Oriental RnB | Virtual Instruments Magazine

Intrigued by the name? Actually, it doesn't describe the sound of this collection. Although there is a whiff of funk or oriental stylings in some of the 33 main construction kits, Middle-Eastern Pop would have been a far more appropriate name, with chapters on Bollywood Hip Hop and even Persian Rude-Boy Rap. There are also 7 "XTRA World Mix" kits that dive into areas such as flamenco, gypsy, and polka(!).

Production leans towards third-world pop-a mixture of synths and ethnic instruments with a relatively shallow sound stage. The percussion tracks are mostly a mixture of programmed kick/snare/hat underpinnings (that are either slammin' or plodding, depending on your personal tastes), layered with what sound like live-performed ethnic loops.

This 3 gig collection takes up two slots in Elastik, and is divided into three folders: Mix Kits, Drum Kits, and Instrument Kits. The Mix Kits mostly contain the now-familiar Ueberschall pattern of three loops: full mix, instrumental mix, and percussion mix. Tempos range from 76 to 140 bpm. These loops are 8 to 32 bars long (tending towards the high end), often sporting clear sections, breakdowns, and rave-ups that may or may not loop cleanly.

The Drum Kit folder then contains breakdowns of the percussion tracks for each construction kit, which have vocal drops and record scratches included. Aside from the traditional full mix loop, there are usually four to 16 4-bar component loops, and then a similar number of individual hits.

Unfortunately, as with HipHop Underground, the single hits curiously have their loop switches enabled; at least they are often edited into 1- or 2-beat durations. However, playing, say, a repeating kick drum single looping against the kick drum component loop illustrates that many of the hits are not squarely on the beat, making it harder to mix these loops with others. The Instrument Kit folder also contains a bank for each construction kit, featuring nine to 30 1-4 breakdowns of the individual instrumental phrases.

In short, this library sports the most variations of the three, although it is unfortunate that the instruments and drums aren't included in the same preset banks so that you easily could jam these pieces live.