Review: Sonespheres 1 – Distance from Soundiron
Imaginative palette of synthesis elements created from acoustic sources.
Unique timbres and textures to enhance or create entire compositions.
Excellent choice for underscore/film or electronic music.
Full step sequencer is a real plus.
I would like to have a randomization button here to blend those "happy accidents", but it is not a deal breaker for me.
One small step from Soundiron, one giant leap for Sound Design. With Sonesphere 1’s price tag, it’s a no-brainer for composers or musicians looking for something truly unique for underscore or electronic music. This one really digs deep and delivers. Many hybrid libraries offer “similar” sounds, but few have grabbed me at the visceral level that Sonesphere 1 has.
Jump to the Demos of Sonespheres 1 – Distance
Jump to the Videos of Sonespheres 1 – Distance
Review: Sonespheres 1 – Distance from Soundiron
From the very first moment of listening to the demos for Sonespheres 1 – Distance, I wanted a copy of it – then and there. The sounds are evocative, moving, pastoral, sometimes tense, deeply atmospheric and definitely sonorous. There is also the ability to mix several emotions at the same time if you want. Blake Ewing curated this first volume of the collection for Soundiron and his wide body of work should require no introduction to any serious composer.
Sonespheres 1 sells for $59.00 from Soundiron
Thoughts
Sonespheres 1 – Distance contains a curated set of sounds that really fascinates me. These are sounds that are born from organic acoustic sources and then treated or synthesized into totally new instruments and tonal textures that at times bare only a faint resemblance to their former selves. Sonespheres 1 is full of the organic sounds sourced from pianos, guitars, vocals, bows, vocals, winds and rhythmic elements treated to become pads, sonic textures, eerie tones, melodic rhythms and spacious atmospheres – and that’s only the short list!
Working my way through the presets, I discovered more treasures than I had time to write about. If I find myself adding libraries to a new recording project while I am writing about them then that really makes it all the more worthwhile. I immediately fell in love with the reverb-drenched melancholy guitars, lush piano treatments, idyllic vocal drones and rhythmic pulses. The custom designed presets from Blake Ewing are excellent and serve as a good way to quickly explore what is possible within the instrument.
At first glance, the interface may look a bit ominous, though it really only looks that way.
The interface is divided into 2 independent sound sources, each with 27 banks and a total of 305 possible presets categorized within the bank types – Bowed, Guitar, Piano, Rhythmic, Textures, Tonal, Vocal and Winds. The sound sources can be layered or cross-faded. Crossfade, Legato Glide and the Arpeggiator are global controls and therefore affect both sound sources. There is a significant amount of sculpting capability here and I will leave covering every single detail to the very well documented manual, however, I would like to highlight the stand-outs for me.
Directly under the preset selection, the Offset control allows for the adjustment of sample start position even further expanding the sound palette. There are 13 different Filter types available along with Cutoff and Resonance controls. The LFO can be used to target the Volume, Pan, Pitch, Treble, Bass, Resonance and Frequency controls of each sound source. In addition to the Rate, Depth and Attack controls, the LFO can be tempo sync’d to your DAW using the Sync control. As a side note, whenever you are using a Rhythmic sound source and the Sync icon appears in the upper right corner of the sound source section, you can click on it to temp sync it to your DAW as well.
Sonespheres 1 – Distance is a library that spoke to me from the word “go”.
The Arpeggiator is a fully functioning 32 step Arp/Step Sequencer with the ability to save and load your own arpeggios. After turning on the Arpeggiator, you can draw your own Velocity Graph by turning on the Graph or use Midi note velocity as a default. You can choose from 14 different patterns with the Mode control, as well as select Note Time, Swing, Random, Hold and Pattern Lock. The folder and disk icons indicate the Load and Save options.
As with all Soundiron libraries, Sonespheres 1 comes with the Soundiron DSP FX Rack containing 18 studio quality FX. Although I like to use other premium plugins for mixing in the room, with some Hybrid libraries like this one I am not such a stickler. The sound design possibilities are so broad using the onboard FX that I find myself using them when it is not a singular instrument in question. The FX Rack also includes over 100 over Soundiron’s favorite IRs.
Sonespheres 1 – Distance is a library that spoke to me from the word “go”. There are many hybrid libraries out there that offer similar sounds – but they are only similar and they are not THESE sounds. There is something unique and special about the emotional depth, consonance, and sheer diversity in the palette on offer here.
The price tag is a no-brainer for composer looking for something truly unique that would equally at home in underscore or as a building block in scoring for films, video games or even as a compositional tool for electronic music. Sonespheres 1 is something that I have enjoyed using to develop a complete track and complementing another. This one really digs deep and delivers. I would go so far as to call it a Fantastic Buy!
As with all of my reviews, before making your purchase please check out the official demos to make sure that this is the right tool for you.
Facts
Sonespheres 1 contains 26 Blake Ewing custom designed presets in addition to the main instrument NKI which allows for virtually unlimited combinations of sounds using the internal banks and preset combinations. It is based on 305 raw samples which as 24 bit/48kHz Wav files that can also be used in other projects. The library comes in at 1.2 GB and requires a full NI Kontakt 5.5.2 or higher license. NI Kontakt Player is not supported.
Sonespheres 1 sells for $59.00 from Soundiron
I don’t disagree with anything in your review, some of the sounds here are just gorgeous and I’ll be using some. In the first few minutes of using it I thought it sounded fantastic. However, after a couple of hours I’m not so sure.
There are many patches that sound like they could fit in nicely with a lot of the Photosynthesis libraries – which was a huge draw when I heard demos – there’s some inspirational stuff here.
But *unlike* Photosynthesis and pretty much most libraries I’ve experienced, there’s a huge amount of reverb written into the patches, which I find really frustrating. Distance comes with an FX rack in which reverb could be achieved, or obviously with whatever you use in your DAW, so I’m unsure why they’ve slapped on tons in the first place. It really takes the control of the sound out of the user’s hands.
Another thing, the basic eq, bass / treble setting for each of the 2 sounds you’re using – when the treble is up, it often brings out a huge amount of background noise / hiss, which I found strange, as if the original recording weren’t quite right?!