Harmonic Tides
Harmonic Tides is an aetherial sound-designed library crafted from delicately resonant cello and double bass string harmonics. Pierce Constanti imagined a uniquely expressive textural sound designed instrument ideal for film scoring. It's perfect for modern arrangements and film/game scores whenever lush swells and huge waves of intense feeling are called for.
Harmonic Tides is an aetherial sound-designed string library crafted from delicately resonant cello and double bass string harmonics. Soundiron collaborator Pierce Constanti created Harmonic Tides with the specific goal of making a uniquely expressive textural sound designed instrument ideal for film scoring. His goal was to create a custom scoring tool that could be just as expressive, versatile, and nuanced as a typical orchestral string library. It's perfect for modern arrangements and film/game scores whenever lush swells and huge waves of intense feeling are called for.
Harmonic Tides has two primary sound sources. The first is a shimmering, delicate and airy texture derived from layered celli harmonic glissandi. This patch is designed to add organic movement to music. Every key is sampled with four dynamic layers. The second sound source is a sharp, hollow sound derived from layered samples of bowing the after-length of strings on a double bass between the bridge and tailpiece. This sound is designed to add subtle tension and movement to music. Both articulation sets feature a wide chromatic and dynamic range, allowing them to be played expressively live with a keyboard or other midi controller.
While Harmonic Tides was recorded using traditional orchestral instruments, the unusual performances and processing disguise their origin. The celli and basses were close mic’d to pick up as much detail as possible, with as many as eight layers of solo performances panned around the listener. These multi-dynamic instruments can be woven and blended to create nuanced swells and textural waves. Combined with additional creative processing, the result is a sound that is more pad or drone-like than orchestral and fits well into a variety of mixes and arrangements. Beginning from this source, we've expanded the collection outward to explore a deep range of detailed leads, pads, short notes, stingers, fluid atmospheres and rich textures.
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Artist
Pierce Constanti [website]
Pierce Constanti is a composer with music featured in films, television and games. His extensive body of work includes original scores for feature drama Penitentia, feature romance Upon Waking and historical drama 1805. Pierce has worked with composer Rob Simonsen on Deadpool & Wolverine, It Ends With Us, The Whale, Stranger Things, The Adam Project and Disney’s Hollywood Stargirl, and with composer John Paesano on Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Invincible Season 2.
He is a founder and member of 7th Floor Composer Group, a collaborative team of composers with which he has scored numerous films. Previously, Pierce scored student Academy Award and student BAFTA-winning documentary Making Waves, directed by Laura Zéphirin. Pierce has a M.M. in Screen Scoring from New York University and a B.A. in Music from Washington University in St. Louis. He completed internships at Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions, Henry Jackman’s Sacred Tiger Music, Fantasy Studios and Soundiron. Pierce plays the piano, double bass, cello and sings. He often incorporates these instruments into his compositions.
Contents
The Kontakt interface includes a suite of automation-ready sound-shaping controls to give you total creative flexibility. You have control over swell, attack, release, offset, vibrato, filter, pitch (coarse & fine), articulation switching, cross-fading and layering, and so much more.
This library comes with an adaptable LFO system, with selectable LFO shape, modulation target parameter, speed, intensity, tempo-syncing and fade-in time. You can also apply your choice of 12 lowpass, high-pass and FX filters, with assignable modulation targets such as velocity, modwheel, expression, after-touch, key position and step-sequencer table control. Our customizable arpeggiator offers a velocity table and control over arp direction, timing, swing, randomization and duration. We’ve included a key and scale lock system to constrain your notes to common scales and keys for easy melodic composition and live performance.
The interface is rounded-out by our modular FX rack panel, with 27 different DSP effect modules that you can assign in any of 8 available slots, in any order that you wish. You’ll find classic phaser, flanger, delay, distortion, amp and cab simulators, compressors, EQ, rotator and so much more. The Reverb effect includes our favorite convolution reverb impulse responses, including 99 different rooms, halls, chambers and outdoor environments, plus another 40 custom FX impulses to radically transform the sound and open up whole new worlds of musical possibility. We’ve added a great bank of FX rack chain factory presets to get you started!
Multi-Format
This library is designed for the full retail version of Native Instruments Kontakt 6.2.2 or later. Kontakt is an industry-standard advanced virtual instrument software platform. You can view screenshots of this library's custom graphical user interface in the image gallery above. This library is packed with features to provide you a wide range of sound shaping parameter controls, each one totally automation-ready in your host environment or Kontakt's stand-alone mode. Learn more about Kontakt by Clicking Here.
This is a standard Kontakt open-format library, so the free Kontakt Player does not fully support it and can only run it in a limited "demo mode". However, the sample directories are unlocked so you can use them in other wav-compatible software, sampler and synth formats. The special Libraries tab doesn't support this open-format Kontakt library, but you can use the standard File browser tab and import this library into the Kontakt Quickload window for easy loading and navigation.
This library includes presets for the free Decent Sampler engine by Decent Samples (version 1.11.18 or later). Decent Sampler is a powerful platform that offers many of the same core features you’ll find in our Kontakt presets, with a broad selection of effects, customization features and host/midi automation support. It’s compatible with VST, VST3, AAX, Audiounit, Auv3 and Standalone for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Linux. You can view screenshots of this library's DS user interface in the image gallery above. Download Decent Sampler for free at https://www.decentsamples.com/product/decent-sampler-plugin.
To use this library in Decent Sampler, you can download and install the Decent Sampler plugin, load it as a virtual instrument in most DAWs or run it in stand-alone mode, and simply drag-drop any of the .dspreset files included with this library into the Decent Sampler plugin window to immediately load the preset. Learn more about Decent Sampler by Clicking Here.
Product Specs
- 8.55 GB installed
- 1,953 Samples
- 21 Kontakt 6.2.2 .nki instrument presets
- 12 Decent Sampler 1.11.18 .nki instrument presets
- 24 bit / 48kHz uncompressed PCM wav audio
- Unlocked Kontakt and Decent Sampler presets and wav samples to allow complete flexibility and freedom
- Aetherial sound design created from string harmonics, separated into multi-timbre Tides and Swells
- Dozens of our custom convolution reverb impulses with a variety of different room, hall and special effect acoustic environments.
Documentation
System Requirements
The full retail version of Native Instruments Kontakt version 6.2.2 (or later) is required to use .nki instrument presets included in this library. The free Kontakt "Player" and "Add Library" import process do not support these standard open-format Kontakt libraries. The free Decent Sampler engine is required to use the .dspreset instrument presets included in this library. Windows 7 or higher. Mac OSX 10.12 or higher for Kontakt. Mac OSX 10.9 or higher for Decent Sampler. Linux x86 64bit supported for Decent Sampler. Multi-Core CPU, 3 GB System Ram, SATA or SSD hard drive recommended for this library.
Click Here to learn about the differences between the full unlocked version of Kontakt and limited Kontakt Player. This software is delivered as a digital download, so a broadband connection is required. Please see our Help Page for download and installation instructions, tutorials and the End User Licensing Agreement before purchasing this software.
Videos
Walkthrough: Harmonic Tides
Composing With Harmonic Tides
Reviews & Endorsements
"Harmonic Tides can sound ice-cold and scary, with patches like Dryad and Dirty Bass Harmonics, but it’s also got a lot of warm and optimistic tones in the Ambiences category, and the layering and effects options are superb. All in all it’s great for modern emotional scoring, whether light or dark, and it’s going into front-line duty in my template immediately. Nicely done!"