Big Fish Audio | MusicTech Magazine | Violence Product Review
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Violence | MusicTech Magazine

Rating: Innovation Award - 9/10 Stars Back to Violence product details

Back in the 40s and 50s, American composer John Cage pioneeered many techniques that would go on to influence much of the sound design and sample-based instruments we use today. One of Cage's famous creations was the prepared piano, which had various objects placed on its strings to create strange new sounds. This unorthodox approach has been applied to the violin in Vir2's new virtual instrument, Violence.

The instrument is available as an 800MB download that expands to 1.5GB of content and runs in VST, AU and RTAS formats. Powered by the seemingly unstoppable Kontakt engine, each of the 82 instruments features a custom set of scripted knobs and controls and have been divided into four categories: Drum Kits, Melodic, Pads and Sound Effects, and Tempo-Synced. Each folder has a full range of sounds, from natural and organic to weird and electronic as the violin is bowed, scraped, hit, plucked and played with guitar picks, chopsticks, mallets and wet fingers. The quality and depth of the sounds on offer is truly excellent and represents a masterclass in Kontakt programming, layering and sound manipulation.

The drum kits contain an array of acoustic-sounding glitches, taps and scrapes that would be perfect for electronica producers. Likewise, the highly atmospheric Melodic, Pads and SFX sections would be ideal for deep musical styles and sound-design duties.

Finally, there's a collection of tempo-sync'ed grooves that although highly original may need a bit of tweaking to fit into a track. Despite the high quality of the audio, the clever use of looping and very short samples means that most of the patches load less than 10MB into memory.

The sounds on offer here may not be to everyone's taste, but if you're after some original timbres, Violence is well worth a look.

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