Review: Off-World Vol. 1 by Bunker Samples

When an exciting new sampling maverick goes to town recording a traditional Vietnamese instrument that he plays totally incorrectly, what could go possibly wrong? Not a lot as it turns out, because Bunker Samples have conjured up something weird and very wonderful in the shape of the super bendy sound design library, Off-World Vol. 1.

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Review: Off-World Vol. 1 by Bunker Samples

Bunker Samples are a relatively new developer that are beginning to make a real name for themselves with their natural and textural Kontakt instruments. First we had the innovative Bunker Strings, then a very characterful deeply sampled harmonium, and now comes Off-World Vol. 1. This new line seeks to take an unusual instrument and present it in an entirely new and modern manner; in this case, it is a single-stringed ancient Vietnamese instrument – the Đàn Bầu.

I first heard about it in a video showing early experiments in making a library using just a Đàn Bầu. The method was so inspiring that I actually used it to explain to my students what a sample library was; in many ways Off World Vol. 1 is the perfect illustration of how you can take a strange, traditional instrument and then employ the wrong playing technique, guitar pedals and a bespoke Kontakt engine to create something entirely different, yet still with the fingerprint of the original source imprinted on the audio.

Off-World Vol. 1 sells for $39.00 from Bunker Samples

Thoughts

There are two key points to note about the articulation employed here to play the Đàn Bầu. Firstly, although normally plucked with a pointy bamboo stick, it was entirely recorded using a violin bow. Secondly, instead of using the handle that controls the pitch to play distinct notes and add vibrato, the tuning handle was mainly used to create portamento sweeps of differing lengths. This unconventional method was then fed through an octave pedal, distortion and lush reverb to create the sound designed presets.

The Kontakt instrument files are divided into three folders: the raw Creator Patches, Distorted, and Warped. They give a range of options from the basic unprocessed Đàn Bầu, to a variety of crunchy sounds, to truly epic adventures with plenty of spacey reverb dialed  in. Some of these are two octaves, whilst others are four octaves resulting in a very bold and full sound. The unprocessed versions might not sound as cinematic out of the box, but they open the door to using your own third party plugins or the onboard Kontakt effects for ultimate user control. As the recordings come from a guitar style pickup they take really well to anything that you might try on guitar sources.

All of the patches share the same interface, which looks fairly simple, but includes a few unusual parameters, which take a minute to get your head around.

To quickly get to grips with how it works it helps to understand the main concept behind this library; that is, it is all about the bend! The central section allows you to select either an up or down bend, or if you are feeling a little more sedate, a simple static note. To the left the large numbered dial shows how long the bend is and to the right the numbers refer to the semitone steps. The direction, length and steps are all set via a slider under each section, which can also be configured to respond to velocity. This opens up a wealth of creative playability, such as simultaneous up and down bends. When you add up each variation it results in an incredible 36 different possible ways to play each note! All of these pitch bends were also performed individually, which gives them a very natural, smooth and expressive quality. It’s worth noting here that the note you play is the target note – bends will start higher or lower and bend to it – and also that the bend lengths are fixed to the four sampled variants; a future update that enables them to sync to your DAW’s host tempo would be a nice touch for more precise programming.

Although the focus is on organic, expressive bends, the straight versions have plenty of scope as the samples are really long (which explains the fairly hefty file size footprint) and often reach 30 seconds with infinite looping after that. This makes them very useful for long evolving drones.

The main window includes attack, release, assignable expression control, and low and high pass filters. Additionally, a ‘Bow On Bends Only’ button takes off the initial bowing attack and appears to start the sample somewhere in the middle. This is a fine idea and lets you play it as a keyboard/synth lead type instrument, especially useful for the sequencer, which brings us neatly to the second window of the GUI.

The SEQ/FX window provides access to a range of Kontakt’s onboard FX, plus a tempo synced gate sequencer. The latter broadens the use of Off-World Vol. 1 to creating pulses utilising some of the unique tones on offer. For example, I was able to easily get a really interesting pulse that began with a swift two semitone pitch bend up into a lovely skipping movement on the target note. The interface is nicely laid out and makes it very quick to achieve what you want. My only criticism is that the colour scheme of white and grey graphics on the chosen background picture makes some controls a little unclear.

Off-World Vol. 1 is a really innovative concept and I love how it somehow manages to sound gritty and organic, but also futuristic and cinematic at the same time! Who knew the humble Đàn Bầu could evoke dystopian alien worlds?! As an example of taking an ancient instrument and turning it into something entirely modern this is very interesting indeed. There is flexibility within the engine to create drones, playable instruments and pulses, but it is those melancholic and aching bends that are the standout feature. In that regard it will be of much interest for custom sound design purposes, especially as the raw samples are included alongside the more designed ones. I can see it working brilliantly in many kinds of media scoring, be that for TV, film, trailers or computer games. For the decent price this is a really unique little gem for creating signature pitch bends, and a worthy specialist addition to any composer’s sound design collection.

Facts

Off-World Vol. 1 consists of 4212 samples that make up 12.21 GB of lossless content. There are 13 instrument patches and 36 ways to play each note. A full version of Kontakt is required.

Off-World Vol. 1 sells for $39.00 from Bunker Samples

Demos of Off-World Vol. 1 by Bunker Samples

Videos of Off-World Vol. 1 by Bunker Samples

Contributor Sam Burt reviews Off-World Vol. 1 by Bunker Samples
“When an exciting new sampling maverick goes to town recording a traditional Vietnamese instrument that he plays totally incorrectly, what could go possibly wrong? Not a lot as it turns out, because Bunker Samples have conjured up something weird and very wonderful in the shape of the super bendy sound design library, Off-World Vol. 1.”