Metaltines is an expressively nuanced assortment of metal lamellaphones from the mind of master instrument inventor Bart Hopkin. Featuring 4 unique instruments with wildly distinctive shapes and mechanics, but with the same sharp, yet richly resonant metal essence that shimmers brightly through each one. It includes the mallet K1 & K2, Sit or Play, and T-Rod-on-Tine. They’ve included a wide spectrum of playable articulations, sound-design textures, pads, drones and multiple microphones/channel options to give you complete musical freedom.
Mallet K 1 and 2 are mallet kalimbas with large, wide metal keys. Playing with mallets tends to favor the overtones more than the fundamental. On the larger K 1, this results in a clangy-sounding mix of overtones. The smaller K 2 makes a very nice bass, as the mallets impart a punchy sound that is different from either plucked tines or strings. Both Mallet K 1 and K 2 feature two mic positions and Mallet K 2 also has a direct line out from the pickup
Sit or Play is a set of three benches, each of which has a pair of circular steel tongue drums embedded in the seat. The tone of the tongue drums is greatly enhanced by the combination of the bench tops acting as soundboards and the resonance of the air partially enclosed under the seats. Sit or Play features hard mallet, soft mallet, metal mallet, finger, and hand articulations with two separate mic positions.
T-Rod-On-Tine has short lengths of hardened-steel threaded rods attached at right angles near the ends of springsteel tines. These assemblies have various modes of vibration producing multiple frequencies, and different tones are brought out by striking in different ways. To produce all these different sounds, their mallet types included rubber, metal, hard, ping pong, rubber band, pick, finger, and mallet bottom. The result is a wide range of different sounds as the different methods of playing create unique, complex vibrations with swirling overtones and bassy resonance.
They’ve faithfully sampled tine plucks and percussive hand slaps on the instrument bodies, with two stereo mic positions. Also included is a wide selection of custom FX presets and plenty of their signature sound designed ambient content, crafted from the raw acoustic source to give you complete creative freedom.
CONTENTS
The Kontakt interface includes a suite of automation-ready sound-shaping controls to give you total creative flexibility. You have control over swell, attack, release, offset, vibrato, filter, pitch (coarse & fine), articulation switching, cross-fading and layering, and so much more. They’ve also included 20 unique sound-designed custom FX presets to give you lots of creative options.
This library comes with an adaptable LFO system, with selectable LFO shape, modulation target parameter, speed, intensity, tempo-syncing and fade-in time. You can also apply your choice of 12 lowpass, high-pass and FX filters, with assignable modulation targets such as velocity, modwheel, expression, after-touch, key position and step-sequencer table control. Their customizable arpeggiator offers a velocity table and control over arp direction, timing, swing, randomization and duration. They’ve included a key and scale lock system to constrain your notes to common scales and keys for easy melodic composition and live performance.
The interface is rounded-out by their modular FX rack panel, with 18 different DSP effect modules that you can assign in any of 10 available slots, in any order that you wish. You’ll find classic phaser, flanger, delay, distortion, amp and cab simulators, compressors, EQ, rotator and so much more. The Reverb effect includes their favorite convolution reverb impulse responses, including 99 different rooms, halls, chambers and outdoor environments, plus another 40 custom FX impulses to radically transform the sound and open up whole new worlds of musical possibility. They’ve added a great bank of FX rack chain factory presets to get you started!
