Soniccouture Vibraphone

Instruments that use this kind of global modulation (the Hammond C3/leslie is a similar example) are traditionally impossible to sample & model realistically, because if you record a single note with the tremolo active, it will be completely out of sync with all subsequent notes you record. Previous attempts to sample the vibraphone usually resorted to sampling the instrument with the motor/tremolo switched off, then approximating the effect later using filters modulated by an LFO to effect the change in timbre. 

Soniccouture Vibraphone takes a completely new approach - by sampling the entire instrument twice. Once with the fans closed, once with them fully open, both times completely static - the motor switched off.  

Once we have the full vibraphone sound sampled in both states - fans closed and fans open - we can then simply crossfade between them in Kontakt using a simple sinusoidal LFO. This gives not only the authentic, detailed timbre, but also full control over the speed of the tremolo, another essential element of the instrument missing from previous renderings.

EXPERIMENTAL LAYERING EFFECTS

In addition to the natural tremolo modelling, the other advantage of having two separate layers of vibraphone samples is that it is possible to combine them in new and interesting ways. We have added extra controls that allow you to :

• Solo either layer or play both at once
• Flip Stereo image or phase of vertical set
• Detune layers with a fixed 'beating' function : the perceived beating is constant, regardless of which key you play.
• Add tremolo to any of the above effects, or turn it off for static effects.

COMPATIBILITY

This is  a Kontakt Player instrument. This means that you do not need to own the full version of NIKontakt to use it. It will run as a plug-in instrument in any VST/AU/RTAS compatible host program or DAW eg: Cubase, Logic, Ableton Live, DP, Reaper, Pro-Tools etc. No extra purchase is necessary.

The system requirements to run the instrument are : 

Windows 7 or Windows 8 (latest Service Pack, 32/64-bit), Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2 GB RAM (4 GB recommended)

Mac OS X 10.7 or 10.8 (latest update), Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM (4 GB recommended)

N.B. If you already own a full version of Kontakt, then you can also use the instrument in exactly the same way.

Requires Kontakt 5.1 or later.

Library Specifications

• 24 bit 96 khz stereo sampling
• 15 GB library (8 GB on disk, with Kontakt NCW compression)  
• 3,864 samples  
• 3.5 octaves: 41 notes, from C2 to F5  
• 23 velocity levels
• Intelligent round-robin mapping  
• Sustain and Non-sustain articulations.  
• Modeled tremolo response of spinning resonator fans  
• 24 presets - sound design presets included
• Demo MIDI files included
• Custom effects panel with Soniccouture impulse response reverb library
• Compatible with free Kontakt Player 5 - VST AU RTAS
• Recorded at Real World Studios, Bath, England.