BeatBlog - The Beat Shed Journal - Stories about the Beats & the Studio

The Amen Break Drum Loop

“A Ubiquitous Piece of the Pop Culture Soundscape” This is how Nate Harrison describes the Amen Break drum loop in the introduction to his 2004 audio documentary (listen below). When we came up with the concept for our “Amen Break Re-recorded” loop pack, we did a fair bit of research into this extraordinary 6 second […]

The Amen Break Loop Pack

Today, we launch our biggest production challenge to date… A pack of 75 brand new recordings of the Amen Break Loop Why?! Why on earth would you re-record the Amen Break loop? Why mess with perfection? Just grab the original and go to town! The original audio, however, is a set piece; increase the tempo […]

Free Beat Friday #11 – Free Drum Solo!

Performed by Merlin Matthews on a vintage 70’s Ludwig kit, this free drum solo moves through various drum tones and timbres using broomstick, hotrods and sticks.

The recurring pattern is (very loosely) based on a “Mozambique” feel

Winter Sale 2022- 50% of ALL Products

Today we’re launching our Winter Sale… a massive half-price sale on ALL products! Drum Loops In our winter sale you can pickup one of our boutique loop packs from just £3… Drum Kit Samples Or a full set of drum kit samples for as little as £2… Song Slices Or packs of our popular “song […]

Purdie Shuffle Loops – “12/8 Shuffle Grooves”

Today we’re launching a new drum loops pack “12/8 Shuffle Grooves” – a HUGE pack of Purdie Shuffle loops, including fills and percussion. The Complete Purdie Shuffle Loops Toolkit Take 149 Purdie shuffle loops played at 4 tempos and articulated (mostly) on hats, hats with crash, ride, then ride with crash… … then add 51 […]

Free Beat Friday #10 – Linear Drum Groove

Blog story about the recording of Free Beat Friday #10 – A linear drum groove is where you only hit every beat of a subdivision in the bar, but don’t hit anything at the same time. Which is kinda strange for a drummer as that’s exactly what we’ve learned to NOT do!!

The “Vurst” Drum Mic Technique

VURST? That’s SAUSAGE to you and me… And YES – It does poke rudely amongst the drums like a proudly uninvited phallus. I can only assume this is how the Vurst drum mic technique came to be so-named by it’s inventor, Moses Schneider, the “Einstein of drum recording”.

Free Beat Friday #9 – “Funky Snakefoot” HipHop Breakbeat Groove

Blog story about the recording of Free Beat Friday #9 – The hiphop breakbeat groove in this month’s Free Beat Friday is inspired by Synthetic Substitution by Melvin Bliss which was sampled by The Pharcyde on their classic “Ya Mama”. Our version is swung rather than straight though!

Free Beat Friday #8 – Fast HEAVY Rock Drums

Blog story about the recording of Free Beat Friday #8 – A fast HEAVY Rock drum Shred-Up!….We’ve done a couple of up-tempo heavy rock drum sessions lately. So we were WELL in the mood for a bit of shred…

Free Beat Friday #7 – Block Rockin’ Breakbeat

Blog story about the recording of Free Beat Friday #7 – A block rockin’ breakbeat!…. In case you didn’t get the reference (!?!) this month’s Free Beat Friday is affectionately influenced by a fairly well known track by the Chemical Brothers.