Bunker Samples have released Sticks & Stones, the first in a new Selects Series of Kontakt libraries, available $19.00, increasing to $29.00 after the promotion. The offer ends June 14th.
Sticks and Stones is a one-of-a-kind Vietnamese lithophone, a pitched percussion instrument made from stone, meticulously sampled in a top Hanoi studio by a professional lithophone player.
It’s an instrument that’s directly connected to nature, cultures and musical traditions that spans the globe and pre-dates modern civilization. It’s raw, earthy, beautiful and in-your-face all at once, and if you are brave enough you can use it to replace your standard orchstral glockenspiel, when you need one that actually goes to 11. It’s nimble and agile with a huge dynamic range, and it’s great for anytime you need a sound that instantly conjures up nature and ancient cultures – or just for layering with your synths for some extra delicious bell tones.
Certain types of rock produce bell-like sounds when struck, and different cultures around the world have collected and built musical instruments from these rocks since the dawn of humanity – and some of the oldest known of these ancient lithophones have been found in Vietnam, dating back thousands of years. Historically these instruments where played at special ceremonies, and considered to be a sacred link between the world of spirits and the world of humans, connecting the past to the present.
Lithophones have remained an important part of Vietnamese musical culture to this day, and are still an integral part of traditional Vietnamese music ensembles, performed by virtuoso players such as Ngon Tran whose talent and instrument was sampled for this library. The modern version of the instrument is precisely tuned and most often follows the pentatonic scale.
The traditional mallets made from bamboo and hard wood offers a clear and bell-like sound and allows for very fast rolls. It’s very agile and playable, and when needed it can get very loud and powerful. We sampled both hits with 4 dynamic layers and 4 round robins, and rolls with 3 dynamic layers.
Not traditional in any way, but when we tried them in the session, everybody loved the sound so we decided to sample them. It’s a soft and delicate sound, even though the loudest dynamic still packs a punch. Also 4 round robins and dynamic layers in the hits, 3 dynamic layers for the rolls with seamless crossfading.
When rubbing the stone back and forth with the traditional mallet, you get a constant resonant pitch, with some nice texture and grit to it – great for sending through delays and reverbs. We sampled 3 different speeds which you can crossfade between.
Spend your time writing music, not trying to figure out what all the knobs and sliders do. The interface of Sticks & Stones is simple and easy to use: select your mallet type and then select hits or rolls. The flexible articulation switching method lets you use traditional key switches, or you can use a momentary hot key or midi CC to temporarily switch to the rolls while playing, making it quick and easy to perform the instrument live.
Features include:
- Independent ADSR controls for hits, rolls and rubs
- Natural or syncronized rolls: the 2 lower dynamic layers in the syncronized patch have been carefully edited to align all the individual transients to the top layer for buttery smooth crossfading.
- Accent rolls or rubs with automatic hit overlay
- Flexible articulation switching system: use keyswitches, temporary hotkey or MIDI CC.
- Per signal stereo width control.
- Per signal Delay and Reverb sends.
- Route each signal directly to Kontakt’s discrete outputs, so you can process them individually in your DAW.
- 2472 samples
- 3.9 GB uncompressed samples
- 1.92 GB Lossless compressed size (installed size)
- 5 patches
Sticks & Stones requires a full version of Kontakt 6.7.1 or later.
Watch the walkthrough video HERE.
For more information on Sticks & Stones, click here:
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