The story
“Many years ago, we came across the most amazing wind chimes in a local shop that was going out of business. These chimes have been a musical addition to our garden, so I decided to record and share their sounds with the community.
I have created four instruments in both Kontakt 5 and EXS24. The Kontakt versions have the added feature of chorus controlled by the mod wheel.
“Backyard Chimes” and “Backyard Chimes Storm” are mapped to two octaves from C4 to C6. The chimes were recoded naturally and then tuned. The ADSR is set to release the note with minimal delay as you play.
“Backyard Chimes Wind” and “Backyard Chimes Windstorm” are mapped to four octaves starting at D2. Each octave is an individual sample of the chimes blowing in the wind. Although these samples are mapped up the scale, they are not tuned. These chimes create amazing harmonics when playing together.
Both “Storm” patches were processed through an OTO BAM and have the ADSR set to allow the full sample to play with each key trigger.
All instruments use three round-robins and were recorded in a single velocity layer, as the best sounding results come from normal clapper hits.
A stereo pair of Ear Trumpet Labs Edwina microphones were placed 18 inches away on either side of the chimes, giving the samples natural stereo separation. These microphones are hand-made large-diaphragm condenser microphones that produce a warm accurate recording, perfect for chimes. No EQ or compression was used.
I heard several stage performers use these microphones and was amazed to learn that no EQ or compression was used, which is what led me to add a pair to the microphone cabinet. And I am happy I did.
I hope you are inspired by these wonderful chimes.
Musically yours,
Emil G.”
Reviews for Backyard Chimes
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Awesome Unique Bell Tones
I really like this instrument. I love the sound of backyard chimes and they create such a peaceful and beautiful sound when used in a composition. The patches that are drenched in reverb work really well for adding one hit at the beginning of a phrase and just letting it decay slowly. There is also a drier patch where you can create your own rhythms as real chimes would as they bounce back and forth but you can actually have control over all the notes which is awesome. The storm patches are also great because they're essentially loops of real chimes happening in real time. It would be cool to have a reversed patch and it would also be easier if all the nki were in the same folder instead of having to go into the separate folder then click the nki
Good, if you forget about the organization
Seriously, the organization of this instrument might be what will drive most users away. You need to open a few folders to find the patch, then you have to select its main folder to load the samples. Once you get that out of the way, you will have some very nice bell-like sounds, very well sampled, with a small delay that you will need to get used to.
The GUI has just a nice wallpaper of the chimes, but very barebones. As a personal preference, I feel that patches could be implemented as keyswitches and settings within the GUI. Nonetheless, each patch has something unique to offer, and I do recommend them!
Could not locate the samples.
Will update library when I can get to work, but none of the samples would load. tried downloading 3 times.
