering up the two oscillators plus a sub-oscillator and noise generator. You'll find the usual synth controls for filters and envelopes, with an LFO hardwired to oscillator pitch and a superb custom-scripted oscillator drift for creating thick, detuned movement.

As the wave selection on the Taurus is limited to a collection of simple saws, Wave Alchemy has extended the palette by also offering saturated waves processed via an Empirical Labs Fatso. There's also an effects page with EQ, chorus, saturation, distortion and convolution reverb, plus fantastic IRs recorded from an Eventide DSP-7000 Harmonizer. Finally, you'll find a Controls page from where you can tweak the monophonic behaviour, portamento, pitch bend and velocity settings.

Bass Pedals is arguably not as flexible as the previous instrument, Proll - it has fewer original instrument sounds and doesn't come with a built-in pattern sequencer. However, it excels as a heavyweight analogue bass instrument and comes highly recommended for anyone looking for incredibly fat and warm sounds. MTM

MTM Verdict
A carefully constructed instrument that combines multisampled bass sounds and a flexible set of oscillators and control. 9/10

Blokhe4d Review at Music Tech Mag

Drum and bass duo Blokhe4d comprises ex-Bad Company, producer Michael Vegas and US-born Jonas Uman and fuses heavy drum and bass with elements of electro and techno. They've teamed up with Loopmasters to offer up a sinister library of hard beats, deep chords, twisted FX and snarling basses.

The pack contains just over 600MB of 24-bit audio and comes in a variety of formats, with 217 loops and 214 sampler instrument patches. Although many of the loops fit together to form construction Kit-style tracks, they are divided into bass, cymbal, drum, FX, music and percussion folders, which is ultimately much more useful when you're looking for something specific.

Listening through the sounds available, it's clear that Blokhe4d's speciality is in crafting immaculately detailed and warped bass sounds that resemble snarling beasts ripping through the speaker cones. Many of the bass loops are multi-textured, with good use of reverb and delay to add depth, and the bass hits are a masterclass in processing, re-sampling and general nastiness. This is balanced by some more delicate music loops where deep and serene synth chords sit alongside eerie pads and atmospheres, and a varied collection of both in-your-face and ambient FX and glitch sounds.

The percussion, cymbal and drum loops are also excellently produced, with detailed edits and inventive production tricks throughout. Many of the breaks are also mixed extremely loud or are heavily processed with effects, yet retain a sense of weight, and never sound over-compressed. A large number of the loops also have alternate versions so you can quickly lay ideas out in your arrangement. Our only real issue is with some of the music and bass hits that come with accompanying sampler instruments. Many of these sounds are quite complex and long, with sync'ed delays, modulation or pitch dives that could cause timing problems when playing at different pitches. That said, this is a stunningly produced pack with a wide variety of cutting edge beats, synths, and bass sounds.
MTM

MTM Verdict
Immaculate production throughout with a large number of warped, snarling basses and synths, and loud, heavyweight drum breaks 8/10

Drum Fills reviewed by Wusik.com

There have been plenty of micro packs popping up lately, and this one from Quantum Loops focuses on drum fills. There are four types of fills contained in Drum Fills, namely: Electronic fills, Acoustic fills, FX fills and Mixed fills - all with at least 50 files each. Another folder called Bonus Content is filled with risers, droppers and one-shot samples.

Most of the fills are 4-bars long and they have been programmed very well. The Acoustic drum fills are varied and the selection is quite beautiful - useful to say the least. The separation of the drum elements can be heard clearly with a nice touch of room ambience. Mixed fills on the other hand fuse acoustic and electronic elements to form something hybrid.

Very innovative from the folks at Quantum Loops.

Future Jungle and Drumstep Review - Wusik.com

A couple of years ago Aquasky released a sample pack called 'Electro House & Breaks' and I love its content. They have made quite a ripple, for lack of better term, in sample/loop production, as well as releasing their own albums.

This Monster Sounds release from them features 'full throttle' samples and loops in tempos ranging from 140-177 BPM. Fast and devastating are the words that come to mind in describing this pack.

There are an enormous amount of one-shots, booming basslines, jacked synths, FX galore and monster breaks that are ready to melt the dancefloors. My favorites, though, are the multi-sampled basses and synths. They are good additional instruments if you have Logic's EXS24 or Reason's NN-XT softsamplers.

The 1.4 GB material in Future Jungle & Drumstep (half-time D'nB with the punch of Dubstep fused in) represents the sub-genres real well and with this library, Aquasky has brought out a sure winner.

Wusik Review Deep Disco House

Although not a lot in terms of content, the 10 bass loops, 41 music loops and 14 vocal loops provide instant inspiration to musicians and producers looking to add that deep house sound to their tracks.

All files are tempo and key labeled for maximum use. However, there are no drum loops or drum hits in this pack... unfortunately. Hence the small 134MB download size. But there are gems here, especially the bright strings and the modulated/LFO'd synths.

House Brass review by Wusik.com

This release from Delectable Records is a collection of horn loops geared to dance music. House Brass was conceived to cater to producers and dance musicians looking to augment their mixes with authentic natural-sounding brass loops...played by real musicians.

This collection is divided into several categories of Loops, Riffs, Shots and Shots FX. It features plenty of trumpet, alto saxophone, bass trombone and trumpet plunger loops played in different keys with a tempo of 125 BPM for flexibility and ease of use. In total, you get 394 unique professional loops and one-shots that can be instant gratification or something you can play with if you're stuck with no inspiration.

Great uses for this library include Soulful House, Jazz, Orchestral, Latin House and Film Scores. Although House Brass was recorded dry in the studio, the highlights are the cool 66 'Shots FX' in which the loops were given generous amount of delay, filtering and reverberation.

DAWcentrix Review - DnB Combinators for Reason - Wusik.com

This Refill soundbank is designed to inject new sounds into the Propellerhead Reason 6-plus software. Simply called Reason DnB Combinators, this pack from 5Pin Media explores the dark side of the drum and bass genre.

