Are You Prepared For Mule Piano? – Sounds and Presets
3,7 / 5,0 | 
A gorgeous prepared piano in the form of Mule Piano, plus sounds for Pigments 6, OB-X8 and the Moog Muse!
Sounds and Presets
Mule Piano for NI Kontakt by Wrongtools
I love the concept behind Wrongtools and their sample libraries. Left field, quirky, off-kilter and a brave attitude towards sampling. And their latest library, Mule Piano, is definitely one or more of those. It’s a prepared piano instrument, but not with the classic preparation you might find in a John Cage fashion.
Mule Piano contains four main preparations of a Bechstein Grand:
- Paper Grand
- Cork Grand
- Spzz Grand
- Rubber Mallet Grand
Paper Grand utilises pieces of cigarette paper and Japanese rice paper between the strings and hammers. This gives the tone some delicacy but in a very nice, positive way. Cork Piano, as you may have already figured, features pieces of cork pressed between the strings of the piano.
Spzz Grand has lengths of jewellery chain spread across the strings for a decidedly shimmering effect, and Mallet Grand uses small rubber mallets to hit the strings. Wrongtools describes this as having a gamelan-esque tone.
Mule Piano comes with 23 built-in patches, each of which can be tweaked within the Kontakt engine. There are 3.5GB of samples here, spread across nearly 3000 samples and recorded at 24-bit/96kHz with multiple microphones.
The beauty of a prepared piano is the dichotomy of the familiarity of a piano’s sound, but with the tone significantly shifted by the preparations in ways unfamiliar to the ear. You can have an awful lot of fun with this, and if your track demands an emotive piano, this is a great option to have.
Mule Piano requires the full version of Kontakt, version 6.4.2 and above and will cost €78. However, if you pre-order now, you will pay just €39, ahead of its release on September 2nd.
Explorations Vol.2 for Oberheim OB-X8 by Scott McAuley Sounds
The OB-X8 from Oberheim has been out for some time, and yet it remains a highly desirable and well-loved synth. No surprise, really, as it bears all the hallmarks of classic Oberheim within a modest 21st century interface and feature set.
Three years ago, Scott McAuley created Explorations Vol.1 and received many plaudits on the many brilliant sounds contained therein. Now, I’m not saying Scott has had his feet up, resting on his laurels, but it has taken him three years to deliver a sequel! (just kidding, Scotty boy!)
Scott has put in over 300 hours on this library of 100 new, custom sounds that cover all the usual areas of pads, leads, basses, strings and arps. And, as you’d rightly expect, each one of them is a wee dancer! Scott has now been able to employ many of the new features that came with the version 2 OS.
Who would have thought we’d be talking about OS upgrades in an Oberheim synth, eh? But here we are and all the better for it, too! This bank is full of Scott’s signature style, i.e. impressive and it only makes me want to buy an OB-X8 even more!
Pick up Explorations Vol.2 from Scott’s store for just £32.99.
_EXPLORATIONS Vol.4 for Pigments 6 and Analog Lab by Arturia
Pigments 6 is everybody’s favourite Arturia synth, surely? It remains their one truly original software synthesizer, that doesn’t wholly rely on samples, and positively overflows with so much power it can be difficult to wrangle it into shape.
So Arturia’s own _EXPLORATIONS banks, each containing 450 carefully curated patches, can either relieve you of hours of your own programming or provide you with a wealth of jumping off points for your own creations.
As always, this bank contains three sections. This time we have Hypertechno, Modal and Openworld. Hypertechno is, as the name suggests, a collection of in-your-face trance, techno, rave and EDM sounds. it does exactly what it says on the tin.
Modal focuses on the modal engine within Pigments 6 and has a much more experimental feel to it, with all manner of sequences, plucks, bell-like sounds and pads. If anything, it really showcases the power and diversity of the sounds you can make with Pigments.
Finally, we have one for the game-designers and soundtrack crowd with Openworld. This is very much an ambient and textured collection of sounds that leans heavily towards the cinematic and will be favoured by score composers in both movies and gaming.
These packs will also work with Analog Lab Pro as well as Pigments 6. You can purchase Explorations Vol.4 for €29.99 for a limited time, along with all the other Explorations packs, direct from Arturia.
Luftrum 32 for Moog Muse by Luftrum Sound Design
Moog’s Muse is still very much on my shopping list, and it doesn’t help when people are coming up with excellent banks of sounds for it like this. Luftrum 32 clearly draws inspiration from the synth wizards of yore, such as Jarre, Vangelis and Schulze, as well as more contemporary artists such as Jon Hopkins and Boards of Canada.
Each sound is imbued with all of the performance and expression tools provided by the Muse. There’s something for everyone here, whether you’re into Synthwave, ambient, cinematic or good old Berlin school. Pads, arpeggiated basses and more will keep you noodling for hours.
The bank contains 64 patches across four banks and Luftrum also supply you with 12 sequences specifically designed for this bank. You will need to have updated your Muse to firmware version 1.4 to take advantage of all the features baked into these sounds.
Buy Luftrum 32 for $29 from their website.
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