Review: Density by Mammoth Audio

The world of cinematic sound design libraries is a huge landscape of products promising to be the most current sounding, innovative and essentially the best. Mammoth Audio are the new developers on the block and present us with Density, a library that, as they say is “built for by composers, for composers”. Density is an experimental instrument with over 1500+ organic one shots and three playable instruments designed to add horror, sci fi and an all round huge sound into your next bombastic production.

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Review: Density by Mammoth Audio

Density clocks in at 7.26 GB covering all manner of sound design, including the usual suspects such as hits, downers, braams. It also contains three playable instruments, namely a cello, brass and a throat singer. The addition of a throat singer really does live up to Mammoth Audio’s claim of being experimental. Also included is a step sequencer and a macro system, comprising of bit crusher and an analogue distortion effects. There is also a range of effects including delay, chorus, filters and eq. The plugin operates a two layer system so for example you can have braams on the left hand side of the midi controller with say booms or hits on the right. This can lead to some very cool stacking of sounds and you can add effects and change the ADSR and macros independently on each channel. Everything is contained in one NKI file, using a snapshot system built into the GUI. In the surface of things, so far so good.

Density is available in 3 versions
DENSITY – Premium Edition normally sells for $349.00 from Mammoth Audio
DENSITY – Standard Edition normally sells for $177.00 from Mammoth Audio
DENSITY – One-Shots Download Bundle normally sells for  $149.00 from Mammoth Audio

Thoughts

Before I go any further, it is disclaimer time. Density has been around since the start of 2020 and I did purchase it upon release. This means I have had almost a year of working with the instrument. A huge part of library purchase for me is generally can it do something that my existing libraries can’t? So while I will be reviewing the usual areas such as range of sound design, GUI and workflow use, I will also be looking into utility in my experience and exactly how experimental this library is.

To begin, when you open the instrument the GUI instantly hits you. The two layers are instantly clear, the colour scheme pops with a fiery vibrancy. I love the little touches like the animated orbs on the distort and mangle macros. The two channels, ADSR and FX are clearly labelled and you can switch between only having one channel active or both at the same time. Both channels are active by default which results in two clear light sections on my controller, the orange channel one keys on my left and the green channel two keys on my right. Given that every sample can now be found within the snap shot system, this is a neat, compact yet intuitive design.

When selecting a sound to load into the channels, you have two categories, One Shot or Playable Instruments. Each category has a sub menu although if you want just an instrument of booms, you can select the preset setting “Sub Booms Complete”. This will map every boom across the keyboard. I for one like stacking and experimenting playing different combinations of sounds together. So out of the box, how does it sound?

The sound design is excellent. There is no denying that Mammoth Audio really are creative in taking organic samples and making them sound cinematic but not over processed. The booms have a great low end and more importantly are varied. From close booms with a thud or distant booms, Mammoth Audio have us covered. There are tonal booms also which can be controlled with a pitch knob in semitone increments. Now, I have to admit I am not hugely a fan of this as I prefer keyswitches or the option to map the sample tonally across the midi controller. That said, it works effectively but becomes a tedious issue when playing a series of braams with different pitches. For one shots it’s fine and it’s worthy of note that the playable instruments are mapped across the midi controller.

Back to the sounds though! The braams are up next and you get a plethora of options from soft, dark braams to full in your face. A braam for every occasion that also happen to sound fantastic. Clean, crisp and will easily be heard in any mix. The downers are punchy and the drones full of atmosphere. The hits again have a huge range of categories, nine to be exact. With 23 samples in any category, that is a total of 207 hits. With these categories unfolding, you can see how Mammoth Audio have managed to design over 1500 samples of us to use. That gives this instrument a lot of weight as a one shot player. The hits are very well designed although I’d recommend stacking them to really make them smack. You can tell they have been designed for this use as each has several layers which can combine nicely with others. I tend to have hits on one channel with booms on the other and play several at one time. Reverses are split into tails and no tails with the option of some tonal reverses too.

At this point it’s a good idea to let you know you also get the WAV oneshots which I prefer to use when it comes to precise samples like reverses. The instrument will stretch them according to the tempo of your project, but I prefer to do this manually. Finally, we have risers, stutters and transitions which all do exactly what they say they are going to, also to a high standard. So my impressions of the sound design is that everything is well designed, very clean and definitely should be stacked together. These are the bread and butter of cinematic trailer or hybrid composition. Do I use them? Yes, of course. They are great samples. Do they offer anything new and experimental? Yes an no. While you can find a lot of these kinds of sounds elsewhere, I know Mammoth Audio went to great lengths creating interesting sample sources. I know for example, there has been a fair amount of destruction going on in the creation of these samples. A poor acoustic guitar springs to mind as shown in one of their promotional videos. This does show dedication to the cause of being experimental and pushing the sampling boundaries.