It features 66 Combinator patches, 65 MIDI files and 65 song templates that you can mold and shape and play around with. The Combinator patches are powerful, sound great and were programmed with expertise - just as I expected.

The assignable knob in Combinator was mapped for sound shaping capabilities (modulation). Great for players who actually tweak while playing at the same time.

The 65 song templates are there to inspire you should you be stuck in a rut or all out of ideas. Overall, this soundware has a dark feel that can also be used for dubstep, dark ambient and experimental music.

Wusik review Sublime Tech Vocals - Loopmasters

As the name suggests, this sample library from Loopmasters is a collection of vocal phrases, adlibs, top lines and vocoded vocal pieces that are perfect for dance and DJ producers.

There are bags of neat vocal samples to be chopped, stuttered, glitched, edited and reshaped in this 652 MB, 24-bit collection. Sublime Tech Vocals was recorded at different tempos of 118-126 BPM.

You get different phrases that would fit Tech, House, Electro and Funky House compositions, but the best ones for me are the 26 Vocoded vocals. They provide that extra magic needed to make your dance tracks stand out.

Epic Electro and Tech House Review

From UK sample developers Loopmasters comes this collection of bass loops, drum loops, music loops, real hat loops, multi-sampled instruments, drum hits, synth hits, stabs and Moog one-shots in 24-bit quality.

This 1.21 GB of material was produced by Chris Cowie, who is known for his diverse production skills and various record releases. Epic Electro and Tech House contains all kind of samples and loops (128BPM mostly)you can think of for making EDM. The punchy drums are outstanding, the music loops are full of synth lines that are destined to destroy the dancefloor and the multi-sampled instrument are a good bonus should you make your own sampler patches in various softsampler such as NN-XT, EXS24 or Kontakt.

The thing is, this is a good library with lots of different loops - not variations from a single sound. I was even hooked by the demo track of this pack. Well made.

Monster Sounds Heaveyweight Analogue Subs Review - Wusik

In dance music (EDM) whether it's techno, D'nB, house or dub it would be embarrassing if your releases sounded wimpy and weak. You need sounds that are heavy, punchy and can sustain a crazy crowd on the dancefloor.

This is where Heavy Weight Analog Subs comes in. It gives you access to 296 (bass multis and sub hits) 24-bit samples recorded using high-end studio equipment and vintage synthesizers such as the venerable Korg MS20, small-but-terrible Roland SH-101, Yamaha CS5, Clavia Nord, Novation BassStation, Roland 808 and the Juno 106. Some pretty impressive synths there.

If your track is anemic in the bass department, I see this pack as a very useful tool. But how does it sound though? The title pretty sums it up. It is power-driven, which can make your woofers go berserk.

Latin Horns Review by Wusik.com

We all know that when it comes to electronic/dance sample libraries, Loopmasters is at the forefront of delivering such products. But it's good to see them tap into the world of ethnic samples with (drum roll) Latin Horns.

This title is a great, comprehensive collection of horn and ensemble loops with a fiery Latin flavor. Firstly, this pack is 1.4 GB in size and delivered in 24-bit quality. Secondly, the samples are recorded in tempos from 125 to 130 BPM, with a wide range of styles - from riffs to melodic lines and fills. Latin Horns is broken down into four BPM folders, each with 'Ensemble' sub-folders. An Ensemble folder comprises 4 files each; a Sax loop, Trombone loop, Trumpet loop and a mix file of each loop. There are a total of 104 Horn Ensembles together and 417 Rex 2 Loops.

That's plenty of materials to drop into your productions - whether used as-is or processed. As far as the performance of the loops goes, they are absolutely top notch, brimming with authenticity. They have so much life in them, and sound so organic. What can I say, I love this pack.

The Blues Sessions Review

In today's routine electronic sample libraries being released, it's good to see something different for a change.

The Blues Sessions is inspired by the sounds of blues artists such as Rory Gallagher, Davey Graham, Eric Bibb, Bert Jansch, Louisiana Red, Big Moose Walker and Woody Mann. Recorded at 24-bit/ 44.1KkHz, this library is as vast and comprehensive a sample source as you can get.

There are a total of 2.02 GB of really well-recorded loops and hits such as drums, harp, Hammond, keys, vocals and some genuine old blues recordings plucked from the vault. Thanks to the use of vintage equipment (RCA ribbon mics, 70's Raindirk console and Neve and RCA preamps) they've really captured the vibe and feel of that classic blues sound.

The performances are absolutely top notch, of course, as I've come to expect from Loopmasters. My favorites would be the harp loops as they will rip through your speakers.

The Hammonds and Rhodes have so much grit that they can be used in heavier style compositions. Overall, a great sample pack that's destined to be a classic.

June Miller Review by Computer Music

A beautifully sinister-sounding collection that unites some gorgeously clean mix ready drums and hits with some off-the-hook super-wide and angry basses and synths. It’s a growling dark and dank journey to D’n’ B’s grubbier underside with a polite nod to its old school Jazz melodies.

Heap on the reverb (or go for one of the extensive Ambient-themed samples) and let the quality sing out as each sound expands into a lush backdrop for the intense and detailed front-facing toplines, clicks, pop and slap on offer. This really is both sides of the D’n’B loaf lavishly buttered.

Moving dramatic but relentlessly pacey attention grabbing, it’s a winning all encompassing state-of-the-scene package. Recommended.

Ronan Macdonald
9/10

Growl, Monster Bass Review by CM

Rather more abstract and less ‘obvious’ in its approach to horror is this unique and brilliant pack that accurately nails the en-vogue trend for intercutting snarls and roars with down and dirty lead synth play.

In isolation, the short, almost random animal gasps, breaths, bites and roars seem like too odd an arsenal to shape into music but through the clever inclusion of similarly styled synth chops and ‘roars’ and ‘gasps’, your own eminently ‘deadly’ tracks soon begin to take shape.

Rack up a bunch of short hits, arrange to complement your Skrillex-style Complextro beats and then ‘shoot holes‘ in your arrangement by swapping out sounds, reversing or repeating regions and generally having fun.

