The audio and CD-ROM versions are basically split into two sections, the first half is the loops presented in all their variations. While the second half is a collection of extras designed to compliment the loops, tambourine loops, individual drums sounds, pads, basses etc.

Well as you may have already thought there has to be a drawback to this idea, and of course there is, the space all these variations take up, on the CD-ROM version all of CD1 is given over to this and there is just space for 22 "loops", though there are variations of sounds on 6 of the loops making 28 a fairer number. Bear in mind though that there is vastly more variation within these "loops" than the regular sample CD offering.

So the idea is good, but what about the sounds.....

The loops are presented in BPM's from 64 to 144 in steps of 8 BPM, and in the audio section you get 10 loops per BPM and in the CD-ROM version 2 "loops" per BPM. The CD-ROM version is designed to be used with samplers with at least 16 Mb of memory, though if you have less than this then many of the samples will still be usable, but as ever the more memory you have the better.

The loops fall into the hard, distorted, compressed, effected school of loops. Whilst there are a large variety of actual sounds the beat in variably is heavy, sharp and demanding to be played loud. There is a lot of effects in use, many of the percussive sounds probably bear little resemblance to their original source sounds. There is also a lot of "FX", fill in sounds, often of a scratchy, distorted nature that make the loops sound very full.

The loops essentially comprise of three components - a hard beat - distorted scratchy powerful kicking undercore to a track - a lighter "hi-hat" component lighter sounding and more varied, again much distortion, grungeness and compression, designed to be layered over the more percussive element - and finally another less percussive component, indistinct blips or bass sounds, tones, chords and like. Whilst in the audio section these are presented in a variety of mixtures on the CD-ROM version you have a much greater degree of freedom in messing around with the loop components and creating variations.

The CD-ROM version, to be honest, is way too addictive, I started this review 4 months ago !, everytime I sit down to write I load up a "loop" or two and seem to spend the next hour jamming way. Whilst I'm not myself from the DJ fraternity, I could see this being very usable in that context, it's very flexible and works very well. If ever there was a reason to get a CD-ROM for your Akai then this is the release ! Sorry Time & Space for the delay...

The loops are difficult to describe really as there are so many combinations that you can come up with, after a while one can easily believe the number of loops the producers claim are there is an understatement !. The best thing being, again at least with the CD-ROM version is if you only like a component of the loop you can just use that. If you only like the arpeggio like bass noise, then just use that component of the loop, no need to worry about trying to extract the sound from a whole loop. This does mean that many of the components would work well in many genres of music.

The sounds are going to appeal most to the hard dance genre, aka The Prodigy, industrial, Techno etc. though many of the sounds would be very usable out of the context in which their intended. Whilst I'd pitch the bite and hook of the loops as just a shade below the best of the AMG loops releases, they are still very good, perhaps if there was a criticism is that many of the complete loops are just too full sounding, creating a very dense soundstage, and one would have to be careful at the mixing stage not to crowd the mix too much with the other sounds you would add. The answer of course is is just to drop out a component or two of the loop, and with the way the CD-ROM section is created this is as easy as it can be.