FatLoud Hip Hop Construction King and FLOW Sample CD Reviews
September 7
Hip Hop Construction King and FLOW are the first two sample CDs in the FatLoud Construction King Series, and as the name might suggest they are aimed squarely at producers who want to be the next Dre, Kanye or Timbaland.
The first of the two, Hip Hop Construction King, is a collection of loops between 80 and 100 BPM. The loops are separated into eight toolkits, and are broken down into individual drum parts, synth leads, pads, chords, percussion and so on – basically all the elements that you would need to make a mainstream radio friendly hip hop track. Listening through to them, my first impression is that the synth parts are somewhat uninspiring, being mainly composed of what sound like fairly standard soft synths playing simple lines. Of course, they may well come alive when processed with some interesting FX, but I can’t really see myself reaching for them when I need a synth line in a track I am working on. Much better, to my ears, are the drum sounds and percussion, which are pleasingly punchy and crisp – the hats in particular will cut through a mix nicely. However, and this is something that I cannot quite grasp, a lot of them come with fairly heavy reverb already on them, which makes no sense as surely any producer will want to add their own reverb in order to make the sounds sit better in the track…? I reckon this is because this CD might be aimed at those who are relatively new to production, and stand to gain more by mixing and matching loops from the different construction kits than getting bogged down in the finer points of sound design.
The second of the two, FLOW, is composed of over 400 loops and 200 individual drum hits, separated into toolkits. Much the same as the first CD, I wasn’t really feeling the loops provided, as although well produced they didn’t offer much in the way of sonic or rhythmic innovation to tickle your ear or add that extra something to take your track to the next level. The individual drum hits are again however, very usable – I tend to judge sample CDs of this nature by the kicks and snares they offer, and there are some very nice thudding kick drums and snapping snares that I can see myself reaching for. I was disappointed that there wasn’t a more varied selection of percussion, but the hats all sizzled.
Overall I’d say that these samples are well produced, but play it a little bit too safe in terms of sonic innovation to really stand out from the crowd. It could be argued that mainstream hip hop beats are quite standard in terms of sound design, so I suppose that in that respect the samples do achieve what they are supposed to – although the flip side to that argument would be to say that the biggest hip hop producer out there, Timbaland, is someone who isn’t afraid to experiment with his sound. Anyway, I digress – a mixed bag, but if you want some nice clean drum sounds at a decent price then I’d recommend you check these CDs out.
Peep a couple of demos of these sample packs here and here, and you can even download a pack with some free samples in here.
J.