Thanks to the quality of the sounds on offer it’s hard not to sound ‘dangerous’ in minutes.

Daniel Griffiths
8/10

Artist Live Ableton Racks Review - CM

If you’re working in Ableton and looking for a huge healthy injection of pro-level content then look no further. Compiled from the synth and drum racks of artists such as Nu-Tone, Dom Kane, Jon Carter, A Guy Called Gerald, Ray Keith, Danny Byrd, London Electricity, Todd Terry, Marshall Jefferson and Meat Katie, the range on offer is therefore rather diverse but it's the uniform quality and ease of layout and use that ties the pack together.

The 100 racks here remind us of stepping through the presets on a new expensive synth — some sounds come tailor-made for a genre you might not work in, but there's always something perfect for your needs just around the corner.

It's quite the party when you dig in, equivalent to treating yourself to a few grand's worth of new gear but all yours for just £10. Great.

Ronan Macdonald
8/10

Logicuser.de Review: SOR FX Revolution 1

Just like every SOUNDS OF REVOLUTION product, samples are perfectly organized in groups so finding what you're looking for is fast and easy. Remarkably, every single sound is crisp and clean and thereby offers a professional level of sonic quality Apple loops perfectly integrate into my DAW and perform well during extreme time stretching. With FX Revolution Vol. 1 Oliver Schmitt once again sets a high standard. Right next to the convenient choice of sample and sampler formats this is something I'd like to see other manufacturers do as well.

Amazona.de Review: SOR FX Revolution 1

Conclusion: listening to the examples below it's easy to see FX Revolution has a lot to offer. A clear way of sorting samples provides for fast and easy use right next to first-class 24-bit audio quality. Main focus lies on electronic and synthetic effects, albeit being suitable for other music styles as well. Highly recommended once again!

Professional-audio.de Review: SOR FX Revolution 1

With the sample library FX Revolution Vol. 1 delivering special effect sounds and loops, tireless audio tinkerer Oliver Schmitt once again treats all fans and producers of Techno, Minimal and House. Besides, he promises quite some ammo of futuristic sounds suitable for score, ads, webdesign or computer games. Samples prove all-professional sonic quality by being clean and crisp. Atmo sounds offer a journey through futuristic soundscapes, accompanied by fancy space sounds, warm ambient elements and others. FX Revolution Vol. 1 is a great add-on library for producers of Electro, House and Dance. Probably the biggest plus is the huge variety of inspiring sounds suitable for many kinds of sounddesign, including score and computer game soundtracks.

Recording.de Review: SOR FX Revolution 1

This DVD is something special. While previous SOR releases mostly served producers of dance music or live artists, this one crosses over to diverse genres. Well-crafted effect sounds are surprisingly suitable for composing score or computer game soundtracks. Remarkably, the loops are much more than just a bonus: they're simply for the creative-minded and as usual we might add - state-of-the-art crafted. Most importantly, they're properly looped with respect to avoiding "megabyte show-off". Conclusion: This effect library is a true winner. Everybody looking for cool electro FX is well advised to take a closer look here. Due to excellent sounddesign, package size and variety as well as reasonable pricing FX Revolution Vol. 1 is our straight tip!

Releasetime.de Review: SOR FX Revolution 1

A somewhat puristic sound, both attractive to directly being used in a production and infecting you to become even more creative using own compressors, EQs, filters and reverbs. Same holds true for the loop section, supporting the rhythm and groove part of a track. Atmosphere, Backwards and Impact samples bring in some more spices, and the LFO madness section is my personal favorite. With both libraries Oliver Schmitt delivers a great starting point for state-of-the-art productions, showing strong commitment with respect to sample quality and character. FX Vol. 1 offers an array of effect sounds, including vocal cuts, noise and percussion elements as well as groovy fx loops - all of that giving rise to some more restless production sessions for sure.

Logicuser.de Review: SOR Kick Free Revolution 1

Just like in FX Revolution Vol. 1, loops offer an irresistibly clear, crisp and punchy sound. Obviously they're professionally built from the scratch instead of recycling well-known and thus boring sounds [...] Contrary to other companies, loops are actually kick-free [...] In my opinion the best "no kick" sample pack of 2009.

Amazona.de Review: SOR Kick Free Revolution 1

[...] Sounds are perfectly looped as usual, sounding nicely synthetic (few acoustic hihats), groovy all over the place and ? contrary to other manufacturers ? actually kick-free, which accounts for the superior quality of this product. All beats are new, professionally built from the scratch and offering a huge variety of styles [...] Conclusion: Kick Free Revolution Vol. 1 offers perfectly programmed loops to give an up-to-date dance beat. Totally inspiring and thus a definite must-have!

SoundAndRecording.de Review: SOR Kick Free Revolution 1

[...] Loops are often available in more than just one version, reaching from simple to complex and thereby being perfect for building THE climax [...] Kick Free is just so sexy: focused on dance music, full of rhythm, feeding your creativity with some clicks here and crazy noises there. This one is clearly for all fans of synthetic, dynamic sounds. Highly recommended!

Keys.de Review: SOR Kick Free Revolution 1

[...] In contrast to the Vengeance libaries, Kick Free offers all popular sample (24-bit WAV, AIFF, REX) and sampler formats (EXS24 and Kontakt). Kick Free focuses on dance music only, but this in a very detailed and inspiring way. Kudos to Oliver Schmitt!

Recording.de Review: SOR Kick Free Revolution 1

"[...] Obviously, this package offers kick-free loops, moreover ?unique loops by Oliver Schmitt". This attribute has become a seal of quality I experienced myself many times already. Sounds of Revolution releases are just a bit better and different from other libraries out there [...] Conclusion: once again Oliver Schmitt proves his passionate commitment to producing great loops for club music. Especially in combination with "Club Revolution Vol. 1" this is the perfect equipment to go with for the next hit!

Recording.de Review: SOR Electro House Revolution 1

Conclusion: this product is our editorial's favorite right now. Quality is outstanding and the fact that each sample is professionally handcrafted from the scratch proves once again Oliver Schmitt's skills in sound design. Loops in several variations are covering the entire frequency spectrum. Considering these features, pricing is very reasonable. The product delivers a great choice of loops and single sounds (focus on drums and percussion), fx and more. Rating: Editorial's Recommendation!

