Review: New Rhythmic Aura 1 by 8Dio

8Dio have fully updated one of their most popular products and made what was already excellent even better. The superb tonal pulsing source audio is a joy to work with and the new interface means it is far easier to manipulate and mangle sounds to create your own unique parts.

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Review: New Rhythmic Aura 1 by 8Dio

Rhythmic Aura 1 main interface, housed in 8Dio‘s new hybrid engine

8Dio are one of the leading sample library companies out there and a number of years ago they pioneered the organic, pulsing sound style way before competing libraries jumped on it with fancier and more usable GUIs. But 8Dio never rest on their laurels and have revisited one of their hit products – Rhythmic Aura Vol.1 – and hot-rodded the interface to the max. The result is a smoother and more advanced user experience, offering multiple controls to shape the sound in any way you want. New Rhythmic Aura 1 utilizes the exact same genre-defining ‘Auras’ which 8Dio was founded upon. So, we have the same old sounds in a brand new skin and it begs the question – is this enough to still cut it in a highly competitive arena, with the composer and audience thirst for fresh aural thrills at an all time high? Let’s dive in and see…

New Rhythmic Aura 1 sells for $249 from 8Dio
New Rhythmic Aura 2 is also available from 8Dio

Existing owners of Rhythmic Aura 1 can upgrade for $29 with a coupon code from 8Dio

Thoughts

The beating heart of this library is the totally organic source audio sounds created from live orchestra, strings, bass banjo, 7 and 8 string electric guitars, semi-acoustic guitars, electric violin, electric mandolin, voices, tuned percussion and some extreme sound design. What I immediately loved was the single NKI for the entire instrument and having the sound patches all within just one instrument. Nevertheless, as any regular user of such libraries will tell you, the GUI can be sublime but without great source audio it means nothing. I am pleased to report in this regard 8Dio are absolutely nailing it with first-class recordings that are produced and sequenced at the highest level.

These sound patches number 18 in total and each one has 30 arpeggiating sequences laid out across 21⁄2 octaves on the keyboard, giving you 540 loops to play with.

These are the original samples included in the previously version, though as a testament to Troels Folmann’s sound design skill that they still sound current and fresh.

These are the original parts that Academy Award Winner Troels Folmann created previously and it is testament to his skill that they still sound very current and fresh. All are 16th beat pulses over 4 bars which sync to your DAW tempo. Some stick on the root note throughout, whilst others play simple or complex arpeggios with a bias towards minor chords, although many loops have an atonal feel that could work easily in both minor and major keys. The default key is D, but this is easy to change via key switches.

Sound patches can be triggered on and off via your midi controller or you can layer them.

Sound patches can be triggered on and off via your midi controller, or you can layer them and mix levels accordingly to create more complex tones with more complicated patterns. It is shame you have to hit an arrow on the main window to see the final 6 as I often just forgot they were there! In addition you can hold down as many keys as your hands can cope with for a multitude of extra complexity. 

New Rhythmic Aura 1 patches are contained in NKI accessible by scrolling with arrows across the top.

None of the sequences can be edited, so you are stuck with the pre-ordained patterns. At first I thought this might be a limitation, but the sheer variety and possible combinations of them make this irrelevant in practice. The musician’s job here is less about creating melodic patterns from scratch and more about artfully combining and modulating.

The general feel across the library is edgy and urgent, so it will be ideal for action/sci-fi/thriller trailer and movie cues, EDM or the dancey side of pop.

The general feel across the library is edgy and urgent, so it will be ideal for action/sci-fi/thriller trailer and movie cues and also fits in excellently for EDM and the dancey side of pop. It is worth noting that none of the sounds are particularly bass heavy, instead they are more focused on the mid and high range with enough variations to either blend with your mix or to really cut through as a feature part.

The raw sounds are really just an appetizer. In the overhaul of the interface and new engine,  8Dio have created an outstandingly playable instrument. It gets super complex, but it is achieved in a relatively simple manner. The rest of the main page features a layer function whereby sound patches are designated either A or B. Each of those has panning, ADSR, filters etc and also a dedicated sequencer which dictates how much of each layer is playing at any moment in time. This is a great idea, but they have missed a trick not including preset patterns – you either get the default slope or random. It would be great to have a bunch of mathematically patterned sequences as programming them in by hand is painstaking. The effect and EQ controls are given basic controls on the front panel with certain ones relating to the full effects on the separate dedicated page. Of note here is the gate which can

The raw sounds are really just an appetizer.

It would be great to have a bunch of mathematically patterned sequences as programming them in by hand is painstaking. The effect and EQ controls are given basic controls on the front panel with certain ones relating to the full effects on the separate dedicated page. Of note here is the gate which can lend the unrelenting 16th pulses a lovely groove, though it would have been nice to have an option to vary the gate tightness.

Chaos FX 3.3 engine

Over the page, we enter a place where you may get lost for hours! This the 8Dio bespoke Chaos FX 3.3 engine. It is simply too deep to go into detail with here, but there are amazing functions such as the ability to provide constantly shifting random parameters on many effects for endlessly fidgeting sounds.

If you ask me, 8Dio should release the Transform effect as a standalone plugin!

Of particular note is the intriguing convolution delay Transform effect. 8Dio have created a huge range of custom other-worldly delays which serve to give your pulses a deeper, more three-dimensional feel often verging on the drone-like and atmospheric. They should remake that alone as a standalone plugin if you ask me!

Chaos FX 3.3 engine Pull down options

I strongly feel there is exceptional dual-use capability within New Rhythmic Aura 1. It can subtly supplement an existing piece adding texture and movement, whilst also being able to act as an exciting creative starting point to a brand new composition. It is also hugely flexible, enabling you to create a simple, single note guitar pluck all the way to a guitar-string-percussion-banjo mash-up texture with polyrhythms galore, a constantly evolving bit-crush and a variable convolution delay. The evolution of music instruments in the world today is clearly moving towards the manipulation of traditional sounds by new digital innovation, rather than the creation of actual new instruments. This is the brave new world of sound creation. 8Dio, with products like New Rhythmic Aura 1, is really riding that wave and I know I won’t be the only musician joining them in the surf after experiencing this exceptional library.

As with all of our reviews, please check out the audio and video demos for more in-depth functionality to make sure that this is the right product for you.

Facts

Rhythmic Aura consists of over 540 organic arpeggiations coming in 10 different source categories. All samples are 24bit/44.1khz wav files and are 1 GB in size installed. You will need the full version of Kontakt as this is not a player library.

New Rhythmic Aura 1 sells for $249 from 8Dio

Existing owners of Rhythmic Aura 1 can upgrade for $29 with a coupon code from 8Dio

Demos of New Rhythmic Aura 1 by 8Dio

Videos of New Rhythmic Aura 1 by 8Dio