#sampled instruments

Sample Logic morphs and mutilates best Balinese gamelan instruments into VI fit for a new world

Award-winning sample library company Sample Logic is proud to announce (upcoming) availability of GAMELAN — the latest in a lengthening line of superlative sample-based virtual instruments powered by Native Instruments’ industry-standard KONTAKT PLAYER platform, this time morphing and mutilating 25 world-class Balinese gamelan instruments to create a stunning selection of inspirational cinematic-quality atmospheres, melodic instruments, thundering percussive impacts, and twisted loops — as of September 1…

GAMELAN is where world instruments meet hybrid synthesis. Achieving this is easier said than done, though that is exactly what the talented team at Sample Logic has achieved with relative ease… well, with a little help from their friends. Recorded on the celebrated scoring stage at Skywalker Sound in Marin County, California, GAMELAN features over 1,700 world-class traditional and morphed gamelan instruments which will surely blow the creative minds of sound designers, composers, musicians, and producers alike. No fewer than 25 instrumental (Grantang, Jegogan, Jublag, Kajar, Kantilan, Kempli, Pemade, Penyacah, Reyong, Suling, Trompong, and Ugal) and percussive (Cedugan Wadon, Cedugan, Ceng Ceng, Gentorag Chime, Gong, Gupekan Wadon, Gupekan, Kempur, Klentong, Krumpungan Wadon, Krumpungan, Rebab, and Vocalese) Balinese instruments were recorded there in 24-bit/88.2kHz, then morphed and mutilated to craft the highly-creative content for GAMELAN.

GAMELAN welcomely weighs in at over 14GB as a result. As such, it features a diverse library of 1,700 KONTAKT PLAYER-compatible patches, perfectly divided into the following categories: 421 ATMOSPHERES (58 BIZARRE, 97 DARK – MYSTERIOUS, 71 ELECTRONIC – EFFECTUAL, 87 MIXED EMOTIONS, 28 STINGERS, and 79 WORLD ORGANIC); 316 INSTRUMENTALS (55 ARPEGGIATED, 104 WORLD ORGANIC, 74 SYNTH, and 82 TRADITIONAL); 332 LOOPS (84 ACTION PACKED, 120 ELECTRONIC – EFFECTUAL, 51 POP HOP, 56 WORLD ORGANIC); 368 PERCUSSIVES (31 ARPEGGIATED, 11 HIT ENSEMBLES, 266 IMPACTS, 17 TRADITIONAL, and 42 TRANSITIONS); and 260 MULTI CORES (34 ATMOSPHERES, 71 INSTRUMENTALS, 53 LOOPS, and 47 PERCUSSIVES). Explore unlimited possibilities within GAMELAN by combining those ATMOSPHERES, INSTRUMENTALS, LOOPS, and PERCUSSIVES within a single, easy-to-use interface. Moreover, mix up to eight ‘Soundsources’ while retaining nuanced control over each sound to create massive ambiences, crushing impacts, complex loops, soaring leads, or even stacked multis with all of the above triggered by a single note! Alternatively, why not simply use one of the thousands of included preset instruments for instant inspiration?

Start from the simplest seed element of a sound and work outward with GAMELAN’s intuitive interface. All such ‘Soundsources’ are loaded into a so-called SOUNDCORE — each capable of playing back two ‘Soundsources’ (Soundsource 1 and Soundsource 2) simultaneously, packed with SOUNDCORE FX, including reverb, convolution, filters, distortion, and much more.

More adventurous users can explore even headier heights of creativity by using up to four SOUNDCORES simultaneously, allowing for infinite blends of up to eight SOUNDCORES at any given time. And, as if that was not enough to be getting on with, MASTER FX can be applied to all SOUNDCORES to create truly out-of-this-world results!

Not quite ready to take the plunge into the deeper depths of GAMELAN? No need to worry. With over 880 ‘Soundsources’; 700 SOUNDCORE presets; 1,400 SINGLE CORE instrument presets; and 260 ready-to-use MULTI CORE instrument presets to its inspirational name, GAMELAN gives its users over 2,400-trillion sonic combinations to work with. More than enough to blow the most creative of musical minds, surely?

Saying that, GAMELAN gamely utilises Sample Logic’s intelligent randomisation technology to allow users to randomly generate epic- sounding presets at the speedy click of an always-available RANDOM button… couldn’t be simpler in practice! Powerful randomisation options allow anyone to specify the types of sounds and settings to be selected from during the randomisation process. Want to create an ATOMSPHERES instrument on the fly? Simply select ATMOSPHERES using the drop-down menu. Similarly, select from INSTRUMENTALS, PERCUSSIVES, and LOOPS, or, throw caution to the wind, and select All Categories at once. Whatever choice is made, the RANDOM function is great for building multi-stacked instruments and is sure to fire up creativity still further!