SoundAndRecording.de Review: SOR Elctro House Revolution 1

Oliver Schmitt aka Sounds of Revolution already produced a great portfolio of sample packs - now it's time for Electro House! Many different subfolders divide all those spices for a decent track in a easy-to-use fashion. Single and loop samples, basses, fx, scratch sounds, synths and vocals, as well provided in all common sample and sampler formats are extremely well produced and full of groove. Using the best of both well established and brand new soundware for producing this sample pack gives a pristine, punchy and authentic sound so there's only one thing left to say: thumbs up!

Logicuser.de Review: SOR Electro House Revolution 1

Conclusion: to the best of my knowledge there's no product being this versatile and inspiring. Sample quality is outstanding since the entire frequency spectrum is available. Loops didn't get a quick'n'dirty treat with a low cut filter to sort of remove a former kick but have been professionally built from the scratch. I really liked the drum variations perfect for building a track's climax. This product contains a lot of great work and delivers an Eldorado for dance music and related styles.

Verdict: 10/10

Amazona.de Review: SOR Electro House Revolution 1

Conclusion: [...] interestingly, the most catchy elements are the more silent ones here, such as precious snares, punchy percussions or a punchy sine bass within a long deep kick. While single sample might sound quite simple, they perfectly integrate into a groovy, innovative mix. Not including show-off sounds is a courageous way to go, we'd like to see this much more often.

Keys.de Review: SOR Electro House Revolution 1

Sounds of Revolution sticks with its trademark and offers once again a large variety of add-on loops, drums, percussion and synthesizer sounds aiming at Electro House [...] Looking at 1 GB of well-crafted samples there's probably no need for another library.

BEAT Mag Germany Review: SOR Electro House Revolution 1

Oliver Schmitt worked hard to be known as one of the greatest sound designers regarding synthesizer patches and samples for club music. With this product he focuses on House music, offering more than 2000 punchy drums samples, groovy bass sounds, inspiring bass and synthesizer loops, kick-free loops, construction kits and a couple of vocal samples (incl. kid's voices). Common sample and sampler formats are covered for user convenience.

Releasetime.de Review: SOR Minimal Techno Revolution 1

Honestly, this product turned out to be exactly what I've hoped for: truly refreshing sounds, sweet and freaky add-ons ("Proc Live Rec"), loads of loops and construction kits with different complexity. It's just the way I like it: a huge arsenal of well-produced, crisp and punchy sounds at a very reasonable price. Quality is just as outstanding as quantity: no unnecessary looping, no ripped and low-cut samples but everything produced from the scratch. Sorting sounds in categories is just one more aspect making this collection a true winner. In case you like to accept Minimal at face value: 2168 files are for sure enough for a couple of fresh tunes, right?

Beat Mag Germany Review: SOR Minimal Techno Revolution 1

Famous DJs and producers such as TiŽsto or Blank & Jones proudly confess to use Oliver Schmitt's sample libraries. With Minimal Techno Revolution Vol. 1 he treats all his fans once more with a high quality, 3,16 GB sample package. At well-known and multi-awarded quality, more than 2000 samples cover everything from bass to drum and synthesizer loops or one-shots, sonic fragments and some unexpected goodies, notably available in all common sample and sampler formats. A very musical, inspiring material at a highly professional sonic quality. Loving punch, futuristic and diverse sound there's nothing else to look for. Thumbs up!

Releasetime.de Review: SOR Tribal Progressive Revolution 1

[...] It's a lot of fun to simply listen to the huge choice of samples, easily inspiring you to arrange a groovy track. Kick samples, claps and snares are my personal favorites. But no worries: loops, fills and fx are just in the same way never-heard and professionally produced. Remarkably, loops are available in different variations, perfect for conveniently building up a song. All fans of clear, crisp and at the same time great-to-manipulate sounds will find a huge choice of samples in here, right next to all common sample and sampler formats for user convenience. Oliver Schmitt proves once again he's paying full attention at quality and accuracy, easily making this one our editorial's recommendation.

Pro-tone Review: Abstract & Weird

Oliver and his baby 'Sounds of Revolution' (SOR) don't need any introduction - the sample packs are used worldwide in enumerous productions. While waiting for more soundfood, maybe successors of 'Club Revolution 1' and others, we came across a new mini series: smaller packages, but just as useful and precious as always: 'Abstract&Weird' and 'Clicks&Glitches'. Interesting. Let's do this!

The product titles pretty much say what's inside: you won't find a huge main loop collection and some standard percussion samples - these sample packs are taking care of the subtile but yet extremely important part of a decent track: they offer everything you need to perfectly fill the sonic gaps in your track plus to add the special touch to make it (even more) unique.

Abstract & Weird is a specialty you might need some experience for. Listen carefully to trance productions of guys like Sean Tyas or explore some harder stuff of the progressive electro genre: there they are, those special sounds, weird, not really percussion, not very obvious, but they all do one thing: making a track unique and groovy. Until now we couldn?t find any similar sample collection to this one, which makes sense: as mentioned before, these kind of samples do need some producer experience and creativity to handle - otherwise they're just some non-fitting musical elements. You need to work on them, maybe add a huge amount of high quality reverb and others...in other words, once again: you need creativity. If you think you're ready for that, you might be the happiest person ever with this perfectly handcrafted sample pack.

Rating: 10/10

Wusik Review: Abstract & Weird Vol. 1

This new sample pack by Sounds-of-Revolution aims to be a good reference library for composers of experimental, IDM and noise music. Abstract and Weird Vol. 1 gives you the necessary ingredients to cook up some "off-kilter" music. There are 200 24-bit WAV files (198 MB) REX and Apple Loops AIFF supported, as well as sampler patches for EXS24 and Kontakt. So what do you get? All kinds of otherworldly, peculiar and mostly FX-ridden sounds are presented in this library. There are FX, atmospherics, uplifters and all kinds of twisted sounds from the mind of programmer Oliver Schmitt. I love this library's superior quality in terms of how the loops were recorded. The spiky and glitchy drum loops are top notch and the best offering. They are specifically designed for flexibility in creating experimental electronica and other electronic sub-genres.

