Hit Zone | Reasonfreaks.com

Containing -
Construction Kits, Drumloops, Kicks, Snares, Phased Hats, Bass, Guitars, Organs, Resonant Hits, Phased Claps, Swooshed Rider, Filtered Drum Hits, Electric Piano, Synths, Pianos, Cymbals, Percussion Fills ,FX, Leads, 909 Kicks, Beats, and MORE.


Introduction
Big Fish Audio, a California based sound studio, recently handed us a copy of they're new CD compilation, Hit Zone. This behemoth of sample sets boasts 4 CDs in both audio track and digital formats. A great thrill went around my studio as people we're starting to groove to the easy to manipulate beats and grooves. Big thumbs up indeed for such an initial reaction.


Grooves and Beats
The warm and carefully edited beats formatted nicely onto the first 2 audio CD's slid nicely into my audio system and allowed me to sit back, relax and listen. Eventually, I had come to the conclusion that these were probably some of the most phenomenal sounds I had ever heard from a hip-hop collection. I was soon on the phone with some friends based in Toronto - where the CD was produced, and promptly took the next bus out of Buffalo to the great Canadian city.

About 2 hours later, I found myself in the basement studio pumping out the CD's into the acoustically enhanced room. My associates and myself eventually came to the conclusion that these sounds were immaculate and had an urban feel that was enough to start heads bobbing, feet tapping, and for people to get SERIOUSLY dirty to. Some of the grooves, which were clearly labeled in the liner notes, around 60 - 70 bpms floated a nice pleasant RnB type ambience.

The sheer variety of sounds that fill each individual set of grooves was mind boggling. Soft pads, scratching, screaming distortion, ambient beeps fill these CD's. Spectacular piano playing and funky Rhodes sounds flood some of the more melodic tracks. A great deal of thought went into producing these tracks, which definitely comes across. The liner notes are filled with minute details about the types of sounds a particular groove would have, and especially for a producer who is just starting to enter the world of music making, this CD is a must. For the veteran producer this is guaranteed to be an idea jogger, and for some CD turntablists out there, this is one heck of a CD to start bet juggling with. Everyone's happy.


Technical Aspects.
The 3rd and 4th CDs of this collection is identical to the first 2, as far as sounds are concerned. However, these CD's contain Acidized .wav files broken down into more than 500 individually processed and tempo accurate files: perfect for producers working with Phrazer, Sonar, Acid, and Live. Even producers working predominantly with Rx2 files will find this collection useful, and clear enough to produce Rx2 files customized on ones own needs.

The warm nature of these sounds a great for down-mastering and having the files split up into individualized samples make for good equalizer tweaking in the long run.


Conclusion.
Wow. The attitude, mastery, and sheer force of this collection of sounds have left me with a great new plethora of ideas and concepts to work on. For $99.95 [USD] off the Big Fish's website, this is definitely worth it. For 4 CD's jammed pack with producer essentials, this is almost a textbook necessity. This is indeed a great collection of sounds for the hardworking producer / DJ. Great work Big Fish!