Vortex by Andrulian

ModeAudio has introduced Vortex, a 426MB collection of royalty free ambient loops and stab samples ideal for a wide range of ambient, downtempo and minimal styles available in Wav, Rex2, Reason (also contains 4 NN-XT presets and 5 combinator effects patches) and Ableton Live pack (also contains 1 Ableton Live 9 set and 5 audio effect racks) available from ModeAudio. Let's take a look inside each of the pack's folders in turn.

Vortex Kits

The ambiences in this folder have a great warmth and saturation. There's a variety of cinematic, string, synth and piano type sounds with a subtle movement and a great tension.

Noise

A variety of crackles, hums, hisses, rain type sounds, percussive and glitchy type sounds.

Rhythms

These are excellent rhythmic loops, some of them are drum sounds but not your typical drum loops, these are excellently processed with saturation to give a unique sound. There are also found sound or percussive impact sounds which give further variety.

Subs

Again these have excellent processing, a subtle movement in the sound and a great bass presence.

All of the above sounds layer together really well to give a great sound with interesting variety and movement. The Vortex loops have a variety of cinematic sounding string, synth and piano type sounds with a really good selection of tonal qualities. The atonal loops have a great edge of tension and dissonance to them.

The Vortex stab samples are very similar sounds to those in the loops – string, synth, piano, sub and percussive sounds with a short decay which add an excellent element to the loops.

Verdict

This is an excellent value sample pack which contains a variety of sample loops and stab sounds with a warm, saturated sound which have a kind of nostalgic quality. The sound quality is excellent and by focussing on ambient sounds the samples layer and mix together really well giving inspiration for a huge range of sounds.