Osmose + Kilohearts, Woodwinds & Experimental Drums!

Quite a variety of new sounds and samples for your productions this week as we explore a superb expansion for Kilohearts Phase Plant, designed by Expressive E for their Osmose, Woodwinds for action and spaced-out beats!

Expressive E Phase Plant Expressive Suite

Expressive E’s Osmose keyboard was a long while coming. Many people waited patiently (and some not so) for what was touted to be a groundbreaking keyboard. We “oooh’d” and “aaah’d” over it’s unique design. We sat agog at early demos of how expressive it was.

Now that Osmose has been around for a while, users have been clamouring for more new sounds to use with it. Osmose ships with Eaganmatrix built-in and it is notoriously difficult to program. As with any such synth (I’m looking at you, FS1R!), users tend to rely on 3rd party patches. Patches designed by people with skills and patience levels far exceeding our own.

And now we have some! When the team at Expressive E saw Kilohearts Phase Plant synth plugin, they were instantly convinced this was a synth engine tailor-made for Osmose. To that end, they set about creating four sound banks for Phase Plant, specifically designed for use with the Osmose.

Stripes exploits wavetables and FM synthesis, Delicious focuses more on analog synths and keys and Onirica Vol.1 and Vol.2 deliver textures and soundscapes that one might call ethereal, orchestral and cinematic. Better still, these sounds will work fantastically well with any MPE-capable input device!

Each pack costs €15 individually, but you can buy the complete set for an introductory price of €39 (normally €79) as long as you own Phase Plant already. However, if Phase Plant isn’t in your plugin arsenal, you can buy it as well as all four banks for an introductory price of €99 (normally €199)!

Action Woodwinds for Kontakt

Next up, we have a new woodwinds library for that old sampling workhorse, Kontakt. Orchestral sample libraries are everywhere with something for everybody’s style and budget. Nowadays, sample library developers have to be a bit more specific when creating new libraries to sell to people who probably already own quite a few.

One trend is to create libraries that work well with certain styles of music. Given that, nowadays, most orchestral libraries are used in film, TV and game scoring, we are seeing libraries geared towards cinematic styles. And NI’s ‘Action’ range does exactly that.

Action Woodwinds joins Action Strings 2 and Action Strikes in this motion-inspired set of tools. With Action Woodwinds, you can create your own score from scratch or use any of the more than 1000 pre-built phrases and themes. If you find a phrase you like, you can edit any part of it. You can even build your own set of phrases by combining your favourites.

Multiple mic positions are available and once you’ve created your masterpiece, you can even export your performance as a MIDI file that you can drop into other instruments, or your DAW, to really mix things up. Action Woodwinds is also fully NKS compatible for unprecedented integration with Native Instruments Kontrol keyboard controllers.

Action Woodwinds is available now for a launch price of £179, reduced from an MSRP of £269. The full Action Suite costs £449 or £269 if cross-grading from an eligible product.

Toontrack Elements EZX

When it comes to drum plugins, Toontrack is widely regarded to be at the forefront. Their two main products, EZdrummer and Superior Drummer, cover both ends of the market. EZdrummer is aimed squarely at the more affordable sector, with compact but characterful expansion packs, also known as EZX expansions.

SD3 is the high-end, hugely powerful and massively featured drum DAW. It can sit in your DAW of choice or be a standalone unit that acts as a module on your computer when connected to an e-Drum kit. I’ve been an Superior Drummer user for many years and can vouch for Toontrack’s mastery at drum plugins.

EZX expansions work with both EZdrummer and SD3 and provide a fantastic way to expand your drum library for not a lot of cash. As well as being packed full of sounds, each pack comes with a collection of MIDI grooves to get your creative juices flowing.

Each kit also has a set of macro controls for you to tailor the sounds and samples to your taste. And Elements, their latest EZX, is no exception.

Elements contains 30 distinct kit presets with a raft of alternative variations which blend organic, electronic and analog drum sounds. These have all been recorded with an extensive array of outboard and FX, all produced, engineered and mixed by Alex Shulga (Sound Kalpa).

There are three libraries, Black Hole, Space and Earth, each with their own distinctive flavour. The one thing they all have in common is a unique and experimental slant. If other-worldliness in your beats is your goal, Elements EZX should fit the bill perfectly.

Elements EZX is available to buy now for €89.

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