Ambient Techno and Electronic Dreams is a 1.2Gb collection of royalty free techno sounds and loops. It is available as a 24 bit download in Apple Loops, Ableton Live 10+ pack and wav formats from Loopmasters typically priced at £27.95 for all full versions and £22.95 for loops only versions.
Drawing inspiration from seminal artists such as Bicep, Bearcubs, Daniel Avery, Jon Hopkins, Deepchord and Four Tet, Ambient Techno & Electronic Dreams gives you a robust set of loops and one-shots for creating the perfect Ambient Techno or Leftfield Electronic Soul track. No element has been forgone in creating the complex layers that define this deceptive style, which is often more about feel, than an exacting formula.
Expect a hefty 420 loops (WAV or Apple formats), 220 one-shots, 40 Musical Starter Kits and 1 Live 10 Project on offer.
This review is for the main zip file that is arranged in 4 folders. There’s an info folder that contains the licensing agreement; musical kits folder; Ableton project folder and a loops folder.
I really like the organisation of the kits and loop folders, these have sub-folders labelled by tempo (90, 110, 120 & 130) and the samples are also labelled by key making searching for tempo and/or key matched sounds much easier. Of course DAWs and software like Loopcloud can automatically stretch the loops to the tempo or key that you are using so you are not limited to using loops with the same key and tempo.
The kits folder contains 11 kits for tempos of 90 and 110 and 9 kits for tempos of 120 and 130. These kits typically contain 2 or 3 loops comprised of bass, synth and chords and are excellent for kickstarting inspiration.
The main loops folder contains a number of sub-folders – atmospheres, bass, chord and motif, drum, fx, pad, percussion, synth, texture, vox that are also organised by tempo.
Atmospheres
A range of pad, percussive and delayed effects that have a warm and saturated sound.
Bass
An excellent range of deep, subby and reso bass sounds that are sometimes subtle other times much upfront and aggressive sounding.
Chord and Motif
A collection of atmospheric keys, synths and arps with subtle reverb and saturation.
Drum
What’s great about the drum loops is that they have been broken down to offer a mix and match approach that can also be used to add variation to your drum patterns. As well as the full drum loop, there are hi hat, percussion, stripped and top loops. There are 6 sets for 90bpm and 8 sets for each of the other tempos. I really like the diversity of these drum loops, a great variety of rhythms that are interesting and sometimes intricate.
FX
A range of delayed risers, impacts and percussive sounds.
Pad
A collection of shimmery keys and synth based pads with subtle movement and evolution and a warm saturated sound.
Percussion
A collection of natural sounding percussive loops to add an extra element either individually or in combination with the drum loops.
Synth
These have a range of sparse, subtle and more upfront sounds to give an excellent variety of leads.
Texture
These are like a combination of percussive and pad sounds that can be used to give another layer of interest.
Vox
These are provided for 90 and 120 bpm, typically vocal snippets that are delayed and have percussive qualities.
Verdict
This is an excellent sample pack, it offers a huge range of potential for the more ambient side of techno, including a downtempo or more leftfield sound. The loops are excellent quality and have a warm, saturated sound that really lend themselves to this style of music but they also have an edge at times too giving a great diverse range of sounds.
They are excellent in their own right and can be used out of the box but creative use of effects and samplers can greatly extend the range of sounds and styles that this pack can be used for.
I’ve used the pack to create the mix embedded at the top of the post. It was created entirely from the sample pack in a single project in Mulab 8. The samples were mixed with SP 2016 Reverb, Ultrachannel, H3000 Factory (Eventide) and Outlaw (W A Production) and mastered in MuLab 8 using Magnetite (Black Rooster Audio), Stage (Fiedler Audio), Elevate (Newfangled Audio) and Youlean Loudness Meter.
