TIPS & TRICKS

1 - Harshness vs. softness

Some of our instruments can be a little harsh, depending on taste.

Whether you use real instruments or software, we recommend that you always use an equaliser. Above all, this allows you to position the sound in the spectrum according to the role you assign to it. From a creative point of view, it also allows you to use an instrument outside its comfort zone. But it also avoids the systematic use of a compressor, which is not the friend you might think it is.

Don't hesitate to use an equalizer to calm down the frequencies that don't interest you in a specific context. This will make your composition more balanced and make mixing much easier. But avoid sharp cuts: prefer wide attenuations and very precise boosts. Most of the time you'll be aiming to quieten a particular track while retaining some content before and after.

2 - Volume difference between the presets

It's annoying, but there's a reason for it.

When you're listening to a particular preset, it's rare for all the controls to appear at their maximum value. If some presets appear to have a lower volume, it's because we anticipated that certain settings you might make would drive the instrument to saturation. We want to avoid this as much as possible. 

If the volume is too low for your taste, don't hesitate to use the level slider at the top right of the Kontakt interface. That's what it's there for.

3 - Odd looping effect

In theory, a well-made sample is a cleanly looped sample.

This is true ... unless it's a desired effect. You can love the imperfections of tape loops and seek them out for a particular grain. In some of our instruments you'll find this effect, notably Subliminal Keys and a few others in the 4MBIENCE Collection. 

The principle of working with samples is, in our view, not to be ashamed of them. Samples where you can hear the loop points are like the FM chips of the early days: some people like these imperfections. When we knew the old hardware samples of the early days, we often hunted down those unsightly clicks, but sometimes there were still some left.

Most of the time we use very long samples to preserve this effect while making it less frequent.

4 - Integrated reverb vs. external reverb

Another subject of heated debate on the forums!

There are those who don't want to use integrated reverbs. And that's understandable, as these reverbs have often been of inferior quality. 

But there are exceptions, especially since the arrival of convolution reverbs. Now we have the ability to produce custom reverbs using IR files.
This is what we offer most of the time. Either the basic reverb (Room/Hall) is enough to give depth, or we create specific IRs. And you can go very far in sound design when creating these unreal spaces!