Mini reviews
RV Samplepacks
Take a trip into the musical murk of early ’90s trailblazers like Portishead, Massive Attack and the other pungent pioneers of cinematic, smoked-out beats. This dense collection of nearly 500 files does a great job of capturing their vintage sample-loop groove and boom-bap drum aesthetic, with plenty of ill keys, lolloping basses, and some cool Trickyesque rap vocals to weave around them.
The mood is deep and dusty, mixed with some sublime sub-sonics, to give everything a welcome touch of that famed, melancholic, Bristol sound. loopmasters.com 8/10
Audiotent
Essential sub bass tool bag, filled to the top with 107 astonishingly heavy low-end loops. The rumbling rhythms inside have been purpose built to completely own the bottom end of your tracks. With a wide and warm range of grand grooves, hard knocks, and cone-troubling tones and textures taken care of. All the dynamic and dense bass samples are locked to the dance-friendly tempo of 124bpm, and presented in high-gloss WAV – and are so well-crafted that you will be straining to bring the rest of your track parts up to their level. audiotent.com
8/10
Hydratek
50 sumptuous, experimental sequence presets for Serum – Xfer’s famed wavetable synth. Presented as a conceptual sequel to the ME K K A soundpack, it churns out more of those glitched-out grooves, dark and dank drones and sci ‐fi SFX. Everything comes to life as you manipulate assigned macros and mod wheels like the mad sonic scientists you are. To sweeten the deal, you get a further 50 sample loops, made to showcase the powerful results you can achieve. hydra-sound.com
8/10
510k Sounds
Super-fun pack catering for the Beat Shaker – the Max for Live device that works with your Ableton drum racks and MIDI clips to generate endless new beat patterns. Here, it’s tailored to the electro genre. Just fire up the Beat Shaker, peruse the old-skool grooves, and drag and drop one of the crisp and booming drum workouts into your session. Then press ‘Shake’ to start unlocking diverse new robo-rhythms. You can re-rub your full rack, or just tweak individually. It’s real intuitive, and a great way to freshen up your beats. samplemarket.co.uk
7/10
W. A. Production
Trapped-out rap samples, MIDI files and Seru
