- 7 whole-notes sampled from one octave (upper and lower C mapping duplicated)
- 16 random round-robins per sampled note
- Sustain length ranges from 1 to 3 seconds
- 16 bit, 44.1 khz mono WAV format
- Only one velocity layer (0-128) but velocity of played note affects volume
This is an experimental instrument that uses a child’s xylophone. The trick is that the xylophone is struck with two mallets making two note chords (dyads). As the xylophone is only in the key of C the resulting “chords” are CMaj7, Dm7, Em7, Fmaj7, G7, Am7, Bm7b5. Each of these “chords” are sampled as 16 random round-robins which means you can keep hitting the same note and the instrument will play a random variation of that “chord”. Play a few random notes and you could be inspired by the sounds that come out. This instrument may be suitable for EDM or any other driving music. Also, because of the chordal and percussive nature of this instrument you can build unique and awesome effects by outputting the audio into plug-ins and filters like EQ, delays and more.
This instrument is an “SFZ instrument” which is a free, cross-platform sampler format for virtual instruments (musical instruments played by computer software). The instrument is composed of a .SFZ file which points to a collection of audio samples. The SFZ file tells the sampler how to perform the notes when they are triggered by MIDI in a digital audio workstation; in other words, when you play a note the SFZ file tells the sampler which audio files to play. Cakewalk has a free SFZ player but the one SampleSoundBank prefers is Plogue’s Sforzando.
This instrument is also available in Kontakt format. It will work in Kontakt full version 5.1 and later. It is NOT recommended or suitable for Kontakt Player. If you do not have full Kontakt Player version 5.1 or later then you should purchase the SFZ format and load the instrument using Plogue’s Sforzando.