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Trapture: Trap & Hip Hop | Sample Library Review

Reviewer: Steve B Back to Trapture: Trap & Hip Hop product details



If you’re serious about producing Trap and Hip Hop music, Trapture is serious fuel for your creative fire. There are 20 very well-designed construction kits along with some very well thought out options for creating alternative mixes, variations and entirely new material. Each kit comes with its own set of sliced loops (KLI Version only), drum hits and alternate drum loops.

Sample Factory has teamed with Big Fish Audio to brings a very solid offering to the table.

Audio producers will rejoice at the plethora of options this collection offers. There are alternate takes and variations for nearly every instrument in each kit and then there are even more options made possible the extra drum and sliced loops found in the KLI version. Video producers will appreciate the fully produced demo tracks (included for each kit) which offer complete mixes suitable for “drag and drop” royalty free music beds. Wav and Apple loops allow flexible customization of the construction kits while the KLI version offers perhaps the most flexibility through key changes, sliced loops and a myriad of processing and effect controls from directly inside Kontakt.

Thoughts

If you’re serious about producing Trap and Hip Hop music, Trapture is serious fuel for your creative fire. There 20 very well-designed construction kits along with some very well thought out options for creating alternative mixes, variations and entirely new material. Each kit comes with its own set of sliced loops (KLI Version only), drum hits and alternate drum loops.

Regardless of the version you choose, you’ll find plenty of material to work with. There are just about 4 GB of content and 1,045 individual loops, spread out over 20 construction kits. This collection includes the dark, traditional trap themes you might expect but, it is also very progressive, current and has nice pop-influence kits to make the collection very approachable for producers used to working in other genres. All of the kits could easily find their way onto radio airwaves. This is the good stuff. One of those collections you don’t tell your producer friends about because you’ll want to keep this set a secret all for yourself. (In fact, at the end of my review, I’m going to need you to sign a waiver saying you didn’t hear about this from me.)

All the kits are in minor keys and tempos range from 90 to 158bpm. Trapture is available as 3 different products: The KLI version, which is compatible with the full version of Kontakt 5.7.1 , the multi-format version including Acidized Wav files, Apple Loops and Rex Files and finally, a pre-converted RMX file version. Depending on your workflow, each has its merits but for the bulk of this review, I’ll focus on what’s available with the KLI version.

In the multi-format versions, kits are separated into folders, each named with the kit number, tempo and key signature. This simplifies navigation overall and in the case of Apple loops, helps organize the loops within Logic’s loop browser so they are listed by kit. In the KLI version, demos sit in their own instrument, making it easy to preview or record each demo with one finger. I use the demo tracks as a construction guide when I want to follow the fully produced mix closely.

Each demo is labeled with its kit number, tempo and key signature. As you can see from the screenshot, the information is displayed in the main screen of the Kontakt instrument. The information in parentheses is simply the key on your keyboard that the demo is mapped to.

Trapture Screenshot


Note that the kits are arranged in their own folders on the left side of the KLI file browser. Each kit contains all the instruments and variations, as well as a rhythmic element folder containing drum loops labeled BPM along with another folder containing sliced loops.

Here you can see that each loop lives in its own separate channel in the KLI format. Each channel allows for individual control of effects such as reverbs and other parameters. Looking at the Keyboard at the bottom of the screen, you can see the keys mapped to various instruments (pictured in Blue) and the keys that control pitch (pictured in Red) as well as the current key for the kit (pictured in Green.)

In the folder labeled BPM, located inside each Kit Folder, you’ll find individual drum hits, alternative loops and other kit specific options.

Trapture Screenshot


Sliced loops are where the KLI version really begins to shine. Here, you can find sliced loops for every element and instrument for each kit. Here you can control effects, loop starting point, direction (forward or reverse) and speed.
Working with these kits, I found myself exploring all kinds of options for arrangements and ultimately, I went off the charts completely. In the fourth demo video, I didn’t bother to follow the designed “construction kit” at all. I just built my own thing from the available loops in the kit and played with the processing to get what felt (to me) like a very useable underscore.

Just like a good fisherman never reveals his best fishing spots, this review goes against the secret producer’s code of revealing the best source material. I’m only telling you this because I want you to be successful but, and it’s a big but – you need to promise that you’ll never reveal that I was the one who told you about this. Just print out this review, sign it and keep it for your files, okay?

Trapture: Trap and Hip Hop is an excellent collection for producers looking to create authentic, modern, radio-ready, Trap and Hip Hop style music. This isn’t some bargain-bin collection of hit or miss kits to gamble on. It’s a solid selection of well-produced source material for your next hit. Every kit in the collection feels solid and comes with plenty of options for manipulating the mix to make it yours. Still, I encourage you to explore all the demos available at Big Fish Audio.com so you can be sure this title will meet your specific needs.

Facts

Trapture is available as 3 individual products. If purchasing the KLI version, you’ll receive one compressed .zip file weighing in at about 2.2 GB. Once expanded, it will occupy 4.2 GB of content with 945 individual patches. Don’t forget, you cannot use the free Kontakt player with this product. You must have Kontakt version 5.7.1 or higher. Multi-format purchasers will receive 5 downloadable files including Acidized Wav, Apple loop and Rex files. Wav files are broken into to 2 files at about 1.1 GB each. Apple loops aren’t much different with each of their two parts coming in around the same size – while Rex file users will only have one file compressed to just under 1GB. RMX purchasers will receive two compressed files at 1.2 and 1.1 GB each.

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