The humble little wooden percussion frog - sampled for Kontakt.  The Kontakt instrument is available at www.sampleism.com/noisymichael/woodenfrog

This particular example, hand carved in Peru, was the very one used in "Across the Andes by Frog". Recorded in situ in the steamy jungle of my music room.

All sounds on the demo are from the Wooden Frog Kontakt instrument, and only the reverb  also included with instrument was used.



Wooden percussion frog Kontakt-instrument demo

Demo for a Kontakt sample-set available from https://www.lootaudio.com/category/kontakt-instruments/noisymichael

The Hammerbass is somewhere between a bass guitar and a hammered dulcimer.  But don't think the twee folky sound of a hammered dulcimer, but rather the  jangly, noisy sound of hitting on your heavy-gauge roundwound GHS Boomers with a drumstick. Lots of character and body - great for bass, but also good in the higher register for more melodic uses.  

The Hammerbass has two sets of main samples (24-bit), one from a pickup and one close-mic'ed, with the mix being controllable from the custom interface.  In addition there are separate samples for the attacks, for the note-off noises as well as for some string squeaks or scrapes (a noise like dragging a pick along a string).  In addition, playing a high C triggers a "thud" sound like muting the strings on a bass. Multiple velocities samples of course, and most samples have round-robin alternates.  

The custom interface provides controls for the amount of Attack and for the volume of the characteristic Note Off noises, and how often the "string scrape" noises are occasionally triggered between notes.  You get two NKI instruments, the first where everything is combined and a custom script controls the triggering of note-off noises and scrapes, designed for just playing (this one was used for the Soundcloud demo) and the second where the different noises are just key-switched so you can have full control over when they get triggered.

Hammerbass Kontakt-instrument demo

This is a demo for a sample-set available at www.sampleism.com/noisymichael/dx7

The mighty Yamaha DX7: It was my first real keyboard! I have unearthed it from beneath the layers of archeological detritus left by subsequent civilizations to bring you this massive sample set. First there are two different bass sounds: Hollowbass and skankbass. So wonderfully non-analogue. Sampled at multiple velocity levels of course. Modwheel fades between the two sounds. Then there is a truly monstrous set of wierd and wonderful DX7 noises. Kicks, snares, bells, klanks, tinks, and just wierdness. 80 samples! Most sounds are sampled at multiple velocity levels. The great thing about the DX7 was how organically the sounds responded to velocity. Many of these sounds are my original DX-7 patches and are not available anywhere else.

The DX-7: demo for a set of samples

A demo for a Kontakt instrument available at www.sampleism.com/noisymichael/grainy

A granular synthesis pad machine: A texture that can go from sonar-ping blippy to the Russian red army chorus to a desert wind howling in the night. Instead of playing a looped sound, this patch uses Kontakt scripting to implement granular synthesis, by firing thousands of tiny sound blips at your ears at random. This unique K2 script is not available anywhere else! The mod-wheel controls the grain frequency, and the custom Kontakt panel has additional controls for release-time, choral layer volume, distortion and reverb. 

Grainy demo for Kontakt-instrument

Here's demo for a sample-set available from www.sampleism.com/noisymichael/dr_drum

An extensive set of drum-sounds from the DR 660 (played by, among others, Squarepusher, Orbital and the Electric Hellfire Club). The samples are arranged so you get 8 different drum kits, all mapped the same way. So write your drum pattern, and you can instantly try it out with 8 different drum kits from standard to electronic by just soloing a different one of the 8 included instruments. Or you can mix them, or play them all at the same time for a ridiculously huge drum sound. A great tool for roughing out your drum sounds, and it has some great non-standard sounds on it. The demo just repeats the same drum pattern with the 8 different kits.

Dr. Drum sample-set demo

Demo for the Kontakt instrument available at 
https://www.lootaudio.com/category/kontakt-instruments/noisymichael/darbuka

A darbuka is  an aluminium hand-drum, also called a goblet-drum, used by S Arabic, Armenian, Assyrian, Azeri, Balkan, Greek, Persian and Turkish musicians cThe sample-set has separate samples for different strike-styles, with multiple-velocity and round-robin variations of each one for an expressive and varied sound. Each sample was recorded with two mics, one for the head and one for the body. The custom Kontakt interface provides a control for mixing the head and body mic samples. In addition to the regular drum, the instrument has a separate bass version of the sound with a tuning control.

