Inspiration Sounds recently released Pure Live Breaks Vol 1, a collection of drum grooves played by International Session Drummer, Gary Widlake.
Pure Live Breaks Vol 1 features over 270MB of “rough and ready” drumloops recorded at tempos from 95-130 BPM.
You get a little over 120 dry loops and the same amount of processed loops, in Acidized .wav, REX2, and Apple Loops formats.
The drum kit used for the recordings sounds nice and clear, with a thumpy kick and crunchy snare. Although the sound of the drums is identical across the various loops, there is quite a variety of grooves which fit well in pop and funk music, and can easily be used in other genres as well.
Looping live drums is always a bit tricky, dealing with cymbals and such. Inspiration Sounds has done a great job crafting loops with natural sounding starts and looping points.
The processed loops sound a little more aggressive (multi-band compression, some reverb perhaps) and are probably better suited for pop/rock or electronic music.
So what do I think?
It’s rather hard to program drums to sound live, which is good for people like Gary. I’m quite taken by the work he has done on these grooves. They are diverse and many loops can be cut up so you can improvise on them in your music. I personally like the sound of the drums a lot: tight & crunchy, though laid back & groovy.
Inspiration Sounds has put up a demo track and some free samples, so check those to see if you think these are some of the freshest and phattest drum grooves around.
Pure Live Breaks Vol 1 is available for download for £19.95 GBP (about $40 USD).
More information: Inspiration Sounds
Hey there, I'm Ronnie and I run Rekkerd.org. I'm a bedroom music producer and guitar player, and I love chicken vindaloo & all things glitch.
