Soniccouture

Sound On sound, February 2010

Glass Armonica:   "..played by touching the moving rims with wet fingers, its sound is pure, celestial, spooky yet uplifting, like high-pitched crystalline voices from outer space. With samples chromatically mapped over four octaves, it sounds great playing complex chords (as it does in real life), but its lovely ethereal tone is equally effective when delivering a single melody line.."

Le Cristal :  "..intrigued? Wait till you hear it — rubbed with wet fingers, the glass rods’ spectral tone is similar to the Glass Armonica, but the Cristal Baschet is lower-pitched, with a breathy quality reminiscent of a pipe organ wooden-flute stop. In addition, the ‘flame’ resonator adds an amazing tambura/didgeridoo-like grinding drone to loud bass notes. The metal blocks were also played percussively, creating a large array of reverberant sounds ranging from ‘tuned hub cap’ hits to nebulous prepared piano and waterphone-like effects."

Cloud Chamber Bowls :  "..Soniccouture have recreated the design of Partch’s Cloud Chamber Bowls, 14 large glass vessels (originally used in laboratories to track sub-atomic particles) hung from a wooden frame. Played with hard mallets, they sound chippy and metallophone-like; softer mallet hits resemble Tibetan bowls in the low register and reminded me of high-pitched Javanese bonang pot gongs at the top end — a dreamy bell-like timbre which imparts a magical chime to even the simplest of musical phrases."

"..Sounds of beauty and wonder, enhanced by lustrous cathedral reverbs, multiple round robins and a user-friendly interface — inspirational for composers, perfect for out-of-this-world soundtracks. "

Dave Stewart, Sound On Sound Magazine