Gothic Instruments DRONAR Cinematic Atmospheres KONTAKT

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Gothic Instruments DRONAR Cinematic Atmospheres KONTAKT

DRONAR: Cinematic Atmospheres is the fifth module in Gothic Instruments’ series of atmosphere creation tools for Kontakt and, unlike previous modules, the focus turns to the FX dial courtesy of some weird and wonderful fields recordings by Alessandro Camnasio.

From intensely high pitched to the deepest low frequencies, eerie and haunting, dark and mysterious, not to mention those that are simply offensive to the ears, the FX elements in this collection will make you feel cold, tense and inextricably uncomfortable. They are, therefore, the perfect ingredients for using DRONAR to create evocative musical soundscapes and atmospheric pads that will emotionally charge your next modern cinematic production – from mystery and horror to sci-fi and thriller genres.

Dark echoing winds, deep rumbles, anxiety-inducing atmospheres… beautifully warped and exquisitely alluring or the stuff of your darkest nightmares… the sounds in DRONAR Cinematic Atmospheres cover a wide frequency spectrum that make this module a minefield of intriguing audio to be explored and expressively played.

Coupled with DRONAR’s dashboards of easy-to-use controls and effects, these sounds are heavily customisable and can be tweaked to exactly meet the needs of your project. What´s more, fascinating tuneful presets created by guest composers will give you an instant starting point.

THE SOUNDS

The emphasis of Cinematic Atmospheres is on the FX dial, with more FX sounds included than previous DRONAR modules for a wide palette of eerie and interesting atmospheric audio.

Created by Hollywood Trailer Sound Designer Alessandro Camnasio, the extraordinary environmental recordings included electrical sparks, magnetic interference, rain, thunder, water and many more which were then processed and manipulated to take them to more abstract levels. The titles of these samples alone are evocative – Cyber Screecher, Rainy Flutes, Violent Glider, Boiling, Burning Sparks, Hi-Tech to name just a few.

These FX can be used on their own as a pure sound design layer or blended in the background behind a pad to add a texture that heightens the uncertainty and mystery in the overall sound.

WHO IS IT FOR?

Whilst primarily geared towards film and TV composers, DRONAR Cinematic Atmospheres is also a useful tool for dark ambient and electronic music tracks as well as music that crosses over those genres, for example cutting edge pop, rock and EDM songs.

DRONAR creates mind-expanding atmospheres from a very small number of notes played. It automatically spreads out the chord in the mid-range, adds a root bass note, a high note and then adds evolving sound effects. 8 simultaneous different sounds are then animated with LFOs, a rhythm sequencer and arpeggiators to bring them to life for a result that is rich and dramatic.

Such simple actions free up your spare hand to expressively control the dials and record the changes as a performance in your DAW. DRONAR instantly adds low, mid-range and high sounds plus sound effects, so you barely need any other sounds to quickly create a complete piece of atmospheric, expressive music.

Beginner and Expert Friendly

Needing to only play a few notes and move a few dials to get such rich expression is inviting for beginners, but an expert will get further by knowing which notes to play and how to express emotions using the dials. Beyond the shimmering immediacy of the ‘Main Page’ awaits a whole other world of expert control, turning DRONAR into a vast modular multi-timbral synth/sampler with multiple independent arpeggiators. Expect to lose hours in an addictive, hypnotic tweak-state of sound-and-dial wonder…

Gothic Instruments DRONAR Cinematic Atmospheres KONTAKT

THE CONTROLS

Main Page

Hear the immediate impact on the sound and get a good understanding of the way DRONAR works simply by tweaking the six dials on the main page…

INTENSITY DIAL (also controlled by the Mod Wheel) takes you from silent to powerful by fading up through different velocity layers.

MOVEMENT DIAL has a global effect on the intensity of the arpeggiators – set it high for strong effects and zero for a flat pad sound.

HI, MID and LO DIALS control the automatically generated high notes, mid-range notes and bass notes. Moving these dials has a huge expressive effect on the music. It’s only like using a mixing desk and yet – having it so accessible in front of you encourages you to work with the balance as part of the original creative expression, instead of a mix decision later on.

FX DIAL controls the level of 20-second futuristic, unpitched sound effects loops in the mix and adds instant movement and complexity.

Dive deeper…

The Expert Page

The Expert Page shows you all the settings for the current, last played Drone from the 12 Drone Keys. Each drone has four layers – FX, HI, MID, LO, and the Expert page presents a separate set of controls for each layer, like a rack of four synths, or four mixing desk channels. Each layer consists of two different sounds.

Need some inspiration? Hit the ‘Randomize samples’ button on the Expert Page and Dronar will keep all your settings but instantly swap the samples in the 8-named sound slots (2 per layer). New sound variations will abound and if it’s not quite the sound you’re after, keep hitting the button for more. Want to thicken up your sound? Each layer has a THICK button which adds in extra notes. Hearing the sound you want? Easily save the settings with the ‘Store Drone’ button.

LFO & FX Page

Add movement to your sound, including panning, vibrato or siren effects with the LFO settings. Or tweak the Drone Effects to distort or dampen the sound, or add thickness, interest and colour. Reverb and Delay sends can also be controlled from this page.

Arpeggiator Page

Get sounds really moving or pulsing over time, synced to your DAW’s host Tempo with DRONAR’s multiple and truly unique independent arpeggiators including PITCH, INTENSITY and FILTER.

PITCH: Whereas other arpeggiators re-trigger the note at every step, DRONAR’s pitch arpeggiator plays all the notes that you are holding down but cross-fades between them. This is like having the different notes of a chord all going through different channels on a mixing desk, then turning the faders in succession to create the impression of an arpeggio. The beauty of this approach is that you can choose how strong the arpeggiator is.

INTENSITY: Where other arpeggiators control the volume of a sound, the INTENSITY arpeggiator is more expressive by controlling the dynamic velocity layer of the sound. It is as if the values you set here are moving the Mod Wheel up and down in a pattern, fading up and down between soft and intense samples.

Master FX Page

DRONAR’s Master FX page features standard effects including EQ, Compressor, Delay and Gate. DRONAR also includes a couple of digital (algorithmic) reverbs and a set of convolution impulses including some creative and unusual impulses for sound design – again, experimentation is the key!

SUMMARY OF FEATURES

•Expressive soundscapes and atmospheric pads creator
•144 .nki patches
•1,662 samples
•Total library size: 3.76GB
•Developed for the full (paid for) version of Kontakt 5.6.8 or higher
•Sounds recorded and processed by Hollywood Trailer sound designer Alessandro Camnasio
•Contains unique and highly useable FX for building textures
•Evolving, rich and complex sounds that would otherwise take hours to create
•Guest presets created by professional film composers
•Covers a wide frequency spectrum for ultimate versatility
•Highly customisable with easy to use controls
•The ideal tool for modern movie, tv and video game soundtracks
•Excellent for mysery, sci-fi, thriller and horror scenes
•Also great for dark ambient and electronic music
•Expert and beginner friendly
•6 pages of simple controls deliver massive control
•Dive deeper with DRONAR´s unique independent arpeggiators
•Random button for instant and inspiring new sounds
•Onboard FX provide further sound design opportunities