Seurat - Cinematic Grain Recombination Engine for Kontakt

[Kaneda]

Hi,

Seurat is the first instrument to use our AGRA engine (Advanced Grain Recombination Architecture).

Essentially this is a highly-customisable granular synthesis engine, used across the two complementary voices.



Seurat allows you to manipulate the normal granular controls - grain size, grain frequency, attack and release of each grain and sample position but also adds a range of additional parameter controls for things like grain gain (volume), grain position variation (movement), the space between grains and the symmetry of grain positions in the audio flow offering a range of interesting and often unique outcomes.

Seurat offers an unconventional collection of sounds for movie scoring and sound design.

Seurat uses our powerful AGRA engine (Advanced Grain Recombination Architecture). Essentially this is a highly-customisable granular synthesis engine, Seurat allows you to manipulate the normal granular controls - grain size, grain frequency, attack and release of each grain and sample position but adds a range of additional parameter controls for things like grain gain(volume), grain position (movement), the space between grains and the symmetry of grain position in the audio flow offering a range of interesting and often unique outcomes.

Seurat comes with 707 Samples, 81 Selectable Sound Sources and 175 snapshots, each grouped into separate folders for ease of access.



Here are some of the instruments and recording techniques used in the creation of Seurat:

Violin

[*]Mesh fabric fastened flush to the bow, creating a gritty, broken sound (used for a variety of "articulations" such as tremolo and harmonics)
[*]Felt fabric fastened near the bridge to create a softened/muted sound (most notably for "Soft Violin" but other sounds as well)
[*]Attaching metal and other materials to the strings to achieve a different sound ("paperclip violin")
[*]and more....

Electric Guitar/Acoustic Guitar

[*]Home-made soft guitar picks or soft "found" material for the normal picked sounds
[*]Felt fabric and other fabrics used to mute guitar harmonics
[*]A technique used for the "moving" plucked and harmonic sounds was to move where I was plucking the string in order to create a different tone across the time of the sample
[*]Isolating and amplifying reverb tails
[*]Notes generated only from vibrating the strings with the left hand and fingers, no plucking ("ghost guitar")
[*]Notes generated only from a hammeron and then turning the volume knob up ("volumation")
and more...

Bass Guitar

[*]Normal bowed
[*]Mesh fabric bowed (similar to the violin, but not as "tonal")
[*]Bowed in a "sweet spot" near the bridge in order to create a gritty, harmonic-like, dark sound (these are the "Gritty Harmonic" sounds)

Piano

[*]Muted pedal sustain (pretty basic)
[*]Muted on and off with fabric (at the strings) while rapidly pressing the keys
[*]Muted pedal sustain pressing keys rapidly with a varying degree of dynamics
[*]Live performance of rapidly playing different intervals (octaves and whole tones, "octave etude" and "debussy's dream" respectively)
[*]And more...

Mandolin

[*]Bowed
[*]Multiple strings tuned to same note and plucked together ("mandolin unison plucked")
[*]Basic pluck with a home-made "cardboard" pick
[*]Fidget spinner
[*]And more...

Ukulele

[*]"flamenco" style plucked --using 4 fingers and rapidly plucking the same string
[*]"brushing" notes with felt fabric

https://soundcloud.com/kontakthub/sets/ ... -all-demos

Seurat is priced at £37.50 but is currently on intro pricing at £28.13 here:

https://www.kontakthub.com/product/seurat-kontakt/

[Kaneda]

Here's a new video showing some of the included raw sounds (rather than the designed snapshots)

[Fleer]

Love that name. Fitting for granular.

[tatanka]

This one is absolutely marvellous. It just has theses ethereal, athmospheric, soundscapish, ambient kind of sounds I love but as melodic playable instruments. The violin is absolutely great, "The Magician" my favourite so far. This is really outstanding stuff .

[simmo75]

This one is absolutely marvellous. It just has theses ethereal, athmospheric, soundscapish, ambient kind of sounds I love but as melodic playable instruments. The violin is absolutely great, "The Magician" my favourite so far. This is really outstanding stuff .

Can you use your own samples?

[tatanka]

simmo75: have not tried so far, it is not explicitly mentioned in the short manual but I think this is a question for Kaneda.

But in this case I would say the power of this lib really lies in the great samples AND the sondshaping options. I did not buy Headphase and Recirculate from Audio Reward cause I loved the gui and soundshaping possibilities but in case of Headphase I already have to much BOC stuff and in case of Recirculate the sounds just dont convince me in the way it is now with Seurat.

[simmo75]

simmo75: have not tried so far, it is not explicitly mentioned in the short manual but I think this is a question for Kaneda.

But in this case I would say the power of this lib really lies in the great samples AND the sondshaping options. I did not buy Headphase and Recirculate from Audio Reward cause I loved the gui and soundshaping possibilities but in case of Headphase I already have to much BOC stuff and in case of Recirculate the sounds just dont convince me in the way it is now with Seurat.

Thanks tatanka, appreciate the reply. Looks interesting and sounds lovely.

[Kaneda]

This one is absolutely marvellous. It just has theses ethereal, athmospheric, soundscapish, ambient kind of sounds I love but as melodic playable instruments. The violin is absolutely great, "The Magician" my favourite so far. This is really outstanding stuff .

Can you use your own samples?

Hi,

Kontakt does not support dynamic loading of audio, so there is no way for us to build an instrument that allows you to load your own wave files without some knowledge of the internal workings of Kontakt. To provide our users with unique and compelling instruments the internal structure and configuration is complex, with multiple groups and code that relies on certain types, lengths and locations of audio. Clearly, if you are expert in Kontakt layouts and structures, you can replace some or all of this audio however your audio is unlikely to meet the needs of the instrument structure and thus it is unlikely to work as expected. So, in short, it is possible to load your own samples but we are not prepared to offer support or guidance in doing so I'm afraid.

[Sibelius19]

simmo75: have not tried so far, it is not explicitly mentioned in the short manual but I think this is a question for Kaneda.

But in this case I would say the power of this lib really lies in the great samples AND the sondshaping options. I did not buy Headphase and Recirculate from Audio Reward cause I loved the gui and soundshaping possibilities but in case of Headphase I already have to much BOC stuff and in case of Recirculate the sounds just dont convince me in the way it is now with Seurat.

That's great to hear!
I'm so pleased you like the sound so much.

[Sibelius19]

I decided to make a video showing how to get more "randomness" in Seurat --with certain samples and settings

[rrichard63]

When does the introductory price end? Thanks in advance!

[aMUSEd]

This looks interesting, given the selection of instruments is quite small will there be addon packs since it can't easily load user samples?

[Kaneda]

When does the introductory price end? Thanks in advance!

Intro price ends 14th March. Thanks

[Kaneda]

This looks interesting, given the selection of instruments is quite small will there be addon packs since it can't easily load user samples?

Yes, we are working on expansions already although we are not sure when they will be ready.

[tatanka]

Of course I have nothing agains expansion packs

but on the other hand I would say to this:

given the selection of instruments is quite small

in connection with the soundscaping and integrated randomness the number of possible instruments is:

ENDLESS....