Finally, in keeping with Sample Logic’s long-running tradition of interminable innovation, GAMELAN includes its creators’ critically-acclaimed Step Animator sequencing engine with world-class arpeggiation and sequencing delivered right to your fingertips. For example, Link/Alt mode makes it possible to select individual SOUNDCORES to be triggered by each step of the Step Animator while unselected SOUNDCORES sustain!

Thanks to Sample Logic’s technical tenacity, world-class Balinese instruments have been truly transformed into a world-class virtual instrument fit for a new world. Why not transform your music game with GAMELAN?

GAMELAN can be preordered online and directly downloaded from Sample Logic for $299.99 before September 15 from here: http://www.samplelogic.com/products/gamelan (It is released on September 15 with an MSRP of $399.99.)

EastWest pass on their savings to their Composer Cloud customers. Great job!

EastWest, the industry leader in virtual instruments, announces a free 30-day limited trial and new, lower pricing on their breakthrough Composer Cloud subscription model. The free limited trial includes 3 popular EastWest instruments: Joe Chiccarelli Volume of ProDrummer, Symphonic Orchestra Gold, Stormdrum 2, and it’s critically-acclaimed Spaces Convolution Reverb. The new streamlined pricing includes just two plans – a Complete Plan for $29.99 per month with access to all products, and a Student Plan, which gives students and teachers access to seven products for $14.99 per month.

“The Composer Cloud FREE Trial allows us to give those who haven’t experienced the quality of our instruments a risk-free opportunity to test-drive some of our most popular products for a month,” says EastWest Producer Doug Rogers. “It also gives potential customers a chance to see how easy the Composer Cloud model works. This opens a whole new world of creative possibilities to artists, composers, and producers, and levels the playing field between professionals and those wishing to explore their creativity.”

The rollout of Composer Cloud has been highly successful, leading to significant volume discounts from EastWest’s data provider. These cost savings are now being passed on to customers in new, all-inclusive pricing that puts the entire EastWest catalog within the reach of any composer. For just $29.99/month, subscribers have instant access to the entire EastWest Composer Cloud Gold collection of 9,000+ virtual instruments, future releases, and exclusive content. Additionally, new and current subscribers will be able to start and stop their memberships as they wish without any penalties. The student plan will remain the same: $14.99 for 7 products. Current customers who took advantage of the early access deal will not see their rate go up next year.

Having access to such a large choice of professional-sounding instruments is an incredible resource. “$29.99 a month for everything – that’s an easy decision,” says Les Camacho, Los Angeles-based record producer and Composer Cloud subscriber. “Not only do I have all the instruments that I use on a daily basis, but access to tons of new sounds for inspiration. It makes me more versatile as a producer and frankly it takes the music I produce to the next level. The best part is, I get everything for less than I used to pay for just one or two products. You can’t beat that deal!”

To learn about Composer Cloud, visit soundsonline.com/composercloud or soundsonline-europe.com/composercloud for those in Europe.

press release

Spitfire Audio, purveyors of the finest virtual instruments from the finest musical samples in the world, is proud to complete its trio of six-piece brass-boosting additions to its groundbreaking BML (British Modular Library) of ultra-detailed, next-generation recordings of the world’s finest musicians at London’s legendary AIR Studios with the release of BML210 BONE PHALANX, producing detailed and dynamic results with another hyper-sampled standalone virtual instrument library module for Native Instruments’ industry-standard KONTAKT platform, this time showcasing the unmistakable (and unmissable) sound of three tenor trombones, two bass trombones, and one contrabass trombone belting it out in unison, as of June 20…

For the benefit of the uninitiated, a phalanx is a group of something similar forming a compact body — in this case, a body of brass or, more simply said, a brass section. So it stands to reason that — following in the fanciful footsteps of its successful, similarly self-explanatory brass brethren, BML211 HORN PHALANX and the recently-released BML209 TRUMPET PHALANX — BML210 BONE PHALANX provides confident composers with everything needed to create bold, broad, and thundering ’bones parts. Perfect for giving more bombastic brass-led cues (or compositions) the widescreen treatment that music-to-picture scoring so richly deserves whenever deemed musically appropriate. Any musical application, of course, can just as easily benefit, but in the right hands and placed in the right musical setting BML210 BONE PHALANX sounds stunning and stunningly accurate!

