The story
So this is my very first sampled instrument. I’ve created music and sounds for many years under the pseudonym of Chris Lody but I’ve mostly focus on synthesizer based music and have almost all but avoided making sample based instruments. Recently though I’ve been inspired by the wonderfully expressive instruments of LABS and Pianobook to have a go myself.
So I grabbed a copy of Kontakt in a sale during lockdown 1 and set about finding something to sample. Inspiration struck when I was tidying the shed and moved an old half empty butane gas canister. It rings out with a fairly pure tone but being half full of liquid gas the note wavers and the fluid moves inside. It is only capable of one note so to add some depth I sampled 9 velocity layers, I was aiming for 10 but the last one destroyed the beater, a little hard perhaps. By default the patch is set to soften the attack at lower velocities to add more expression.
The notes it plays are a little ambiguous, but I think it’s set up an octave too high. I did this to allow the bottom of my piano keyboard to be used as it’s surprisingly good at booms 🙂
I sampled the canister while holding it so it was free to swing in one hand while I hit it with a fabric wrapped beater in the other hand. I used a modest Audio-Technica ATR-25 stereo condenser mic and an M-Audio Fasttrack audio interface.
Reviews for Vibutane
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Unique sounds
Undoubtedly, the contents of this pack are different from what I have downloaded so far. I never imagined that I would use a set of sounds produced by an old butane gas canister. I love that it has that metallic touch, it makes it unique.
The GUI is quite simple, but functional. In fact, the background image looks good with the controls and their color. It is an excellent first pack.
Now that's a very pitchy mallet!
If you are looking for a mallet with a lot of character that features a very unique voice, this is it. With that said, don't expect this to sing. It kind of roars instead, but on its very own way. It's dyamic too, and there are also some knobs for you to play with. I'd love if they were something else other than the default design though. You might hear some little white noise, especially if you turn up the reverb, but it's not something that can turn you away from it.
Great first instrument
For your first instrument this is really nice. The sound is pretty good, has some interesting resonances and harmonics and the GUI offers a decent amount of control. For my personal taste im not into this so much, i think there are far more interesting metallic found sound percussive instruments on pianobook but again my taste plays a big part in this. Others might really love the instrument. Its pretty dynamic too so well done on that and I'm looking forward to seeing how you progress as a sample maker.
Metallic hits galore!
These metallic hits are well recorded and edited, and the NINE velocity layers allow you to be really expressive in your playing. I wish there was a way to deactivate the reverb from the GUI, but it's easy enough when you dig in to Kontakt. Fortunately, these samples were recorded dry, which really increases their playability. That said, these samples suffer from the curse that plagues lots of metal instruments: there are a lot of inharmonic overtones in these samples. It's generally o.k. if you play one or two notes at a time because the ear sort of ignores them, but when you start playing chords, the cacophony builds rather quickly. So, that sort of limits the usefulness of this particular sound. Even so, it is unique and has a lot of character and it is a worthy download.
