The story
Hi. I’m a composer and pianist living in South East London. I call this three part instrument a ‘Water Triptych’: Rain, Stream and Wave.
1. Rain
This sample instrument includes two samples of rain: the first, the gentle but articulate patter of rain on a window; the second, an exhilarating downpour on the iron roof of a South London train station captured on my phone. The mod wheel transitions between these two extremes of intensity, and optionally controls ‘colour’.
2. Stream
The River Quaggy is a tributary of The Ravensbourne, which in turn feeds the Thames. Where I live the Quaggy is small stream, which nourishes not just the plants and wildlife in the surrounding water meadows, but also the mind of any passerby who hears its gentle trickle.
The sample was recorded with the stereo mic on a ZoomH5. The mod wheel controls intensity and optionally ‘colour’.
3. Wave
Last summer, some friends and I escaped to Mundesley — a quiet coastal village in North Norfolk with miles of beach tapering off into the calm North Sea. As we musicians and sound collectors are wont to do, I took out my recorder (an old ZoomQ2) and recorded the waves. During the Covid lockdown, us city-dwellers have been isolated from what Irish philosopher John O’Donohue calls the natural home of our body: outdoor landscape and nature. Immersing myself in the sounds from that Norfolk holiday has brought a little tranquility to an otherwise anxious time.
The mod wheel controls the intensity of the sound, and optionally ‘colour’ and ‘splash’. All sounds come from the single raw recording included in this download.
Alexander Edward
Reviews for Water Triptych: Rain, Stream and Wave
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
This could be perfect!
At first I go a little turned off by the three patches not being easily accessed. It's an easy fix though if organizing is your thing. For some reason, the insturment refuses to remember the position of the samples, every single time, even if I select the option for it to remember it, and this might be annoying to deal with.
Similar to the Fire instrument which is featured in a different upload, the rain and Steam patches are amazing, perfect I'd dare to say. Be careful though because the Wave patch is very loud, especially compared to the other ones, and the attack on the waves might sound a little too harsh.
Awesome Textures
Just like the fire instrument offers an ambient with blended nature sounds you can mix in. This time instead of fire its, rain, stream and waves. The GUI's are very pretty, i like the colors and they are designed well too. I love the intensity slider which i guess is like a lowpass on the nature noise. For some reason though it seems like on the wave patch the intensity controls the pad sound not the nature which is the opposite of all the other instruments. I think stream is my favorite here as its pretty mellow. Wave can be a bit loud and bright so might wanna pull back the effect of the waves. I would love to see more instruments in this series cause i really like the GUI, idea and implementation of these.
Wet sounds
Once you reconnect the samples-this was saved with absolute paths-- You get three sounds. Wave is a breathy pad with lots of water-inspired noise that sounds like waves crashing. Stream is a much softer pad with very present water running and some occasional birdsong. Rain is a sort of resonant all-pass filter with constant pin-pricks of sound as the drops hit. All three are playable and unique. You have to want to have some definite water foley in your pieces to use these, but they are definitely fun and playable.
