The story
I’ve always had a love for the classic string synth sounds, from the Solina and other analogue synths. They are beautiful and captivating, with real emotion and conviction behind their sound. They are synthetic, yes, but raw and organic too. We are forever captivated by the gorgeous sound of a string ensemble, but I feel that the humble string synth too can take on an enormous sound, filling the space with evolving textures and never-ending reverb. Through this library, I want to share this beautiful sound with you, imparting my passion for them and hopefully providing you with inspiration on your next track.
One of my favourite aspects of this library though has to be the XY Pad control system I spent many days toiling over. I had this idea to try my hand at an XY pad, to blend between the two synths I had sampled to create a more intuitive way of morphing the sound. I then thought wouldn’t it be cool if other effects could be controlled from this pad, and not just to be fixed to a particular axis, but for you to be able to decide what control goes where, what control is active and how you stack or combine your performance controls together. I really hope you have as much fun with it as I’ve had and use it to create some truely awe-inspiring, evolving textures and lush chords.
When searching for a name for this library, Ambedo seemed to fit. The melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details, it is how I felt when I first heard the sounds of this library ring out. I hope it enchants you in the same way it has me.
Cheers,
Steve.
How Ambedo Works and Was Built...
How Ambedo Sounds...
Interface
Reviews for Ambedo
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
A fantastic idea for an awesome synth!
The idea of having a XY matrix with different controls assigned to each axis is very compeling and useful. This is what makes this synth different than everything else. Not only it's very well made and nicely sample, but it takes this simple matrix idea and takes it to another level with the extra settings. Everything works perfectly well, but it should also be noted that the X axis is assigned to CC1 and Y to CC11. You can see that if you open the More Info button, but I don't like extra steps.
In all seriousness, this is a great, great and very well made instrument by Stephen. Highly recommended, even with the huge useless title!
And speaking of extra steps, and a near-dealbreaker for me, I have to mention that don't really like the fact that the title of the instrument is taking such a big amount of space, to the point that you have to extend an already massive Kontakt window in order to access all the settings properly. Especially for this specific instrument, it is crucial to have everything at your disposal without extra steps needed. Big is not always better!
Amazing sound, instant inspiration!
This is exactly the sound I was looking for without even knowing, I search for "Blade Runner strings" on youtube and it was one of the first results!
My biggest criticism is the UI, it looks good and all the controls are relatively easy to access UX-wise, as a UX is well organized, easy to understand and well put together but the design itself is a bit lacking. For instance it looks to me like the logo was prioritized over everything else, it takes too much space and makes everything feel more cluttered than it really is (this is a big problem when handling kontakt instances with multiple instrument patches) ADSR controls don't display specific values so it's hard to have an idea of the range and how much you are changing those parameters. I think the FX toggles could be a little more clear about whether they are on or off while taking less space.
That al said it doesn't detract from the experience at all of using this instrument, I recommend it to anyone and despite those minor details it nails the most important thing: the sound! Also if you need help with the UI design as I know that can take a lot of time, I'm no graphic design guru but I've done a lot of works in the past and I'd gladly help out with that!
How is this free
This sounds incredible! Very cool synth strings which, indeed, sound cinematic.
Very very cool GUI, I really like the look of it!
The pad is a really cool idea and well made, very cool!
