Sounds and Presets: Appalachia Delivers an Authentic Mountain Dulcimer, Plus 300+ MiniFreak Patches!
New sounds for your Polybrute, Digitakt II and the sound of Craig Blundell!
5,0 / 5,0 | Appalachia from Indiginus brings the magical sound of a Mountain Dulcimer to your Kontakt library with all the performance scripting you need to sound like a master. There are also some great synth patches and a drum library used on the latest album by prog legends FROST*.
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Appalachia Progressive Mountain Dulcimer by Indiginus
The Dulcimer is an instrument that originated in Northern Europe in various forms but it was when some of those Europeans ventured across the Atlantic that the more common ‘Appalachian Mountain Dulcimer’ we know today became popular.
It’s a simple instrument that features a long body upon which lays a fretboard and, in its most common configuration, just three strings. One of those strings is typically a ‘Melody’ string upon which the melody is played on the fretboard whilst all three strings are strummed. The other two strings provide the accompanying harmony.
Most commonly, the Mountain Dulcimer is tuned to a single key, with DAD, DAA, or DGD being the most popular. What Tracy Collins, the man behind Indiginus, has done with Appalachia is to open it up to standard chromatic tuning so you can go beyond the physical limitations of the real thing, hence the ‘Progressive’ in the title.
Appalachia is a beautifully multisampled Kontakt instrument that features all of Tracy’s sampling nous. Aside from sampling every note and playing style (Hammer ons and offs, trills and more are available), he has delivered automated modes for strumming, picking and various harmony styles.
There are also controls for damping and release and all of these can be introduced via some simple key-switching. Appalachia also responds to velocity so the harder you hit a note could trigger the hammer on sample, or whatever you desire.
The sound of Appalachia is exquisite. For me, it evokes memories of films, TV and even some video games set in the wilderness of the U.S.A. Firewatch, anyone? It’s such a delicate, pure and happy sound and will appeal to anyone. Whilst it won’t be gracing the pop charts anytime soon, I bet you’ll be hearing it on many a soundtrack.
Appalachia is available with an introductory price for a limited time of just $49 USD and can be bought directly from the Indiginus website. Tracy is keen to point out that this will not work with the free Kontakt Player, but is compatible with the full version of Kontakt 5 and upwards.
300+ Sounds for the Arturia MiniFreak/V by Jexus
When Arturia launched the MiniFreak back in October of 2022, it took the crazy, wackiness of the MicroFreak and went even further, adding polyphony, amazing modulation capabilities and redefined what a hybrid synth could do at such a price point.
For me, it’s their best synth after the Polybrute 12 and Matrixbrute and I would love to see a big brother ‘MaxiFreak’ appear in the near future. But until then, the MiniFreak more than satisfies. It is one of those synthesizers that sounds a hundred times bigger than it is.
And now, famed sound designer Jexus has grappled with this stunning synth and created over 300 presets for it, delving into every nook and cranny that this synth has to offer. By his own admission, he struggled to rein this crazy synth in, but if this is what he comes up with on a synth he is ultimately not a great fan of, you should check out his work on instruments he does enjoy!
Across this large swathe of sounds are all kinds of tones that make use of all of the MiniFreak’s features and controllers. If I have just one small criticism, it is that the patch names are just numbers. I do like to have a patch name that at least gives me a clue, but equally, this can make me skip some sounds. With this ‘anti-naming’ convention, it does make you go through each one in case you miss something special!
Jexus’ sound bank for the Arturia MiniFreak, which, by the way, is also 100% compatible with the MiniFreak V plugin (and, by extension, Arturia’s Astrolab), can be bought at his website for just $29.90 USD/€28.90 EUR/£25.90 GBP. The download includes all of the patches plus the sequences featured in his demo video.
Hugh Padgham Hitmaker SDX for Superior Drummer by Toontrack
You might be wondering why I’m including a drum sample library that came out two years ago in this week’s column. Well, a couple of weeks ago I interviewed Jem Godfrey, the man behind the superb prog band, FROST*, whose new album ‘Life In The Wires‘ came out a few weeks ago to huge critical acclaim.