Computer Music Review: Tribal Progressive Revolution 1

This is all about progressive deep house paired with tribal rhythms and textures. It's the same high quality we're used to from SOR maestro Oliver Schmitt, and it's open-ended nature means any electronic genres should benefit from this bulging pack. The price might reel in only the most dedicated progressive experiments, though.

Rating: 8/10

Computer Music Review: Hats & Tops

There isn't a kick in sight here, but that's no bad thing. All the loops are designed to spice up your drums by adding an extra crispy rhytmn. There are 100 of the tightest, bounciest top lines you've heard, and the good news is that the'll sit well in any club-based genre. What's more, the REX support means that they'll stretch to any BPM.

Rating: 9/10

Wusik Review: Hats & Tops

Here we have a small sample pack (dubbed micro series) from Sounds-of-Revolution entitled 'Hats & Tops Vol.1". This is a 'specialty' collection comprising 100 hat and top loops, and nothing else. It is very convenient to those looking for a specific kick-less loop without having to sort out folders and folders of samples. Use the samples to augment into your drum mixes or use as is as fillers in gaps or transitions in breakdowns. All 24-bit files were programmed from scratch and applied with the latest processing tools for maximum sound and fidelity. Best if used for house or any EDM.

Wusik Review: Clicks & Glitches Vol. 2

I've noticed that Sounds-of-Revolution has been cranking out Vol. 2 of their previous titles. One of those title is Click & Glitches, a library focused on one thing: to offer cut-up loops and quirky miscellaneous debris of samples to producers. Style-wise, this volume is pretty much the same as the first one with the exception that it has 25 more files (107 MB). This library can be used in conjunction with other loops or drum mixes that requires certain charm or lacks edge over others. Although a micro pack compared to the multi-gigabyte libraries out there, but still has lots of useful sounds that are great for many genres.

Computer Music Review: Abstract & Weird 2

This weird and wonderful pack comrises 200 loops at 127bpm in various formats including WAV, REX files and sampler patches. There's plenty of phasing, flanging, filtering, extreme EQ and distortion going on, resulting in loops with unique timbres and feels. It's as slick as you'd expect from Sounds of Revolution. Take a listen to the demo before you invest, as it's an acquired taste.

Rating 7/10

Plughugger.com Review: Kick Free Revolution 3

Oliver Schmitt is a man driven by a passion. Just like Deadmau5, Oliver Schmitt knows the art of creating drum loops that sound spot-on modern with a minimum of ingredients. For someone like me - who rather add than take away - it's almost like dark magic. But as the old idiom famously says 'the devil is in the details' - and that's what Oliver Schmitts loops are all about. Tiny details that you barely register but perceive as a whole.

[...] The reason for this is that these loops do not only lack the kick but also the snare. The omission of the snare might sound like a simple trick, but it makes the all difference in the world when it comes to actually use the loops in your own productions. This does it make very easy to build dynamic drums for entire track - with your favorite snares and kicks.

CONCLUSION

Being a somewhat decent producer myself - I marvel at the cunning steeped in this collection. The sounds are both carefully selected and masterfully processed. The usage of tonal elements is very clever and the loops are very dynamic - giving a feeling of ebb and flow.

If you are after the kind of sounds that will help you concur the charts of modern trance pop, this is probably too advanced for your audience. But if you are into modern electro and techno - or want to spice up your productions with those genres - there are few collections that will make you stand out in the same way as these loops will. People will think your production skills are way more advanced that they really are.

One final note about the price. In these days when you can grab gigabyte-sized libraries for 10-20 euros, a price of 64 euros is definitely high. But since the quality of these loops is so exceptionally outstanding - Kick Free Revolution files under investment, rather than expense.

Good: truly excellent kick free drum loops.

Bad: Nothing really. It is well worth its price.

Waveformless Review: Kick Free Revolution 3

Although I really enjoy programming my own drums, loops can sometimes be lifesavers in adding a specific feel or groove. The trouble is, most loop collections are of full drum parts, so if you want to mix your own drum programming with the loops, you have to try and EQ out the kick, or your low end turns to audio mush. Wouldn't it be great to have just the elements that lend the groove without all the other bits? That's exactly the idea behind Kick Free Revolution Volume 3 from Sounds of Revolution.

Divided into categories of Kit Loops (electronic hats, thips, perc, and occasional simple snare parts), Hi-hat loops (just what it sounds like), Live Percussion Loops (acoustic percussion loops), Minimal Loops (bleepy/twonky electronic loops perfect for minimal and tech house), Mixed Loops (loops created with all sorts of sounds), Noise Loops (interesting loops created with white noise), Synth Perc (just what it sounds like), and Tonal Loops (loops with tuned percussion elements). The loops all clock in at 127 BPM, but if you're using the REX/Stylus format, you can change the tempo of most of these loops across a fairly wide range of tempos without unwanted artifacts.

Producer Oliver Schmitt's production style generally leans towards the heavier end of the spectrum with most of the loops very aggressively compressed and the high end EQ tweaked. There is plenty of that here, but there are also lots of lighter sounding material should that fit your musical context better. In fact, I'd say the best part of this collection is the variety of what is offered here. There's plenty of loosely swinging hats for house or techno, ethnic percussion for adding a more exotic feel, Kraftwerkian laser rhythms for an electronic edge, straight forward dance grooves, you name it. It's a fun collection to audition loops from because you're never quite sure what the next loop is going to sound and feel like. This makes it very easy to recommend to musicians looking to add a little inspiration to their drum tracks.

Rating: 09/10

Computer Music Review: Kick Free Revolution 3

There's not much change to SOR's winning formula here: 777 percussive house loops at 127 bpm without any kicks to get in the way of your own humongous bass drum sounds. It's quality stuff, and while there are no surpises, there are some solid loops; especially in the melodic section where things get a little more interesting thanks to some pitch touches that add inspirtation to the otherwhise fairly dry material.

