The latest Zenhiser offering focuses on mellow piano, organ and Rhodes sounds. But does it fit the bill for deep house producers?
Sometimes life must be tough for sample developers. Spending days in a studio packed to the rafters with rare and collectable keyboards is the stuff of dreams for most of us. But when they’re there for us, the sample buying public, and capturing the magic of the classic sounds of yesteryear so that we can incorporate them into our own tracks then their labours are entirely justified. So how does this latest offering of Deep House Keys from Zenhiser stack up?
With just shy of 300 loops and one-shots taken from a variety of grand pianos, Rhodes, Wurlitzers, organs and more there’s a broad spectrum of sounds on offer, all of which ooze with warmth and sparkle with soul.
The grand piano loops range from smoky licks to straight-up single-chord classic house riffs. Most are offered dry, allowing you to process them as you see fit in the context of your mix. When processing is applied it’s generally subtle, with gentle reverbs or delay to thicken things up. Occasionally loops are offered with variants that offer a counter melody to the main progression, which is a nice added extra.
The organ loops are a mixed bag, with some beautifully simple and effective lines (004 Organ 122Bpm F2 – DHK Zenhiser.wav) that serve as inspirational melodic starting points rubbing shoulders with some slightly jarring combinations (003(b) Organ 122Bpm D#2 – DHK Zenhiser.wav) which just don’t quite work. However, there are plenty of gems in there, with a slew of deep beds and chunky riffs to get your teeth into. The liberal use of reverb on some is the only slight annoyance.
The Wurlitzer loops stray into jazzier and more soulful territory, but still with enough funk to keep the dancefloor moving. Cutting up and re-working these threw up plenty of interesting patterns that would work perfectly for those seeking more jackin’ melodic motifs.
The single shots, divided into the same folder breakdowns, offer even more possibilities. Mapping the classic minor chords across the keys made light work of quintessential deep house progressions. And it’s this flexibility that rounds off the collection nicely, elevating it from a merely a fun source of melodic inspiration into a powerful arsenal of authentic deep house sampler ammo.
At £20, it’s a reasonable price for some well recorded classic instruments, with a good number of inspiring progressions to boot. If you like the classic house sound of MAW, King Street or Madhouse then you can’t go far wrong with this.