Urbanic | Sound On Sound

With a lot of hip-hop and R&B libraries, I find that the beats outshine the rest of the samples, but this release from Ueberschall exhibits the opposite problem. Despite some nice ramshackle groove to the programming, there's no getting away from the fact that kick drums seem to lack that kind of 'knuckle-duster in the kidneys' punch that I'd expect, and only the odd one musters enough rattling, rumbling krunk tail to offer much in the way of compensation. In addition, although some of the claps have a certain credibility to them, the other kit elements and percussion seem merely usable, rather than 'use me or I'll shoot you' - Uzible, if you like...

The instrumental riffs and synth parts, on the other hand, include a lot of really good imaginative stuff, nailing 'cheesy-but-cool' without wallowing complacently in tired GM Soundfont cliches. There's a large helping of those fizzy polysynth pads that are springing up all over the charts like a rash at the moment (think Rihanna's 'Umbrella', for example), as well as some nice crusty effects and judicious vinyl patina. Basses are often enormous and packed with character - a highlight of the library for me - and there are also some lovely wordless sampled vocal phrases, obviously digitally manipulated but with a deft musicality that really works.

I'd personally have preferred a slightly more aggressive attitude to some of these parts (and, indeed, the production as a whole), but in some respects that makes this library more usable for R&B than are a lot of the more straight hip-hop libraries, and would suit artists with a slightly slicker, smoother image. I also felt that the style trespassed a bit too far into urban electronica at points, and although you could call this cutting-edge, I couldn't quite shake the nagging impression that I was listening to underground breakbeat producers moonlighting outside their comfort zone...

Fortunately, a lot of these criticisms are mitigated by the construction-kit format, allowing you to underpin Urbanic's bass and instrumental riffs with other drum parts that really put the boot in. Also in the library's favour is the way its respectable 2.8GB bulk has been organised within Ueberschall's bespoke Elastik Player (for more information on this, check out my review of Groove Shadow Elastik back in SOS February 2008). There are 34 themed sets of construction kits, each set containing main, intro and outro kits, as well as another variation kit in some cases, and each set of kits also includes an additional Elastik Player preset containing single-hit drum samples taken from the main drum loop. Each set's original key and tempo is displayed, but the Elastik Player technology provides a lot of flexibility for bending samples outside these to fit pre-existing tracks.

So although Urbanic might not exactly supply all your hip-hop and R&B needs, there's enough here that to make it worth checking out if you've already got the basics covered elsewhere in your sample vault, but are on the lookout for some creative instrumental hooks to freshen things up.