Since 1986,

Jim Stout's music and production pathways have led to live stages with top artists, Hollywood studios with the rich and famous, the commercial soundware vendors with the most reach, and hardware synth manufacturers of high stature”Jim's sonic signature can even be found in the preset banks of gear like the Roland V-Synth.

All this experience pays off here in SynEmax, a construction kit that nails the classic 80s darkside synth ensemble sound. Based on a tight set of classic machine beats and early industrial feels, here we have a hook-heavy loop pack that will bring smiles to fans of the genre”the kind of stuff that gives Depeche Mode its lushness, Cabaret Voltaire its nervy underground edge, and EDM its propulsive energy.

Drum grooves are served up fast, dry, and staccato, with sidecars full of fills and variations to create builds and dial in tension and density. The basses are clean and punchy, and the collection is topped off with rapid-fire rhythms and tuned percussion sequences”all the locked-in melodic, timbral, and noise components you need for building full-on tracks.

The 106 loops in SynEmax offer a balanced set of beats, motifs, progressions, accents, and FX that will start the idea mill rolling on modern tracks that shamelessly flaunt their roots in broad-spectrum 80s hardware synth sounds and feels.