- synth-like tones yet extremely organic sounding
Well, the Soundiron team has done it again. They’ve gone ahead and fashioned another interesting and amazing instrument. Fountain Wires, a fascinating little instrument built entirely from steel cables fencing in a hidden fountain. They sampled these cables each with their own particular tone and sonic character being plucked with a guitar pick.
The interface uses 2 layers to build the sound that you want. Each layer gives you the same sample options in drop down menus. There are 6 plucks, 12 pluck fx, 12 ambiences and a fountain. Each layer gives you options for adjusting the volume(‘swell’), attack, release, offset, pitch, pan and the MIDI note velocity.
You can set the key ranges of each layer over the keyboard letting you either blend the layers or build a split keyboard setup. You can also set the keyswitches for the layer samples. This might be good for a live setting if you want to be able to switch up the samples on the fly.
Also included is Soundiron’s Uberpeggiator(‘ARP’) allowing you to set up interesting arpeggiated sequences. Soundiron’s FX Rack is also included giving you lots of options to mangle and crush the sounds.
So how does it sound?
Well, from the demos on Soundiron’s website, I was very intrigued. When I started playing it, I was hooked. This is a great sounding instrument! Great fun! I was surprised how it sounded very synth-like yet also extremely organic.
Some of the samples are actually quite noisy because everything was recorded in the vicinity of a fountain, but I really don’t think this detracts from the sounds. It adds character to the sounds. This instrument isn’t about pristine and sterile sounds. Like I said it is very organic.
I recommend checking out some of the demos on their website.
Another superb offering from Soundiron.
During a recent exploration to the California Southland, with it’s sun-baked chrome, glass, plastic and steel landscape and high-octane energy, we happened across a cool piece of ordinary architecture with some very cool sonic potential – a shady fountain sanctuary ringed by tightly strung steel cable fencing, hidden in the midst of Hollywood’s grit. We pulled out our trusty field recording gear and a heavy guitar pick and set to work, sampling a wide range of different wires, each with it’s own tone and character. The bass-heavy, full-sounding resonance of each cable mixed with the peaceful white noise drone of the fountains surrounding us to produce a rather beautiful and curious result. We then took the raw material back to our studio, pulled it apart and wound it all back together into a unique experimental instrument toolkit. Our goal with this library was to combine authentic field-recorded muso-environmental sounds and specialized sound design techniques to craft a playable and inspiring soundset that brings together the best of both the acoustic and synthetic audio worlds.
This 853 MB library includes the original plucked articulations as they sounded up close and direct, as well as manipulated articulations that provide punchy lead instruments, distorted guitar-like tones, undulating soundscapes, complex organ and e-piano-like elements, thumping bass notes and a wide variety of other very musical and deeply useful creative content. All of it is wrapped up in a customizable performance control system, with lots of soundshaping tools, arpeggiation sequencing and flexible DSP effects. This library is perfect for chillwave, new wave, EDM, glitch, post rock, soundtrack, downtempo, dub, ambient music, general sound design and any situation that calls for conceptually familiar and yet slightly off-kilter sonic source material.
