4 Stars

Reviewing sample CDs is a hoot. Sometimes it can be a bit taxing trying to think of new ways to describe how you feel about the inclusion of yet another set of TR909 samples on every second release that crosses your desk, while at other times it's dead easy. DH v2.0 falls into the easy category, as it can be succinctly described in two words -- Drum Loops. Forget 'sampling workstations', begone foul snippets of grainy vocal hooks, and cast out the slightest notion of any rich and complex multisamples. DH v2.0 is an unashamed, unfussy and unpretentious collection of some of the most bangin' house beats I've heard in quite a while.



Across the 70 minutes of disk space we are treated to 760 different two-bar loops, each set into tempo groups of 120, 125, 130, 135 and 140bpm. Obviously, true to house music tastes, most waver around the 130bpm mark, but within nearly all of the loops you get more rhythmic and textural diversity than you could have ever imagined in a release of this kind. DH v2.0 also manages to supply a good cross-section of house music sub-genres including Speed Garage, Disco House and Authentic House. There are even a few hints at drum &bass styles, as well as hardcore, and pure techno influences.



The producers clearly have a keen set of ears for picking the right kind of kick drums and snares, and fill up the bits in between with just the right amount of percussion to keep things shunting along without ever sounding cluttered. Effects-wise, DH v2.0 seems to have made most of the decisions for you, adding all the right amounts of reverb and compression and thus making for easy sampling and instant beat gratification. The decision to keep away from complicated mix-out variations and deconstructions of any of the loops was, I think, the right way to go. If you don't find something that would work well in your dance track by flicking through the first three tracks on the disk I would be extremely surprised.



At the tail end of the disk is the single-hits section, which offers seemingly all of the individual drum and percussion sounds used in the preceding tracks and includes suprisingly (for house music) quite a large number of interesting and highly usable acoustic drum kit samples. As with most Zero-G releases these days, you also get a free WAV file CD-ROM thrown into the deal, which will please PC and newer Akai users no end. If I had to be negative for a moment I would say that although DH v2.0 has tapped into a pure stream of near-perfect house inspiration destined for mass appeal, I can't help feeling that perhaps a little more risk-taking in the sound design and a few of the rhythm tracks would have made this release truly stellar as opposed to what it is, which is 'merely' very, very good.