Darbuka Kontakt-instrument demo

Demo for a Kontakt instrument available at www.sampleism.com/noisymichael/toy_piano

The lovely Jenni gave me this Straco "Grand Piano" toy piano, a beautiful piece of the toy-piano-maker's art as you can see. I have sampled it extensively, as I wanted to retain the highest fidelity and authenticity! Each note is sampled at two velocities, so you get the full effect of the differences between the keys, although I did extend the range a little bit, and unlike the real thing, there are black keys. The special note-off noises are also sampled (note-off volume is controllable). 

As ever, I give you more - there is a sub-octave to add more depth which can be brought in with a midi-control or a dedicated knob in the Kontakt panel. In addition, the mod-wheel brings in a looped, sustaining sample also made from the toy-piano for a ghostly sort of choral drone.

Ideal for your Schroeder moments, and just whenever you get tired of your favourite multi-gigabyte Grand Piano sample, or when the innocent little blond child plays the toy-piano just as the Candarian demons ..... 

Toy Piano Kontakt-instrument demo

Demo for a Kontakt instrument available at https://www.lootaudio.com/category/kontakt-instruments/noisymichael/ringmod

The ring-mod is what you pull out when you want your analog synth to get nasty. The Arp 2600, the EMS Synthi, the Korg MS-20 - they all had ring-mods - why not you? The ring-mod Kontakt instrument is optimized for playability - control your noize! Solo like the beast you are! 

 Instead of the static, brute-force approach of sampling every note, this patch uses devious Kontakt programming to implement a ring modulator, (or two-quadrant multiplier for you pedants). Which means it will respond naturally to pitch-bends and glide, and the modulation frequency can be controlled in realtime for a very dynamic sound. And all this eats up only a scant 3 Kbytes of your memory.

Ringmod Kontakt-instrument demo

Spincycle: the sound of a washing machine in the woods - a washing machine like you've never heard it before.  Okay - Matmos got here before me with "Ultimate Care II" - but you can't get that for Kontakt.

Spincycle has both a sustained, melodic sound and a selection of
percussive samples.  The melodic sound is the sound of the washing machine (which really is in a cabin in the woods in rural Ontario) washing away run through Kontakt's tone machine to make a grindy, droney sustained sound.  The percussive sounds are various hits of the washing machine, sampled at multiple velocities and with round-robin alternates for a dynamic sound.

Spincycle Kontakt instrument demo

This is a demo for a Kontakt instrument available at https://www.lootaudio.com/category/kontakt-instruments/noisymichael

The Resonator MKII is a unique sound, reminiscent of  pioneering, pre-1950, electronic instruments like the Ondioline and the Theremin.

Unlike those monophonic instruments, this Kontakt Kit has, in addition to the melody oscillator, a set of "resonators", which produce an ever-shifting set of drone voices, sort of like the oscillator version of sympathetic resonator strings on a sitar or a viola d'amore.

It works like this: You play a melody with the right hand, and hold
down a chord with the left.  As you are playing the melody, different notes of the chord will be brought out as they resonate with whatever melody notes you are holding in the left hand. The left hand notes do not sound when you play them, rather they fade in an out on their own in resonance with whatever melody you are playing with the right.

All this is accomplished with a custom script for Kontakt, not available anywhere else - its like a dedicated VST instrument.

The result is a rich texture that constantly shifts with different notes coming to the fore, all in a gorgeous space provided by the
Kontakt convolution reverb with a choice of impulses.

There are extensive real-time controls: the control panel allows you
to tailor the sound to taste, with controls for the vibrato, resonator
volume, the glide-time, the keyboard split and more (see screenshot). The mod wheel fades between two classic waveforms (pulse and sine). Portamento (glide) is provided with variable glide time and a full-time or a legato-only mode.

New in Mark II: completely redesigned GUI, choice of sine or complex  resonator waveform; choice of convolution reverb algorithms, new smoother single-cycle pulse waveform.

The DX-7: demo for a set of samples

Michael Bietenholz

Related tracks