Big Fish Audio | EQ Magazine Craig Anderton | Hip Hop Exotica Product Review
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Hip Hop Exotica | EQ Magazine

Reviewer: Craig Anderton Back to Hip Hop Exotica product details

And now for something completely different: Are you ready for Dubai hip-hop? And maybe some Bhangra and Latino hip-hop as well, because this DVD-ROM throws hip-hop beats against a map of the world, and sees what sticks. Interestingly, most of it does, yet doesn't seem forced.

The 55 construction kits (with 966 unique files, except for the REX versions, as hits and mixes don't translate well to that format) each have the usual mix-of-all-elements and the constituent elements, but also include folders of the drum tracks broken down into individual loops, and another folder of hits. This allows customizing your tracks to a greater degree than most libraries, as you can drag the hits over to create rhythmic variations.

Most tempos are in the hip-hop/rap sub-100 BPM zone. Unlike some sound reviews, where I feel a product has multiple applications, this one zeroes in specifically on hip-hop and doesn't let go. What adds the flavor is the exotic character of the ethnic instruments and scales sitting side-by-side with more traditional hip-hop elements . . . if only the real world could be so neighborly.

One heads-up: You can't use these sounds in music libraries. Oh well. It's still an innovative collection that will inject freshness into hip-hop projects; check out the audio examples at www.eqmag.com.

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