Publisher: Rhythmic Robot Audio
Website: Rhytmic Robot Audio
Format: KONTAKT 4.2.3+
Description :
Next Level METAL Drum Library:
SpaceMan is a sound designer’s dream…really delivers chaotic melodies. This is essentially what would happen if you built a synth out of springs.
Features in detail :
Spring reverbs have been helping to add a shimmering metallic atmosphere to electric and electronic sounds ever since someone had the brilliant idea of screwing a small tin spring inside a guitar amp and running the signal through it. Spring reverbs haven’t evolved much since then – the biggest advance in improvement seems to have been “Add more springs!” – and their unnatural sound, slightly harsh overtones and tendency for them to go “SPOILING-ONG-ONG-ONG-ONG-ONG-ONG” when accidentally struck soon made them a poor man’s choice compared to plate reverbs, echo- cameras and, eventually, digital machines from Lexicon.
However, the sound of spring reverb is firmly ingrained in our musical memory; he played an integral role in defining the guitar sounds of many legendary rockers; it has also found its way into countless synths and keyboards, thanks to the same reverb path in the amplifier. Spring reverbs are a bit of a niche product these days. But we have undeniable sympathy for them.
And our absolute favorite is the Ekdahl Moisturizer – a spring reverb built to be abused, with its three springs exposed for you to reach, plus a multi-mode filter and LFO built right into it. This thing isn’t built to add subtle notes of reverb to your tracks… it’s built for sound design and sound chaos, and it’s at the core of SpaceMan.
SPRING SYNTHESER:
SpaceMan is what would happen if you built a synthesizer out of springs. Seriously. Imagine if each note on your synthesizer, instead of triggering an electronic oscillator, began to vibrate a spring at a given pitch: that’s the essence of SpaceMan. We used the same E-Bow guitar techniques as in Uproar, only this time we used them in combination with the built-in Moisturizer filter to generate unstable, oscillating, springy fundamental waves. With approximately a minute of sampling per note and random trigger points, these waves are surprisingly unpredictable, and you can adjust them using the spring reservoir oscillation level control. The underlying sound is, of course, heavily reverberant, metallic, jagged and, er, springy.
We then went a little over to the Dark Side, using brushes, bows, fingernails, screwdrivers, stand bolts, and cable ends to touch, jiggle, scrape, and otherwise tamper with the three springs while adjusting the filter to taste. This brutality has also been looped and randomized and can be customized to three different flavors of dirt: Type 1 includes scratches, brushes, and sustained contact sounds; Type 2 covers tapping, touching, and brief contact sounds; Type 3 examines breath sounds, feedback, and tonal components. They can be used individually or in combination and have their own level control.
ADDITIONAL REGULATORS:
There are a few more synth-style elements that can be plugged in: Large-scale noise from the wonderful Korg 770 (we said we’d be using this a lot, remember?); a single-knob harmonic generator that adds a progressive number of harmonic series overtones; Sub-osc sine wave for sound amplification; and a complete set of filter circuits, including a high-pass filter and a multi-mode resonant filter with two low-pass modes and one bandpass. Connect it all to a dedicated LFO and you can get some wonderful swinging, swishing drifts across the audio spectrum.
Separate Contact and Mute controls control how much (if any) the initial contact sound and note decay are heard; they simulate the “play” of springs by tapping them and then manually stopping them. And to top it all off, we have full Envelope control and the ever-popular Glitch Control for creating musically intelligent random patches with one click. See how easy we made it all?
SpaceMan is all about left-field atmospheric sound design, strange howling reverberant noises, unique background textures and synthesis with a very unusual sound signature. It sounds great when paired with regular synths, adding strangeness and complexity to the sound of the paperclips; in addition, he can bring color and movement to a range of music genres, including EDM, trance, soundtrack and ambient. Open the bay doors, HAL!
