Nine Volt Audio Shimmer & Shakedelete

NVA says that musicians that use shaken hand percussion samples or loops have two problems:

1. They most likely rely on a small and over-used group of sounds every time they need a shaker.
2. They go to the same selection of samples and loops because all their other shaker sounds are inconsistently edited, ill-timed, have little-to-no tempo flexibility, are missing articulations, don’t come close to sounding real when programmed, or some combination of these.

That is why NVA created Shimmer & Shake: a double-DVD and download collection of shaken hand percussion patches for Kontakt and a collection of 2350 loops in the REX, Stylus RMX, Kontakt 3.5/4, ACID wav and Apple Loop formats.

Instruments include the cabasa, vintage tambourine, modern tambourine, brass tambourine, sistrum, maracas hi, maracas low, caxixi, shekere, egg shaker, beer can shaker, “Bali-Pong” shaker, rain stick (played as a shaker), finger drum shaker, goat toes, sand shaker, rock shaker, pill bottle shaker, Shakerine front, Shakerine side, sleigh bells, shell shaker, Spin Spark hi, Spin Spark low and Vari-Tone. All loop folders and patch names further identify the sound characteristic to help find the right sound quickly (“natural”, “plastic”, “jingle”, “metal”, “sand”, etc.).

The “Tight” control interface knob tightens up MIDI performances when taking tracks into higher BPM ranges. This is something that naturally occurs when a percussionist performs, but has never been translated to the sample world until now, according to NVA.

Specifications for the Multi-Sample portion:

• 1 GB of 44.1kHz/24bit stereo samples and 26 Kontakt 3.5/4 instrument patches comprised of 4908 samples. Download is 748 MB.
• All patches include a wide selection of crescendo/decrescendo rolls, shakes, accent shakes, hand hits and stick hits (on tambourines).
• User interface controls include: convolution reverb (with 14 custom IR .wavs), saturation, stereo width, velocity curve, low and high pass filters, “tight”, delay, low, mid and high EQ gain, AHDSR, remap knob and humanization.
• Compatible with full retail versions of Native Instruments’ Kontakt 3.5 and up (The free Kontakt Player will only allow for 30 minutes of unrestricted use).

Specifications for the Loop portion:

• Shimmer & Shake features 2350 loops in the REX, Stylus RMX, Kontakt, ACID Wav & Apple Loop formats. Uncompressed, each format is approximately 3.4 GB. Downloads for each format are broken into four files between 540–660 MB.
• Any of the REX-based loops (used in Stylus RMX, Reason and most major sequencers like Cubase, Live, Sonar, Digital Performer, ProTools, Logic) can be used at tempos as slow as 80 BPM with no artificial stretching.
• Using Shimmer & Shake within Stylus RMX requires the user to drag-and-drop one folder into RMX’s included S.A.G.E. Converter.
• Fifty patches for Kontakt are supplied – 25 patches for 4/4 time and 25 for non-4/4 time. Extensive user interface controls and ease-of-use features are available on every patch. Shimmer & Shake is compatible with full retail versions of Kontakt 3.5 and up. The free Kontakt Player will only allow for 30 minutes of unrestricted use.
• All loops are in 44.1kHz/24bit resolution.

Pricing & Availability

Shimmer & Shake is available on DVD or via Download at www.NineVoltAudio.com for $99.99. The Multi-Sample or Loop portion can be purchased separately via Download for $69.99 each.