The bunker was my personal recording studio for two years, and yes, it is literally an underground bunker, constructed as a civilisation bomb shelter at the end of WWII in Copenhagen, Denmark. It remained on standby during the Cold War, but then the city started renting it's vast network of bunkers out, and many musicians jumped on the chance to have an underground space where they could make as much noise as they wanted, including a friend of mine, who turned his bunker into a fully fledged recording studio, and then rented it out to me. Wooden floor, acoustic treatment, coffee machine, it had everything except a toilet or indeed running water, so working there long hours required a bit of planning. Nevertheless, I loved that place, it was my creative space and where Bunker Strings was developed and recorded. And needless to say I named my company after the bunker. Sadly, my friend moved away and cancelled the lease with the city, so the bunker is no more.
I knew this day would come, so the last time I was down there (before the pandemic), before I left, I recorded all the sounds that had been a part of my daily life for years: Heavy blast doors being slammed and struck with mallets, locks clicking, heavy metal levers falling into place. And then I turned them into a percussion library.
To get the most out of the sounds, a bespoke Bunker PERC engine was built, which gives you total control to shape or completely mangle each hit, on a per sound basis. It also includes a special reverse version of the PERC engine, which plays a reversed sound on key down, and the normal hit on key up - this way, all you have to do to get a perfectly synced reverse transition or woosh, is adjust length of the midi note, and then align the end of it with the grid. There's a lot more to Bunker PERC than that though, so if you're interested listen to demos, watch the walkthrough video and more here.
But you're not stuck with only using the sounds in the engine, because every single sample is included as unlocked WAV files too.
Bunker PERC is available and requires the full version of Kontakt 6.7.1 or later. It's also on intro sale until June 23 for $29 (reg. $49 will commence on June 24).
Cheers,
Nicolaj, Bunker Samples
