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TMK001 Polyphonic Wretch Machine – Reason Edition

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TMK001 Totalmusik Polyphonic Wretch Machine – Reason Edition

Description

Reason refill with Combinator patches, NNXT programs, and raw samples for use in custom NNXT or NN19 patches.

This is the culmination of years of planning and recording – Totalmusik’s first library focusing on the sounds of the Metasonix S-1000 Wretch Machine, the pinnacle of decades of advancement in Vacuum and gas-tube synthesizer design.

S1000_2The Metasonix S-1000 Wretch Machine is the only commercially available synthesizer to use gas-tube oscillators as the fundamental sound source. This technology predates most of the recognized synthesis advancements of the 20th century, and was abandoned in favor of integrated circuits. The waveforms generated by these gas-filled wonders of yesterday are a beauty unto themselves – wildly variable, inherently unique, and filled with atmosphere.

At the helm of this recording is Michael Weeks, who has been involved with the S-1000 Wretch Machine since its inception. Brought to life at Metasonix with help from Michael’s constant prodding to create an integrated rack mount synthesizer, and named after his band The Wretch, Michael has clocked more hours behind the wheel of the Wretch Machine than anyone outside of Eric Barbour.

The goal of this library is simple: provide the most comprehensive and raw presentation of the heart of the Wretch Machine to sound designers via painstakingly recorded samples of its oscillators. Utilizing a scripted interface in Kontakt 4, we provide basic building blocks for sound designers to truly integrate these incredible waveforms into their studio environment.

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TRACKING THE SAMPLES

For this library, no attention to detail was spared in capturing the true essence of this instrument. The Wretch Machine features a dual gas-tube oscillator configuration – each oscillator is switchable between three waveforms: Saw, Squarer and Subosc (squarer with suboctave).

We painstakingly sampled every single note of each waveform of each oscillator chromatically from C0-C5 (5 octaves), giving us 60 samples per oscillator, per waveform. Due to the unique tracking range and scale (the S-1000 requires a HZ/v CV as opposed to the much more standard V/Oct CV) we hand tuned EACH INDIVIDUAL NOTE of both oscillators for the truest pitch we could, extending the advertised 3 octave range to a full 5. The idiosyncrasies involved in manually tuning per pitch lend this library to slight pitch imperfections per note, which is captured in full in the library. Each note mapped across the keyboard is an individual sample, meaning a larger library size, but a much more robust, authentic and unique sounding emulation.

Below, you can see the raw waveforms as well as the resulting variations after being transferred to tape.

 

 

SAW – Raw Saw – Tape
Squarer – Raw Squarer – Tape
Subosc – Raw Subosc – Tape

Audio demo’s of the raw waves:

 

TO THE TAPE

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Realizing that everything sounds better through tape, and our personal philosophy that “Old is Good, Old and Broken is BetterTM” – we enlisted the assistance of our TEAC Reel to Reel to handle our tape transfer needs.

No expense was spared – we have carefully kept this machine in “used” condition in our studio for several years, and due to a fierce hatred of breaking shrinkwrap on our last few rolls of Ampex 456, we have used the same transfer reel for the last year.

We painstakingly did a complete transfer of all of the raw waveforms, running them as hot and pure onto the abused tape as we could, and the results are stunning. “Warmth”, “Grit”, “Enhanced Mids”, “Smoothed Highs”, “Warble”, “Wow and flutter” and “Tape Dropouts” are some of the choice adjectives we can use to describe this subset of the samples. All imperfections of the transfer process are left intact, to further create uniqueness and specialness to this library.

With the Tape transfer process completed, we also went back and recorded the Saw waveforms to tape at 15ips, and then transferred back in at 7.5ips. This dropped the samples an Octave, creating an artificial Saw Suboctave for use in this sample set.

 

REASON

Due to the raw nature of the samples, we felt the best way to present them was in an integrated sampler. We chose NNXT due to it’s flexible nature and powerful layering options. In the library, we provide you with several categories of starting points, and some programmed variations to get you running in no time. We also provide you with individual raw instruments as well as a multi with each waveform for purists who want to experiment with creating their own voice architectures.

PRESETS

This Reason refill comes with Combinator patches, NNXT programs, and raw samples for use in custom NNXT or NN19 patches.We have included a selection of additional Combinator presets based on the provided library to show some ideas of what can be done with the raw samples.

Below are audio demos of the presets for the libraries: