If the Emulator II is on your radar, you may already know that of the aftermarket sound libraries released for this monster, it was the Universe of Sounds soundset that really hit it out of the ballpark. Spanning hundreds of 5.25" floppy disks it was packed with hitmaking wonderpatches – from Marcato Strings through Brass falls and runs through über-punchy drums through classic synths and that inevitable Shakuhachi... Hundreds of amazing sounds that form a generation-defining slice of musical heritage and history. They have never before been recreated for Kontakt.
This work is being undertaken with the blessing of, and in collaboration with, Doug Morton of Q Up Arts – the original copyright holder of the samples, and the guy who recorded and programmed them back in the 80s for artists like Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Tears for Fears, Eurythmics, Thomas Dolby, Pet Shop Boys, Philip Glass, Vangelis and a ton more.
We're hugely honoured to be the folks entrusted with this chunk of history, and we want to keep you guys updated with progress. To that end, I'll be adding to this post as and when things get finalised. We've already got some firmed-up news on pricing and timeline, and I'm hoping to get more specific with release dates soon
WHAT WE'RE DOING:
Every patch, every note: We want to do this thing justice. That means every single semitone of every single patch, perfectly preserving the tonality of the EII's companding output convertors and classic filters. NO compromises on fidelity.
Resampling, not sample conversion: None of the cruddy eBay-style "sounds of classic samplers", which are all too often 8-bit soundfiles converted to 16-bit in someone's PC. Every note is being sampled straight out of the jack sockets of a reconditioned and warmly-humming EII
Attention to detail in matters like sample length (long, so as to preserve the original loops; typically between 8 and 20 seconds per note); velocity layering where appropriate; velocity switching ditto. Basically, we're aiming to get this sounding as close to the real deal as possible.
Every patch signed off by the original creator. Doug's all over the quality control: all patches are being sampled here in the Rhythmic Robot lab, then passed back to him for tweaks before being Kontakt finalised.
It's a LOT of cool stuff, so we've put together a page on the website with some more details and some FAQ – you can see it here: http://www.rhythmicrobot.com/products/t ... ii-project – but do feel free to just ask us here, and we'll try to keep you posted!
KEY INFO AS OF 11th MAY 2015:
The library will be released in two main volumes, just like the original was. The only difference will be that we'll be "boxing out" the foley and SFX disks and releasing them as a separate add-on pack sometime in the future. (We figured most folks would want the strings, brass, synths, keys, basses, drums, ethnic, percussive and other instrumental sounds first, and that foley and SFX were a bit more of a niche area that you wouldn't mind waiting for.)
- Volume 1 will be released before this Summer, we sincerely hope.
- Volume 2 will be released at some point after that: we're aiming for before the end of the year, but it's TBC at the moment.
- The SFX add-on pack will follow Volume 2. This may be one pack incorporating the SFX disks from both Volumes, or it may be two Volume-specific offerings.
- Price for Volume 1 is confirmed as £99 GBP / $149 USD, with a special launch offer (details of that to follow...
) - Price for Volume 2 is confirmed as £99 GBP / $149 USD, ditto on the launch offer
- No price for the SFX pack(s) yet.
Any questions, any comments, let us know
Best wishes,
The Professor (and Mongo)
You'll find them here:
For anyone who wants to take a peek: