Plugsound Vol. 4: Hip Hop Toolkit

i suppose i should start this review by saying that i dont write hip hop...so i honestly dont know how well it stands up in that style.

ok, now that i've got that out of the way...

i already had plugsounds excellent drum and percussion vsti and i wanted to augment that collection with some more drums. so for me, this was more of an add-on and, as such, i have found it to be extremely useful.

there are some great kits on here and there is pretty much no overlap between this and the drum vsti. i would have preferred more/better funk kits though.

what i didnt expect is that i would find the drum loops so useful. im normally not a loop user but im finding these to be very handy.

i tend to write at higher bpms than the loops were intended for so i typically only use small chunks of the loops as accents that are layered with tracks i've made with the drum plug.

i never touch the instrument loops though. they are well done...i just have more fun writing the parts myself.

the individual instrument samples are hit or miss. for example, there are some great basses, clavs and ep's but the synth and guitar sounds leave much to be desired.

on the technical side of things, the plug is stable, easy to use, and requires very little cpu power.

overall, i think this plug is worth a look. i have found it to be very useful, but a friend of mine (who does write hip hop) was far less impressed.

download the demo and see what you think.Read Review