July 2006: Beta Monkey Three-Pack Contest Winners!
 
We were happy to receive such a nice response on the custom three-pack giveaway (well, who doesn't like stuff for free?). But, what's even better is that we are getting a chance to get some great grooves to some great musicians. We want to thank everyone for entering and for the nice words of praise, but, in the end, we had to choose only TEN lucky winners!

So, here are the Custom Drum Loop and Sample Package winenrs: Marc Van Bork, Darren Hodroski, Peter Guy, ONEANDONE Productions (Germany), Robert Latham, Niklas Nord, Kenny Carter, Doug Pinard, Philip Guidry, and Dianna Landes. Congratulations to them all!

Look for a Fall 2006 Promotional in a few months! You can get this month's three-pack on the special page.

June 2006: Beta Monkey on XM Radio!
 
So, we're driving to a gig the other night and the old XM Radio unit is tuned in to the best metal station on the planet - XM Radio's channel 42 LIQUID METAL. In between one of the songs, during the station ID, what do we hear but some headbangin' action from our very own Double Bass Mania CD! There are a number of the spots in rotation but all involved some headthrob inducing loops from DBM and some demented grunts for" MORE F*CKIN" METAL!"

So, the moral of the story? If you need to listen to full-on metal 24 hours a day, seven days a week, get XM Radio and tune to LIQUID METAL. And, if you need to get some aggressive, slamming drum tracks, get Double Bass Mania.

You can also read the kind words of metal psychos the world over at the feedback/testimonial page.

May 2006: A New Look for Beta Monkey and Win FREE Stuff!
 
To celebrate the launch of the new Beta Monkey Music website, we are offering ten (10) lucky musicians their choice of a custom three-pack! That's right, simply join the Beta Monkey mailing list and you are entered to win your choice of a three-CD drum loop and sample set. Nothing to buy, nothing complicated to fill out. The deadline for entering the Custom Three-Pack Giveaways is June 30, 2006. Winners will be announced on this news page on July 5, 2006. Enjoy the new Beta Monkey site and good luck!

April 2006: Prepare to Rock. Lucky #7!
 
As the seventh release in the ever-popular Drum Werks series, Beta Monkey Music's Drum Werks VII offers over 900 powerful and versatile drum loops for multiple rock styles. Dig into this sample collection that is all about nononsense rock feels and phrasings. A “go-to” collection of grooves for rockers everywhere. And, even though it is one of our finest discs to date, we haven't raised our prices one bit! Download official press release (.pdf).

We pre-released a bunch of Drum Werks VII's to our prior customers and the feedback has been unanimous...this disc totally rocks. See the full range of comments on the feedback/testimonial page.

Otherwise, preview the grooves and get your Beta Monkey Drum Werks VII today!

March 2006: Get Some of the Monkey...Free! New Releases!
 
Get some of our tastiest grooves from Double Bass Mania and Drum Werks V in the latest issue of Future Music Magazine. A great new mag, worth every penny for the cover CD alone.

Check out Future Music online or get some free Beta Monkey at your local book retailer!

New Stuff Coming! Three new Beta Monkey releases are ready to go and will be released in Spring 2006. Get on the mailing list to get member-only deals and specials.

February 2006: Let the Odd Times Roll!
 
Some fresh material for everyone! And, some very strange grooves at that. Our third Signature Series release, Odd Time Meltdown will definitely get you thinking differently about grooving!

If you need some grooves that will push you and your music out of a rythmic rut, then we bet this disc will do the trick.

Keep the emails coming with your requests - this is what drives future releases!

Read the official Odd Time Meltdown press release.

Preview and order Odd Time Meltdown!

December 2005: Finishing Up Some New Projects and Taking it Easy!
 
After the barrage of orders for Rock Hard Funk in November and Jazz Essentials in October, December is a month to finish up some projects slated to go in 2006. We are also preparing for another visit to NAMM in January.
A lot in the works, but we hope to enjoy the spirit of the holidays as well. We wish the same for you all.

