Hollow Sun's resident scripter wants YOU!...

[EvilDragon]

Hello, purveyors of beautiful weirdness and vintage quirkiness, and all alike!


I would like you to take a minute or two, relax, take a seat, and please answer these following questions to me. Your answers will be very valuable, as they are likely to influence the future actions in HS Towers carried out by Steve and yours truly. So, without further ado, here are the questions:


1. Out of all released Music Laboratory Machines, please pick two that you like the most, and tell us why do you like them the most!

2. Out of all released Music Laboratory Machines, please pick two that you liked the LEAST; and tell us why is that! Be honest - nothing in this world is perfect.

3. What kind of an instrument would you like to see coming from Hollow Sun that could potentially continue the MLM series? Try to be as descriptive and as imaginative as possible.

4. Out of all the regular Hollow Sun libraries that were released since I came on board HS, which ones did you like the most, and which one you thought weren't as good? The libraries are: HSDV, RMI Electrapiano, Vermona ET3, Vintage Drumbox.

5. Similarly to question #3, what kind of an instrument would you like to see from HS as a regular part of HS product catalogue (that means priced slightly above the usual MLM)?




That would be all. Thank you, everyone! Eagerly awaiting your responses!

[rtkeeling]

Edited to fix links:

I don't really have detailed answers to all your questions as posed, but I wanted to respond anyway.

I've got Broken, Interference, Oscillosine, Techtron, Triosc, and Vermona. I like them, and plan to get all the rest. What I like about them is that I feel like I'm getting something from Hollow Sun that I can't get anywhere else. I like that you are, albeit virtually, giving new life to sound generation tools from days gone by. I like the whole Music Labratory Machines concept and the personal notes from HS Towers.

I say keep on doing what you're doing because it is very innovative. I looked at your website today, and I saw several customer comments praising your works. I think it speaks volumes that these people, some big names in the industry, took the time to write you and tell you how much they like your sound libraries.

I don't know if you could do it as a Kontakt instrument or not, but I would like to see a Theramin instrument based on authentic hardware. Seems like something like that would complement the other MLM instrments well.

Here's a more expensive outside-the-box idea that would be cool: There's another sample company near to where I live (Kentucky, USA), Bardstown Audio http://www.bardstownaudio.com, that has a pretty well-regarded piano sample set, that they used to call the "Bardstown Bosendorfer". Anyway, I understand that sampling a live acoustic instrument is quite painstaking, and since you may be geographically constrained to the UK, it may be possible that you could partner with them to sample the organ at the Louisville Memorial Auditorium. From the LMA website:

"Louisville Memorial Auditorium has two features which make it unique throughout the world. Louisville Memorial Auditorium is home of the World's Largest Pilcher organ. This historic four-manual instrument with 5,288 pipes is still playing wonderful music today, just as it has been doing since 1929."

http://louisvillememorialauditorium.com ... llery.aspx
(organ is pictured at the bottom right)


I bet there is some solid-state circuitry there that would qualify it for MLM status.

Anyways, kind regards,

Roy

[abstractcats]

"Louisville Memorial Auditorium has two features which make it unique throughout the world. Louisville Memorial Auditorium is home of the World's Largest Pilcher organ. This historic four-manual instrument with 5,288 pipes is still playing wonderful music today, just as it has been doing since 1929."

http://louisvillememorialauditorium.com ... r.aspx?img =images/photos/gallery/12.jpg

Would be nice, I've not used many samples but for some ethnic instruments built into FLS and the drums in Geist/GURU. Hollow Sun's stuff looks good as well.

Bad news is, the pics at LMA are not showing and the Bardstown studio link seems to be dead/broken

btw, hello, from J.Town, KY.

[rtkeeling]

Hi Scott. Nice to meet you. Fixed the links above. Following you on SoundCloud now. Nice stuff! From what I've listened to so far, the Music Laboratory Machines would probably be your cup of tea. They lend themselves to experimentation very well.

