Review: Feedback by MODWHEEL

Feedback by Modwheel is a library made solely from capturing feedback from a guitar with various microphones. The result is an experimental and unique library that’s perfect for sound design and adding depth and resonance to your music.

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Review: Feedback by MODWHEEL

Modwheel is a small developer from New Zealand, and they created Feedback in collaboration with guitarist David Long. Capturing David as he manipulated his guitar to create all sorts of wild, untamed feedback, they used this source material to create versatile and useful instrument patches for everyone to enjoy.

Feedback sells for $89.00 full price. from MODWHEEL

Thoughts

Feedback is a fairly specific library, obviously focusing on, well, feedback. However, I was impressed with the versatility of the instrument and how Modwheel has curated the sounds while also allowing users to manipulate and tailor the sounds in real-time. There are 27 separate instrument patches, each with a slightly different vibe: some are light and ethereal, some are dark and distorted, but they all capture a truly wonderful and unique resonance that can fit into a huge variety of music. Some of the patches make use of your keyboard’s modwheel to cross-fade between various layers of feedback, from subtle and bass-y resonance to a more high-pitched, piercing shriek. The inclusion of the cross-fading options means you can really morph these sounds in real-time and implement them into your music in unique ways, such as building from tame, mild feedback to a piercing, aggressive sound all on the fly. This would be great for building tension in a track. They’ve also included a dial that morphs between the original, untouched source material, and a version that has been pitched/tuned to match the actual note that you’re pressing on your keyboard. This means these patches can be used as melodic pads and drones as well as more atonal textures. Each patch makes unique use of the modwheel, such as applying more harmonic distortion as you move the wheel up, etc. It’s a very nice touch and adds variety and life to the otherwise fantastic samples.

Other patches use the modwheel to morph from a steady tone to a rhythmic sound, applying gating via a sequencer to get a nice, pulsating rhythm. This sequencer can sync to your tempo or you can adjust it free-form. Finally, there is an effect called the “scatterbox”, and while the exact function seems to remain a mystery, it uses impulse responses and convolution along with some sort of delay and pitch/harmonization possibly… the description from the developer’s site summarizes it with these words: “It’s hard to explain quite what Scatter Box does and we don’t want to give too many secrets away. Just experiment with the different sections and you’ll soon get the hang of it”

It gives you a more huge, resonant sound and can be really fun to experiment with. I found this library to be quite unique and a joy to use, and the sounds included can really compliment a wide variety of music, though they are best suited for more ambient, reverb-heavy genres as well as cinematic sound design.

Facts

Performed by guitarist David Long and curated by MODWHEEL and Shaped Noise, Feedback contains 27 patches in total and comes in at 4.86 GB. It requires the FULL version of Kontakt 5.8 or higher to run (not compatible with the Free Kontakt Player)

Feedback sells for $89.00 full price. from MODWHEEL

Demos of Feedback by MODWHEEL

Videos of Feedback by MODWHEEL

Contributor Brian Freeland reviews Feedback by MODWHEEL
“Feedback by Modwheel is a library made solely from capturing feedback from a guitar with various microphones. The result is an experimental and unique library that’s perfect for sound design and adding depth and resonance to your music.”