On Your Marxos, Get Set, GO! – Sounds and Presets
5,0 / 5,0 | 
This week sees WrongTools do fantastic things with a Marxophone in Marxos, plus a new SDX for Superior Drummer 3, patches for Leviasynth and more!
Marxos brings the plucky delights of a Marxophone to our Kontakt libraries, with Toontrack bringing us yet another quality SDX in conjunction with legendary engineer Niko Bolas. We then have a nice bank of new sounds for the mighty Leviasynth from Devin Belanger, aka Miles Away.
Last week’s release of the Martinic Prodigy is swiftly followed by a new bank of sounds for it, courtesy of Solidtrax, and we have a couple of banks of sounds from Arturia: one a tribute to the mighty Goldfrapp, the other a collection for their JUP-8000 V plugin. Let’s get into it…
Sounds and Presets
Marxos for Kontakt by WrongTools
WrongTools certainly live up to their name, and they are fast becoming one of my favourite sample library developers, combining unique and original ideas with well-designed content at a very reasonable price. Their latest effort, Marxos, is up for pre-sale now and is based on the Marxophone.
The Marxophone, for the uninitiated, of which I was one before I wrote this, is a form of fretless zither that combines strummed strings on the left with hammered strings on the right. Invented by Henry Marx and patented in 1912, they were manufactured by the Phonoharp Company out of Boston, MA, in the United States.
Depending on how you play the “keys”, the hammers can bounce off the strings in different ways, with some methods sounding more like a mandolin in style. They were designed in such a way that anyone with a complete lack of musical knowledge could play, as they used a numbering system that corresponded to numerically coded sheet music.
Marxos takes one of these obscure instruments and samples it to a very high level, with the library boasting 2700 samples across 49 patches, with a footprint of around 6.2GB. The samples have then been processed via analogue tape and other such effects to deliver a range of tones far wider than the original hardware.
When I see libraries like Marxos, I wonder where their sound might fit into my work, but the thing with WrongTools is that they like to run quite wild with their imaginations and create presets that are absolutely usable in many contexts. Marxos is no exception. Treatments used here include multiple mic positions as well as treatments in a John Cage style.
Marxos requires the full version of NI’s Kontakt, version 6.4.2 and up and pre orders are open now. The full price will be €99. Pre-order Marxos now at the WrongTools website for just €49, a 50% discount!
L.A. Sessions by Niko Bolas for Superior Drummer 3 by Toontrack
Superior Drummer 3 has been around for a very long time. For me, it is like the Omnisphere of the drum sample world. It doesn’t need constant updating or new versions. They got it right early on, and therefore it is absolutely fine as it is.
But one downside seems to be the lack of imagination when it comes to releasing new libraries for it. I cannot fault the depth and detail that they go to in capturing the sounds, but there seems to be a formula to every SDX released in the last few years.
Grab a big-name engineer or producer, have them mic up a handful of kits and then present them along with a custom set of MIDI grooves. Every now and again, they do something a little different, such as their SDX with Hugh Padgham, where they combined acoustic and electronic kits and sounds in a very cool way.
And whilst Niko Bolas is undoubtedly a legendary engineer, having recorded with the likes of Neil Young, Fiona Apple, KISS, Billy Joel, Sinatra, Toto and more, I’m not entirely sure how this pack stands out from the likes of their SDX packs with Elliot Scheiner, Al Schmitt and Kevin Killen.
Don’t get me wrong. This new pack is exemplary in every conceivable way, as is the Toontrack way, but if I have some of the other packs, I’m not entirely sure what might motivate me to get this one. However, if you’re new to the world of SD3 and looking to build your collection, Niko’s extensive resumé might be what catches your eye and ear.
This new pack contains eight kits that deliver 14 kick drums, 14 snares, 27 toms, 21 cymbals and four sets of hi-hats. These kits have been owned by the likes of Steve Jordan, Kenny Aranoff and Stell Mozgawa, so there’s some decent history here.
The kits were recorded across four room configurations and come supplied with 45 presets that you can, of course, tailor to your own taste. There’s also a healthy collection of percussion samples, featuring djembes, doumbeks, tablas and plenty of other options.
Don’t get me wrong, this is yet another stellar library from Toontrack for the best drum sample plugin out there, but I just wish they’d deliver something a bit more… out there? Learn more about the L.A. Sessions over at the Toontrack website.
50 Custom Patches for ASM Leviasynth by Miles Away
ASM’s sophomore synth, the magnificent Leviasynth, has steadily built up a strong following as more and more people remove their FM-tinted glasses and see it for being WAY more than that. Everything about the Leviasynth oozes class, quality, and an attention to detail rarely seen on mass-produced synths these days.
It is unashamedly an ASM synth, by both its design and its powerful engine and is capable of things that I am sure have yet to be discovered. It is not only a player’s synth, but it is a sound designer’s dream, what with its powerful voice architecture, morphable algorithms and blazingly fast touch screen. Yup, it’s a real doozy!
Now we have a new bank of sounds for it, courtesy of Miles Away, aka Devin Belanger. In it, he makes superb use of the Leviasynth’s extensive sound design capabilities, including all of its performance features, such as polyphonic after touch and the ribbon controller.
Each patch also comes with its own custom sequence or arpeggio, and there’s something for everyone’s taste here, whether you’re a synthwaver, film score composer, ambient-head, or someone like me who likes crazy FM shizzle!
Pick up the bank now from the Miles Away website for $40.
Insurgent Circuits Collection for Martinic Prodigy by Solidtrax
Last week saw the release of the Martinic Prodigy, a brilliant and expanded take on the lesser-known Moog that was often seen slung over the shoulder of Howard Jones early on in his career. It was a basic synth, but the beauty of recreations such as this is that you can go way beyond its original intentions.
Solidtrax have come up with a bank of 100 presets for this synth that really push the Prodigy with some pretty gnarly tones. But there are some great sounds contained here that are also smooth and buttery. That original design has been taken places that the original engineers never envisaged.
Best of all, this pack is currently on offer with a whopping discount in celebration of last week’s Bandcamp Friday, an event that Martinic often get behind. The Insurgent Circuits Collection is 50% off through September 16th, so head on over to the Martinic website to grab it now for £7.50!
JUP-8000 V Classics and Goldfrapp Tribute for Arturia JUP-8000 V and Analog Lab by Arturia
Bringing up the rear this week are a couple of nice little banks from Arturia, who frequently suppor their instruments with some exceptional banks of extra patches. Many of these are “tribute” banks, aimed at people looking to recreate the sounds of their favourite artists.
Here we have one such bank dedicated to the fabulous duo Goldfrapp, a band that always pushes their synths in directions others may not even dare, all thanks to the quiet genius of Will Gregory. From big, fat basses and cutting melody lines to the huge ambience of pads that wash over you and delightfully eerie strings, there are some brilliant sounds here.
The Goldfrapp bank is designed for Analog Lab, be it Play, Intro or Pro and there are 64 presets in total, all of which have that classic Goldfrapp flavour.
The other bank is for Arturia’s JUP-8000 V, their superb recreation of the Roland JP8000/8080 which, along with the likes of The Usual Suspects, has brought back the Supersaw sound of that classic 90s era.
There are 64 sounds, covering many of the usual styles one would associate with the era of the original hardware and some surprisingly fresh and contemporary tones. There are also plenty of sequences, and this bank will work in Analog Lab as well as the AstroLab hardware.
You can pick each of these banks up here and here for €9.99!
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