Minimal Pop from producer Samplerbanks is described as a collection minimal loops in the form of chords, synths, basslines, breaks, glitched sounds and drum loops. The inspiration of the library was taken from artists such as Alan K, Brandon Plank, Andy Lee and Nieghel. The style of the material is aimed for (quote) "Minimal, Minimal House, Deep House and Tech House music".

 

I won't spend the next half page discussing the problematics of genres and especially giving names to sample libraries. But as a refresher, read up on The Genre Hell. But honestly, a product named Minimal Pop gives me the impression of a combination of minimalistic styles - house or techno - and pop. Madonna is pop. Lady Gaga is pop. So therefore this would be a combination of the two.

It's not.

Minimal Pop would be better named as Minimal House or Tech House, and since there is running an unhealthy dose pop in my veins, I couldn't let that one pass. But as has been said one hundred times before, names are what they are and although in the best of worlds they should be descriptive - they rarely are. So before moving on, a little advice for anyone checking out sound libraries - always keep an open mind and never ever rely on titles.

When we've got that snag out of the way, let's move on to your favourite part: ze numbers.


BY THE NUMBERS
Bass loops: 47 (+30 variations)
Chord loops: 55 (+16 variations)
Drum loops: 48 (+139 variations)
Glitched loops: 33

Multisampled bass instruments: 13
Multisampled synth instruments: 9

Synth hits: 13
Effects: 16 (+6 variations)
Kick: 44
Snare: 46
Closed hat: 50 (+2 variations)
Open hat: 26 (+1 variation)
Percussion: 70

Tempo: 126, 128 and 130 BPM.


LOOPS
The drum loops are straight-forward four-on-the-floor, but it's the 4-oh-4-style that doesn't render itself invisible/boring after the first three seconds. No, the drum loops are quite nifty with lots of small nifty things going on which makes them more like the main dish rather than something you just use to keep the  beat.
Again - this whole minimal genre totally messes up my mind, and I can never really pinpoint what it is. I would say these drum loops house with a techno flavor. They are quite busy, deserve attention and have a good groove in them. It's also nice to see that most of the loops come in a respectable number of variations including one without kick.

The bass loops are quite clever too and doesn't contain too many different tones - usually one, two or three - which could make them monotonous if the focus wasn't set on the sound and the rhythm. The lack of melodic structure among the bass lines shifts the focus towards other parts such as the drums and - if you're into that kind of perversions - aka melodies. The sounds usually are coated in some edgy effect, such as bitcrusher, but the use of effects stays well within the border of sane use. We're not talking about all-meters-to-the-red here.

The chord loops sort of follow the thinking pattern of the bass loops. Although chord/stabs are more tonal in their nature, these sounds again focus more on rhythm and sound rather than giving you cool chord progressions. While I understand (and agree) with having the chord loops in this way - chord progressions are always such a nice way of getting inspiration.
Regarding effects, these loops are - thank the maker! - not drenched in reverb nor delays, which make them easy to process further. With that said, these sounds are processed with filtering and vocoder-ish shimmers among others.

The best way to describe the glitch loops would be if you think about a drum loop, filter off a considerable chunk of bass and then process it though stutter effects, reversing, resonators and distorters. While I personally felt these loops works best as for breakdowns, bridges or to insert some odd weirdness here and there, I have a few friends who would see no problem in building entire songs around stuff like this.


ONE-SHOT SAMPLES
The 44 kicks are clearly aimed for dance floor productions. There's nothing new in here, which of course isn't a bad thing. The kicks are punchy and often comes clean - with the rare exception of a layered shaker or tambourine. Good! I absolutely hate when kicks come layered with too much high-frequency material. I prefer them clean so I can add whatever I want.

I liked the snares&claps a lot better, since the influence from Roland drum boxes are minimal. Kicks from the 909/808/606 are all cool and such, but the snares are so damn distinct. This is a good mix of snares that - again - is for the dance floor.

The hihats follows the same pattern as the snare and claps. The Roland influence is down to an absolute minimum. Of course, there are a few times when you think - this sound a bit Roland-ish - that's as close as it gets, which for most people is just a positive thing since most already are in Roland overload.

The percussion sounds are indeed based on percussive drums (in contrast to Vengeance who sometimes categorize anything with an attack as a percussive sound. While this category doesn't contain any hair-electrifying sounds - this is a compilation of percussive sounds that isn't so easy to define, and with that I mean there are very few sounds that you clearly can put into the conga, tom or cowbell(!) categories. Personally, I think that is a good thing and besides, the sounds are highly usable.


INSTRUMENTS
Time for our first - and only - major criticism. All in all there are 22 prepared sampled instruments in this category and while the sounds themselves are relevant - the way they are compiled is just... sloppy.

Multisampled instruments based on one second long one-shots is common, but just because something is done by many doesn't mean it's the best solution. While I do know all about correctly sampling off an instrument and setting loop points that you cannot hear - it's a damn hell alright. It takes huge amounts of time, size and mental calmness. If Samplerbanks would have sampled every (or every second key) I might have let it pass, but since every instrument are built upon two, three or four samples - I cannot feel they put any amount of energy into this part. Sorry guys. Good sounds - badly executed.


CONCLUSION
The amount of detail put into this library is considerable and it's clear Samplerbanks has a deeper understanding of dance music production - rather than just churning out sample libraries just to make a buck.
Let me say this first. Minimal Pop is a library that doesn't break new ground. Instead it delivers tech-house with a quality that is spot on with modern dance genres.
The main dish is the drum and bass loops that compliment each other very well. One focus on rhythm and one on sounds. My only real criticism regards the sampled instruments which lack the amount of care spent with the other parts of this library. As they come they more feel like a bonus rather than a feature on the specification sheet. But apart from that - thumbs up.


Samplerbanks Minimal Pop
Web: Samplerbanks (www.samplerbanks.com).
Price: 29 euro.
Good: Top-grade drum- and bass loops. Feels fresh.
Bad: The sampled instruments are not so well compiled.

Review copy: big thanks to Samplerbanks for NFR review copy.

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