I frequently get asked: “What sound/samples libraries do you use?” and my question is always between commercial and custom sample libraries, however leaning towards the custom ones, since they tend to have a more expressive nature. I have been recording my personal libraries for many years, but lately also been thinking about releasing them for commercial consumption, since many of the samples will allow other composers more unique- and crazy sounding means for expression.
In other words… Welcome to Tonehammer…
Tonehammer™ concept:
Essentially Tonehammer™ is about creating innovative, affordable, high quality and instant downloadable samples for composers. We believe that composers should be able to pick individual instruments instead of buying massive libraries and only use a fraction of the samples. All our instruments are priced between $29-49 and we only sell instruments that we use ourselves for multi award-winning soundtracks, commercials and trailers.
Tonehammer™ November 2008 launch:
We are releasing eight different instruments for our November 15th Launch:
1. Epic Tom Ensemble Vol. 1
2. Epic Tom Ensemble Vol. 2
3. Hang Drum
4. Marching Band / Drum Corpse
5. Old Busted Granny Piano
6. Frendo (custom designed instrument)
7. Emotional Drones Vol. 1
8. Whale Drum
All the instruments are recorded in painful detail and we typically record at 8-10 velocities and 8-10 repetitions (RR) pr. note, including all imaginable- and unimaginable articulations. The majority of our instruments are recorded in a dedicated orchestral hall with state-of-the-art Neumann microphones.
Tonehammer™ founders:
The company was founded in August 2008 by British Academy Award Winning (BAFTA) Composer, Troels Folmann and Mix Foundation / TEC Awarded Sound Designer and Musician, Mike Peaslee.
Tonehammer™ Teaser Trailer:
We will be releasing individual instrument demos over the course of November, however we invite you to take a look- and listen to our pre-launch teaser trailer. The teaser is 100% made from our eight upcoming instruments:
Imagine you only had one sound to compose from? How much could you tweak this sound to become a living, breathing composition with a variety of different textures? Well… I decided to spend a few hours last night by using a single “clap” sound as my source material. Everything you are about to hear is derived from this one sound and manipulated through editing, filtering and a variety of FX including delays, glitching, vocoders, distortion, time stretching, time freezing and so forth.
Feel free to listen to the demos below. The first link contains the actual composition, which starts by the clap sound. You can also download the composition and my raw clap edits. You will note some high pitch sounds in the last part of the edits – these were looped and tuned down to become basses and synths. I essentially ran them through a variety of plugins to shape and sculpt them. The ambient drones were created by playing chords with the synths, which were then timefrozen (using timefreezer).
The concept is really to dive deep into the source and keep on sculpting it through plugins until it becomes something you like. All the percussion what generated from super tiny “bleep” 10ms sounds from the clap. The bass drum was created by tuning clap 32 semi tones and cutting the attack tight. The snare was made by time stretching the clap. All percussion was processed through a vocoder. Anyway … Enough rambling …
Feel free to listen to one of my latest personal inventions. Essentially an experiment which is a mixture of Wagner and Grieg inspired pieces. The music is divided into two main sections. The first part is a soft, swelling type of epic intro using staccato for strings and woodwinds, while also having layers sustained swells for strings and brass. The second part is a harder, syncopated type of orchestration, which combines several layers and counterpoints using staccato for strings, brass and woodwinds.
The music was composed with an upcoming sample library from ProjectSam, which is one of my favourite developers of orchestral samples.
So I decided to try out a strange, strange experiment. The core concept was to take a random photography of my world and create music out of whatever was in the shot. So ended up with this beautiful image of our lovely Ikea dinner table. You will notice a variety of objects on the table and most importantly four objects: “CB Candle Light Holder”, “Box with Matches”, “Mexican Coke” and a regular “Waterbottle”. I essentially brought these objects into a larger hall room and sampled them extensively. I poured water into the candle light holder and recorded it at different water levels (pitch) and at different velocities. The box with matches was used as a shaker. The mexican coke was also recorded at different water levels, so I had all the semi tones I could generate and finally the watter bottle, which turned out to be amazing. The water bottle sounded crazy good when it got tuned down, so I ended up tuning it down 32-semi tones, which generated this wonderful taiko like sound. Please note that all the “instruments” were recorded with natural reverb, which is key for me in terms of making the samples breath and come alive. The background ambiences were made by using timefreezer VST (www.timefreezer.net) on individual samples of the candle light holder.
Example of Candle light holder, Matches, Mexican Coke and Water bottle.
Example of Water bottle tuned down 32 semi-tones to work as dark, deep bass drum.
This percussive reel displays a great deal of my custom percussion recordings. I have been recording custom percussion samples for several years using a variety of different techniques (ex. solo percussion with two sticks, ensemble percussion with 10 sticks, exotic/home made percussion etc). The majority of the percussion samples have been sampled between 6-20 velocity layers and between 5-10 repetition pr. layer. All the custom percussion has been recorded in halls, since the natural reflection of a hall brings a variety of dynamics to the instruments that cannot be reproduced with artificial/algorithmic reverbs.
So I have previously mentioned some of my favorite VST plugins such as Dblue Glitch and so forth. However I recently came across another amazing plugin called TimeFreezer. TimeFreezer essentially allows you to freeze any given part of a waveform and dive deeply into the sound by creating a seamless loop around it. Feel free to check it out yourself on www.timefreezer.net – and a short word of warning – go for the demo on the right side. The one of the left got some … vocal issues … But the plugin is absolutely fantastic.
Was recently interview for the Virtual Instruments Magazine, which is the leading magazine within the world of computer based music. The interview is rather extensive and goes in-depth on a variety of the techniques and methodologies used in my compositions, including descriptions of setup/rig/gear, composition of micro-scores, how to evolve as a composer, orchestrating with midi and making 100% convincing mock-ups using custom sampling, which is one of my big darlings. I am gonna go way more into custom sampling on GDC, since it is one of the most powerful tools that a modern composer can add to her/his array of tools.
So the free Hang Drum library made me think about another essential free plugin that I have been using for years, namely Dblue Glitch. It is – hands down – one of the best plugins I have used and can do absolutely amazing things to a piece of music. It may be old news … But if don’t have a clue what I am talking about … Please, please go to Dblue’s website and download it now.
You will nn..nnnnn.nnnnnnnnnoooo…oooooooo.OOOO….T regrrrrrrrrrret itttttt…
I just heard a really good set of free Hang Drum samples playing through a free VSTi. I have sampled my own Hang Drum multiple times, but really impressed with the sound of the VSTi. The Hang Drum is extremely complex to sample due to its resonance qualitie, which is why it should ideally be recorded on a scoring stage, which is my next upcoming home project.