Rating: 08/10

HB&R Review: EDM and Progressive House

The Loopmasters maestros have come up trumps yet again with this excellent collection.

EDM (Electronic Dance Music) has come a long way over the past couple of years and you could even say the genre has ‘matured’ with much more experimentation nowadays to take it away slightly from the usual staple diet of four-to-the-floor. Same as house – hence the ‘progressive’ tag. This library will inject some fresh pizazz into your outpourings and make your DAW sit up and beg for more.

You get the usual shedloads of sounds in a range of keys from Abm and Bbm through to good old Fm and G.

The sounds are spread across three of the main dancefloor tempos – 125,126 and 130 – and are easily mixed and matched from folder to folder without loss of quality if, say, you want a drum loop from the 126bpm folder slotted into a 130bpm track.

No worries here whatsoever and although sound creator Andy Lee has busted a gut to give you everything you need, don’t be afraid to slap on a plug-in effect whenever you fancy; again, with no loss of quality at all.

The drum loops stand out from the crowd and are joy to work with – you also get loads of one-shots in the drum hits folder if you fancy making up your own kit and percs.

All in all, EDM & Progressive House gets a well-deserved 10 out of 10 and when you’ve heard the sounds you’ll raise a glass to Andy and beg him to hurry up and turn out another stunner! Check out the demo at www.loopmasters.com – you will not be disappointed.

One-shots, sampler patches, synths & FX wav packs and Bass loops wav pack are available separately at various prices. Please see the website for more details. Here is the official blurb:

Loopmasters proudly present EDM and Progressive House produced exclusively by our most dedicated and bestselling in-house sample guru, Andy Lee.

This incredible sample collection sees Andy’s instinctive talent of knowing what will work on the dance floor put to good use yet again with Massive Main Room hooks, Euphoric drops and Addictive Grooves.

Each sample in this collection has been perfectly tuned, eq-ed and effected with every subtle nuance from each sound coerced out, making them club-ready and dropping them into your productions will be a breeze!

Expect to find 1.37 GB of samples including Big Room Synth Loops, High Impact Drum Loops, Anthamic Melodies, High Energy Basslines, Huge Verb SFX, Punchy Drum Shots, Searing Synths and Ravealicious Leads. In detail, you get:

1.37GB 771 Loops, 376 One Shot Samples in 24Bit n 44.1Khz including,

144 Bass Loops

300 Drum Loops

324 Synth Loops

3 SFX Loops

311 Drum Hits

23 SFX

5 Synth Multi-Sampled Instruments

771 Rex2 Files and 28 Ready to Play Soft Sampler Patches for Kontakt, Halion, Exs24, Nnxt and Sfz Formats. Also Available in Apple Loops, Reason Refill and Ableton Live Pack.

Alongside the best software processing and synthesis, a large amount of new and vintage synths were also employed from Moog, Dave Smith Instruments, Roland, Korg and Oberheim.

If you’re looking for Powerful Main Room Samples taking inspiration from Artist such as Avicii, Thomas Gold, Tim Mason, Kim Fai, Tim Berg, Pryda, Axwell, Firebeatz, Nicky Romero and Hardwell, alongside labels such as Spinnin Records, Wall Recordings and Axtone, Size Records and LE7ELS then don’t miss this library.

DJ Mag Review: Hit Maker Synths

Producers looking for the killer hook for their next peak-time floor filler should look no further than Resonant Vibes' new sample Library 'Hit Maker Synths'. This sample pack is stuffed full to the rafters with massive mainroom synth lines, including everything from hands-in-the-air euphoric trance riffs and electro house Leads to minimal and techno acid squelches, with a bonus FX section featuring an array of sweep FX, risers and bombs.

'Hit Maker Synths' is inspired by the sort of tracks that can be heard on labels such as Anjunabeats, Toolroom, Size and Eric Prydz's Pryda. This sample pack gives producers instant Lead riffs and features melodies in a mixture of keys and BPMs, ranging from126 to 129, ensuring all bases are covered for main room house, techno and electro styles.

The sounds in'Hit Maker Synths' have been sampled and produced using a collection of analog and digital equipment, to make sure that DJs or producers get instant inspiration to add to their tracks. The pack is also really useful for creative DJs who want to bring more elements to their sets by adding toplines, acidic bubbles and arpeggiated riffs over the top of beats within their sets.

Verdict 7/10

Future Music Review: Dubstep Drums

Turkish urbanista Utku S. delivers a pack from the hard breaks influenced end of the Dubstep spectrum.

Each kit includes the full loop, a kick-free version, a kick-only version, a ‘tops’ version, etc, with some bundling a set of double-time versions too. The file naming isn’t hugely helpful, with each loop mysteriously numbered rather than properly named.

The programming throughout is tight and the sounds range from head-noddingly solid to... well, a bit generic in places, particularly some of the ride cymbals and hi-hats. This isn’t actually too much of an issue though, as the high level of consistency from kit to kit makes the whole package a veritable playground of mix-and-match layering — great fun and genuinely productive.

A tasty extra is also included in the shape of 50 excellent dubstep bass loops - some may even find these more useful than the headlining drums!

8/10

Future Music Review: Guy J Transitions EP

Well, this is an interesting one! The first in a new series of combination EPs and sample libraries by Loopmasters sees house DJ/producer Guy J releasing four new tracks along with all the loops, one-shots, stems, multisamples and sampler patches used to make them.

The most interesting choon is the title track, Transitions, a deep, smoky number with an old-school bassline and plenty of atmosphere. All four are great, though, and certainly worthy of playing out.

The constituent samples are equally impressive, and although their primary usage would obviously be for remixing the tracks themselves, there are useful drum sounds and synths in there, too.

Overall, it's an intriguing concept at a price that feels about right — and hats off to Loopmasters for trying something new.

I'm looking forward to seeing who they get onboard for the next one.

