Day 315: Product Review - Bassline 4x4 UK Garage by Prime Loops

Our friends at Prime Loops have been kind enough to provide us with some review copies of their loop packages. Loops are an essential tool in any music producers arsenal.

We will be reviewing various different genre 'construction packs' every fortnight, and on this occasion we kick off with "Bassline 4x4" Vol 1 + 2.

The first important thing with loops is naturally the audio quality. You're not even going to get started if the audio is poor. ALL Prime Loops samples are recorded at full wav capacity/44Khz in a professional studio.

The packs generally come in a well organised set of folders sorted by type, BPM and or Key depending on the nature of the loop.

When you think of loops, you might instantly think of pre-recorded 'riffs' or melodies, and of course drum loops. While you do get a whole bunch of great usable loops, you also get stacks of pads and hits, which allow you all the creativity you might get from any regular synth patch.

The loops are also available in a ton of formats to suit almost any software you might want to use. For example pre made rex files are available, giving you extra flexibility with the loops beyond just the raw sound file.

In the 4x4 Bassline pack, not only do we have Bass sounds as you might expect, but also Chords, Stabs, percussion and even Vocals.

The sounds in this pack vary from the dark and grimey bass patches, through to quite ravey stabs. All very UK club sounding, and ideal for Garage, D&B, Dub-Step, Grime, Electro and more.

People have a tendency to assume that to use loops you must forfeit some creativity. I don't think anything can be further from the truth. This isn't eJay remember ;).

Sometimes when you've been carving away at a sound on you favorite synth, you can hit a block. Firing up one of these sample packs allows you to explore ideas you might otherwise have never thought of. This can lead to a sudden regeneration of the creative process, opening the flood gates.

With some clever use of the samples, you can actually come up with something that is a million miles from the original sound, and miles away from where you were going before, it really is quite a tonic.

There are some free samples for this pack on the prime loops web-site, but here is an 8 bar demo I knocked up using a mix of sounds available (most are hits dropped into a sampler with an original arrangement).

40/365

p&&l

bang!