Soniccouture

SOUND ON SOUND MARCH 2011

"..Hitherto, the limited pitch range and buzzy, rattly sound of this traditional African kalimbas or mbiras  tended to limit the application of sampled versions, so it’s heartening to report that Soniccouture’s new Array Mbira library blows away those restrictions.

..A greatly increased pitch range spans five octaves from a practically subsonic low C to B nearly two octaves above Middle C. Soniccouture recorded the notes in semitone steps with triple round robins at eight dynamic levels, and also carefully captured the delicate ‘clunks’ that occur when mbira notes are hand damped. The result is a beautiful and authentic‑sounding sampled instrument that can handle chords, melodies, rhythm parts and bass lines to great musical effect.

Extras include a set of played five‑octave strums (made possible by the real‑life instrument’s juxtaposition of parallel octaves), which have a rather solemn, bell‑tolling atmosphere. Users can also generate their own multi‑octave strums with the mod wheel, an enjoyable facility that put me in mind of a strummed autoharp. In the sound‑design department, a terrific arpeggiator patch got my creative juices flowing, while composers requiring unusual, spooky and atmospheric sounds will relish the haunting tones of ‘Brian’s Church’ and the whale‑song‑like pitch bends of ‘Porpoise’. The effects section (which includes delay, phasing and convolution reverb) is also first class.

The 24‑bit stereo sample data is duplicated in simultaneously recorded, miked and DI’d versions, the latter taken directly from the Array Mbira’s built‑in pick‑ups. Kontakt 4’s sample compression reduces the 9.5GB of raw sample data down to a mere 4GB when installed. The Kontakt instruments are pretty RAM hungry, however, consuming 1GB or more of RAM.

This fabulous contemporary instrument maintains an African flavour while transcending the rough sonorities and musical limitations of its ancestors. I found I invariably needed to reduce patches’ release settings to prevent notes from hanging on indefinitely, and also felt compelled to turn the ‘thumb’ control (which governs the duration of the small thumb noise preceding the note attack) to zero in order to avoid notes seemingly speaking late. Those minor technical considerations apart, the Array Mbira is ready to rock straight out of the box and a delight to play. "

Dave Stewart, Sound On Sound Magazine