Yall know me, I love drums. I’m super critical when it comes to drum samples and I never feel like you can have enough.

When it comes to commercial, radio ready, pristine sounding drums…only a couple names constantly come up.

Sonic Specialists is one such name. I first heard about them a few years back, from one of my engineer friends that visited gearslutz.com

All he said was “man, this dude sirrocco got the illest drums man, go over to the forum and download his free joints!”

Well I did, and they were dope. Then about a year later they had opened up Sonic Specialists.

Fast forward to now…their Urban Fire has become one of the best and most widely respected sample drum kits around, and it’s on it’s 5th volume (I’ll try to get a review of that one for ya too)

But now they are moving into a crossover kit, merging electro and urban together. They just dropped this Urban Electro kit, and sent it over for review….let’s see whasup.

What is Urban Electro and what’s so special about Sonic Specialists?

According to them it’s the first professional library made for Urban AND Electro producers.  This is a mixture of hard hitting urban sounds as well as traditional (and not so traditional) electro type sounds.

It fits in with the current trend of electro influenced urban music, as well as urban hip hop or rap influenced electro dance tunes. It’s universal.

The thing that makes them so special is that they are engineers, urban music engineers, so they know the frequencies, eq, and all the settings for the outboard gear needed to make the drums POP

Quick Specs:

• Contents: over 300 single shot drum samples
• Format: 16 and 24 bit wave files
• Price: $74.95

So how does it SOUND? Is there really a difference?

This is where the difference is evident. Most drum packs I come across are good, they have good sounds, but lack punch. If they do have “punch” it’s really nothing more than drums compressed as much as possible or even just normalized, so they are loud, but not punchy.

You can definitely tell the difference in these drums, you can tell these dudes are engineers, they know how the frequencies and all the dynamic work together to make a drum PUNCH without mashing it up to 0db and normalizing the crap out of it.

The engineering on these are pretty amazing, I really didn’t think it would make that much of a difference but it does.  They bang, but they don’t force themselves to take over your whole track like many other urban drum kits that claim to have “punch”. There’s a “space” around them that I really can’t explain.

It’s like they lay into your tracks with their own protective “bang bubble” that clears the way for them to sit in the mix.  I am a drum fiend, I have tons and tons of drums, and many that claim to give you that commercial sound… next to these drums, you can tell the processing was nothing more than “get the drums as hot as possible so they bang” without really understanding the dynamics, eq, and how they would fit in a mix.

You immediately know that these cats KNOW how to use the processors and effects, eqs, all that good stuff that they have…they aren’t blindly turning knobs just to make the samples “louder”.

What’s the final verdict, is it really that important to use these drums?

Look, I can’t tell you what’s important for you, but I will say this, these drums to have a different quality than many I’ve come across.  If you’re looking for that dirty, vinyl sound, or them dirty gutter drums, then I can show you quite a few of those.

But for that new, clean, punchy, radio ready drum samples…I just don’t see many options around.  Some have the “sound” as in they style, but they lack the dynamics and punch.

I give this collection a 4.5 out of 5 subs.  You may be wondering why not a full 5…because I want more variety.

I understand they had to put many “general” sounds in there, and even though they are processed pristinely, I still have tons of “dance claps and kicks”. In order to be a standard for many users, they had to do this, so it can find it’s way into many producers toolkit as a default drum library.

What I would like to see is them push the envelope more into their own unique sounds. They had some stuff they created that was just down right new and inspiring, and that’s the stuff that really blew me away.

I wanted to leave some space for them to challenge themselves and spark a new standard.  There’s no doubt they’ve raised the bar, and this is a dope kit that can be used over and over, both the traditional dance/urban sounds as well as the new are here…. I just wish there were less “traditional” and more of the “what they heck did they do?”

all in all, it’s a dope kit, worth having, and will make it hard to look anywhere else for pristine and clean sounding drums.

They have a demo, so you can download some for yourself here: Urban Electro Drum Samples

lemme know what ya think, leave me a comment below!

We are back again with another soundhound, and this time we are taking another look at the folks over at primeloops.com.

Previously we took a look at their human beat box sample kit, which was superb.

We know they can do drums and percussion well, but what about other sounds? Let’s checkout this new kit they sent over for review.

Planet of the Orchestra is your own exotic record collection

You know I’m always on the lookout for a funky groove, loop, or lick to chop up.

But not just funk, I want anything that will spark my creativity, so I was excited about this release from primeloops.

From the website:

Imagine if the best Orchestra’s most talented musicians and top artists from India, America, Africa, Japan, Australia, Europe and China all got together in one huge recording facility, and jammed together…the result? Planet of the Orchestra.

Sounds like a good musical gumbo to me! I had to check this out, especially because I like strings, as well as exotic other-cultural musical riffs.

It’s like having you own collection of rare world, etchnic, and orchestral records…and not having to pay any sample clearance!

The real question is how does it sound…

You know around here we like to cut to the chase. I’m going to be honest, before I reviewed it I wasn’t expecting too much, I’m used to reviewing things with hundreds and hundreds of sounds, so seeing this was only 100+ had me a little concerned.

All that concern turn into ecstatically bubbly ear orgasmic pleasure when I heard the sounds.  Yeah, I made up that phrase, but so what, it’s how I felt…don’t judge me lol.

The sounds in this collection are unlike anything I’ve ever heard, they are not merely loops, but each one is a fully produced masterpiece of sound and emotion.

I have never come across a collection this diverse and well recorded. I feel like I have mastered copies of studio recordings from some of the greatest sessions on earth.

The sound is second to none…

What about the diversity or style, is it usable?

If you can’t use this to make something magical then quit…seriously.

There is sooooooooooooo much in this collection I really don’t know where to start, or stop…I can go on for days.

Like I said, you get fully produced mini masterpieces in each and every loop, you never know what to expect.

One loop may take you to the jungles of Africa, another to the palaces in China, while the next takes you to a Kentucky back yard, followed by an elegant concert hall orchestra performance.

It’s really like a box of chocolates….freaking amazing.

If you love your music and love to be creative get this NOW

I’ll admit, I’m an optimist. I feel I can use pretty much anything to spark some creative compositions. But every once in a while I come across things that are absolutely a MUST HAVE, and this is one of them.

Really, the level of detail and professional production put into each one of these loops is simply astonishing.

Like I said before, each one is pretty much a full masterpiece in itself. Ready to become the foundation for your next epic adventure, or peaceful serenade.

Whatever you want to do, wherever you want to go, you’ll find something in here to help you get there.

I have to give this collection a 5/5 subs, it’s THAT good, really.

What I like is how well produced each loop is.

This is not like a collection of loops that all play off of each other, no sir.

This is like a collection of 100+ rare orchestral, world, and exotic samples ready to go into your music.

Go checkout planet of the orchestra, peep the demos, then try and call me a liar….you won’t be able to.

primeloops has done something wonderful for the music community, I suggest you appreciate it.