Nancy Reagan must be very proud of Ueberschall. For their newest loop collection, Uebercschall Studio Works, the German loop-producers just said "NO" to MIDI.

In order to lend this new groove collection a human feel, Ueberschall utilized actual human musicians, not to mention real instruments and a totally analog recording signal path. The resultant Studio Works has the feel of old funk, jazz and lounge records, and is perfect for contemporary genres like modern RnB, Acid Jazz, House, and Downbeat. Because no MIDI was used, the grooves benefit from each individual player's musical idiosyncrasies -- ever wonder why Clyde Stubblefield and Melvin Parker made records that still get sampled today? It's because they sound like no one else. Ueberschall Studio Works is like discovering long lost recordings by the masters of funk, and those masters were kind enough to organize their tracks into construction kits by BPM and provide beat-mapping for easy Laptop DJ integration.

Studio Works totals 1082 loops and 414 single sounds, weighing in at 1.8 GB. Packaged with Ueberschall's Elastik player, the collection is ready to play right out of the box. Pricing and availability, it seems, are TBA.

Like any decent old-school engineer, Ueberschall is particularly proud of the gear used to make these recordings, and have provided us with an exhaustive list:

• Reußenzehn Suitcase Preamp
• Mu-Tron Phasor II
• Wem Watkins copycat
• Roland RE-201
• Roland RE-301
• Universal Audio 6176
• Universal Audio 1176 LN
• Avalon VT 747
• Drawmer 1969
• TL Audio 5051 Ivory 2
• Engl, Vox & Peavey Tube Amps
• Nagra mono & stereo Tape recorders
• Groove Tubes - Tube Preamp for Bass
• Groove Tubes - GT40
• Shure SM 57
• Sennheiser MD 421
• Neumann U 87
• Neumann KM-184
• Morley Wah-Wah
• Boss TWah TW-1
• Boss Super Phaser PH-2
• Countless different guitars, drums, analog synths and samplers that Ueberschall also lists on their website and we will not list here.