New libraries from Hollow Sun and Ian Boddy

The first time I ever met Hollow Sun‘s Steve Howell in the flesh was at a trade show at Olympia 2 in London. The bearded wonder was lurking in the shadows at the Alesis stand where the Fusion was getting one of it’s first public outings in the UK. We went for a wander and we bumped into an equally hirsute gentleman with a soft Geordie accent and affable manner. Steve and the gentleman shot the shit about various things, introduced me and off we went. It then sank in that I had just met Ian Boddy, synth legend and sound designer extraodinaire! Apart from revelling in being in the presence of two of the UK’s finest synthesists and samplists, I was left wondering that if I wanted to get on in this business, would I have to grow a beard and sport a grey haired ponytail!

Anyway, Steve & Ian have now collaborated on some new products that sees Steve rejuvenating Ian’s latest line of sample libraries and doing the now trademark Kontakt v3/v4 scripting job on them.

First up is Radiophonica…

Radiophonica is the first title in Ian Boddy’s ‘Waveforms’ series of sample libraries. All the sounds were produced and recorded directly from analogue hardware synthesisers such as the venerable EMS VCS3 and MiniMoog and also the Roland 100M, Doepfer, Analogue Solutions and Analogue Systems modular synths.

No digital processing was used. Any effects you hear such as flanging, phasing, reverb or echo are from the various analogue components of the modular systems used or through the Metasonix valve lowpass filter.

The intention is to provide a comprehensive library of sounds that are synonymous with the name of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop from their early work on such seminal programs as Doctor Who.

As such, the sounds are intended to have that authentic analogue, organic, retro sci-fi character that is so appealing about those early synthesiser soundtracks. Many of the sounds and textures evoke early electronica such as the works of Morton Subotnik and the ‘electronic tonalities’ of the movie ‘Forbidden Planet’ by Louis and Bebe Barron as well as other early pioneers working in their labs towards a new sound of the future in a post-war world.

The library is divided sensibly into logical categories that include ‘Atmospherics’, ‘Drones’, ‘Nasty’, ‘Noise’, ‘OneShots’, ‘Oscillations’, ‘Pulses’ and ‘Weird’. All live up their name!

The Hollow Sun Edition of ‘Radiophonica’ comes with a scripted panel that gives quick and easy control over these wonderfully atmospheric and evocative sounds.

Radiophonica Panel

The TONE section allows you to apply several serial filters to the sounds to transform the raw samples while the AMP ENVELOPE allows you to shape the sound to your requirements. The ‘Effects’ tab allows you to apply stereo phasing, chorus, delay and reverb to the raw sounds. The panel has been carefully designed to complement the raw beauty of these exquisite retro sounds.

Whatever genre of electronica you’re working in, this is a ‘must have’ so don your white lab coat and explore the rich sonic territory of this unique library.

Radiophonica demo by Hollow Sun

And released today is Airwaves…

With bizarre interference patterns, distant and squealing heterodynes, garbled ‘found’ voices floating around the radio waves, hidden morse code signals, ethereal rhythmic pulses from the outer reaches and distorted transmissions from all over the world, these unique sounds were recorded over a four month period, scouring the airwaves using a high quality and powerful radio transciever and antenna tuner. Further months were spent disseminating these recordings, carefully picking out those which can be used in a musical (or otherwise) context to create a library unlike any other.

Many of the sounds were then enhanced using AAS Tassman 4, Audioease Altiverb, Periscope & Riverrun, DaevlPlugs, Hipno, iZotope Spectron, NI Reaktor, Pluggo, PSP Nitro, SFX Machine Pro and Waves RCompressor & L1 Limiter to create a wide variety of organic textures – these are sounds that are all around us all the time but we never get to hear them.

Until now… and especially not like this!

The sounds are categorised as ‘Atmospheres’, ‘Backgrounds’, ‘Noises’, ‘Signals’ and ‘Voices’ for easy navigation.

And for quick and easy tweaking and customisation of these atmospheric (literally!!) sounds, a scripted panel gives you quick access for further moulding, shaping and sculpting of the sounds to your your requirements with a comprehensive collection of multiFX to apply to further transform them.

AIrwaves Panel

Airwaves by Hollow Sun

Both priced at $40 each, these represent incredible value and are thoroughly unique libraries.