Spitfire Glass and Steel

Overview

A selection of mystical percussion sounds created from found objects, hit, bowed and pinched virtuosically by a leading percussionist and recorded with meticulous and intimate intensity on our dry stage in London's Kings Cross.

Each sound has been exhaustively investigated, deep sampled, and played to its strengths (different beaters, flicks, bows and pinches) to give you the most musical and mystical results.

Whilst the materials have a raw beauty unto themselves we have also worked tirelessly to create the many presets, some simple and some warped beyond recognition, to demonstrate how these magical sounds can be used.

A highlight of the library is a selection of sequenced rhythms that interact with eDNA to create up-to-the-minute pulsing tension beds and mystical atmospheres.

Background

One of the many things we struggle with as composers is the sonic stereotype associated with certain recognisable instruments. The posh sounding harp, the meaningful piano, the sad cello. The nursery horror of a celeste, or the fact that you can't use a marimba without being accused of aping American Beauty or Badlands. We're always striving here at Spitfire to match the sonic characteristics of known instruments with those of lesser known (or indeed invented) so that the same effect can be achieved sans stereotype!

For many years Christian and the Spitfire team have been close sampling resonant glass, metal and china objects. Glass and Steel is a compilation of their efforts; a thesis if you will.

Whilst the idea of using non-tuned found sounds, items from the kitchen cupboards, objects found in thrift stores around London conjure up calamitous, catastrophic and fun compositions along the lines of the love trash act Stomp. Glass and Steel is actually an exemplary study on the power of instruments recorded under the microscope at minute levels, where the harmonics weave spells and the subtones throb. It is a truly beautiful and mystical affair that has found its ways onto scores as far reaching as emotional thrillers, detective procedurals, science fiction, fantasy, horrors right along to factual entertainment.

Composers and members of the Spitfire family who have these in their arsenal often claim they're a "get out of jail" card.

Features

• 45 different glass and steel objects struck, bowed and beaten in various ways
• Contains over 235 hand curated presets, epic cinematic rhythms and systems, disturbed morphs, beautiful hand blown pads and tweaked raw sounds.
• All housed in Spitfire’s own eDNA engine, providing further morphing options to adapt their sonic nature

Tech Specs

• 3153 Samples
• 3.3 GB Uncompressed .WAV
• 1.6 GB disk space required
• 3.2 GB disk space required during install

eDNA Engine

Over the last seven years Spitfire - in partnership with Blake Robinson - have been creating some of the most intuitive and ingenious scripts, simple to use GUIs and attractive front ends. A year ago, we wiped the script clean and set about creating a monster of a new script engine. This we call eDNA. Two sets of sounds can be used in conjunction with the eDNA engine to quickly, dramatically and awesomely create a new audio experience for the next generation of music makers.