The various cymbals, in particular, are good - and all sorts of crashes, swells, and choked hits are included. While these could easily be used to construct a multi-velocity drum kit within a sampler, they can also be used to ornament a loop-based track. This is further enhanced by the excellent collection of single hits. This really does make it easy to construct a complete drum track with a minimum of fuss, including all the necessary elements needed to glue the basic sections together and enough variation to make it sound 'real'. As well as the usual one-, two-, and four-bar patterns and their variations, there are some really excellent fills, intros, endings, and breakdowns provided. The real strength of the library is the range of loops provided.

The loops seem to have a little processing applied, which gives them a nice natural ambience, but, thankfully, this is not overdone, so it was easy enough to add a little further reverb if required. The sound is crisp, with nice biting snares, plenty of sizzle to the cymbals, and a solid kick-drum sound. Both the recording and subsequent editing also seem to have been well done. The playing is excellent throughout - where required it is straight and powerful, but there is also plenty of more intricate stick work to be found in the more funky or shuffle-based loops. The titles of the various folders give a good idea of the loop styles available: 'Funky Rock Swing', 'No Nonsense Rock', and 'Alt Rock Grooves', for example. The loops are organised into a number of tempo-based folders (ranging from 75bpm up to 180bpm), while separate folders contain collections of one-shots and single hits. In this case, the CD contained some 700MB of acoustic drum loops and single hits. The library under review here is, like most of the other titles, based around a collection of 16-bit Acid ised WAV files. Their various titles are mostly aimed at rock, pop, and blues styles, but the catalogue also includes libraries suitable for country, rap, and hip-hop. Published July 2005 Drum Werks Volume 5 *****Д«eta Monkey Music are a US-based company specialising in competitively priced drum loop collections.

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