Cinesamples Metallurgy Kontakt Designer instrument

Hey what’s going on? Time to checkout some new goodies this week, and I figured what better place to start than some new cinematic/fx type instruments?

Yes I know I love this stuff, it’s all good though, it’s just such a versatile genre of sound that it fits in almost anywhere.

Today I’m taking a look at a product from Cinesamples, if you remember I did a review of their Drums of War product a while ago during a Big Fish Friday installment.

Well I wad definitely impressed with what I heard so I’ve been watching them ever since, and today I’m going to review one of their newest products.

It’s called Metallurgy, it’s the first in their “Kontakt Designer” Series of instruments.

let’s check it out

What is Metallurgy?

This is a library dedicated to custom sound design using various forms of metal and industrial impacts as the sound source material.

They worked with Boom Library to create the source material…..

then they created a very dope custom kontakt scripted interface to make accessing the sounds pretty easy.

I will say I absolutely love the interface, but we’ll get more into that later.

Safe to say they created this library, like all their libraries, with sound designers and film/game composers in mind

(they are composers themselves)

but you know me, I feel this stuff works in any environment if you’re a sound fanatic like I am.

Quick Spec

• content: 5.27GB ( about 2.2gb download)
• format: kontakt 4 full version (doesn’t work with  kontakt player)
• price: $149

How does it sound?

It sounds ready for production, the library is full of ready to play instruments, kits, tones, noises, etc.

There’s at least 300+ various nki instrument files and they broke the presets up into categories like downbeat helpers, hits with movment, moving textures, odd events, playable kits, smaller hits, and tonal metals.

This is not a “clean” library of traditional instruments rather it’s whole focus is on metal impacts and industrial types of sounds.

These are recorded well and they play well, including some round robin sample triggering to add realism.

Alot of the names can be pretty descriptive like coins, but some only hint at what the sound may be….like Crucified Dooms or Demon Rock…huh?

Sounds crazy…just play it!

I like the amount of content and also like how the library isn’t huge as far as loading sounds, so the preset patches load pretty quick, but as much as I like the included presets, which are really good….that’s not my favorite part of this library

The Kontakt Designer Interface…

This is literally my favorite part of the library and what I feel sets it apart from other fx/industrial impact libraries.  I mean there are tons of great sample collections out there, but how you interact and create with them is a different story.

I’m a huge advocate of customized Kontakt interfaces, I love them, call me spoiled but I think they add a totally new dimension to the product.

However, this interface is like nothing I’ve seen before, it really puts me in the mind of a workstation of sorts.

You get 4 layers for each sound, each has it’s own eq, verb, and delay, as well as tune, pan, repeat, offset, keyspan, etc.

Browsing for sounds to add to your layers is very intuitive, you pull up the browser right there in the interface, you can pick categories or browse the entire collection.

As you click on a sound it will automatically preview it so you know what you’re working with….if you like it, just hit the check to add it.

You also get 4 global fx you can add to the overall sound…this really allows for some creative and unique creations beyond just tweaking a preset.

This is the standout for me, as I love making new stuff, so making the content this easy to work with is a very welcomed feature.

So what’s the bottom line?

The sounds and instruments in this library are high quality themselves and I”m sure many will use it strictly for the instruments without ever thinking of exploring deeper, and that’s fine, they do what they were designed to do.

To me, where this library stands out is it’s interface and usability. I’ve never come across a kontakt interface quite like this and it really encourages custom sound design and sound creation.

I give this a 5 out of 5 subs as I really was impressed with the interface, I just can’t say it enough. The source material is great, and being able to combine, effect, and tweak my own “patches” with 4 different layers quickly right within the interface without any complex midi setup, or sample mapping is just plain dope in my opinion.

Had they went the route of many other libraries and just released a plain interface with the content, I wouldn’t have been near as excited about it. Sure the content would still be good, but how easy would it be to work with and customize had it been a “normal” kontakt interface?

That’s why I give this such a high score, as the user experience is just plain fun and inspires creativity.

if you liked these types of industrial/metallic sounds or love to stack, layer and create your own impacts and sound, definitely take a look at this library.  Check the demos on their site as they can definitely show you what the library sounds like “in context”. Cinesamples Metallurgy

I really wanted to show this interface…I’m sure I’m not the only kontakt fanatic who instantly gets tons of ideas for different products using an interface like this.

let me know what you think about this one, leave a comment below