Prime Loops

Way back in October, 1972, The Matsushita Electric Company, better known as Panasonic, launched the SL1200 turntable under their Technics brand. This was the second in their new range; the first being the SP-10, which launched in 1970 and was the world’s first direct-drive turntable. Replacing the belt-driven systems used previously with a direct-drive system enabled them to get to...

It’s a spring day in 1969, a band named ‘The Winstons’ are tirelessly working away in a studio in Atlanta, Georgia. They’ve just cut their new single ‘Color Him Father’ and are struggling to come up with a B-Side. The band settled on an instrumental based around an old gospel song called ‘Amen, Brother’ but didn’t have enough material to...

Introduced by AKAI in 1988, the MPC series delivered a pioneering and intuitive piece of digital equipment that would go on to revolutionize electronic music, and, in particular, Hip Hop. Developing the MPC In the mid-to-late 80s, drum-machines started to gain some popularity amongst musicians and producers looking to create a new type of beat, without the necessity of a...

In the age of Lo-Fi Hip Hops’ burgeoning popularity, it has become de-rigeur in modern day production, in multiple genres, to achieve a sound that has a more real-world, gritty aesthetic as a direct counterpoint to the super slick and over-produced sounds of modern Trap and Dubstep. Achieving the sought-after, lo-fi, gritty and saturated sounds desired, solely in-the-box, is difficult...

The Beardytron 5000 MKII is the brainchild of multi-vocalist, musician and beatboxer Darren Alexander Foreman, aka Beardyman. Having started out his live performances in cafes using guitar looping pedals, his techniques and scope soon outgrew the technology that was available to him and he needed something far more complex. This eventually led him to the development, from the ground up...

Created by Moog Music and released in 1970, the Minimoog was one of the first portable synthesizers to hit the market, became an instant classic and has gone on to change music forever! The Birth of A Star Back in the 1960’s Moog were creating high-end, but inaccessible to most, modular synthesizers that involved manual patching of cables and were...

This week we’re looking into the creative world of Circuit-Bending, an experimental and innovative world involving the customisation of the circuits within electronic devices to create new musical or visual instruments and sound generators. You can look at it as the ultimate form of upcyling for the more creative musician/producer; where one person's rubbish can be another person's gold... The...

The Prophet-5 is up there with the Minimoog as one of the all-time timeless synths... Released in 1978 after being developed by Dave Smith and John Bowen at Sequential Circuits, the Prophet-5 was the “worlds leading polyphonic synthesizer” as of the late 70s and is still loved even today for its great string sounds, analogue effects, and punchy analogue basses...

We’re back again with our foray into the world of lesser-known, undiscovered and sometimes bizarre instruments that we’ve scoured the archives for. We hope that these brief glances into the more unusual sides of the musical world will inspire you musically to search for new and obscure sounds. This week we bring you the Octobass. The Inventor Created by Jean-Baptiste...

It’s all too easy to get caught in a routine when being creative; going through the motions that you’ve ingrained into your process can suck the creativity from your session fast. Drawing for the same old synth, applying the same FX chains, using your one favourite sample pack over and over – these things will all leave you with similar...

Prime Loops is a Black and Asian run business. We believe in peace, not chaos. Music from black communities has shaped our lives. Hip Hop, Soul, Reggae, R&B, Dancehall, Dub, Jazz, Blues, Rock, Drum & Bass, Dubstep, UK Grime, Garage, the list goes on. Commercial music is dominated by genres from black communities and we owe our careers to these...

When you think of nations pushing the envelope in the development synthesisers, Russia is hardly going to make the top of most peoples’ lists, somewhere like Japan or America are perhaps more likely. However, after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1991, it was revealed that the USSR had been quietly manufacturing an abundance of electronic music equipment; drum...

In this series, we’re taking an in-depth look into the weird, wonderful and often forgotten instruments; some old, some new, but always bizarre! Hopefully, through our mini-profiles of these instruments, they will inspire you to find some new sounds or get creative with some obscure charity shop finds.   Most people's only exposure to the term ‘Hurdy Gurdy’, would be...

In an era where Synthesiser manufacturers were engaged in a race for progression and innovation around Analog technology; the launch of Roland's Jupiter 8, in 1981, represents a milestone in the history of polyphonic analogue synthesisers. Delivering an iconic machine that is, arguably, as in demand now as it was at its time of launch. The list of credits alone...

It’s all too easy, when producing these days, to get stuck inside the box and, whilst you may have a dope tune on your hands, it can be missing, well, something... Foley There’s a natural movement to real-world sounds that even the best synths can’t recreate, and without this, your mixes can end up sounding lifeless and a bit static...

From its humble beginnings in Osaka, Japan, the Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer was born in 1983 with a run of 10,000 units and sold for $1300. Blissfully unaware of the impact it would go on to have, Roland’s engineers delivered their follow-up to the TR-808 and TR-606; which has its imprint on more tracks than any other drum machine in...

UK Grime has gone from being a small, DIY spin-off of Garage through a stratospheric rise to become THE sound of the last decade in Britain and beyond! The Birth of a Genre Its earliest conceptions come from the likes of DJ Target, Wiley and Skepta, all producing beats at 140BPM (the default BPM on Fruity Loops, the most accessible...

Lo-Fi Hip Hop continues to go from strength to strength, especially with the emergence of YouTube channels such as Chilled Cow, ChillHop, The JazzHop Café amongst others. The question is, from a producer's standpoint, how do you create that aesthetic for yourself? Whilst the beats can sound deceptively simple, it can be hard to get the swing right in the...

‘Trap Soul’ is the budding new star to emerge from contemporary R&B. First gaining notable success and prominence around 2016 with breakout stars Fetty Wap and Bryson Tiller achieving Top Ten albums in The Billboard 200 (Tiller’s album being titled after the genre itself ‘T R A P S O U L’). The name itself simply being an amalgamation of...

Sometimes a change is as good as a rest, and getting away from your desktop can give you a boost of inspiration and unleash your creativity. Mobile music production has come a long way in a very short time, with loads of great music production apps on the market for you to create new sounds on the go or just...