Cardiak Presents The Flatline Kit Vol. 1 Review

What’s up MM! This is your man E52Beats coming thru with another drumkit review. Today, while in the studio I got to check out the Cardiak Flatline Drums Vol 1. This is Cardiak’s first ever drum kit available to the masses in what is called the Flatline series. Cardiak is know for banging out hits for artist such as Rick Ross, Eminem and 50 Cent to name a few, and this kit includes many of the drums he used to create the hits for those artist. The Flatline kit is 9 folders which include 38 Kicks, 4 808’s, 58 Snares, 11 Claps, 13 Fills, 7 Loops, 13 Percussive Elements, 6 SFX Transitions and 5 Stabs. I will be giving y’all my thoughts on each folder individually.

I know this first folder is the one most of y’all can’t wait to get to and that is the KICKS folder. This folder contained 38 HARD HITTIN’…BIG BOTTOM…CLUB ROCKIN’ KICKS! All 38 kicks were dope and well eq’d and that’s hard to do in a market that’s saturated with tons of prefabricated drum kits these days.

On to the 808 folder . I contains 4 808 kicks,  3 of which sound like the original classic 808 kick, they are nice, solid and round. The only one I didn’t particularly care for was the Crash 808 which sounded a little harsh for my taste. Other than that the 808 kit is a winner.

Now as y’all get to know me through these blogs and reviews I do, you will know that if it’s anything that I love it’s SNARES! I wanted to save the SNARES folder for last so I could really take my time and get to know all 58 snares in this kit on a personal level but couldn’t wait lol. It’s 58 snares in all, and after going over them a few times and putting them thru the ringer I’d say I liked more than half of them. If you read my last blog post “Picking the Perfect Drums pt.2” you’d know that’s good for me! Now I can’t say I fell all the way in love with any of them, but I’d definitely date a few of them more than once LOL. The snares that I didn’t like were the ones that were in the TRAP style family, but that’s just my personal preference. The rest of snappy Hip Hop and R&B snares were crisp, clean and very usable.

Claps was the next folder I browsed through. Out of the 11 claps I listened to, only 2 of them stood out to me (Cardiac clap and Cardiac clap 2). These two claps were clean cut. The others had a lil too much reverb on them, which could get in the way when mixing.

The next folder I checked out was the Fills folder. This folder had 13 fills aka drum rolls. All 13 of these drum rolls where dope to me. Adding fills to a track always makes my production seem a little more complete.

The LOOPS folder had 6 hi hat based loops and 1 snare loop that I found good for giving track direction and motion. I’m from the era when everything was a loop so I always welcome them. In my experience, you can almost never go wrong using a loop.

Up next we have the PERC short for percussion folder. I’m not really a fan of the new perc sounds that I’ve come across in the last 12 years. It’s like if you heard one you’ve heard them all. Although, I’m sure you’ll find a use for all 15 sounds.

FX’s was my least favorite folder in this series. It was 6 sounds in total and most sounds were very familiar, especially CDK Transition 3 which sonically resembled the old Just Blaze progressive laser sound to me. But again, I can see them coming in handy for some.

STABS… I liked all 5 stabs in this kit. The Bell stab was reminiscent of the one you hear on Tupac’s Hail Mary. I won’t give the rest away, but I believe everyone will be pleased with what they hear.

I must say, for this to be Cardiak’s first attempt in the Drums games I think he made a pretty good mark. I’m looking forward to seeing his Flatline series grow and become a staple in the drums market like our good friend !LLMIND’s Blapkits.

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E52BEATS!

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