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December 2005 Remix Magazine Review: Beta Monkey
Music Drum Werks V
We just happened to be flipping through Remix
and caught a review of Drum Werks V - short but
sweet review of one of our most versatile and
popular discs. Half the price, twice the loops!
MINIREVIEW: BETA MONKEY DRUM WERKS V5
By Jason Scott Alexander
This independent sample shop has been churning
out slamminí acoustic-drum-groove discs at near-breakneck
speed for more than two years. Specializing in
100 percent acoustic material, Beta Monkeyís
economy-priced libraries, to date, have covered
everything from double-bass hard rock and metal
to country, blues, pop and hip-hop. In Drum
Werks V5, the skilled BM team sets its sights
squarely on sizzling, energy-soaked rock, alt-
and power-pop grooves presented in a toolbox manner.
What you get are more than 570 MB of 16-bit WAV
loops (738 in all)óincluding beats, fills, intros,
endings, hi-hat and ride cymbal patterns, and
one-shotsóarranged into tempo-based folders. Confidently
casual and polished-feeling throughout, these
folders span 12 different groove genres, from
75 bpm classic rock to straight and occasionally
swung 100 to 50 bpm‚range rock and pop to straight
and shuffled 180 bpm blister grooves. Whatís more,
a folder containing a copious amount of multivelocity
single hits awaits assembly into a complete drum
kit for augmenting the provided grooves or rolling
your own.
The loops come just as I like them, intimately
raw and underprocessed, preferring to leave the
treatment to mixdown. The really cool thing about
this disc is that every groove, fill and hit is
sonically matched, pristinely recorded off the
same kit and taken from the same recording session.
This makes for a cohesive library of uniform ambience
front to back, where you can mix and match elements
from not only within a single folder but also
across the entire disc. The smart inclusion of
cymbal swells, tom variants and several intricately
played hi-hat and ride cymbal patterns (with and
without snare backbeats) for each groove genre
makes creating a complex and dynamic-sounding
arrangement possible. Whether building a contemporary
pop track from scratch or looking for brilliant
session drumming to remix, Drum Werks V5 is a
go-to loop collection for ballsy, realistic results.
For more information about Beta Monkey, visit
www.betamonkeymusic.com.
Read
the article over at Remix here...
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September 2005 EQ Magazine Review: Beta Monkey
Music Alt and Modern Rock III Drum Loops and Samples
By Craig Anderton | August 2005
"Another acoustic rock drum loop CD? Yes,
but you get 11 construction kits (614MB) with
groove and one-shot endings, and 83MB of individual
hits for $25.99.
The 24-bit sounds are crisp and well recorded,
with enough room ambience to give some ìair,î
but ìdryî enough to accommodate adding reverb.
Thereís no overkill compression or EQ, either.
The loops are logically arranged as grooves and
fills; while thereís no documentation, the loop
names are intuitive.
The style is rock, but thereís one folder each
for shuffled, triplet, and funk grooves... these
are extremely useable loops that slide right into
rock tracks, and minimal processing gives you
lots of latitude. If you already have rock drum
CDs, this one offers no revelations. But if you
need rock drums, you canít beat the value for
money."
Preview and order from the
Alt and Modern Rock Loop Series...
******************************************************************
 July
1, 2005 Review - Sound
on Sound Magazine July 2005
Five stars for Drum Werks Vol. V? Too
much! We really have to start raising our prices
if everyone keeps saying such nice things...
Drum
Werks Volume 5 *****
ACID
Beta Monkey Music are a US-based company specialising
in competitively priced drum loop collections.
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. The library under review here is,
like most of the other titles, based around a
collection of 16-bit Acidised WAV files. In this
case, the CD contained some 700MB of acoustic
drum loops and single hits. 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.
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 playing is excellent throughout
ó 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. Both the recording and subsequent editing
also seem to have been well done. The sound is
crisp, with nice biting snares, plenty of sizzle
to the cymbals, and a solid kick-drum sound. 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 real strength of the library is the range
of loops provided. 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. 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'. This is further enhanced by the excellent
collection of single hits. 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. The various cymbals, in particular,
are good ó and all sorts of crashes, swells, and
choked hits are included. The loops also have
a fairly consistent sound across the folders,
so it is easy to mix and match material for further
variety.
I'd have no problem using these loops for any
style of rock ó from nu metal, through grunge,
and into more pop-orientated indie styles ó but
they could also work in funk, blues, and straight
pop. The other remarkable thing is the price,
particularly as this includes worldwide shipping.
Indeed, Beta Monkey also offer various bundles,
bringing the price per library down even further.
This is an absolute steal ó so much, in fact,
that I ordered half a dozen more libraries myself!
These arrived very promptly and are now being
put to good use in my own studio. Excellent value
for money and highly recommended.
John Walden
Acidised WAV CD-ROM, $26.99 (around £15).
Beta Monkey - 1.203.231.3783
Click here
to email
www.betamonkeymusic.com
Review can be found online at Sound
on Sound Magazine.
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 Check
out what Recording Magazine had to say
about our Drum Werks Vol. V in the April 2005 issue
of Recording Magazine:
"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
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Read more praise about Beta Monkey's
full line of loop and sample discs from the following
sources:
What are people saying about our stuff?
We get tons of emails thanking us for
the quality stuff we put out. We can't include
them all, but we try to pick the ones that really
show the enthusiasm and dedication our customers
are known for. And, let's face it, our customers
tell more about our products than we could ever
dream up. Read more
testimonials from actual customers and users here.
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