Inspired by the reggae drummers of the mid-seventies, Swedish music production company OddGrooves (http://www.oddgrooves.com/) has released Reggae Drumming, an US$27 MIDI drum loop pack arranged for several popular drum samplers.

According to OddGrooves’ chief drummer Magnus Brandell the goal with the Reggae Pack was to “get into the soul” of the reggae drummers of the 70’s. Burning Spear, Peter Tosh and The Wailers served as major sources of inspiration when recording the loops. Reggae Drumming features 247 reggae drum loops, predominantly roots reggae, but also reggae pop such as The Police and loops inspired by Frank Zappa’s classic reggae variations. It’s recorded in a total of 10 tempos.

All drum loops are played live by a professional session drummer. The grooves aren’t quantized All grooves are in song format to make life easier for composers and producers on a time schedule, Brandell says. It’s arranged for Toontrack EZdrummer/Superior Drummer, XLN Audio Addictive Drums, Sonic Reality I-MAP, Steven Slate Drums and General MIDI

OddGrooves Reggae Drumming is designed in a “song format” structure, which enables composers and producers to quickly preview and put together a drum track without first having to go through countless MIDI files. The available song sections are Intro, Verse, Pre-chorus, Chorus and Outro/ending.