Nu Metal City | Keyboard Magazine

Pros: Great sound quality. Loops respond well to pitch and time processing within reasonable limits. This musical genre needed representing.

Cons: Limited selection of guitar and bass loops

Nu metal is a musical movement that infuses grunge and hip-hop into thrash metal. The Nu Metal City sample library features 1.6GB of loops, including 30 construction kits with tempos from 65-175 BPM. The construction kits feature multiple guitar, bass and drum loops, and each includes a main mix that combines these elements (except in REX format). Given the nature of nu metal, it's very appropriate that Big Fish included scratch, synth, and atmospheric sounds, giving you more progressive options than a metal-only library would.

The overall sound quality is quite high. Guitars scream and crunch while bass loops generally feel clean and tight. I was especially pleased with the drums - not only do they have a nice live feel, but the playing is creative and diverse. The loops adjust to your track tempo, though time-stretching in either direction beyond 20 percent of the recorded tempo produces audible artifacts. Similarly, transposing a loop's key poses no problem within a minor third of the original key.

While the drums offered a good amount of variety in each construction kit, I felt the selection of bass lines and guitar riffs was limited. It also seemed like each construction kit should have had more than one main mix that could be broken down to create more melodic possibilities and groove variations. The tonal quality of guitars and basses was very consistent - while they certainly used a few different kinds of distortion to record the samples, even more recording of the same lines through different amps, distortion, and other effects would have offered more of the flexibility many producers crave.

As a composer, I think Nu Metal City would be most useful for creating production library tracks or scoring TV programs or commercials that call for a nu metal vibe. It also inspired me towards fusions like adding screaming guitars to a world music piece or throwing crunch into a hip hop track. The guitars and basses may feel a bit limited for creating truly unique-sounding nu metal songs, but then again, the best way to do that involves plugging in your instrument and recording your own parts, so it's not a totally fair criticism of any sample library. At the end of the day, I think musicians who need nu metal drum loops and backing tracks to create and practice with will find Nu Metal City inspiring.