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Waveskimmer by MODWHEEL Review

David Donaldson and Steve Roche team-up with Kirke from ShapedNoise to produced a new Kontakt library, in this review we are taking a look at the resulting product: Waveskimmer by Modwheel. Waveskimmer is MODWHEEL’s early 2018’s offer to you for pulses, rhythms, riffs, melodic patterns, evolving pads & risers. MODWHEEL did send a review copy with no strings attached.

Installation

Download Waveskimmer, do a batch re-save in Kontakt and you are done. The full version of Kontakt 5.6.6 or higher is required.

Sound

With Waveskimmer you can create intense moving sounds with an embedded live. You get access to sounds originating from metal sounds, percussion, stringed instruments, synths, and vocals. The concept of Waveskimmer adds pulse, audio and motion controlled by the mod-wheel to those sounds. MODWHEEL included selected and original samples to inject a very organic and unique sound into the Kontakt instrument.

Kirke Godfrey (ShapedNoise) needs to be specially mentioned here for his enormous contribution to WaveSkimmer. Kirke was leading the design with his concept and assisted in pulling everything together. Marcin Gruszczynski (SZCZ) is the genius behind the complex scripting used inWaveskimmer.

Waveskimmer by Modwheel Review 1
Waveskimmer by Modwheel

As all MODWHEEL productions, you get something unique and special. Waveskimmer includes some tremendous sounding pulsing patterns, evolving pads and underscore.

Features of Waveskimmer

  • An adjustable pulse and velocity grid that can go from 1 to 32 steps and from 64th notes to 1 bar duration, with an adjustable swing applied to both grids.
  • An adjustable pitch grid that covers a 2-octave range, which can also be set from 64th notes to one bar duration.
  • The pulse and pitch grid rates and the number of steps can be set independently of each other (grab and drag via the mouse).
  • The instrument can load two separate sounds, via an A and B group assignment. The B group can be lowered by an octave.
  • The mod wheel is assigned to a sample start mod so that as a pattern is being played by the pulse/velocity grid the start point of the sample at each step will vary depending upon the position of the mod wheel. This allows the performer to scroll through the sample thus changing the intensity and tonal qualities of the sound most agreeably and dynamically.
  • An X-Y pad connected to a Transient Master allows easy reshaping of the samples.
  • Group A and B have different distortions assignable. Group A distortion is somewhat warmer and rounded while Group B is more aggressive so you can choose your styles.
  • The pitch pattern can be constrained to a large variety of scale modes,
  • All sounds can be mixed and matched easily via the front panel pull-down menu or the dedicated ‘sound selector’ tab.
  • Delays are tempo locked and adjustable in 32nd note divisions.
  • The instrument also features a tempo locked tremolo, with a warm and full chorus, and independent distortion chains for each of the two sample groups. The distortion on Sample group A is warm and subtle whereas Sample group B is more aggressive.
  • WaveSkimmer will tempo lock to your host DAW.

User interface & Usability

MODWHEEL used a UI that enables you to define and change sounds quickly. All geared to enable you to get quick results and have fun.

Waveskimmer by Modwheel UI

Rating:  Five out of five stars

Waveskimmer introduces immense, organic acoustic sounds that can be changed quickly through the interface or by choosing one the included unconventional sounds. Use the mod-wheel to add timbral movement and inject excitement into your score.

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