8/10

Future Music Review: Sounds From The Modular

U&A Recordings Mike Hulme has coaxed a huge array of sounds out of his very serious modular synth setup (details of which are listed on the Loopmasters website) to create this 1.6GB library of analogue basses, rhythm loops, pads, leads, FX, noises blips, textures and more. If genre titles were to be assigned, House and Techno would be at the top of the list (for the rhythmic material, at least), although more overtly contemporary styles (Dubstep, etc) are also brought to mind at mind at times. Each synth patch has actually been recorded and supplied in two (or, in a few cases, more) versions — one dry, the others processed with effects. Thankfully, the effects in question have been applied with supreme taste and musicality, particularly in the Chords folder, which is a definite highlight.

Overall, this is a superb collection of beautifully recorded synth sounds that any electronic, Urban or Dance producer should easily get their money's worth from.

9/10

Music Tech Magazine: Heavy Weight Analogue Subs

Sub bass is arguably one of the simplest sounds in a club track but also one of the most difficult to get right. The tiniest mistakes made in the frequencies, harmonics or in choice of accompanying kick drum can ruin the impact of a track when played through a big club PA.

Although you can get reasonable sub sounds with today's soft synths, you can't beat analogue kit for generating a giant, warm Low end. For Heavy Weight Analogue Subs, the producers from Monsters Sounds have compiled a library of hits and multisampled bass instruments made with the Roland SH-101,Yamaha CS5, Korg MS20, Novation BassStation, Roland 808, Juno106 and Clavia Nord synthesizers.

The pack contains around 200MB of 24-bit audio comprising 83 sounds in total, with accompanying sampler patches for Kontakt, NN-XT, EXS24, HALion and Sfz. Everything here, down to even the simplest sine bass, has come from an analogue source or been passed through high-end hardware compressors and preamps. You might think you don't have a need for 83 different sub bass sounds, but when you explore in more detail there is a surprising amount of variety. From tight kick drum-style whomps and dives to longer sustained subs and resonant analogue saw waves, there's something to cover every task. You can use rich filtered waves if you want The bass to come through on laptop speakers or opt for one of the cleaner sine waves if you're aiming your bass solely at the dance floor.

For certain tracks you may just want a deep low end so that you can add your own top bass layers. These kinds of sound form the bulk of the pack, and loading up a spectrum analyser reveals multiple versions with varying levels of lower-mid harmonics and octaves. To make things interesting there's also a handful of slightly more elaborate wob sounds and modulations which would stand up in their own right without the need for layering.

If sub bass is important to your style of music this is an essential purchase that's guaranteed to get your speakers — and the crowd — moving.

MTM Verdict

A great-value pack that does exactly what it sets out to do. A large number of speaker-rattling basses and subs with a round and warm sound. 10/10

Music Tech Magazine: Glimpse Found Sounds and Field Recordings

With music software and virtual synths so widely available now, many producers are turning to recording their own found sounds to give their tracks a unique personality. Reflecting this, London-based deep house producer Glimpse has teamed up with Loopmasters and put together a library of atmospheric field recordings captured while on tour.

Found Sounds And Field Recordings contains 133 24-bit samples divided into folders of Glitch & Crackle, Human, Metal, Piano, Places, Travel and Weather. From chattering apes at Sydney Zoo to airport tannoy announcements, there's a fair bit of variety across each category. For recording, Glimpse used an M-Audio hand-held with built-in stereo mics to give each sound a sense of space.

Although some of the sounds are presented dry, many are layered, looped and manipulated to create more usable textures in a musical context. This means there's subtle sidechaining on some parts, plus reverb and delay to make things more interesting.

On the more extreme sounds, such as those in the Metal folder, Glimpse has used his array of Moogerfooger analogue effects to create wild echoes and movement. Some of the recordings are exceptionally bad in that you hear rustling as the mic brushes against something or distortion as the input is overloaded. But this is all intentional, as these glitches are then looped and turned into subtle rhythms that would work wonders as the backdrop to a deep house or electronic track. One of our favourite folders is the collection of loosely captured piano parts, where we hear the haunting sounds of someone noodling away over beautiful chords with their foot on the sustain pedal.

Some may question why they would want to pay for a collection of raw recorded atmos sounds when they could capture similar audio themselves. Where this library ready shines, however, is in the more layered, manipulated parts, which expertly show how this kind of material can be transformed into something rhythmic and musical. NITM

MTM Verdict

An intriguing collection that could be used to give your tracks a unique, organic edge. 8/10

Wusik Review: Minimal Techno Revolution 1

This comes from German sound designer and sample developer Oliver Schmitt aka "Sounds of Revolution." Another part of the Revolution series, Minimal Techno Vol. 1 is his latest sample set featuring over 3.16 GB (including 1.1GB content of 2167 WAV files) of loops and one-shots in pristine 24-bit quality.

It is delivered in different formats, so you'll get REX2, AIFF Apple loops and patches for EXS24 and Kontakt 3. The vast majority of the loops fall into the minimal techno sub-genre but Sounds of Revolution also designed the loops to be useful in other electronic music production as well. The 1500 single sounds of bass, synths, fragments, kick drums, claps, sound effects, electronic percussion and toms offer immense variety that can be beneficial to those who want to construct their own custom kits. As for the overall delivery and programming of the loops, and as I expected from a Sounds of Revolution product, this is a high quality sample pack worthy of praise

Computer Music Review: Clicks & Glitches 1

100 Loops here from SOR's golden-eared Oliver Schmitt, claiming to be just what you need to add "charm and groove" to your clean productions. The collection is made up of heavily swung distorted twitches and pops that bounce and spark out of your speakers. This focused pack gets our thumbs up, and the production is top-notch.

Rating: 8/10

Pro-tone Review: Clicks & Glitches 1

Clicks & Glitches is a really lovely package to work with: all those extremely groovy, special click sounds are provided as basic loops, meaning that you don't get perfectly grooving loops but truly inspiring material to work with: everything inside a loop is perfectly processed, but you have to work on most of the loops to make them fit into your track ? which isn't of any disadvantage at all!

