Suite Grooves | Sound On Sound Magazine

Love it or loathe it, smooth jazz is a genre that has captured its share of the radio airwaves, particularly in the USA. Big Fish Audio's Suite Grooves is a multi-format loop library that sits right in this style, combining swinging jazz with smooth RnB dance sensibilities. It comes in a fairly standard construction-kit format, with over 900 24-bit, 44.1kHz loops (approximately 1.8GB of sample data for the Acidised WAV version that I explored), spread across some 29 kits. Original recording tempos range from a mellow 64bpm up to a modest 115bpm - tempos that are consistent with the chilled-out feel. Usefully, the folder names for each construction kit include the original tempo and key, as well as an indication of the mood, with titles such as 'Cruzin' and 'Smoothed Out' typical.

The kits all follow a similar pattern. Each contains a collection of loops that can be combined to form a complete musical arrangement. Usually, one or two drum and bass loops are provided as a foundation often a couple of drum fills are also included for variety. Usefully, each kit includes two sub-folders that contain some drum 'hits' (for example, a crash cymbal, or individual snare or kick sounds) and loops that are based on individual mics from the drum recording sessions (for example, kick, snare, hi-hat and overheads). Both elements provide extra flexibility and are a nice touch. The other instruments include the expected staples, such as cool guitar licks and smooth Rhodes piano parts, but the stars of the show are the various lead instruments. These are dominated by saxophone loops, but there's also a good dose of trumpet and the occasional piano solo. Numbers of loops in an individual construction kit vary from something just under a dozen to more than 30. Recording quality and playing are top-notch throughout, and the performances certainly sit well within the target genre. I particularly liked the drum loops and sax lead lines: the former always seemed to groove even at slower tempos and the latter feature some really classy playing.

Some rather dubious smooth jazz 'tribute' albums have appeared in recent months, which might serve to give the genre a bad name (a smooth jazz tribute to Michael Jackson anyone?), but the material here is at the better end of the market: think Jimmy Sommers' recent Sunset Collective album and you'll be in the right ball-park. Perhaps the only down side is that, in musical terms, there is nothing radically new here, but if smooth jazz is your bag, Suite Grooves will push all the right buttons and offers good value for money in a tried-and-tested format.