Developer: http://www.tonehammer.com
Quality: 44 khz, 24 bit
Format: wav, nki
Description:
“…There is no reality – only perception…” – Dr. Phil
This collection explores the smaller side of hand-held reed-based instruments. It includes fine quality hand-crafted traditional Indian Shruti Boxes, a mini accordion and something we like to refer to as The Plastisax. We even found a 2-note paper and cardboard concertina.
As always, we’ve sampled each instrument lovingly and thoroughly. We took them much farther than they were ever designed to go and found sounds surprisingly rich, full and playable. In the end, we just decided it was high time somebody give these little misfit toys the respect and attention to detail that they truly deserve.
The centerpiece of this collection is the Shruti Box. This traditional Indian instruments is similar in nature and tone to the harmonium. It’s most commonly used as a drone to accompany voice and other solo instruments in Indian classical music, as well as a growing variety of new age and Celtic folk music. It’s a flat wooden box, played upright, with a hand-pumped double-bellows system inside to drive a series of 13 reeds. While they are normally intended to provide a smoothly sustained drone instrument, we’ve sampled and programmed ours to be quite playable as a melody instrument, much like a reed organ or harmonium.
Our mini accordion is actually quite the little giant, with 14 keys and 4 bass drones. With a warm, fat tone and plenty of body and bass that belies it’s humble size, this little instrument is a real diamond in the rough. The Plastisax is vaguely like a child’s plastic soprano saxophone, but sounds more like a crisp, clear harmonica crossed with a reed organ. It has 13 keys, spanning roughly 2 octaves. With it’s rich, warm, playful sound and expressive playability, it’s ideal for children’s music and programming, or even layered with woodwinds or organs.
Tonehammer Little Pump Reed specs:
* Core instruments/articulations
o Shruti Box 1 (soft attack/release)
o Shruti Box 1 (hard attack/release)
o Shruti Box 1 (modwheel tone/expression control)
o Shruti Box 2 (soft attack/release)
o Shruti Box 2 (hard attack/release)
o Shruti Box 2 (modwheel tone/expression control)
o Baby Accordion (natural / tight)
o Baby Accordion (auto-pump / natural / tight)
o Baby Accordion (modwheel tone/expression control)
o Plastisax (clean/tight/natural)
o Plastisax (dirty with natural key finger-click sounds / tight / loosely played)
o Plastisax (modwheel tone/expression control)
o Paper Squeeze Box (single note / auto-pump / hand slap percussion)
* Extensive read me (.pdf) install, patch and hint documentation
* Listen to exclusive (.mp3) interview w/ Mike and Troels
* 59 instrument patches, +999 samples
* Format(s): Kontakt and .wav
*Note: Native Instruments Kontakt 2 / 3 / 4 full retail versions required.
*Note: Free Kontakt Player will only work for 30 minutes with this product. Full version required to remove this restriction.
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This bible from Tonehammer comes closest to accordions, harmonicas and similar instruments. Reed in English is a cane. Many types of instruments work with the help of reeds (reeds) – saxophone, clarinet, gaboe, duduk, and there are also various harmonicas and accordions. The main attraction here is the Indian “shruti box” aka shruti box. This is a box that makes only one sound if you pump it (pumping air into it, which is done with a simple movement of the hand). The sound can be changed by positioning the external valves differently, but not during the game (we, of course, will not have such a limitation). It is very simply made and most closely resembles a drone-shaped instrument (for example, like a didgerido). I really liked her sound, but for connoisseurs of all kinds of ethnic and simply Indian music, this will be a godsend. In addition, we have a children’s accordion and plastisax. What this is can be clearly seen in the pictures in the manual. For me, this is more of a pleasant addition to the wonderful patches from the shruti box.