'Clicks&Glitches' makes you instantly cut, copy and rearrange the loops - at least it inspired our creativity from the very first moment. For every fan of electro house and progressive, for sure also other genres, there's no better collection of these kind of sounds.

Rating: 10/10

Wusik Review: Clicks & Glitches 1

Well, this is something different. I have never reviewed a 'micro pack' before and this is the first, though certainly not the last. This pack lives up to my expectations, with some pretty useable esoteric loops that can add a little 'extra' to your compositions. It's primarily geared for minimal techno but other electronic music producers can benefit from this as well. All loops are recorded in the standard 127 BPM and are offered in different formats such as 24-bit WAVs, REX, Apple AIFF loops, plus EXS24 and Kontakt 4 patches. Clicks and Glitches Vol.1 comprises 100 loops (107 MB) that can also serve as top loops for drum mixes lacking that certain charm. A hundred loop library and for only 10.92 Euros (plus tax/VAT)... you can't go wrong with this.

Computer Music Revew: Abstract & Weird 1

Despite the name, Abstract & Weird's 200 rhythmic loops aren't a total break from SOR's club-friendly vibe. It's all about ring-modulated percussion and heavily processed FX, and none of it would sound out of place in the Beatport tech house Top Ten. It's varied, fresh and inspiring, and just as good for creating memorable drops as it is for layering with more traditional beats.

Wusik Review: Kick Free Revolution 2

There are a lot of drum loop libraries that offer great drum patterns. They are useful, they sound full and are ready to use by themselves no doubt, but the problem sometimes is that it's hard to integrate them into your own drum mixes. Enter Kick Free Revolution Vol. 1 and 2, a collection of drum loops crafted with very little or minute low-end. The idea behind a kick free library is nothing new, yet it is clever. It's intended to give producers a mix and match option for building new and unique drum patterns.

The first volume includes 684 loops all recorded at 127 BPM. Most of them would be suitable for electronic music such as Techno and House, but depending on your creativity, you can use these sounds any way you see fit. The samples are broken down to three main categories: "Experimental" will give producers effects and "something different" sounds, "Main" contain samples that are more of your typical everyday loops and "Perc" would work perfectly if you need realistic percussion elements. While Vol. 1 is delivered in DVD disc format, Vol. 2 is a downloadable product at Sounds-of-Revolution and Sounds/To/Sample sites. Continuing where Vol.1 left off, this library of 611 loops has basically the same formula as the original but it includes 70 deep, round kicks as a bonus. Oliver Schmitt, the man behind SoR, has sprinkled this collection with more diverse-sounding materials than the the first one. You'll find a bunch of hi-hat patterns, 140 club-oriented sounds, tonal loops with 52 melodic beatlines and 100-plus glitched-out loops for experimental enthusiasts. They say that sequels are supposed to be better than the original, and Vol. 2 delivers. Although both libraries are kind of pricey, they are superbly programmed with many usable sounds.

Future Music Review: Kick Free Revolution 2

Reviewers favourite Olli Schmitt and his Sound of Revolution label return with volume two of Kick Free Revolution, 600+ loops of tight tops at 127bpm.

For your buck you get '140 definitive big-room bangers' as well as some really sweet click and glitch loops, which although geared towards the house world can be thrown anywhere with a bit of tweakage. Add some hats, percussion, tonal offerings and 24-bit formats and it looks like Mr Schmitt has produced another gem.

Oh and in case you lack the bottom end to make full use of this top-heavy package Mr Schmitt gives you 70 kick drums covering all bases. Bonus!

Verdict: 9/10

Pro-tone Review: Kick Free Revolution 2

It's not hard to guess we were amazed reviewing this product. And besides a sometimes too excessive stereofield usage we were not able to find negative aspects. You get top-notch quality, huge variety and usability 'Sounds of Revolution' has proven once more why their products are one of the best out there. We're looking forward to Vol. 3!

Rating: 10/10

Plughugger.com Review: Minimal Techno Revolution 1

These loops quickly erased my initial grumpiness regarding the amount of drums: we are talking about seriously high quality loops here. [...] the sounds are placed in well thought out places and leaves room for the swing and other instruments to breathe. If you've ever cursed yourself for making your beats too action-packed - this is the remedy. This is of the best collection of kick-free loops I've heard in a long long time. [...] Interestingly, many of these loops come in a couple additional variations, which as always is highly useful when creating more complex arrangements. [...]

A nice surprise is the SID folder which contains Commodore 64-esque 8 bit drum samples which broadens the sound and feeling of this library in a nice way. These samples well compliment the sounds of the rest of the library. [...]

The live recorded sounds quickly became my favorites. These snippets of giggles, zippers and doors shutting have been processed in a very clever way so have a feeling of being half real - half synthetic. Brilliant stuff.

Conclusion: I can't think of anything better than Minimal Techno Revolution right now. The skills of Oliver Schmitt when it comes to drum loops are considerable and he truly masters the art of creating sparse and highly intelligent loops that both inspires and leaves room for your own drum sounds, which is a rare combination. On the whole, a very good library for anyone who needs to get back to techno.

Waveformless Review: Minimal Techno Revolution 1

[...] The bass loops kick off the collection with a wide range of contemporary flavors on offer. From gritty bit crushed squiggles, to fat analog moans, to hard digital coldness, just about every basic mood and style you're hearing in minimal techno these days is represented here at least a bit. The programming is funky when it's appropriate, strict when it needs to be, and the production techniques and sound design are top shelf. If something here doesn't inspire you, you may be beyond help.

[...] Schmitt's usual talent for creative and futuristic sounding programming continues here in abundance. All the sounds and production are absolutely current sounding and genre appropriate. All the beats are very well constructed and thought out, but even at their most cerebral, they don't lose that Teutonic, head-bobbing funk. [...]

...it is clear that Sounds of Revolution are aiming for the top. This library, like their prior offerings, is amazingly consistent and is almost complete devoid of filler material you'd never want to use. If minimal techno is your thing and you're looking for a good sample collection to get you started, you could certainly do a lot worse than to check this one out!