Spitfire Audio has released the latest in their LABS series of basic virtual instruments, Bell Swarm.
Here’s what they have to say about it:
“Composer Louis Rugg unboxes a festive gift: LABS Bell Swarm!
A joyous assortment of vibraphones, glockenspiels and hand bells recorded in a breathtaking medieval church. Take hold of the loosely timed magic of swarms to create cascading layers of tremolo, along with a variety of delightfully versatile single hits.”
Bell Swarm is available now as a free download for Mac & Windows.
The Christmas bells spirit has, apparently, been going around the sound library developers. The other day, I got an email solicitation for a new Kontakt “Bells” product from Soundiron, “Chroma Bells”. I love “Bell libraries” and for $15 the Soundiron offering was an easy buy for me. On the other hand, I really love the approach Spitfire has taken in LABS, and based on the video, I think that this offering (that is basically ‘free’) may offer even more versatility than Chroma Bells. Hats off, once again, to Spitfire Audio!
I opened up Kontakt to see if I was even interested in anything free they were offering. I squinted for a bit then gave up. Its a dam shame really even though I do deal with it for those free Yaquin sounds they gave us last year. So this is a nice gift for the holidays in a very-viewable interface.
I’m confused, Randy. LABS is a VST, AU, AAX instrument, so what did you open up Kontakt to check? Soundiron?
The site says it doesn’t require Kontact though
Hey Handsome,
There is no NI Kontakt version.
All magnificent Spitfire plug-ins are native to Spitfire
I wish someone would design a eurorack module that could host VST’s. just need a reasonable size screen to see the UI, and general purpose hardware knobs to control it via CC interface. I would buy several to get the utility of cheap VST’s, without the irritating consumer computer that has to go with it.
this VST sounds like fun!
This has been done. An example is the Percussa SSP. The plugins have to be compiled for Linux/ARM.
What you’re probably wanting, though, would be a hardware device that could just run the VSTs that you already own. Not sure what the feasibility of that would be, since they are compiled to a platform/OS.
Actually, I think that it could be done using an Intel 5×5 (inch) motherboard, and relatively short RAM modules and a compact cooler. I’m not entirely sure how you would power it (because I don’t know too much about the limitations of power in Eurorack). However if horizontal space isn’t a problem, you could probably retrofit a power module specifically for it. The Intel 5×5 will accommodate up to an i7, but its TDP limitation is pretty low (65W, I think). However, a small 100W supply should be sufficient to power it and a 4×6″ LCD screen. Since you probably wouldn’t be multitasking it (i.e., run more than one plug-in at a time) using a high-end i3 processor should even be able to accommodate Diva. The rest of the design would just be putting all of the control functions in ROM, and giving a means of changing parameters using front-panel switches and encoders.. I think that such a thing would be doable as a kludge, even by an old and nearly blind guy like me..
yeah, I saw that – my thought was wishful thinking in the end. I don’t use a consumer computers for music anyway – it’s way too much of a hassle – not going to start for this. Rings makes fine noises for me as it is. thank you synthhead for your followup!
Love Spitfire, they are second to none in their sound quality