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If you already work in the electronica/dance arena, this is the most appropriate of the four collections for you. The production features a blend of lo-fi sounds (including liberal doses of noises) and adventurous rhythm programming, plus strings, synths, and other pop-oriented instruments with an occasional touch of glitchiness. Stylings spill out into the fields of big beat, ambient, trance, lounge, R&B, and even Led Zepplin references-in other words, not strictly hip hop.
There are 50 songs, all in minor keys, ranging in tempo from 70 to 140 bpm (although most are in the 80s/90s/100s). Each song features from four to 13 component loops, plus a folder that breaks down the main drum loop into two to 11 components (three to four being more typical). Each song also contains a folder with a similar number of individual hits. A combination of longer component loops (4 to 16 bars each) plus 16-bit recordings-perhaps an indulgence, given the lo-fi nature of most of the sounds-brings the AIFF version up to 1.86 gigs of material. In Short, a nice dance toolkit.
 It's hard to argue with 4.2GB, know what I mean? Big Fish's latest barage of hip-hop breaks and instrumental loops is downright huge, with 50 full construmction kits-including separated-drum loops and a "Hits" folder-in WAV, Apple Loop (AIFF) and REX file formats. That's a lot of swag to tag, but keeping things organized is a labeling system that gives tempo and harmonic key information for each folder. In style as well as substance, though, Heaat Seekers is anything but stripped-down: like some super-seession between Outkast, Automator and Kanye West, these construction kits are filled with florid, often phased strings, oddball MIDI horn blasts, psychotic synth squiggles and cheesy-but-good electronic drum sounds and synthetic handclaps. In all, Heat Seekers packs in 1,989 loops and hits (720 WAV files, 720 Apple Loops and 479 REX2 files) that vary in tempo from 70 to 140 BPM, and the waveforms are recorded at punchy levels that require little or no extra gain in your DAW or sample editor.
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 There was a time when you'd never see "high-quality polish" and "hip-hop library" in the same sentence. Heat Seekers, however, shimmers like a hundred points of ice across a platinum grille. The 4.2 GB DVD (1.85 GB of 24-bit WAV) is arranged into 50 key-referenced construction kits from 70 to 140 bpm. With 721 WAV loops and hits in all, the collection is upbeat and exuberant, as well as a little techno-quirky.
There are influences from rave culture, space rock, tribal ceremony, contemporary ethnic and cut-up orchestral music. Though the traditionally winning combos of orchestra hits, synth stabs, pizzicatos, clavs, plucked guitar and dramatic strings abound here, Heat Seekers is decidedly more electro-infused hip-hop, with wild synth effects and virtual sounds folded into rawer elements borrowed from rock and funk. The creative instrumentation includes pitched log drumming with a voodoo synth lead, huge dive-bombing bass with a guitarlike synth lead against a speed-pitched and reversed 70 bpm rock-drum groove, space-harp glissandos put to a laid-back Prince-type funk groove and so on; though I would add that Heat Seekers leans more heavily to the Southern and exotic-sounding palette than anything else. All kits contain a full mix and elements broken out into individual loops, as well as a folder of hits and another of individual drum tracks. All in all, this disc should set fire to more than one hit track this year.
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