During the interview, I had to enquire about the drums as, being a drummer, I’m slightly obsessed with their own tubthumper, Craig Blundell. Craig not only plays with FROST* but also Steven Wilson, Steve Hackett and many more besides. He’s a force of nature and one of the greatest drummers alive today.
I asked how the drums were recorded, such was the clarity and power of them on this record and Jem told me that it had all been done remotely, with Craig using his Roland V-Drums kit to play all of his parts. Craig would then send these to Jem who mapped them to Superior Drummer!
I was astounded, and even Jem felt that he had moments of anxiety about doing it, but ultimately, the parts were all played by Craig, and so he went ahead, and honestly, you cannot tell! The V-Drums have captured every nuance of Craig’s playing, so I had to ask what drum library was used. It came as no surprise when Jem called out Toontrack’s own Hitmaker library, recorded in conjunction with legendary producer, Hugh Padgham.
I’d been meaning to buy this library for some time, but as many will be aware, they’re not cheap, but they are incredibly good. This was all I needed to push me over the edge and I took advantage of Toontrack’s Black Friday bundle deals to pick this and two other great libraries up.
As someone who has recorded with the like of Genesis, Padgham’s recording skills and choice of drums and drum mics suits FROST*’s Neo-prog sound perfectly, and there’s also a healthy slice of electronic kits included here, so something for almost every style and genre.
Marry these sounds up to a Roland V-Drum kit, for whom Craig Blundell is a long-time endorsee, and you can see why Jem chose this library. You can pick up Hitmaker, either as a single SDX library or as a bundle with two more for just €349! Check out our affiliate for more great deals.
Quasar sound bank for Arturia Polybrute 6 and 12 by Mark Sound
Next up this week is the latest in a series of sound banks for the magnificent Arturia Polybrute, be it the 6 or 12-voice variety. Created by Marco Mayer, ‘Quasar’ follows both ‘Albedo’ and ‘Pulsar’ as a collection of superb patches for these incredible polyphonic analogue synths.
As the title suggests, these sounds are most definitely epic and spatial and draw heavy inspiration from the science-fiction inspired composers of the 70s and 80s. They make full use of all of the Polybrute’s exceptional modulation and performance capabilities. This bank is an absolute must-have for anyone looking for ambient, dreamy and spellbinding pads and atmospheres.
As both the Polybrute 12 and 6 share identical synth engines, this bank is compatible with both machines, with the 12 adding more voices as well as the extra dimension afforded it by the spectacular FullTouch keyboard that has caused such a stir in the synth community since its launch back in May of this year.
The Polybrutes will go down in synth history as pivotal moments in the story of analogue polyphonic synthesizers, and banks like ‘Quasar’ certainly help to reinforce that. You can buy ‘Quasar’ for just €14 directly from Marco at his Gumroad site, as well as his other Polybrute soundbanks and banks for many other synthesizers too!
Hexcells for Elektron Digitakt II by Elektron
Last, but by no means first, is a new bank of sounds for Elektron’s Digitakt II, created by Dissonant Witchcraft. I say Digitakt II but Elektron tell me that these will also work with the Analog Rhythm Mk I and II, the Mk. I Digitakt, Model:Samples and the Mk.I and MK.II Octatraks. They’ll even work in any sampler that can handle WAV files, but they also contain some secret Digitakt II sauce.
Included in this pack are 175 one-shot samples. 51 of which are loopable, as well as 28 chains. There are also 86 Digitakt II presets included. Shooting for a very organic vibe with this set, the creator, Jeanne Artemis, has used other Elektron boxes as well as desktop and Eurorack synth to conjure up the source material for these samples.
Unfortunately, there’s no demo video or Soundcloud page for me to share with you here, so you will just have to scoot on over to the Elektron site where you can list to some demos and then pay a mere £10 of your Great British Pounds to acquire them.
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