Prism Urban Legends is a nifty little gem from AVA Music Group that’s been making a small stir in the music production circles. Imagine being able to create sounds that are so authentic and soulful, they perfectly encapsulate the spirit of urban music. That’s what Prism Urban Legends promises, and over the next few sections, we’ll be taking a deep dive into what makes it tick.
But it’s not just about the sounds…
Throughout this article, we’ll uncover the unique features that Prism Urban Legends brings to the table and discuss how it can add a certain oomph to your music. We’ll also shed light on any potential drawbacks you should be aware of before making an investment.
Stay tuned as we explore this intriguing tool further.
What Is PRISM Urban Legends?
If you’re a fan of urban music genres like Hip Hop, R&B, or Trap, then Prism Urban Legends, a product from AVA Music Group, should certainly be on your radar as it has a unique ability to create authentic, soulful, and raw sounds that perfectly capture the essence of urban music. Prism Urban Legends offers a wide variety of features, including expertly engineered drum loops, melodic loops, and 808 bass samples- all of which are royalty-free, so you can create without worrying about copyright infringement.
But it’s not just the impressive collection of sounds that makes Prism Urban Legends stand out. Its user experience is also top-notch – it’s intuitive and easy to navigate. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned producer, Prism Urban Legends is a versatile tool that not only meets but exceeds expectations in the realm of music production.
If you’re looking to add a bit of swing, punch, and grit to your trap, hip-hop, Boom Bap, and drill productions or need a bit more energy in your dance genres like Dubstep and D&B, then this affordable library could be a great investment in your arsenal.
What I Liked About PRISM Urban Legends
It Works With Player!
It’s never a good feeling to invest in a fancy new Kontakt library only to find out that you need the premium version of Kontakt to use it. Luckily enough though, this library works just fine with Kontakt Player, Native Instrument’s free sampler which is like Kontakt Lite.
This means that you can snag this library and instantly start using every one of its features without having to worry about upgrading compatibility issues, or any other hiccup that all too many producers have encountered when they don’t read the fine print on the spec sheets of many Kontakt LIbraries.
Snag Kontakt Player For Free Here
They Sound Unique
AVA Music Group is best known for its heavily stylized Kontakt libraries that are designed for stock music libraries and film scoring. As such, their sounds often come heavily processed and more-or-less mix ready. And while one could see this as both a blessing and a curse, right now let us focus on the fact that any and all of the ten kits included in this Kontakt library are unique enough to stand out in their own right.
The hardest part about working with percussions is getting the initial idea to hit hard enough and be punchy enough to not take the wind out of your sails throughout the initial burst of creative energy that happens at the start of every project. And while these drums certainly hold their weight throughout every stage of the production process, it’s nice to have the confidence in this library to load it up in a blank project and instantly have drums that are more or less release-ready.
It Offers More Control Than Many Other Drum Libraries
I have about seven different dedicated percussion libraries in my collection and it seems a common trend to only allow the bare essentials in terms of modulation and ADSR control. And while having a loose feel in your drums works great for many of the genres I most commonly produce – world music and deep house – being able to get granular and adjust transients, the body of the sound with compression, and many other features really allow you to get a ton of control out of the 10 different drum kits in this library.
Add on the fact that it also has its own bank groove that mirrors some of the most popular hip-hop producers of the past decades, and you have yourself a pretty mighty little drum engine all packaged in a Kontakt-friendly kit.
What I Wasn’t Too Crazy About
It’s Fairly Small
In an age where many companies overdeliver on their products, giving producers gigs on gigs of samples and endless sounds to use, AVA’s decision to only include ten different drum kits might feel a little light to some looking into this product. And while this might be far from a deal breaker for many producers, especially seeing that at the time of writing this article, the library costs less than $60 USD, those same producers might see themselves running through what’s offered fairly quickly especially if they don’t find the specific sounds that they dig in this stylized drum kit library.
This leads me to the final point…
It Has Its Lane
The unique qualities of the drum sounds, as mentioned earlier, is this library’s greatest blessing and curse. And while I personally think that the pros far outweigh the cons in this one, it should be mentioned that you’d have to really make these drum kits work hard through processing and resampling if you wanted them to do anything outside of the narrow range of genres they are designed for.
Final Thoughts
They add a ton of energy and swagger to bass music and hip-hop productions and could even sound great in more stock music for film (I’m thinking sci-fi, high-tension films for sure). But if you’re looking at simultaneously doing deep house, ambient, and other genres that utilize a bit softer of pallet, then you will likely find yourself gravitating to other libraries and samples instead of this one.
It doesn’t do everything under the sun, and it doesn’t try to and you can’t fault this library for that. I think it’s a small, affordable, and unique-sounding drum kit that gives you far more bang for your buck than would any number of sample packs and drum sample kits you could purchase with that sample amount of money.
So check it out here
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
