LoopAZoid

Reviewed By drk_sum [all]
August 6th, 2002
Version reviewed: 1.22 on Windows

2 0

The gating feature on this thing makes it a dream. By setting all your loops on a single mute group, you can make crazy drum beat reorders, similar to programming your own breaks using ReCycled one-shots. If you have no idea what I'm talking about then you are missing out on the best part of Loopazoid: to all Hammerhead users - the things you can do with loops in Hammerhead, you can also do with Loopazoid's mute group feature. The ability to pan each sample individually and then send to 1 of 4 outputs gives it an advantage over RMF's single stereo output - you can highpass filter your panned stereo cymbals on one output and have the main drums come out another...My only qualms are with stability issues. When saving in Cubase VST3.7, Loopazoid scans through all slots in all banks, and ties up enough CPU to crash if the song is playing. This makes it IMPOSSIBLE to use the automated backup system that Cubase provides so that we don't lose our work. As well, LoopaZoid gets quite testy when you delete a sample from your hard drive and then open a song with that sample in the Loopazoid bank. "Be cool, honeybun" you might say, but to no avail.

Reviewed By crimsonwarlock [all]
June 2nd, 2002
Version reviewed: 1.21 on Windows

Excerpt from the orion-central review.

It's a fairly simple unit so don't expect any miracles. There are no velocity layers for example, but most freeware drum units don't have those. There are no filters or bit crushers. Actually, each sound only has volume and panning. Besides this you can assign each sound to one of four stereo outputs. There are also three mute groups that you can use to cut sounds based on another one sounding. So far this sounds like the next average sample player, but the fun starts when you find out that the whopping 48 sounds you can load, can be played in reverse at the same time. This makes the LoopAZoid very useful for all kinds of experimental drum programming and what else.

Read the complete review at Orion-central:
http://www.orion-central.com/reviewloopazoid.shtml

Reviewed By x_bruce [all]
February 14th, 2002
Version reviewed: 1.22 on Windows

Considering LoopAZoid is free, uses little resources and is stable you've got to love it.

It's not going to be the end all of drum VST instruments but from a functional level it's good. Load up a bunch of instruments, you can't go nuts with layers, that's what your primary drum VSTi is for.

LoopAZoid is good for setting up samples and triggering. It gets the job done with minimal fuss. Orion's native drum machine is better but if you just need something simple and don't run Orion this is an excellent alternative.

I find that using Battery, my primary sample playback drum VSTi I tend to spend more time layering and tweaking. That's a good thing but sometimes you just want something simple to do simple tasks. All the outputs are extra, welcomed features.

LoopAZoid lets me work quickly. That makes it invaluable.

Reviewed By Jim M [all]
November 27th, 2001
Version reviewed: n/a on Windows

As mentioned before, Loopazoid is a very bare-bones sample player... what goes in, goes out. All samples play straight through after note-on, so it can give unpredictable results if you use longer samples.
But it's a great tool and absolutely invaluable. Pretty easy on one's CPU, as well.

Reviewed By M_W_N_P [all]
November 24th, 2001
Version reviewed: 1.22 on unspecified OS

A simple-but-effective drum sampler, with multiple outputs in Cubase VST.

Since it's freeware, one can't complain too much about glitches...although it's still worth pointing out that there is one fairly problematic bug.

Basically, LoopAZoid would be very useful...if it weren't for a still-unresolved file-handling problem when importing/exporting kits (this may be unique to the Mac version).