Big Fish Audio
Mar 1, 2001 12:00 PM, Chris Gill
If you've ever seen Shaft's Big Score and you remember the scene at Mother Ike's nightclub, then you have a good idea of what this sample CD is like. Abstract Hip Hop (two CDs — audio and WAV, $99.95) ain't about b-boys in baggy Fubu jeans bumpin' Jeep beats. These funky, jazzy joints bring to mind gents decked out in Gucci suits and velvet-clad ladies sipping Hennessy and chillin' to some sexy sounds. Whether you want to get your groove on or just get it on, this collection of smooth, saucy samples and luscious loops is it.
Each disc in the Abstract Hip Hop package is loaded with an incredible selection of top-notch material. The audio disc contains more than 73 minutes of “inspiration” kits, drum loops, music loops, vocals, effects, chords, riffs, and drum hits. The WAV disc contains all of the sounds included on the audio CD, as well as 250 MB of additional material (almost an hour's worth of sounds), for an incredible 1,266 samples. All of the loops clock in at either 90 or 100 bpm, providing plenty of creative options for creating songs without having to time-stretch or cut up the samples.
Produced by Yan (Jan Lutgebaucks) and Cpook-e (Erik Svahn) of the deep-house duo YMC, the material boasts a slick, professional polish. The inspiration kits sound like choice passages from a finished album, and the grooves are so good that you have to wonder why YMC didn't just make their own record from this stuff instead of sharing it with the world on a sample CD. Groove Armada and DJ Krush could only dream of concocting beats this fresh. However, this also means that many of the samples are already preprocessed with effects such as reverb, delay, compression, gating, and so on, which doesn't necessarily leave a lot of room for making your own modifications. But when the samples sound this good and provide so many options for coming up with custom combinations, I seriously doubt that anyone will mind.
The instrumental sounds featured on the discs consist largely of acoustic drum kits, electric pianos, jazzy guitars, electric bass, horns, and strings — think early-’70s funk and soul with a modern rhythmic feel. While the sounds and rhythms best suit the chill-out set, quite a few loops in the inspiration kits — like “Scorpio,” “Supafunkidiculous,” and “Phat Leggy” — could work quite nicely in a house or funky breaks tune. The vast selection of drum loops offers plenty of great foundations for building songs. If you're looking for the perfect beat to drop into an existing tune, chances are you'll find it here.
My only complaint is that the samples aren't organized in the most orderly fashion, and tracks in the music-loops section consist of a combination of different instrument sounds that don't necessarily fit together. It would have made more sense, for example, to arrange all the electric piano parts at 100 bpm in a single track, all the guitar riffs at 90 bpm in another track, and so on. But then again, part of the fun is digging through these sounds at random and flying them into your songs to see how they fit in. However, the 170 (!) individual drum hits are arranged logically, making it easy to put together the perfect drum kit for your custom-programmed rhythms.
If chilled-out, funky grooves with a slightly retro flavor make you feel all warm and bubbly (like taking a sip of Courvoisier followed by a mouthful of Cristal), give Abstract Hip Hop a taste. It's an intoxicating concoction that will keep your head spinning for many months to come.
Overall Rating (out of 5): 5
Big Fish Audio tel. (800) 717-FISH or (818) 768-6115; e-mail
info@bigfishaudio.com; Web
www.bigfishaudio.com
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