Virtual chromatic percussion

The Soniccouture Array Mbira is a 9 GB Library of very realistic sounding piano’s, strings, and more. I have used Array Mbira with Kontakt 4 and it works great, if you don’t have Kontakt then you can download it for free and use Array Mbira with it. The system requirements are very important, your Windows system needs to be up to date on the service packs in order for Mbira to work correctly and on our Mac you need at least 10.5 OS or better. I run Array Mbira on my i7 core processor with 8GB and it works great just like most of the Kontakt based patches always do. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The Array Mbira works great in my DAW, with both Cubase and with FL Studio. I have not been using it long, probably only about 3 months or so but I have got far more than my money’s worth. The price of Array Mbira is 99 dollars, and that is a steal! OVERALL OPINION The sound quality of the patches/instruments are great, they are realistic, rich and full. The bass is probably my favorite part. You can get a very low deep bass, and still keep it clean without any muddy frequencies clashing. The Array Mbira is just an all around must have for anyone looking for realistic sounding instruments. You will get over 4000 samples when you purchase the Array Mbira and all of the patches have a 5 octave range. I am happy with my purchase and look forward to digging dipper with Array Mbira, I am sure I will be using it for a long time to come. Since this is the first version of Array Mbira that I have used (not sure if there is a previous version) I was a little skeptical at first but did some reason and now I love it. It is a must have.

I run this on a Macbook Pro i7 with 8gb ram and an RME Fireface running Kontakt 5 as standalone or in both Logic 9 and Ableton 8. So far there has been no compatibility issues. Setup is very simple, just drop the files anywhere you keep you sampled instruments. Then open Kontakt and under the "Files" browser, locate files and load them up. As for configuration, this is as simple as it gets. The Gui offers no parameters to tweak other than the few Kontakt automatically places in there (tuning, volume, etc....). No need for a manual as this is a simple sample set pre mapped to keys. There are no real "typical" functions. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE So far, this sample set has giving me no issues. It is extremely simple so you should expect no problems. I have never had a crash and the few times I have had to save my ideas in a project, they always pop back the way I left them. I give this a big fat 10 out of 10. I needed some solid samples for a few "epic" rock tracks for a client so we split the cost and picked this up. It worked wonderfully, the samples are huge and full sounding, with wonderful sustains and releases. You also get a few different presets to choose from. These come in three flavors, Bow, Mallet and Pick. Within these three categories, you get various choices pertaining to the categories like "roll" for the mallets, "scratch" for the picks, long vs short sustains for the Bow etc... You also get patches with reverb on them. Instead of having a reverb parameter, the presets already have reverb on them. As far as I can tell, there is no wet/dry mix to these reverbs, they are just there for better or worse. OVERALL OPINION What I like most about this set is the Mallet category. They are high quality bell strikes that sound fantastic. They would fit in just about any movie filmed near a church or any audio track that wants that epic percussion feel (think "disarm" by Smashing Pumpkins). What I don't like is the pre mapped reverb. I don't hate it, as it can be handy if you are in need of a quick sample, but not having control of the reverb seems like a waste. It's not a huge deal because I just use the dry samples and add my favorite reverb hardware/software. If you need lovely, warm, huge sounding bell samples, you can't go wrong for $59. The precision and quality is excellent! The samples sound great and don't have any traces of looping or phasing in the release. I have used many "patches" in various synths and some loops to get this sound, but I was never pleased with the patches and using loops to get what you need usually means a lot of editing. I would definitely make this choice again. I have used this several times and never had any issues.

While I've never had any issues relating to installation when it comes to the Native Instruments Balinese Gamelan software, I can't speak about the process of installation since I have only used this on a system that it was already installed on. I can however speak a bit about the interface of the software, which isn't hard to follow and is an overall easy piece of software to use. The typical functions are easy to find, but if you aren't familiar at all with the make up of the sounds and instruments in a real Balinese Gamelan, it may take some time to get used to. However, if you are using this I am assuming that you know something about a Gamelan and want to use it for that reason. I've never seen any manual for this so I can't say if it would be helpful or not. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The system that I have used the Native Instruments Balinese Gamelan software on is an Apple G5 computer along with MOTU Digital Performer 5 as a sequencer and the software works great within the configuration. As long as you have a system that you are able to run a sequencer and other pieces of software like this one on, this won't give you any trouble at all. OVERALL OPINION Overall, the Native Instruments Balinese Gamelan does a great job of replicating the sounds heard in a Balinese Gamelan. These are definitely interesting sounds, but I can see how they would be hard to incorporate into western forms of music, although this software does make it a bit easier because you can really zero in on pitch and tone. If you are into the sounds of a Balinese Gamelans, this software is the closest that you can get to one. The price of this software isn't all that expensive and is one that I would definitely recommend to those looking for world music sounds to use in the box.