So what really does set Density apart from the crowd? Simple answer, the three included playable instruments. We have a cello, tuba and a throat singer in both playable form and loop form. The first two could be seen as fairly standard but the way these have been sampled is very different. Firstly, they have been close mic’d which has resulted in a wonderful crisp and clean sound. No massive amounts of reverb, or far away sounds. These both have a large amount of detail.

Secondly, there are stacks of articulations on both and these are designed to be more short, FX and cluster based. There are no longs for the cello aside from harmonics but some cool experimental sampling ideas such as strumming with case and bouncing pizzicato. The tuba has some longs although if you try to use the mod wheel here you just add distortion and bit crushing. Bet these are not designed like a traditional string and brass library, they are more for SFX and to be mangled and manipulated. Here the experimental nature of the library is apparent with some sounds you’d use, and some that may be too far out there. That said, the options are there should you want something different.

Finally, the throat singer is for me a highlight of the library. There are so many articulations from braams, drones and hits to risers and vocal effects. It’s just a one of a kind instrument and again recorded very close. Completely experimental and very unique. I’ve used it subtly in a couple of cues and the effects have been fun!

Finally, the loop section has the playable instruments divided into various rhythms and a sousaphone, guitars and some clocks added for good measure. These are all very welcome and can combine some much needed movement. These are playable so you do not need to use the pitch control which is fantastic when following a chord progression. Again, these are recorded really close for processing.

My overall impression of Density is that it is trying to push the boundaries of cinematic samples. There are some superb sounds here and I personally love the design.

I am a huge fan of clean and close sampling as I prefer to use my own effect chains and mangle to my hearts content. That might not be for everyone though as a lot of composers like working with everything processed. Again though, out of the box, the majority of the samples and one shots are production ready. I did feel to make the library more complete there could be some designed tempo synced pulses. I know there are playable instrument pulses, but some hybrid pulses would have been a nice addition. Also, some pings and alarms would be great, especially designed so cleanly as all of the other samples. With a hefty price tag, I’d really hope for a complete one stop of all things sound design as opposed to a couple of gaps here and there. Value for money has to be taken into consideration and while the instrument and samples are both excellent, I’m hoping for some small additions to be added in a future update.

For any composer wanting to stand out from the crowd Density is fantastic. For any composer who is happy with creating their own effects and tweaking sound design, again Density is fantastic. I think if you are just starting out with big epic hybrid music,

Density has a learning curve to it. That said, it encourages you to layer and tweak which will provide you with some necessary skills for the future. For me, Density is a great instrument full of excellent sound design. The layout is great and the experimental nature for me is really welcome. In terms of utility, I’ve found myself reaching for Density when I want something a little different. I’ve also used it when I simply want a different pools of samples to work with to keep my compositions sounding fresh. In terms of doing something different, while the bread and butter categories can be found elsewhere, you will not find the playable instruments or loops found anywhere else and presented with such diverse articulations. While a bit hefty on the price tag, I can appreciate the time, love and destruction that has gone into making Density. A little update to add to the content slightly and this would be a one stop shop for everything sound design. Mammoth Audio have started releasing a free sample pack to it’s subscribers each month so I feel this is being addressed over time. All in all, a solid product with some great sounds!

Facts

7.26 GB of free disk space

Over 1500 samples and three playable instruments

Loop section included

Kontakt 5.7.3 and above (Full Version)

.WAV FORMAT, 48KHZ (96KHZ) / 24BIT

Density is available in 3 versions
DENSITY – Premium Edition normally sells for $349.00 from Mammoth Audio
DENSITY – Standard Edition normally sells for $177.00 from Mammoth Audio
DENSITY – One-Shots Download Bundle normally sells for  $149.00 from Mammoth Audio

Demos of Density by Mammoth Audio

Videos of Density by Mammoth Audio

Contributor Pete Checkley reviews Density by Mammoth Audio
“The world of cinematic sound design libraries is a huge landscape of products promising to be the most current sounding, innovative and essentially the best. Mammoth Audio are the new developers on the block and present us with Density, a library as they say is “built for by composers, for composers”. Density is an experimental instrument with over 1500+ organic one shots and three playable instruments designed to add horror, sci fi and an all round huge sound into your next bombastic production.”