Spiritual Sounds
It’s time to raid the mighty Vault, and we have found a much-needed collection of samples to calm us all down a bit. One, two, three: breathe…
Back in issue 215 we claimed that the world was going through turmoil. Well, what did we know?! To get you through whatever your current troubles, be they COVID, Megxit or just not enough hard drive space (and we know which we’re more stressed out by), we’ve dug out these calming sounds from Robbie and Ollie, who chant us through them now…
Robbie from Cyclick Samples said: “This collection takes a spiritual turn with a collection of church organs and choirs, Eastern percussion and a chunk of throat singing… or at least an approximation thereof.
“There are three organs – two church pipe and one drawbar – along with two choir sounds (‘Oh’ and ‘Ah’). These instruments are used to create a set of eight chords across five keys that should stir up some very inspirational feelings. The three organs are also included as multisampled instruments with SFZ patches for any kind of compatible sampler.
“The temple cymbals, temple bell and ankle bells are all from India, though recorded here in the cooler climes of Bristol. These are presented in raw form as well as treated with different ambiences and pitchings.
“Last but by no means least, we have the throat singing – a la Tibetan monks. After failing to find any monks roaming the streets, I spent some time humming and gurgling into a mic, then, with the magic of digital signal processing, produced six different tonal oneoctave instruments as well as a simple set of massed voice oneshots (24 channels stacked up and processed with reverb, EQ, compression, etc).”
Oli from Groove Criminals added: “The pedal harmonium we used is roughly a hundred years old and was originally used in a small chapel in East Anglia. A few of the keys don’t work properly, but as ever, all the faults just add to its overall character.
“The prayer bowls were a mix of samples and me whacking a few steel mixing bowls – they get a surprising amount of use in the studio. All the organs were made with either a hardware/software mixture or were based around our 1968 Hammond drawbar spinnet organ. The synths, choirs and atmospheres were a mix of both hardware (some old rack modules like the E-mu Classic Keys have some great Mellotron patches) and software, all heavily processed.”
All these samples are in the Free Samples folder on the DVD or at filesilo.co.uk under issue 295.