Spitfire Audio Resonate £199 PC MAC

If you combine one of the UK’s leading sample library companies with a grand Dame, you are probably going to find something pretty special…

Composers and producers are always on the prowl for new and exciting sounds. As any media composer will tell you, there can be plenty to inspire from a library packed with timbre from another realm.

Dame Evelyn goes to Air

The recording location for Spitfire’s latest library, sees a return to Air studios. This time however, they have enlisted help from Dame Evelyn Glennie, who is one of the greatest percussionists of our time. But this is not just another percussion library. Resonate consists of four percussion instruments, some of which aren’t immediately identifiable as such, and all played in less than conventional ways, with a number of different articulations and enhancements.

The four main instruments on offer are Barrel, Timpani, Water Tank and Thundersheet. While there is a small degree of more traditional percussive strikes, the main concept for this library involves using further instrumentation as resonators. This means that from an initial strike, hit, scrape or bow, a long and unwinding sonic identity prevails, inviting the listener to sit back and enjoy the subtlety and harmonic overtones.

To partner this concept even further, the 45 different instrumental articulations are embellished with seven unique microphone placements and perspectives. These range from contact mics, which have been placed to the resonating chambers themselves, to microphones placed under water.

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