Abstrakt Breaks 1
"an unmistakable touch of real humanity... there is a rare fluidity to the programming which really sets it apart and makes you want to make music with it... this is a serious, professional product for musicians"Â
Sound on Sound Magazine, Sept 2007
"..What elevates this collection above the norm, though, is that ticking the right stylistic boxes is only the start. In particular, Soniccouture have paid much attention to careful and creative use of effects, in some cases giving the loop a front-back depth which throws particular elements into sharp relief, and in others shading around the typically grating and spiky textures to blend them into a usable whole. The use of stereo field is particularly virtuoso, lending a shifting, swirling quality which nicely complements the unsettling atmosphere of the production as a whole.
Another thing that separates the sheep from the goats with any electronica library is whether each loop becomes more than the sum of its constituent samples, gelling into something with an unmistakable touch of real humanity. This is the magic ingredient that makes me impatient to start using a library even before I've finished listening to it, and there is no mistaking its presence in Abstrakt Breaks. As much as it might seem an odd thing to praise in a glitch library, there is a rare fluidity to the programming here which really sets it apart and makes you want to make music with it.In short, don't let the price mislead you — this is a serious, professional product for musicians, albeit a compact one."
Mike Senior, SOS Sept 2007
"..THEY KNOW HOW TO COOK UP FRESH, EAR-BENDING, AND SOMETIMES SCARY STUFF. CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED."
Abstrakt Breaks 1 and 2. Both titles are organized in the same way: Loops are grouped into two folders, “Down Tempo†and “Up Tempo.†Within each of these you’ll find 20-plus loops, most of which are broken into four to six elements (kick, snare, hats, glitches, special effects, etc.). The bang-for-buck factor is high: Everything is provided in Rex, WAV, and Apple Loops formats, and the Rex editing is top-notch. For example, I loaded fistfuls of Rex’d loop elements at varying tempos, and true to Soniccouture’s claim, the loops lined up perfectly — I couldn’t detect any bad slicing. More importantly, mixing and matching elements was extremely easy, and I found I could take loops down 20 to 30 bpm before things started sounding strange.
It’s obvious that care was taken in processing the elements of each groove. There’s no shortage of reversed, lo-fi, bit-reduced, delayed, distorted, ring modulated, and filtered percussion. Kicks and snares are liberally effected, and in some cases these sounds don’t even qualify as conventional “kicks†and “snares.†This is exactly why I love AB 1 and 2. Normally, it would take hours of experimentation to create drum sounds this unique. However, I found I could easily snip bits from different elements, sprinkle them on top of more “straight ahead†programmed beats, and have something fresh in no time.
Groove-wise, the downtempo material fits nicely into hip-hop and trip-hop veins, while the uptempo breaks smack of up-to-the-minute drum ’n’ bass and IDM. There’s definite swing to many of the loops, which I didn’t mind, but if you try mixing strictly quantized parts, you might have to massage the timing to get everything to gel."
John Krogh
Abstrakt Breaks 1 and 2 are full of inspiring rhythms and sounds. These are the kind of forward-thinking, bleeding-edge breaks that could easily inject unexpected excitement into otherwise well-behaved productions.