As a self-contained library that faithfully captures the spirit and sound — and (some) spittle! — created by an array of brass, slides, and bells belting it out in unison at AIR Studios’ spacious and amazing-sounding Lyndhurst Hall recording room that features in so many world-famous film scores, BML210 BONE PHALANX features a carefully curated set of articulations for this size of brass section specifically designed by Spitfire Audio’s award-winning team of composers in collaboration with the performers themselves. These include: Longs, Longs Legato, Longs Cuivre (brassy), Shorts Staccatissimo, Shorts Tenuto, Shorts Marcato, Double Tongue, Triple Tongue, Quad Tongue, Rips, and Falls. All are available with standard and extended arrays of microphone mixes — Close, Tree, Ambient, Outrigger, Stereo Pair, Close Ribbon, Gallery, and Mid Range, together with three Jake Jackson Mixes from namesake producer and recording/mix engineer extraordinaire Jake Jackson (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire), who just so happens to be Chief Engineer and Associate Producer for Spitfire Audio, having recorded, mixed, and produced all British Modular Library-related releases to date and much more besides — so users can quickly and uniquely tweak the perspective of the performance space as well as more musical performance parameters.

Placed in situ around the seating of the original BML BONES volume #1 released last year to critical acclaim and featuring essential articulations for trombone, those three tenor trombones, two bass trombones, and one contrabass trombone at the core of the BML210 BONE PHALANX brass ensemble enable anyone wishing to step things up to truly Wagnerian proportions to do just that by simultaneously working with both sample-based virtual instrument libraries. Lovers of the truly big-bottomed ’bone experience could consider adding the contrabass trombone from BML203 LOW BRASS into the musical mix for an even more memorably ribcage-rattling affair!

All three …PHALANX releases see Spitfire Audio advancing to the technological cutting edge by including ingenious under-the-bonnet scripting to provide intuitive performance patches out of the box. Dexterous keyboardists can play at any speed with the added bonus of being able to pull off runs without the need for key-switching or MIDI CC (Continuous Controllers) messages. Meanwhile, an experimental fanfare patch makes for an arresting musical alternative. All might well be far from commonplace, yet it would be perfectly possible to have a good stab at authentically orchestrating American composer Aaron Copland’s classical concert-friendly ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ (if not necessarily British progressive rock supergroup Emerson, Lake, and Palmer’s pomp and stomp Seventies smash hit adaptation)!

As active film composers themselves, Spitfire Audio’s founders favour virtual instruments that can be opened and played with little or no fuss, freeing the user to focus on the job at hand: making music. Taking that criteria at face value, the company’s trademark simple-to-use and uniform GUI (Graphical User Interface) is evident across all three …PHALANX sample-based virtual instruments and beyond. Basically, those taking time to learn one have effectively learned them all. And although that learning curve is not especially steep, even novice users can quickly tweak general settings to suit, such as how many round robins they want and how they want them to behave, how they want memory to be organised, and assigning velocity, for example. Either way, musicality is the key to such sampling success, as always.

According to company co-founder and Director Paul Thomson, “These are all six-piece sections, just to give that extra welly that you can get from having all of those players playing together.” Touching upon Spitfire Audio’s BML211 HORN PHALANX opening salvo before coming full circle with BML210 BONE PHALANX, he can surely be forgiven for tooting his horn, loud and proud: “It’s a great addition to the existing horns, which are already pretty heavy stuff at full tilt, but you’ll hear that there is a kind of timbral difference here that enables you to get a kind of giant horn section going when you add in these. The BONE PHALANX with our BML BONES library itself and LOW BRASS library provides a massive collection of trombones — really great for that kind of epic feel.” For when it comes to brass, bigger is sometimes better. And it doesn’t get any bigger or better than Spitfire Audio’s BML brass range in full flow. To partly paraphrase a certain London born and bred actor, as immortalised on the big screen, they’ll blow the bloody doors off!

BML210 BONE PHALANX can be purchased and downloaded directly from Spitfire Audio for an attractive introductory promotional price of £112.00 GBP (subject to VAT within the EU) rising to an RRP of £149.00 GBP (subject to VAT within the EU) — matching its BML209 TRUMPET PHALANX and BML211 HORN PHALANX brethren — on August 1, 2015 from here.

For more in-depth information, including several superb audio demos — one by Spitfire Audio co-founder and Director Paul Thomson, please visit the BML209 TRUMPET PHALANX webpage here.

