Polarity | Tension Is a Love/Hate Thing – Sounds and Presets
4,8 / 5,0 | 
Atonal atmospheric sounds aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, and Polarity | Tension from Soniccouture is an instrument that might be sonic gold for some, or painful listening for others.
Sounds and Presets
Polarity | Tension for Kontakt by Soniccouture
“Polarity | Tension is not built to please everyone…
It’s made for composers and sound designers drawn to the abstract, the dissonant, and the unresolved.“
K/V
Quite a bold statement when you’re trying to sell a sample library, but these are indeed the words of K/V, the duo behind Soniccouture’s latest release, Polarity | Tension. I guess the clue is in the name that this is a sound library with a less-than “musical” character.
Polarity | Tension is a Kontakt-based instrument that features what Soniccouture call a “Dual Stream Granular Engine”. But it is more than just a sample library. You are also able to load your own samples into the engine and mess with them to your heart’s content.
However, there are 180 presets included that are, as you might expect, harsh, atonal, brittle, atmospheric and full of, well, tension! One of the first things that sprang to my mind as I noodled through the presets was that this would appeal to those looking to make Burial-style tracks without putting too much effort into those industrial/urban ambiences that he does so well.
But while the presets are great ways to experience and learn the instrument, you are completely able to load in your own samples and mangle those as you see fit. I’m a great fan of simple yet intuitive and powerful interfaces and Polarity | Tension has exactly that.
The visual nature of the four on-screen gives you some inkling as to how they affect the sound, but it’s a lot of fun to just grab one and mess around. It is a very hands-on and rewarding experience. Polarity | Tension retails for £129 but is currently on offer until September 16th at just £79! It’s also fully NKS compatible and can be used with both the full version of Kontakt as well as the free Kontakt Player.
Stratum for HALion by Steinberg
Blending the old with the new is a tried and tested concept for sound libraries these days and one such blend is that of orchestral strings and analogue synth strings. One of my favourites is Arturia’s Augmented STRINGS, and whilst Stratum for HALion isn’t a direct “rip-off” of the French product, it certainly reminds one of it.
Samples of violins, celli, basses, ensembles and even a bowed guitar can be blended with the string-like tones of analogue synths and string machines in a simple and visual interface. On the acoustic side, the user can choose from various solo and ensemble samples, each with unique articulations.
On the synth side, there are samples from synths such as Solinas, Elka Strings, Prophet, Jupiter and Yamaha’s CS-60. There are plenty of smooth pads and more aggressive tones, and these can be blended with a crossfader, which is somewhat less impressive than Arturia’s big dial.
Created for Steinberg by Cinematique Instruments, there are basic tone-shaping controls and effects that will allow you to shape any of the 36 presets or the combinations you come up with. All of this is housed in an instrument that is compatible with both the free and paid for versions of HALion.
Stratum is currently on sale with 20% off, so you can pick it up for just £66.40, down from £83!
Triple Cheese Pizza for u-he Triple Cheese by Ocean Swift
Everyone loves a free synth, especially one made by u-he, and their Triple Cheese synth is no exception! It’s been around since 2006, when it won the KVR Developer Challenge. It uses comb filters to generate its sounds and is 16-voice polyphonic with a bunch of tweakable settings, including two envelope generators and an LFO.
And all of this is completely free of charge! Now, Ocean Swift has created a library of sounds for it, and they sound great! (or should that be ‘grate’ as in grated cheese? I’ll get my coat…). Consisting of mostly plucky and percussive type sounds, it’s a really cool and inspirational pack of presets.
There are 50 presets and the bank features NKS support too, which at this price is a very nice thing! Triple Cheese was last updated in 2021, so it hasn’t been forgotten about and will run on macOS 10.10 and above, Windows 7 and above and Linux!
Spectres for Cherry Audio Crumar Spirit by Cherry Audio
Released just yesterday, Cherry Audio’s latest effort is a splendid one indeed. The Crumar Spirit is one of those slightly mythical synthesizers of yore. Designed by Bob Moog, Jim Scott and Tom Rhea alongside the Crumar team, not many of these were ever made, and in the wake of the digital synth revolution that occurred the same year it was released, it soon vanished.
A more recent hardware revival was produced in even fewer numbers, but now it has been brought into the virtual age, in full collaboration with the present owners of Crumar and it is a brilliant resurrection of this Italian/American classic!
Aside from the huge amount of presets included, one of the sound design team, James Dyson, a man whose work is frequently featured in this column, has created even more presets, 100 to be precise, to add to your collection, in the form of Spectres.
Spectres delves into the darker, more atmospheric side of this brilliant synth and makes extensive use of its sound shaping abilities, including the wonderful effects section. Covering all the usual bank styles, there’s something for everyone here and it is a brilliant first expansion for yet another surefire hit for Cherry Audio!
You can buy this bank directly from the Cherry Audio store for just $9.99.
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