Roy

[darsho]

1. Out of all released Music Laboratory Machines, please pick two that you like the most, and tell us why do you like them the most!

2. Out of all released Music Laboratory Machines, please pick two that you liked the LEAST; and tell us why is that! Be honest - nothing in this world is perfect.

3. What kind of an instrument would you like to see coming from Hollow Sun that could potentially continue the MLM series? Try to be as descriptive and as imaginative as possible.

4. Out of all the regular Hollow Sun libraries that were released since I came on board HS, which ones did you like the most, and which one you thought weren't as good? The libraries are: HSDV, RMI Electrapiano, Vermona ET3, Vintage Drumbox.

5. Similarly to question #3, what kind of an instrument would you like to see from HS as a regular part of HS product catalogue (that means priced slightly above the usual MLM)?

1.
Maybe Organa.
tbh, the MLMs were'nt really my cup of tea, although I bought a couple because they were cheap.
I love the normal HS libraries, though.

2.
I think I do not use them much, because I work differently with Kontakt.
I like liberaries that come with A LOT of patches and I can just flip through them.
In Kontakt, I don't edit sounds at all. I only do so in VSTi Synths like Massive or Tyrell or such.
MLM have nice interfaces, but I don't care so much about that in a Kontakt library. I only care about having as many great patches as possible without having the need to edit them.

3.
dunno
*edit*
ah, after some thinking :
do you guys know the 'Amen Break Generator' for iPad ?
Maybe do something like this, although it might be less fun without an iPad to touch the screen directly

4.
I only have RMI Electropiano and it's very good.

5.
no idea, pretty happy with the equipment I have, nothing that I miss





I realise my post may sound a little negative.

To clarify things : I love HS libraries, I think I have most of the older ones.
Novachord, the String Machines, Taurus, M0/M1, Vintage Samplers, Nebulae and some more....those are my cup of tea and my first choice when needing such sounds.

However, I realised a while ago that I have all I need in my sound repertoire and very rarely get tempted anymore to buy anything, be it a VSTi or be it samples.

[Nigbur]

AUTO-ADMIN: Non-MP3, WAV, OGG, SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook links in this post have been protected automatically. Once the member reaches 5 posts the links will function as normal.

1. I got all of the MLM and I love most of them. It's hard to choose, but my favorites are TriOsc and Oscillosine. They fit absolutely perfect in a project where I had to make sounds for a 60's computerlab.
My favorite feature is the random button, as I have not much clue how a synthesizer works and which knobs I'd have to turn to get a certain sound that I'm looking for. So I love to press the random button not knowing what will happen and pick a sound I like and start from there tweaking it a little more. It's fun. And I love your GUIs, they look fantastic and the price is more than fair.

2. Haven't had much use for "Interference" so far. Just don't know how to use it in a musical context. Same goes for "Broken". Too many knobs for me as well.

3. I guess that project would be too big for MLM, but if you'd be able to come along with some kind of a subharmonic Mixtur-Trautonium I'd be very, very happy. After watching tons of You Tube Videos of Oskar Sala rocking his machine I'm still wondering why no one has ever made an effort to recreate it as software. He created all the birdsounds in Hitchcocks "Birds". I guess it must be a hell of a job just to understand the architecture of the Trautonium. Doepfer built a ribbon controller related to the Trautonium a couple of years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIENA2XP8fI

4. I've got the Vermona and the RMI Electrapiano. They're both great. I love GDR-Rock and Genesis "Lamb lies down on Broadway", so these purchase were a no-brainer. Easy to use, great GUI.

