Review of Ethera from Zero-G

Ethera has a beautiful set of PADs and an amazing collection of phrases. Even though I would have liked to have heard better implementation in the main legato instrument, considering the quality and quantity of all the instruments this library is a steal for the asking price.

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Review of Ethera from Zero-G

Ethera by Zero-G sell for $89.99 from  Zero-G 

Thoughts

At the time of writing this review I was checking out version 1.0 of Ethera. Just before publishing the instrument was updated to V1.1 adding a dozen new PAD instruments, a few new Phrase presets (including a new Italian Legato Instrument) and several fixes improvements in the Legato sample instrument. You can see the complete list of updates/add ons here. I was thrilled with the instrument as is (especially at this price point) and with the team behind Ethera continuing to development additional content I am even happier to recommend the library.

I personally am thrilled to see this library released as I was able to sit on the sidelines and watch it blossom. The developers (Vocalist Clara Sorace, Producer Stefano Maccarelli and Scripter Fayez Saidawi) had been developing this library for about a year and had released a free version to the community last year.

The timbre of Clara Sorce’s vocals manipulated into dozens of instruments in the original FREE version (no longer available) made Sample Library Reviews TOP 5 FREE Libraries You Will Use on Your Next Score list (join our mailing list for access).

The free version is no longer available but has blossomed into a 3.5GB collection of beautiful vocal instruments with dozens of collections of phrases, pads and a legato instrument. In this day an age, 3.5GB isn’t a huge for a library, but when you consider that this a library entirely of vocals instruments you start to see just how huge this collection of samples is.

Ethera Vocal Instrument Legato Interface

The library comes with 3 main Kontakt presets: Ethera Legato, Ethera PADS & Ethera Phrases. The PADS alone are worth the cost of admission in my book. I found them inspiring and lush and dare I call a Kontakt instrument beautiful?

My main criticism of the collection is the Legato instrument. The Ohs & Ahs Legato presets in V1.1 are smoother and allow for a more realistic playback but I felt that they were just shy of making the cut for an exposed solo legato line. I am confident they would work wonderfully played among an ensemble. Tweaking the attack and legato speed controls helped.

Ethera Phrases Instrument Interface

There are a huge selection of phrases in styles ranging from Latin to Epic Fantasy Celtic to Blues, Renaissance to Pop. All phrases are well thought out and have controls to turn on a “TIME MODE” which allow for both syncing the phrases to your DAW BPM or a stretch control which will allow you to time-stretch the vocal without altering its pitch.  I really love how the instrument shows the waveform in the front of the interface which really helps you to interact with the library.

Ethera-FX-Rack

Ethera comes with an FX Rack panel (now in all the instruments as of V1.1) and although it is nice to have these effects at the ready I found the default effects to be a tiny bit heavy handed. As readers of my other reviews already know I tend to steer clear of kontakt instrument effects and found that using hi-end 3rd party plugins worked wonders for the instrument. Not to criticize the effects included too harshly as the are perfectly capable of adding pleasant depth, delay or modulation to the instrument.

Overall I found Ethera to be inspiring and refreshing. With so many PADS and Phrases in dozens of styles Ethera sells at a great price considering the quality and quantity of instruments you get.

Videos of Ethera