Watch Spitfire Audio co-founder and Director Paul Thomson’s telling BML209 TRUMPET PHALANX video walkthrough:

For more in-depth information, including an awe-inspiring audio demo please visit the BML210 BONE PHALANX webpage here.

Watch Spitfire Audio co-founder and Director Paul Thomson’s telling BML210 BONE PHALANX video walkthrough:

For more in-depth information, including an awe-inspiring audio demo, please visit the BML211 HORN PHALANX webpage here.

Watch Spitfire Audio co-founder and Director Paul Thomson’s telling BML211 HORN PHALANX video walkthrough:

Native Instruments has introduced SYMPHONY SERIES – BRASS ENSEMBLE and SYMPHONY SERIES – BRASS SOLO. These two new instruments bring the sound of world-class players captured with specific recording techniques for ensemble and solo performance to the KONTAKT platform. Created for professional film, trailer, and game composers, SYMPHONY SERIES – BRASS marks NI’s first high-end professional scoring instruments and is available now at the NI Online Shop.

SYMPHONY SERIES – BRASS features pristine sample libraries recorded at Saint Paul’s Church in San Francisco – a location selected for its optimal acoustics for brass instrument recording. Each instrument has its own distinct sample library and was produced with techniques optimized for ensemble and solo settings, providing incomparable detail and realism. BRASS ENSEMBLE was created to bring harmony to life with sweeping size and texture. BRASS SOLO provides the detail to orchestrate even the most intricate, delicate melodies. A carefully designed user interface including a detailed Mixer page makes the nuanced emotion required in professional scoring easy to achieve.

BRASS ENSEMBLE comprises a massive 32-piece brass ensemble of four sections of trumpet, trombone, horn, and bass brass instruments – each with eight players per section. Over 100 fully-playable chromatic articulations, including true legato and a variety of staccato types deliver three-dimensional recording detail. Special effect articulations such as valve clicks and warm ups add character and realism to the instrument. Precise recording techniques and advanced sample scripting provide a huge, natural sound that is full of personality for professional scores where harmony needs to be bold and up front.

Native Instruments Symphony Series Brass Articulation Setup

BRASS SOLO captures the sound of world-class lead trumpet, trombone, first and second horn, and tuba soloists. Natural-sounding post-sustains were achieved by recording two samples instead of the normal three for onset, sustain, and end of note – harder to recreate in software, but far more realistic. All possible intervals were recorded for truly fluid legato performances. Meticulous mic positioning captures the most favorable reflections for solo instruments. The result is 94 fully-playable chromatic articulations and 26 banks of special effect articulations – a professional scoring instrument of the highest standard for rich, melodic orchestrations.

The SYMPHONY SERIES – BRASS collection combines BRASS SOLO and BRASS ENSEMBLE for a very special bundle price. Together, the two instruments give producers and composers a completely flexible toolset for brass scoring in the utmost sound quality. SYMPHONY SERIES – BRASS was created in collaboration with the award- winning team at Soundiron – a small workshop specializing in premium, professional-grade virtual instruments. Soundiron create instruments for film, television, advertising, video games, and music recording arts.

Pricing and availability

SYMPHONY SERIES – BRASS ENSEMBLE is available now at the NI Online Shop for $299 / 299 € / ¥ 34,800 / £249 / AU$399

SYMPHONY SERIES – BRASS SOLO is available now at the NI Online Shop for $399 / 399 € / ¥ 45,800 / £339 / AU$549

The SYMPHONY SERIES – BRASS COLLECTION is available now at the NI Online Shop for a special bundle price of $499 / 499 € / ¥ 59,800 / £429 / AU$699

Further product information

Additional information on SYMPHONY SERIES – BRASS is available at:

www.native-instruments.com/symphonyseriesbrass

Sound Dust make some beautiful sounding and somewhat experimental sampled instruments for Kontakt, Maschine and Omnisphere.

Their latest instrument is called Cloud Cello. Here’s how they went about making it:

So, you take an unsuspecting cello, remove all the strings except one and place it in a stand. Instead of a conventional bow, use something with a bit more texture and bite – in this case, a ball of coarse garden string sounded best. Stringing a standard bow with garden twine doesnt work, you’d need an impossible 10 metre bow to play a smooth note (I know it’s impossible because I tried to make one!).

After many experiments and cups of coffee, a retractable dog lead, an elaborate pulley system and a classic vintage fishing reel came to the rescue. This system can hold long lengths of string under tension and be drawn evenly over the cello string to produce a usable tone.