5. The german Krautrock band Popol Vuh used a beautiful instrument called "Choir Organ" on their soundtrack of Werner Herzogs "Aguirre, Wrath of god". It's a custom made mellotron with an eerie choir and was a precursor of the mellotron, as we know it. It had other tapeloopsounds as well, but I've never heard them on record.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqR8bNLZ ... re=related

A fansite of Popol Vuh is trying to track the traces of this instrument, which belonged to some guy in Munich and might have ended up somewhere in Vienna, though someone else claims it ended up in a german museum. Could be the Deutsches Museum in Munich, who have the Trautonium of Oskar Sala as well. They have some great vintage electronic instruments there as well, if you're looking for inspiration.

http://www.popolvuh.nl/?q=pvchoir (http://www.popolvuh.nl/?q=pvchoir)

Keep up the great work, guys!

@rtkeeling: If you're looking for a nice Kontakt Theremin, Wavelore have a free trial version of a theremin that comes pretty close to the real instrument, at least for my ears.

http://www.wavelore.com/wlep_details.shtml

[rtkeeling]

@rtkeeling: If you're looking for a nice Kontakt Theremin, Wavelore have a free trial version of a theremin that comes pretty close to the real instrument, at least for my ears.

http://www.wavelore.com/wlep_details.shtml

I'll check it out, Thanks! I wasn't sure if it could be done.

Roy

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I'm waiting for someone to release an Optigan library that actually works an Optigan. What do I mean?

The famous Optigan rhythms are constantly in sync with each other. This means that if you initially hit one rhythm button, then later another, the second rhythm does NOT trigger from the start of the loop but will instead pick up at the exact point the first rhythm was at when changed keys. Essentially, all of the loops are running constantly in sync in the background like free running oscillators.

For some reason, no one has built an accurate Optigan library that does that. The people at Shoptigan (www.optigan.com) keep saying a VST Optigan is in the works but that's been years now. I'd love to see a Kontakt Optigan that works like the original. If it had all the rhythms and leads, I'd easily be in for $99 maybe even up to $149 USD.

[donkeycapers]

1. My fave has to be modular toolkit. Use it all the time for inspiration.

2. Don't know

3. Something watery. Loved the pouring water sounds on side 2 of TD's Zeit.

4. Although it wasn't popular, I liked the ET3. Mainly because I d like a Compact Duo

5. Well a Compact Duo, but it would have to be a Duo with those nice cello-like tones on the bottom manual and with the Mk II's repeat percussion. Ummagumma really.

Even better, talk to Bjork and get her Wyattron samples where she sampled a few octaves of the great Robert Wyatt's voice. I'd sell a kidney for that.

[hollowsun]

Many thanks for all the thoughtful (and varied) replies. It's hard to come to any firm conclusions from them but it seems the the Music Lab Machines are very popular. That would certainly be the case looking at sales figures - the MLMs seem to have hit some 'zeitgeist' so it's something we should focus on and maybe the market for 'vintage recreations' is over-saturated and the discerning user and electronic muso is looking for something 'different' and 'unusual' and 'unique', an element we've tried to introduce and maintain with the MLMs. This would certainly appear to be the case from the emails, Facebook stuff, etc., and other other feedback I get (which I publish on the website).

That said, there seems to be some love for the obscure Vermona and RMI and other stuff so it's inadvisable to write those off just because sales are sometimes not exactly stellar on those titles.

3. I guess that project would be too big for MLM, but if you'd be able to come along with some kind of a subharmonic Mixtur-Trautonium I'd be very, very happy.

Watch this space!



Work will begin in earnest fairly soon. But you're right - BIG project. I have THOUSANDS of samples to sift through, sort, edit, loop and map - and that's before the GUI design and scripting begins ... or maybe after!

And thanks to Funkybot's Evil Twin suggestion - an Optigan library is something I'd like to do but am a little wary because it's so niche and could be a LOT of work for little return.

Thanks for all your responses. Keep 'em coming if you feel so inclined. HS is dedicated to offering the weird and wonderful so the more feedback we get here, the better. I am not promising we can satisfy all the requests (obviously) but it's very interesting to know your thoughts.

