WINDPIPES

In 2023 we were given a small bellows operated wooden pipe organ, similar in size to an Indian Harmonium but with wooden pipes instead of reeds. Initially we thought it could make a nice, simple, cheap and cheerful Kontakt library but once we started recording we knew this could be something more.

A full size pipe organ has stops that create variations in tone so we thought we could do a similar thing, only with real sounds as opposed to the facsimiles produced by a real pipe organ. We settled on a range of sounds that could be produced by the movement of air. We recorded real voices for Vox Humana and euphonium for Brass for example, with the idea being to combine and blend the sounds in the manner of stops on an organ.

The plan was to host it all in one user interface but as it grew it became apparent that it was going to be a bit unwieldy so we decided it was more useful as a collection of individual wind blown instruments that can be layered up in multis to get the effect of using the different stops or drawbars on an organ.

There are 13 patches covering 10 different instruments. They're not exhaustive samplings (it was never the intention) but each patch is designed to work as a potential layer within the context of the instrument, to work equally well by themselves or when used with other timbres such as strings, pads etc.

The Instruments were recorded in the beautiful Stella Maris Chapel with two different microphone positions (Near, and Far) which you can control on the main gui. When not in use mic positions can be switched off by clicking the on/off button which unloads the samples to conserve cpu. Each mic position can be independently transposed + or - 1 octave, panned and has its own envelope.

There is also a Drive level control for Distortion as well as controls for Replika, the Native Instruments delay unit.

An FX tab gives access to the filters, a Rhythm Step-mod and Scatter Box.

The Filters are a High Pass, a single band Mid Freq and a Lo Pass.

The Rhythm Step-mod works on volume and can be used to create effects from a simple tremolo through to more complex rhythms.

Scatter Box is MODWHEEL's convolution IR effect. (see PDWHEE.

Pipe Organ Wooden.

Indian Harmonium.

Harmonium Bass.

Melodica.

Euphonium.

Bottle.

Voice Hi1 Voice Hi2 Voice Low.

Whistling.

Mouth Perc 1 Mouth Perc 2.

Bugle.

Included in the library is a folder of Multis for use in a surround environment. The Multis have "4.0" in the name (e.g. 01 Pipe Organ Wooden_4.0.nkm) to denote they are 4 channel or quad.

The outputs have been assigned as follows: Near mic - Out 1-2, Far mic - Out 3-4.

These Kontakt outputs can then be assigned to track inputs within your DAW so you can have independent control as to where they are placed in the soundfield.