Review: Recoil by Channel Robot

Recoil is a sound design playground with plenty of customization options focused on percussive and rhythmic sounds.

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Review: Recoil by Channel Robot

Recoil by Channel Robot is a fun and creative sound design tool filled with customization possibilities for creating unique rhythms, percussion, drones, and pulses. The individual sounds are nothing to speak of by themselves, but when combined and processed through this powerful engine they become something special. If you are looking for something new and unique to add to your percussive/rhythmic toolkit without breaking the bank, Recoil just might scratch your itch.

Recoil sells for £49.99 from Kontakt Hub

Thoughts

Recoil is a four-voice sound design toolkit that takes some very average sounds and elevates them into something creative and unique. The main focus here is on rhythmic/percussive sounds, but you will also find some nice pulses and drones. My only complaint about the drones is that I wish there were more of them, as the included drones are dark, brooding, and very nice. However, if you are looking for playable/melodic instruments you will need to look elsewhere. Recoil is strongly focused on percussion, rhythm, and sound effects. When first opening Recoil I was a little disappointed. I wasn’t impressed with the look of the interface and the initial sounds didn’t blow me away. Unfortunately, this is where many users often check out and move on and thus miss a whole world of sound design possibilities. As we all know, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but it’s likely that many will do just that. Recoil’s strength isn’t found in its immediate satisfaction but is rather unleashed as you begin to dive into its many sound design capabilities.

The snapshots are presented in seven categories: Percussion Low, Percussion High, Rhythms, Pulses, Drones, Sound Effects, and Bonus Instruments. Within each snapshot there are four sound slots/voices. Each voice includes a slot for choosing the overall category of the sound and the sound itself. There are 15 different categories you can choose from and a plethora of sounds within each category. The categories include descriptions such as Guns 01, Explosions, Cross Bow, and Wood Sticks, which gives you a real sense for the kinds of sounds you can expect here – booming, blasting, crashing, etc. These sounds lend themselves well to creating unique percussion, rhythms, and pulses and combine to powerful effect.

The reason to stop and take notice of Recoil is the unique and powerful sound design engine provided. While these sounds on their own are nothing special, the highly customizable, user-friendly engine makes working with Recoil a blast! (pun intended!) The sound design engine means that Recoil is fun to use and allows you to create unique rhythms, percussion, and pulses quickly and easily. Within each of the four voices you will find controls for volume, tuning, sample shifting (allowing you to control the beginning point of the sample), envelope, vibrato, and tremolo. In addition to the four global effects sends, each voice has up to four separate effects that can be setup and controlled independently of the other three voices. This means you can have four completely different effects on each voice. The independent volume controls also allow you to control how much of each voice you hear in the final sound. Recoil is a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. These four humble sounds can combine to become something unique and striking.

Things get really fun when you move down to the Emitter – Recoils combination of a sequencer and resonator that also includes controls for pitch modeling. This allows you to create rhythms and pulses from Recoils many sounds. Lastly, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by all these options, or just plain lucky, you can hit the Recoil logo at the top of the screen to randomize each of the voices/sound banks to find a brand-new combination of sounds. This randomization option randomizes each of the voices and controls but does not affect the Emitter. The randomization option is a great way to experiment and have some fun along the way.
Recoil is a fun and creative sound design tool filled with customization possibilities for creating unique rhythms, percussion, drones, and pulses. While the individual sounds are nothing to write home about in and of themselves, when combined and processed through this powerful engine they become something special. If you are looking for something new and unique to add to your percussive/rhythmic toolkit without breaking the bank, Recoil is a fun and creative choice.

Facts

Recoil includes 100+ snapshots, 469 sounds, and weighs in at 200 MB. Recoil requires the full version of Kontakt 5.7 or above.

Recoil  sells for £49.99 from Kontakt Hub

Demos of Recoil by Channel Robot

Videos of Recoil by Channel Robot

Contributor Raborn Johnson reviews Recoil by Channel Robot
“Recoil is a sound design playground with plenty of customization options focused on percussive and rhythmic sounds.”