After reviewing Acoustic Refractions, I was asked by some of you to review the only other Kore SoundPack I have for now, Urban Arsenal 2. I've only heard demos of the 1st volume and have no direct experience with it, so I can't speak to how much overlap there is. Ad blurb:
Perfectly complementing the first pack, 236 box-fresh new sounds are included for the free KORE PLAYER and KORE 2, made up of drums, basses, leads, pads, keys and chords that perfectly fit the sound of the hottest new urban cuts. The pack also contains dubplate and tape processing and the return of the "remix" function for drum grooves- everything you need to lay down complete tracks from scratch.
Listen to me go through a smattering of the sounds and riff out:
Overall, it's solid. A healthy variety. But a slight disappointment because I was expecting more. I found most of the acoustic instruments — especially the guitars — weak and lacking character. Some samples have been audibly range-stretched, but for fitting in a mix, you won't hear the difference. Just don't expect to comp out naked solos (which is something most hip-hop producers don't do, but I do).
The quality of the drum samples is fantastic, and I was awed by the many organic-sounding handclaps, a must in today's trends. However, as convenient as the preset grooves are, I wouldn't use them upfront without remixage — they'd fill in a nice frequency space with a bandpass filter. And I wish there had been more "span" kits" filling all 88 keys (or more) with a variety of kick/snare/clap/etc. parts. Not a dealbreaker as the raw WAV samples are exposed in a folder and can be loaded into another sampler like Ableton Live's Impulse, yet a point to consider.
Another strong suit are many of the basses and leads; as demo'ed in my vid, you'll definitely "pheel the phat" here, and I hearted morphing through the 8 sound variations for each one. That's one of the strongest suits of Kore soundpacks in general: predefined knobs and parameters for easy tweaking (instead of wasting time delving into menus), and it's a substantial part of the package's value.
I can't make a direct comparison to Acoustic Refractions and emphasize my bias towards more "eclectic yet playable sounds"; Urban Arsenal 2 is great for what it is. A creative mind will find much use for them beyond the target market.
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Hm…is it just me, or does the video cut off at the end?
Nice one Torley. I also liked the percussion stuff the best.
I'm not into urban much (if I even understand what exactly makes urban) but I found plenty of use for other styles in the pack. I agree morphing and tweaking is what makes this (and most other KORE soundpacks) great fun to play.
@thattagen Not just you, I forgot to mention that's when Ableton Live crashed on me! Been having nasty crash probs with Kontakt 3, so I'm trying the 3.5 beta.
@ronnie "Urban" is a broad term to me too, I guess it's like "rave" that way. Thanks!
Can I Have The Link For This Pack?