Looking forward to 2006!

November 2005: Beta Monkey Announces the Release of Rock Hard Funk: Two-CD Drum Loops and Samples Library for Funk, Funk Rock, and Beyond

October 25, 2005 — Beta Monkey Music today announced the release of Rock Hard Funk, a two-CD collection of funk and funk-rock drum loops and samples with over a thousand acoustic grooves to inspire any serious "groove intensive" project. Mix the improvisational mentality of jazz, the groove inventiveness of funk and the powerful drum sounds of rock - a beautiful mix of groove experimentalism all captured in Rock Hard Funk. This is the second installment in the Signature Series collection of drum loops and samples.

“With this latest addition to the Beta Monkey collection of drum loops and samples, we’ve included the kinds of grooves and features that our users have requested over the past year. Plus, we’ve made this available for one of most affordable prices anyone could possibly find,” said Beta Monkey Music Creative Director, Richard Rice. “We captured the grooves of several accomplished funk and rock drummers. We set them loose to a variety of different tempos and feels. We've recorded the beautiful sounds of a maple Drum Workshop recording kit and made sure to complement the 1000+ loops with a matching set of multi-velocity drum samples from the actual kit used in recording the loops. We then included a huge set of cymbal samples to allow writers even further flexibility in authentic drum track construction. We just think it’s essential to provide all of this to help our users unlock the full potential of their music. We know they will quickly build funk rock tracks that feel right and sound great with this jam-packed toolbox of funked-up grooves - that's why we created it.”

Rock Hard Funk Two-CD Set Features and Previews

October 2005 Seven NEW REX Format Releases from Beta Monkey Music...more on the way!
 
We have been so busy getting new releases done that we haven't taken time to update the site. We promise to spend more time here to keep everyone up to date.

As of October 2005, we now have eleven REX discs to chose from, having just added seven new ones. Pretty much everything will be in REX by November 1st. So, all you Stylus RMX guys should be very happy!
Also, work continues on several new projects. We have put out some great stuff in the past, but these should be our finest work.

Stay tuned.

July 2005 Word Continues to Spread About Beta Monkey Music!
 
Some extremely kind words from the most respected music magazine on the planet. We are truly humbled. Read it in the July edition of SoS or on our Reviews Page.

June 2005 Beta Monkey Interview with Macworld Magazine!
 
Look for the September issue of Macworld to have a nice interview and feature on Beta Monkey. It basically addresses the growing need for quality AppleLoops for GarageBand and how we are supplying the grooves that are sorely lacking in that format. It was great fun and a true pleasure to speak with Jim Dalrymple - he really knew where we here at Beta Monkey were coming from!

April 2005: Beta Monkey Reviewed in April '05 Recording Magazine!

Check out what Recording Magazine had to say about our Drum Werks Vol. V:

"These drums are all one kit, recorded very cleanly in a damped but not totally dead room. All the emphasis is on getting the sounds down as simply as possible, leaving sweetening to the recordist. For any given tempo there can be a couple of dozen different grooves with different elements emphasized or left out, plus halftime and doubletime loops, intros, fills, and enough extras to assemble a very convincing drum track. Special attention is paid to hi-hat and ride patterns, with tons of variety presented for each tempo.

Those little touches combine with the overall clean and clear sound of these drums to make Drum Werks 5 a real treat for engineers who like to put their own audio magic on instrument tracks rather than having them arrive all dolled up and ready to go. Beta Monkey has a wide variety of products organized by style and data format; check out their website for more details.

Oh, one more thing: did we mention this library costs well under thirty bucks? Instant no-brainer!" -- Mike Metlay Recording Magazine

03/23/05: Alt and Modern Rock III Ready to Ship!
 
A rock-hard collection of 24-bit grooves for today's modern rock styles. Grooves, fills, single hit samples for days with the punch and creativity you have come to expect from Beta Monkey. Tired of rock drum loops that don't? The new release will take care of that!
 
Currently shipping to previous Beta Monkey customers only - official release date April 5, 2005.