Hamburger Loopz

Wizoo
Format : CDRom (Wav/Aiff)

Review by Clif Marsiglio
Saturday, January 15, 2000

After playing with this disc for a few weeks, I decided to get an opinion of someone that eats, breathes and lives techno instead of my simple passing interests in the genre. I lent this disc to him and several months later I still can't get it back. If this does not say something about this disc, I don't know what I can add to the tale.

Wizoo's Hamburg Loopz are what you hear in the back of your mind when your think of good Deutsche techno, not the crappy stuff that seems to pass for techno here in the states. This disc is set up in two main areas: Loopz, and their component drums that make up these loops.

The Loopz:

The Loopz include such genres as Hard House, Industrial Techno, Electric Soul, Trip Hop and several other styles. What do these sound like? Exactly as they are named. Stereotypical? No, true to form and accurate are more like it. If you have a need for Techno or any other electronic style, this may be just for you. Every loop seems to have several variations. The major complaint I have with these are that the variations are seldom the same BPM. This gets a little annoying at times, but I know a few people who don't use such utilities as Recycle or Wavesurgeon. If you use this set, consider it a must unless you have a built in metronome or just like out-of-tempo songs. As this disc costs less than $40 US, I don't consider this a big problem, just confusing when you are at a loss for the liner notes.

The Drumz:

All drumz used in the loops are provided in component form so that you can rebuild loopz to your liking or to simply use in your own compositions. Every drum used is present and these are just perfect representations of the sounds as ripped from their drum machine. Several seem to be used over, but this is to keep the organization of the sets intact.

The Verdict (Verdictz?)

If you play, program or DJ Electronic or Techno music, the disc is cheap enough that you can't go wrong and is full enough of sounds that you will be playing with these for a week before you get any actual composition done. Good recording and accurate representations of the genres are what this disc is about.

BTW if you're gonna buy this, you will need some authentic synths to go along with it. Check out Brujo's De-TrAZor series it our Downloadable Sounds section...
(Ed. note...temporarily unavailable)