The story
Hello,
This is Manas Kunder age 15.
I was highly inspired by the power of sampled and virtual instruments. Looking up at Christian’s
Youtube Channel I found out how to make sampled instruments.
I have had no background in coding or scripting. so I leant about scripting from just youtube videos
, mainly from Dave’s channel.
I am an aspiring music as of now and I one day hope to have my own sample instrument company
like spitfire audio.
I don’t own any Microphones. So I sampled a cheap ukulele that I had at my place with my Mobile Phone’s mic.
This is my first Kontakt Instrument ever and I hope you enjoy it.
<3
Manas Kunder.
Reviews for Soprano Plucked Ukulele
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Great first attempt
Sam already gave a great detailed review of the technical issues of this instrument, so i won't do that here. Also because im not nearly knowledgable as he seems to be with all these nuances of sampling and programming. While the issues he mentioned are true i feel that espicially because this is your first time, there's alot more positives than negatives to this library. The tone of the ukulele is really beautiful. As i say often, im a guitarist and things like slides and hammer ons are such a huge part of my playing that i dont really use guitar instruments like this. Objectively its still a really nice instrument though. Also as mentioned, the samples loop after a while which could either be annoying or used as a cool swarm effect depending on how you look at it. Especially with some added delay. The GUI is simple and really beautiful especially for your first instrument. Theres definitely alot of potential here
A great uke, with a small catch!
This is a very nice sounding patch, well sampled, and it comes with a very nice GUI as well! As Sam mentioned in detail though, there are a few things to keep in mind:
First, if you sustain the notes too much, the samples loop, so I'd recommend keeping it short without using the sustain pedal. Also, it seems that the pitch is 1 semitone up, so you can try setting it at -1 in order to be consistent with the rest of your instruments in the mix.
The GUI is very nice too! As a small note, I'd prefer the white lines of the knobs to be the "filled" one, and the black to be the empty one. A very promising start for the 15 year old sampler!
Unintentional ukulele swarms?
Let me start by saying this is a great first attempt at creating a sample library, and what follows is intended as constructive critique to first and foremost help the samplist, but also to inform others of the pros and cons of this library. The ukulele sampled here was well recorded, and the samplist clearly has good ears, because EQ was used within Kontakt to overcome the limitations of the recording device and brighten up the sound. That part is great! The sound is relatively free of noise, too. The samples are all set to loop, so if you hold down the damper pedal and play a bunch of notes, after a while, you'll hear them repeat. Because the samples are all different lengths, they repeat in an ever-changing pattern, which is kind of beautiful. I'm not sure that was intentional, but it's kind of cool. There are some intonation issues, and this library would benefit from some processing using pitch correction software like Melodyne. It's interesting that the samplist pitch shifted the highest note upward to extend the range, but didn't pitch shift the lowest note down to extend the range that way. The samples are all assigned to the wrong notes on the keyboard too. Everything plays a half step too high. Because of the way the samples are named, it's not possible to tell if it's a question of the root keys being misaligned, or if the zones are just in the wrong place in the mapping window. I assumed the latter, and just moved them so the instrument would play without transposing. There's so much to know about sampling, and we all learn a ton every time we create a new instrument. This is a very solid first sample pack, and I hope we see more from Manas in the future!
