Hardcore Breakbeat Action | Keyboard Magazine

Pros: A versatile, hard-hitting collection with much to mix and match
Cons: Too Aggressive? You decide.
Bottom Line: Tired of wimpy loops? Look here.


Hardcore Breakbeat Action is full of banging breaks, ranging from deep and groovy to hard and nasty. There's plenty of material here to create not only nu skool breaks, but for house, trance, and big-beat track production as well. Big Fish is targeting this set at customers "who are looking for something a little harder."

Included in the set are two audio CDs and two CDs with the same material in WAV and Acid format. Also included is a demo version of Ableton Live, which is an excellent tool for auditioning the loops. Each audio track contains a full mix and individual elements. Drum loops, bass, synth, guitar loops, and the individual samples are all included -- construction kit-style. "Maybe they should be called *destruction* kits," said Craig Anderton in his review for EQ. "These sounds are definitely aggressive."

The production value is excellent, with the fidelity matching the feel. By this I mean that some of the nastier "live" loops are clearly dirtier sounding, while the more electro loops have very clean production. I found this collection to have a nice blend of both live drumming and tighter, sequenced loops. Tempos range from 127 to 172 BPM. "While the material never veers down to rap or up to drum & bass," adds Craig, "it incorporates the lo-fi edge that rap perfected and some of the speed vibe of D&B."

After dropping in a few tracks worth of loops, I found myself coming up with creative, evolving, and professional sounding grooves within a matter of minutes. Though this collection certainly does "combine the strengths of Nu Skool Breaks and modern Techno Hardcore" as Big Fish claims, I found that by dropping the tempos and using a little filtering I achieved some incredibly deep and dubby beats as well.

"It's the polar opposite of chill," concludes Craig. "It comes to the party wearing black and bearing cartons of Red Bull." Hardcore Breakbeat Action contains enough material to refresh any of your productions gone stale, and will most likely inspire new ones.