808 LOOPS FROM MARS

Unbeatable Grooves From the Iconic Drum Machine

808 Loops From Mars is an extensive collection of multi-tracked beats from the classic drum machine that has continued to shape electronic music over the past 40+ years. These loops will give you a more authentic representation of the raw, hypnotic energy of this timeless machine than any one-hit sample pack can. From clean and polite to saturated, distorted and harmonized beyond recognition, 808 Loops From Mars is the perfect way to inject the undeniable groove and analog power of this legendary machine into your next creation.

Overview

With 725 loops ranging from full beats to tops and individual loops from every drum voice, this pack is ideal for creating 808 tracks from scratch or bringing raw grooves into your existing projects.

Ranging from 120 - 128 bpm, the grooves are focused around dance music - namely house, techno and electro. From thunderous kicks to overdriven toms and clipped snares, to sizzling hi-hats and blown-out percussion, this pack is designed to fuel peak-time club moments and warehouse sets. Many of the loops are wild and unpredictable - pushed to the edge of coherence - while others stay stripped, minimal, and funky, ready to lock in a hypnotic groove.

Because you get access to so many individual drum loops, it's important to note just how easy it is to bend the genre and beat to your liking. You can, for instance, take a top and add a completely different bass drum loop underneath it.

The Best Way to Sound Like You Own an 808

While one-hit packs like the 808 From Mars will give you more compositional flexibility, this loop pack will provide a much more realistic sound. Because the 808 is analog, every consecutive drum hit sounds slightly differently than the previous - making the beats sound much more "alive" than repeating the same one-shot. 

Even the accent levels and drum volumes on the 808 affect each sound, and any analog processing that is applied to these sounds are also greatly affected by these slight tonal shifts. Because we've captured loops up to 16 bars in length, you can really hear all of this. 

Even though we own an 808, it's been super fun and inspiring to open up an Ableton session with so many individual loops, different grooves and processing that has been created over the course of months. It's really quick, easy and fun to get new tracks going without having to program one-hits from scratch!

Uniquely Processed

While there are certainly a handful of super clean loops, it's the processing that really makes this pack shine. Since the 808 is so recognizable, we saw it as a unique challenge to bring something new to the table here. How could we obscure this classic machine into something more refreshing and modern? 

First, we used two great (and very different sounding) consoles - the Zahl AM1 and our trusty API 1608. Here, we tweaked input gain for some tasty analog console saturation, and then patched up Distressors, DBX 165, ADR Compex, Eventide H3000, Space, and Orville, Overstayer NT-02A Saturator and Modular Channel, Space Echo, Moogerfoogers, tube preamps and more! This gave us a huge variety of processing styles that helped the 808 really stand out in a crowd.

Check out this loop where we used the Moog Freq Box to create this almost impossible loop from an 808:

The Takeaway

This is the 808 unleashed and ready to throw down. Whether you find yourself reaching for the cleaner, funkier grooves, or the heavily processed bangers, these 808s will give your music weight, grit, and analog attitude for days. And because they are multi-tracked, there is a lot of flexibility to tweak, edit and groove to your heart's desire.