Ultimate Breaks & Beats The Complete Collection

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2006

Label: Street Beat Records

8-panel Box Set including all 25 volumes of "Ultimate Breaks & Beats" (UBB), featuring 174 tracks, totaling 12 hours of music. All tracks remastered from the Street Beat Records (SBR) master tapes with original sound and EQ preserved.

CD disc 1 holds the tracks of the original UBB releases #501 through #513 and CD disc 2 contains #514 through #525 in MP3 format with a sample rate of 44.1kHz and a bit rate of 192kbps. All tracks come with track title ID3 tags, showing BPM information, year of creation for each song and linked UBB cover art.
Disc 3 is a data DVD that again has all 25 original volumes in AIFF format with a sample rate of 44.1kHz and a bit rate of 1411kbps along with 300dpi JPEGs of each original UBB cover.

Also includes a 68 page booklet with a short (and slightly superficial) history of the UBB series, complete track listings giving writer and publishing credits only (but no artist credits - like on the original vinyl releases) as well as full color reprints of the front and back artwork from all original 25 covers.
Some tracks are not in their original format as recorded by the artists but are featured in the remixed formats which had appeared on the original UBB compilations - usually done by Louis Flores to extend the break.

"The Complete Collection" exactly follows the original SBR track selection, which means that a few tracks from the original catalogue number 508 appear twice in the set: SBR included them in later UBB volumes (513, 518, 519) to make them available again after volume 8 had been discontinued. The only track missing here from volume 8 (and the entire UBB collection) is Manzel's "Midnight Theme".

Historically, there has been confusion about the 8th UBB volume, which was released, discontinued and consequently bootlegged with a different track listing.
Here is the original edition of Various - Ultimate Breaks & Beats.
The three known reissues with “wrong” track listings: Various - Ultimate Breaks & Beats, Various - Ultimate Breaks & Beats and Various - Ultimate Breaks & Beats.

These reissues are all bootlegs in the sense that they have nothing to do with the original Street Beat Records label. Lenny Roberts a/k/a “Breakbeat Lenny”, the man behind the label, confirmed in a letter in the late 1980s that the volume had been discontinued without replacement. As the tracks on the volume were in demand after the discontinuation of #508 by SBR, the above mentioned “reissues” / bootlegs quickly surfaced.
The reason for the discontinuation of #508 is not reliably recorded. Legend has it that the original vinyl is so über-rare as the master plates cracked and the release was limited to the first press run only. This would be a strange reason though as a new master could have easily been produced. The second reason frequently mentioned is that there have been copyright issues with Manzel’s “Midnight Theme”. The fact that the Complete Collection omits this track might be a confirmation of that story…
…as long as you believe that the original UBBs as well as “The Complete Collection” are copyright-cleared releases.

CD1-507.7 credited to Magic Touch.