Ultramagnetic Beats ReFill - Lukecage - Review from www.raapie.nl

A duo review, why's that?
John and I were emailing about Reason when we found out that we both used AMG's Utramagnetic Beats a lot lately. So John and I decided to review this CD-ROM while having several virtual beers.  

John introduces: John Pazdan
"I am a pro bassist from Chicago, with over 30 years experience touring and recording with rock, blues and instrumental music artists. My current projects, beside the usual bass playing on sessions, are "XCraft", an instrumental movie music project, programming rhythm tracks in Reason for a pop jazz artist, and laying the groundwork for JPG (John Pazdan Group) which will play my FreeDub/FreeFahnk compositions. I use Reason/Recycle, as well as a Fisher Tube Spring reverb and a 63 Fender Pbass..main influences are Miles/Lee Perry/James Brown/Bill Laswell/Howlin Wolf." 

The patches
John: "The loops are divided into 77 Tracks, which are groupings of related loops that add up to a "song". They range in tempo from 78 to 120 bpm, with the majority in the HH sweet spot of 85 to 95 bpm. Each track is broken down into separate loops, with most having a drum loop (or two), a bass loop, a melodic loop (which might include guitar/rhodes/vocal samples, etc), and a Full Mix loop which is all the parts put together. There are also percussion, horn, and "texture " loops included in many of the tracks. There's a pdf track sheet which lists the tempo and various parts per track, thanks AMG." 

Raapie: "The nice thing about this Refill is that it is setup like a 4 or 8 track mix which is recycled to separate tracks: the REX2 files. This way it's very easy to add three Dr.REX modules and load the bass, melody and drum files and press play. Although this really sounds fantastic, it will be a lot better and creative to start making your own mixes out of these files. Or combining them with other loops."

Sound quality
John: "The loops sound great, right in the pocket of sounding street and fahnky. There's a trend in trying to make mundane hip hop loops sound hip by over processing, however these are hip due to Lukecage's production skills and ear, as well as the quality control that AMG is becoming known for." 

Raapie: "Some of these samples sound like they are taken from old records, with that needle clicking and popping. This adds some groovy vibe to the loops. But in general these loops are more clean sounding than other stuff from AMG. I think AMG is trying something else this time and it works: it refreshing!" 

Usefulness of the sounds
John: "I found that by carefully auditioning the individual loops, then recombining them with loops from other Tracks, as well as my own ReDrum punches and Malsträm synth lines, I was able to open up a lot of territory, from old school HH to down tempo and dub as well. Some of the melodic pieces are really inspiring, and serve well for jumping off places to other tings."

Raapie: "What I really liked is the lower tempo. That fast stuff which is very popular these days is not something I really like listening to all day. But that's not the case with Lukecage which even added some Funkadelic-like loops. Slow and low! I find them very lovely and very, very useful. The bass sounds are done in such a cool way, with that gating and compression, so even those were very easy to use in Dr. REX (most of the time bass sounds can be very difficult to ReCycle). And all the Melody loops very nice sounding too. These are very musical loops with a warm feel to it. With only this Refill you should be able to make at least a couple of fresh sounding new songs, using nothing other than the loops included in this refill!" 

Nobody's perfect
During the review both John and r a a p i e found out that the included songs where showing a 'bad format error'. This wasn't a real problem, since these RNS file are nothing other than a Mixer with 3-5 Dr.REX modules playing the separate tracks. But Matt of AMG told us a new version was on its way and emailed all people who bought this 1st production, which is how it should be. Great one Matt! 

The other 'problem' we were having is the Full Mix of Chaylon which contained to many slices. Dr. REX can 'only' hold 92 slices (which is already something no master keyboard can handle). This wasn't a problem for us since it only happened with the full mix.  

Other minor things... food for thought!
John: "One of the tracks listed on the audio pdf track sheet isn't on the disk, as it was too large..no big deal.. I thought there could be an audio preview of the full mixes..a cd, or mp3 or something- instead of having to flip thru every single Full Mix..you could have it on a cd player and audition it from your hot tub- Matt said that would require another cd, and to get the audio cd! I don't know...I think there's a compromise somewhere.
 
And while I am at it- when you open a track up in a Rex player..the player says "drum mix", or "melody"...but which "drum mix" or "melody" is that from? IOW, is it track #12 or 16 or what? When a cd is laid out in this form, almost as an Acid type deal where you'll be remixing a lot of different parts from different tracks together, it would be nice to tell at a glance which track the part was from. Matt said he would look into doing this on the following cd's.  

And last..it would have been nice to have a ReDrum kit or six made from some of the samples in the drum mix loops...we can obviously make our own with Reason/ReCycle, but this is a ReFill, not just a collection of REX2's..."  

Raapie: "Yes, adding the Full Mixes in MP3 format would be a nice change. Maybe a Mixed Mode CD (Audio and CD-ROM) would be even better, so you're able to listen to Full Mixes on a hi-fi set. But I agree, these would be nice-to-haves! 

I really think the need for a naming convention is a good one. When I made the All-SUB Refill we all agreed that the standard folder structure like the Factory Soundbank uses is optimal. And for this Ultramagnetic Refill it would indeed be useful to include the song-number since you this certainly would make live a bit easier. The whole concept behind this Refill is something like remixing the songs or mixing some together.

And yes John, a ReDrum kit would be nice but in Reason2 you are able to open REX2 files with it, which is a brilliant new feature I think! So I was able to make some cool new fresh sounding ReDrum patches with these REX2-files." 

The REX2 slicework
John: "The slice work is well done. The people who do the programming in ReCycle for AMG pay attention to the details."

Raapie: "I totally agree! Normally I choose a REX2 CD-rom just to be able to tweak the slices a bit more. But this refill is done just as good as it can get. Cool!"

Finals
John: "Try this at home! Before switching to Reason, I worked in Acid, and with this CD-ROM, I was able to set up a faux Acid style environment. Using multiple REX players and samplers, I mixed and switched various loops around, and once I got a good stew going, put my own Maelstrom bass line underneath. All I needed was the new Akai 4x4 pad programmer to do a few ReDrum fills...

This CD-ROM is priced £60.00, a good price for a lot of great sounding material and inspiration. AMG has another winner."

Raapie: "I was an ACID user too, but nowadays I use Sonar 2.0 which also has that kind of time-stretching. But I like REX2-files a lot more, because they are more 'elastic'. The price of this CD-ROM seems to be as okay as usual. Pro sounds, pro beats. AMG also offers a REX2 version for the same price. I also have to say that I really liked this new sound which seems to be new for AMG. Although I really like that rough and tough AMG sound, this Refill is a cool funky booty Refill! Another winner for AMG!

Oops, I almost forgot: that cover of the CD-ROM looks brilliant!!! I l-o-v-e that design!"