The VibysM is a 3 1/2 octaves Musser concert vibraphone. This is one of the best vibraphone models ever made.It was played with soft mallets during the recording session to capture the maximum of dynamics and the softness of this instrument. The Vibraphone was very popular in the Jazz music of the 50's but somehow got used a lot less since then.Today it is used more and more in popular music as well as modern jazz and even electronic music.
It may seem obvious but perhaps the best part about sampling this monster was transforming it from a mono synth into a beautiful polyphonic keyboard, capable of lush chords, dark pads, analog vibraphones and insane polyphonic soundscapes. In the following example we recorded two slightly different patches separately (adjusting pitch, LFO and filter) and then panned the results to get an enormous chord progression:
Vibraphone v2.0.0 KONTAKT
Essentially a mechanised, 20th Century variation on the classic metallaphone, the vibraphone adds a constant modulation to its resonator tubes by the use of motorised fans. The fans, or discs, cover the top of the resonator tube and spin in unison, allowing full or partial function of the resonator tube depending on which point of the cycle the motor is in. The resulting tone is a type of tremolo effect - shimmering, golden, & very wobbly indeed; due to all resonators modulating together and thus aggregating the effect on the decaying notes.
Instruments that use this kind of global modulation (the Hammond C3/leslie is a similar example) are traditionally impossible to sample & model realistically, because if you record a single note with the tremolo active, it will be completely out of sync with all subsequent notes you record. Previous attempts to sample the vibraphone usually resorted to sampling the instrument with the motor/tremolo switched off, then approximating the effect later using filters modulated by an LFO to effect the change in timbre.
Once we have the full vibraphone sound sampled in both states - fans closed and fans open - we can then simply crossfade between them in Kontakt using a simple sinusoidal LFO. This gives not only the authentic, detailed timbre, but also full control over the speed of the tremolo, another essential element of the instrument missing from previous renderings.
In addition to the natural tremolo modelling, the other advantage of having two separate layers of vibraphone samples is that it is possible to combine them in new and interesting ways. We have added extra controls that allow you to :
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