Loops & Samples

The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) organization has made 8.5GB of free samples available, from a range of sources such as the Berklee College of Music sample archives, music synthesis Majors, and many others. The samples include Sound Effects, Loops, Grooves, Drums, Voices and Instruments, and are 16bit 44.1khz mono WAV files, all normalized.

Over the past decade there has been a massive surge in emerging musician numbers. This has been particularly evident in the arena of musical collaboration, largely brought about by the rise and rise of our good friend the Internet.

Now anybody with a computer and an Internet connection can learn how to record or create their own song, and not only that - but also collaborate on musical projects with any number of willing musicians, singers, MCs around the World. This is a beautiful thing - think back only 15 years, and this would have been virtually impossible to do without massive amounts of traveling and/or expenses.

One very cool thing which has emerged out of this Internet driven musicial revolution is the Creative Commons license based remix community. For those who aren't already aware of these sites, or if you'd just interested in some more background info, read on.

Those of you who are into loops and samples will definitely want to check out soundsnap.com - they've got thousands of free loops and samples online categorized, and I'd imagine it will only continue to grow as more people get involved.

For those of you who would like to use Orchestra samples in your music, it's your lucky day.

The Philharmonia Orchestra have recorded every note on every instrument within the orchestra, and made them searchable and downloadable, free.

If you've been looking for drum machine samples, then you'll probably want to bookmark this page - theres WAV samples from all the popular drum machines available as free zipped downloads.

The following drum machine samples are included at present:

FreshLoops now has a Free Loops section. These music loops can legally be used in commercial production!

How exciting! FreshLoops.com has been launched, and have Premium quality professional loops available for immediate download.

Check out the Fresh Style Loops preview mp3 to get an idea of the kind of unique sound coming out of FreshLoops production studios.

Those familiar with the Drum and Bass genre will know it's a type of music which is one of the best suited to looping and frenetic sampling - something a lot Loop CD producers have caught onto, but sadly few seem to have mastered. Too often the loops on drum n bass sample CDs are generic and tired old breakbeats. Would Loopmasters latest drum n bass loops production deliver?

If there's one thing that's going to get my foot tapping before I know what's happening, it's a hiphop track with a bit more to it than 27" bling rims and a gold $ chain. Sourcing good quality loops and samples is therefore a must. Today I'll be looking at Loopmasters hiphop loops cd, HipHop Progressions.

These loops and samples are free for you to download and use in your music production - even commercial use is ok!