Sample Logic Ambience Impacts Rhythms

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Sample Logic Ambience Impacts Rhythms

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yskB94crb-Y[/youtube]

Kontakt / Kontakt Player Instrument
SOS star rating sample 5

A rather impressive sounding strap-line claims that Ambience Impacts Rhythms (AIR) is an 'All-in-one composer's toolkit'. I'd prefer to have a few more tools than this in my arsenal, but I'd happily include AIR as one of them, because it does what it aims to do with aplomb. AIR is aimed primarily at media composers (film, TV, computer games, web sites, and so on). and it offers them a good combination of contemporary sounds (think of the dark swirling ambiences, tension-building rhythms and deep metallic clangs of CSI New York, or of the granular synth madness of Native Instruments' Absynth).

The front end is the familiar Native Instruments' Kontakt Player, though you can also load instruments into the full version of Kontakt, to manipulate things with its much deeper functionality. The sounds themselves are divided into three main categories which, not surprisingly, are the Ambiences, Impacts, and Rhythms from which AIR gets its name. Within each category is a series of sub-folders, each containing well-named patches. Given that these sounds are not designed to emulate any recognisable acoustic instrument, this categorisation shows good sense and makes locating your sounds intuitive. In fact, most of the time I was able to select a sound that was somewhere near suitable for my test composition without difficulty.
sample sl.s

The samples have been mapped to take advantage of the Kontakt engine's tempo-matching functionality. This allows instant gratification, as you can pick any two or three sounds and they will gel seamlessly to the tempo of your host sequencer (or, in stand-alone mode, the master tempo of Kontakt Player). This means that it is possible to conjure up an atmosphere track with only two or three sounds, and with only two or three keys pressed down on your keyboard. Even if this isn't your final composition it will certainly help you to keep the ideas flowing, or help narrow down the brief from your client, thus avoiding nasty surprises later on.

While it is aimed at composers, AIR will have broader appeal, particularly for electronica artists. As well as some powerful bass sounds and the generous array of infectious rhythms, you can find plenty of good modern and retro-trance sounds here to tingle your tastebuds — think Orbital, Underworld and the like (a good thing, in my book!).

Of course, similar sounds are achievable if you have time, patience and a suitable selection of synths. Arguably, some of the joy of the creative process is bypassed by having ready-made sounds so easily available. However, this library is about the speed and ease with which you can knock together a useable tune, without sacrificing on quality of results: for me, it achieves on all these fronts and I don't know of another library that does this in quite the same intuitive way. Matt Houghton

Kontakt Player Instrument £169 including VAT
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