Next step is to rig up some suitable mics. A contact mic near the bridge gave good body, and a large diaphragm condenser near the string picked up the ‘grist’. Then using a capo for accurate tuning, thousands of passes were recorded to get enough samples for 5 x round robins per note plus conventionally bowed accents and col legno notes for extra flavour.

The final step is to form the Clouds by pushing each note 100% wet through a bespoke swirly setting on my Strymon Big Sky reverb pedal, and then do the same thing all over again with a different setting for 200% wetness.

The result is twisted, deep and cinematic:

Their free instruments are no less gorgeous and detailed. Some drum machines and organs are on offer here and are well worth downloading. I found them taking me down new creative paths and highly recommend downloading them. The paid instruments are amazingly priced as well so head over to the Sound Dust website for more information.

More free stuff next week ..

[Press release]

EASTWEST has released ProDrummer 1 & 2, new dedicated drum virtual instruments that combine meticulously recorded drum sounds, pre-mixed drum kits by top recording and mix engineers with drums performed by top drummers, and MIDI drum grooves. The first two volumes of ProDrummer are brand-new additions to the catalog of EASTWEST’s newly launched subscription model Composer Cloud or can be purchased individually.

“ProDrummer 1 & 2 are the most powerful and easy to use drum virtual instruments on the market,” says producer Doug Rogers, “Typically, you need several products to create great drum tracks. We hit the trifecta of sounds, mixes and performances in one package, giving users all the tools they need in a user friendly interface to create superb drum tracks. The producers I worked with on this project are some of the best mixers in the music industry, working with top artists every day that rely on their expertise to keep them at the top of the charts. ProDrummer is most likely the only opportunity users will have to include drum tracks recorded and mixed by them included in their songs.”

Apart from a combined 100 Gigabytes of professional drum sounds in the two volumes, ProDrummer also features 16 channels of pre-mixed drum kits from the producers using the state-of-the-art tools in the ProDrummer software. The producer’s drum mixes can be used as they are, or as starting points to customize to the users’ needs and taste with the included tools, such as Solid State Logic EQ and Dynamics, Transient Shaper, and the legendary Stereo Bus Compressor; Ohmforce’s Ohmicide multiband dynamics and distortion effects processor (perfect for creating EDM drum tracks); plus EASTWEST’s Velocity Processor, Amp Simulator with 80 presets, and Expanded Convolution Reverb with 726 Additional Reverb Pre-sets. All parameters in ProDrummer are user adjustable and can be saved as custom user pre-sets.

ProDrummer also includes over 14,000 MIDI drum grooves in many different styles which makes it easy to build the drum track of any song. The Groove Search Engine allows the user to quickly find the right grooves, create favorites, and assemble the drum track right inside ProDrummer with the built in sequencer. The drum tracks can then be exported into any DAW to add additional instruments and vocals.

EastWest ProDrummer

Multi-award winning EASTWEST producer Doug Rogers has worked once again with the elite of the industry: The first volume in the ProDrummer series includes approximately 60 Gigabytes of drum sounds and kits produced by Grammy-winning engineer Mark “Spike” Stent (Coldplay, Muse, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Usher, U2, Madonna, Linkin Park, Björk, Depeche Mode, Maroon 5, Moby, No Doubt, Oasis and more) and Doug Rogers, with drums played by Steven Sidelnyk (Madonna, Seal, Massive Attack).

The second volume in the ProDrummer series includes approximately 40 Gigabytes of drum sounds and kits produced and pre-mixed by producer, mixer and engineer Joe Chiccarelli (U2, Beck, The Killers, The Raconteurs, The White Stripes, The Strokes, Morrissey, Jason Mraz, Elton John, My Morning Jacket, Rufus Wainwright, Cafe Tacuba and more) and Doug Rogers, with drums played by Matt Chamberlain (Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, etc.).

EASTWEST producer Doug Rogers co-produced both ProDrummer 1 & 2. His virtual instrument productions include ProDrummer 1 and ProDrummer 2; Steven Wilson’s Ghostwriter; Hollywood Strings, Hollywood Brass, Hollywood Orchestral Woodwinds, and Hollywood Orchestral Percussion; The Dark Side; Fab Four; Symphonic Orchestra; Symphonic Choirs; EastWest/Quantum Leap Pianos and more. His company has been the recipient of over 70 international industry awards.

Pricing & Availability

Available now in Composer Cloud, starting at $29.99/month; or purchase individually for $199 each at soundsonline.com/prodrummer and €179 each at soundsonline-europe.com/prodrummer.