Bristol collective aim to change the face of sample libraries

Thursday 16th April sees the launch of “BeatBlocs.com” – an innovative sample library and community for music producers, featuring a unique mix of professionally produced and user-generated sample loops & beats, prepackaged & ready to be plugged straight into music production software such as Logic and Cubase.

Respected, independent and cutting-edge producers such as Michael Fakesch, Minotaur Shock, Blue States, TM Duke, Unforscene and Broadway Project will regularly contribute beats to the site (with many more exciting names having signed up to come in at a later date), as will members of the BeatBlocs community, who can enter their beats in the ongoing competition.

The winners of the competitions get their beats added to the ever-evolving BeatBlocs library, complete with a detailed profile, the opportunity for other community members to comment on their work, and of course the ability to sell their beats through the BeatBlocs.com site and make a profit.
BeatBlocs provides a truly democratic and inspiring hub for music producers of all kinds, and through featured Articles and Tutorials written by respected industry specialists actively encourages its users to learn about beat production and discuss current issues and trends.

Why introduce a new model?
Bristol-based brothers Dan and Chris Berridge created BeatBlocs after struggling with the current music sample library model for a number of years.

“I work on a lot of tight deadlines producing music for TV Ads,” Dan explains, “and would often need to reach out for beat loop samples that were inspiring and bang-up to date stylistically, as media clients demand. I found time and again that ‘traditional’ sample library beats were sounding generic and dated.”

Chris continues - “At the same time I was getting into music production using Garage Band which came with my Mac. I’m a long-term fan of IDM and electronica of all kinds and like Dan I was looking to beat sample libraries for inspiration. What I heard just didn’t reflect the music I was hearing on the albums and 12”s that I was buying and playing. They just didn’t have that
edge…”

This raised the question – what if the cutting-edge artists and bedroom producers could submit their own beats to a new kind of sample library?

As a professional music producer and creative director respectively, Dan & Chris were in an ideal position to realise the vision of a nurturing and inspiring place for producers to find and share cutting-edge beats, and brought together a team including cult illustrators (the much celebrated
McFaul), a digital agency (Block Interactive), and a dedicated development collective to put it all together.

After an exciting gestation period of 12 months the site is due for launch on April 16th, with a number of respected industry professionals having already contributed fantastic beats, including TM Juke (Tru Thoughts), Michael Fakesch (Funkstrong/K7), Minotaur Shock (4AD/Melodic), Jon Kennedy (Tru Thoughts/Grand Central), Broadway Project (Memphis Industries/Grand Central), Blue States (Memphis Industries/XL), Unforscene
(Tru Thoughts), and Ian Boddy (De Wolfe).