Tronsonic has announced Micro Packs, a new range for Kontakt (4.2.4+) that are billed as 'tape banks' (the original samples have all been recorded to different varieties of tape at some point).

The interface enables full control over how 'damaged' you'd like the tape to sound, as well as how expressive the instrument is - having controls over velocity, velocity to filter cutoff and ADSR envelopes.

There is a constantly running tape machine behind the scenes, with the 'degrader' allowing you precise control over how much you'd like the tape to be damaged, via volume, tone or pitch. The 'warble' generator is completely randomized, so no damage will ever sound the same, and can give you instant 'Boards of Canada' type sounds, should you wish.

Tape speed is also adjustable, as well as a reverse option for backwards sounds.

The big wheel to the left controls the low pass filter cutoff (which in turn is connected to the velocity-cutoff). The wheel to the right is a -/+1 semitone fine tune controller. The saturation button features a blend of Kontakt's own saturation effect, along with an impulse response created using tape and valves - the IR adds a subtle yet special difference to the sound.

The modulation wheel is set to -/+ 1 octave pitch, and the pitch wheel the same (with a little volume and filter cutoff also) - this enables tape slowing/stopping emulation to the sound, giving a possible 2 octave drop (or rise/fast forward effect).

Each pack contains five token presets - some with different effects added:

1. Detroit Hammond - moody damaged 7th chords from the Hammond m100.
2. Electric Harpsichord - Harpsichord preset from the Farfisa 110pro 1970s portable organ.
3. DubDrum 141 - 16 variations of a beat from the Hammond auto-vari64 drum machine, dubbed out through 2 daisy-chained WEM Copicat tape delays. Tempo at 70.5/141 BPM.

Price: £1.99 each.