Cheers,


Stephen

[tonewheeltom]

4. I have the Vermona and the RMI and love them. I have an RMI 368 and the sound and GUI are accurate. You should tweak the release times - the lower the note, the longer the release time. The lowest octave has a cool synth boing to it. I'm grateful to have this impractical beast in my live rig now!

5. Before you get out of the vintage emulations, you should consider the Gibson/Kalamazoo G101 organ. You are the only people around that could pull off a sample based one. I can imagine how lovely the GUI would be, and how accurate the scripts could get to all the voicings and effects. If you're worried about making money, just check out how much these are going for on eBay. No one has done a VST of this unique combo organ.

[Nigbur]

Wow, a subharchord is on the way. That's fantastic news. Then I'll have a good excuse for myself to buy the Doepfer Ribbon Control as well.

I'm sorry if I can't be more specific on the technical side of your products, as I don't think I'm competent enough to go into technical details. But maybe a few words on my consumer behavior might be helpful. I almost buy any sample library as long as it's reasonably priced (under 20 Euros) and the content is somehow exclusive. After working with sample libraries for a couple of years I don't need the 8th Fender Rhodes. The only thing that makes me buy the 8th Fender Rhodes is a great story related to the product. The minute I saw that Cinesamples made a library of that very Grand Piano which Bill Evans used on "Kind of Blue", I bought it. Though I had no lack of virtual Grand Pianos. It was just too tempting.

I don't need to have any usage for a sample library in the first place. I just love to have them. If I see a nice GUI and know there's a great scriptmeister involved, I'll buy it. The more obscure, the better. I love the stuff from the early days of electronica, Novachord, Ondes Martenot, Ondioline. The sounds from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop are fantastic as well. If you can get your hands on that kind of stuff, I'll have to have it. Same goes for the gear, that Karl-Heinz Stockhausen used. But it could be any instrument that got almost forgotten and was lifted out of the dark by a brave sample library developer.

Another library I'd definitely buy is the percussion instrument "Trimba" which the composer Moondog invented and used on a lot his records. There is a student of Moondog out there called Stefan Lakatos owns one and knows very well how to play it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDMrcPsXO4w

Where is the Hollow Sun blog gone? I miss those nice little stories.

[darsho]

btw, have you guys considered releasing samples in Maschine format ?
I have no idea if it's possible from the legal side (NI reglementations) and I realise it's far from being as deep a sample engine as Kontakt with all the scripting involved.

But I guess (into the blue) it could be quite a market.

[hollowsun]

You should tweak the release times - the lower the note, the longer the release time. The lowest octave has a cool synth boing to it.

Interesting. ISTR there is some key tracking to decay/release time. I'll have a look - maybe it needs a tweak

I'm grateful to have this impractical beast in my live rig now!

Glad you like it.

5. Before you get out of the vintage emulations

I'm not getting out of vintage emulations but the market IS somewhat over saturated and people seem more interested in the whackier stuff.

you should consider the Gibson/Kalamazoo G101 organ. You are the only people around that could pull off a sample based one. I can imagine how lovely the GUI would be, and how accurate the scripts could get to all the voicings and effects. If you're worried about making money, just check out how much these are going for on eBay. No one has done a VST of this unique combo organ.

Hmmmmm ... not a great deal of love out there for the tranny organ. There's a small number of people who are obsessed with them, will buy anything and sometimes at silly prices but there's no real market for them, I'm afraid.

Cheers,



Stephen

[hollowsun]

Another library I'd definitely buy is the percussion instrument "Trimba" which the composer Moondog invented and used on a lot his records. There is a student of Moondog out there called Stefan Lakatos owns one and knows very well how to play it.

I'll look into it.

That might be something better suited to Sonic Couture - they do that sort of stuff brilliantly well.

Where is the Hollow Sun blog gone? I miss those nice little stories.

Ha! Too busy to keep a diary here at the moment. Besides, I'm not sure that many people are interested in reading about my cantankerous butler, my loosely moralled secretary and cook's impressive dumplings!

Cheers,


Stephen