"Soundtrack & Chill is the latest release from Sample Magic and sees the team moving away from their usual electronic and dance-based packs towards a more relaxed and acoustic place. The DVD contains 1.46GB of 24-bit / 44.1kHz audio in Wav, Apple Loops, Rex2 and Stylus RMX formats, plus sampler patches for Kontakt, HALion, EXS24 and NN-XT.
These hits and loops range from 60-80bpm and are spread across ten folders entitled Beds, Chords-Hits-FX, Elements, Guitar, Keys, Nature, Piano, Rhythm, Vibraphone and Vocals.
A variety of equipment was used to capture and process the acoustic and synth-based sounds, with close attention being paid to the A/D conversion and each instrument being fed through a Tascam 42NB tape machine for true analogue saturation.
The result of these painstaking processes is a very smooth and warm-sounding library that avoids the digital coldness often found with purely digital processing paths.
The loops and hits themselves range from deep ambient soundscapes and lush pads to haunting vibes, glitch guitars and processed organic-sounding percussion. There are also manipulated sung and spoken vocals and a heartbreakingly beautiful collection of somber piano riffs.
Although a collection of 17 ambient nature FX is included, they are unfortunately too short for film work and would need manipulating to avoid repetition.
It's clear a lot of thought has gone into the individual production of each loop on offer here and the quality is consistently high. If we have a niggle it would be that although there are instrument patches included, these are mostly just linked to loops and it would have been nice to get some playable patches of the lush chords.
Bit overall, despite the somewhat broad and random nature of the content on offer, there is plenty here to inspire both film composers and anyone writing ambient electronic music."
VERDICT: An intricate and beautiful - if slightly random - collection of manipulated chillout loops 8/10.