Rotation | Electronic Musician

Big Fish Audio's Rotation is a DVD that is packed with over 1.5 GB of loops and samples designed for Pop and R&B production. The loops are provided in three popular formats, WAV, REX2, and Apple Loops (AIFF files). Folders for each format reside inside two main style folders, Construction Kits and Guitar Loops. Also included are a basic Read Me file and a demo of Ableton Live 4.

File Mix
The entire collection was produced and compiled by producer Matt Haines and composer Steve Sechi, both of whom have impressive resumes. The guitar loops were played by two of Los Angeles' heavy-hitting Pop/R&B session guitarists, Shea Welsh and Les July. The majority of the Construction Kits WAV files are provided as stereo 24-bit/44.1 kHz, though a few are sprinkled in as mono (in the cases of electric basses, for example) and 16-bit WAV and SD2 files. The Guitar Loops are a mixture of 16- and 24-bit mono files. The REX2 files are formatted like the WAVs and include appropriate slice points, while the AIFFs are predominantly 16-bit files in both mono and stereo. All samples in the collection are provided in 44.1 kHz sample rate.

The process of scanning the folders for suitable loops is a breeze, due to a smart directory and file-naming scheme. Folders are numbered for easy recall, and the folders' names display the loops' beats-per-minute, key, and in the case of the Guitar Loops, whether they are acoustic or electric. Using Ableton Live and Propellerhead Reason, I scanned through all of the folders, previewing each loop and freely composing from scratch.

The Construction Kits are aptly named. Each of the 25 folders contains between one and three slightly different multi-instrumental 8-bar clips, followed by a loop of each instrumental component. Individual drum hits are also provided as stand-alone samples. Instruments cover the gamut from R&B staples such as acoustic and electric basses, guitars and strings, to electric pianos, clavinets, flutes, brass, and a wide variety of synth tones. The styles range from sexy and Hip-Hop flavored to mellow jazzy numbers and from little ditties reminiscent of Prince, Rockwell, or Morris Day, to grooves tinged with Middle-Eastern flavors. Original tempos range from 75 to 130 beats-per-minute. The collection offers a nice variety of styles; however, all drums are electronic, even if a few sound more acoustic than others.

Sound Construction
The sound quality of the Construction Kits is excellent; it is apparent that experienced engineers recorded all of the loops and samples with quality equipment. The complete loops with instruments combined are pre-mixed with nice stereo separation and excellent balance. The creators were wise enough to include all components as raw files however, allowing users to create their own mixes. The only exception is the drums, in which individual drums are not provided in loop form, only as sampled hits. The program material is appropriate for the intended genre, and although all files in this collection are neatly arranged to make it simple for even the most novice producer to crank out a tune within minutes, cross-pollination of the material is certainly possible.

The Guitar Loops cover a variety of acoustic and electric guitars, from tight lead snippets, to minimal chord strums, to the requisite wah-wah funk rhythms, to distorted electric rock licks. The playing is tight and the loops are spot-on, however I found the sound quality of the guitar loops not quite as pleasing as that of the Construction Kits. While this may be an unfair comparison since the Construction Kits are composed of mostly, if not all, electronic instruments, some of the Guitar Loops nonetheless sounded just a tad harsh in my monitors, and a large majority of them contain a fairly heavy vibrato effect. This doesn't render them less useful, but it does mean there's less tonal variety by comparison.

Also, there are some gaps in matching keys between the two folders. For example, of the fourteen Guitar Loops folders, four of them are in D Minor, while only one folder of the Construction Kits is found in that key. The Guitar Loops sport two folders in D Flat, while there is no D Flat material represented in the Construction Kits. Some matching keys are present, yet in order to get the most use out of this collection it would be helpful to supplement it with other source material.

Cool Tools
Taken individually, however, the two folders contain an excellent variety of tight, well-recorded, and conveniently named modern-sounding groove material that is ready for instant, top-40 pop construction. And the included individual drums samples and REX files provide the goods with which to manually rearrange and spice up the provided loops or build new drum maps for your favorite sampler.