Product Spotlight: Jacked Out Future House

Product Spotlight: Jacked Out Future House

1 May, 2008 | 12.00PM

• Section: Music News Topics: Technology
• Written by: francispreve

Sample libraries are easy to come by.

There are literally thousands available from distributors like Big Fish Audio, Loopmasters and Time+Space.

So naturally, it can be somewhat problematic making a wise buying decision, especially when many of these libraries are priced in the $50-100 US range.

One of the best new libraries to cross my hard drive arrived by way of Loopmasters and was developed by none other than renowned house producer, Joey Youngman.

After spending a few days with the material, here’s the assessment. 

With a bombastic title like “Jacked Out Future House”, expectations ran high as I popped the DVD into my MacBook.

The entire library contains nearly 2 GB of material in a massive range of formats including – deep breath – Reason ReFill, Apple Loops, Ableton Live Pack, REX loops, Apple EXS24, Halion, Cakewalk, E-mu X2, Kontakt, and a folder of WAV files that includes individual hits and stabs for rolling your own instruments and kits.

Suffice it to say, this covers pretty much every viable software format on today’s market, so compatibility is a done deal, no matter what your production system.

Loops

Loop types include bass, chord, guitar, keyboard riffs, vocals (rapped, sung and vocoded), and a selection of Joey’s signature “space disco” grooves – all of which are organized by key, which is a lovely touch, as it makes production life much easier.

As for drums, there are over a hundred full drum loops organized by tempo in 126, 128 and 130 BPM flavors, as well as fifty or so top loops with processed shakers and hats.

The musical material has a decidedly funky house vibe, along the lines of classic Om Records tracks, which should come as no surprise, since Joey’s done numerous tracks for Om over the years.

The guitar material runs the gamut from funky disco riffing to vintage 1970s talkbox bits, with a few divebombs and effects thrown in for good measure.

The filtered bass riffs are equally housey, and some of the synth bass riffs would sit quite nicely in tech house and even electro-tinged tracks.

Vocal samples are also included.

These are decidedly soulful with a very “party” vibe that includes lyrics of the body/bounce/jack variety.

No judgments here; some producers live for that stuff, and the recent Beatport charts have certainly included a number of tracks that prove that a hooky party vocal can translate to serious sales when produced properly.

So what about the drums?

I saved these for last because frankly, they’re absolutely slammin’.

Some producers cop out when they do a sample library, keeping the best grooves for themselves and releasing the leftovers in their loop collections.

Not Joey Youngman.

The drum grooves in this collection are absolutely top notch, with beefy kicks, intelligent top percussion and in-your-face snares/claps.

Seriously, if you’re a house head, these loops are definitely the express lane to a really polished sound, and quite a few of them would serve equally well in this season’s techier styles.

Instruments

Since a huge number of budding producers start out in Reason, I opted to evaluate this material via the included ReFill.

The NNXT patches include a wide range of instruments based on Joey’s synth arsenal, which includes classic Juno and Moog sounds as well as more advanced Roland V-Synth textures, along with some soulful Fender Rhodes electric piano stabs.

The ten Redrum kits include a number of the kicks, snares and hats mentioned above and are extremely useful for pretty much any modern house flavor — not just the funky classic stuff.

As I write this, I’ve got a really sweet little tech house groove going in the background, made entirely in ReDrum and NNXT without touching the loops or REX files.

This is what reviewers mean by “inspirational”; if a sample collection has you making beats immediately after you fire it up, that’s a true compliment.

Another impressive inclusion in the Reason ReFill is a collection of Subtractor and Malstrom patches.

These presets really demonstrate Joey’s attention to detail and ratchet up the value of this collection for Reason users, since they can use the patches as starting points for their own sounds.

Single hits and samples

If you’re a purist and simply must roll your own instruments and drum kits, the collection has that covered as well.

Hard core sound designers will appreciate the individually sampled gamelans and Rhodes chords - complete with the root key information in the file name — making it a straightforward matter to create your own instruments — even in hardware-based samplers, if needed.

Of course, there are also a few Junos and Moogs in there for good measure.

If you’re a fan of vintage horn stabs from the last century, a smattering of hits may help get you going (and don’t write these off as passé either, since the essence ‘Crunch’ by Mark Knight and Richard Dinsdale pivots on this type of stab).

Of course, pretty much every drum is available as a single sample too, including those killer kicks and snares.

Conclusions

Needless to say, I’m really impressed with this collection.

While it deviates from flavor-of-the-nanosecond electro or minimal, that’s really beside the point.

This is one of those collections that run the gamut of house styles and could well serve as a Swiss army knife for way more than just classic jackin’ house.

And let me reiterate: The drums are worth the price of admission alone, which incidentally, is a remarkable $69.95 US (£29.95 UK).

Available from Big Fish Audio (US) and Loopmasters (UK).

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• Check out Joey Youngman on Beatport