FABLES – BY EVOLUTION SERIES & NATIVE INSTRUMENTS
KK-ACCESS REVIEW
Back in April 2022 Native Instruments released Lores from Evolution Series which melded a collection of eclectic instruments to produce a cinematic & ethereal soundscape library.
Now, over a year onward, the follow up to Lores has recently been released in a bid to add a more traditional instrumentation flavour as a partner to the previous product.
FABLES – THE STORY CONTINUES
Fables includes a collection of Strings, Brass, Choirs, Guitar, Percussion & other atmospheric sounds all housed in an otherwise identical Kontakt engine, and also throws in the newly added feature of polyphonic aftertouch to further aid with the expressive capabilities of the library.
TECH SPECS
Running in Kontakt 7.5 and above, as well as the equivalent free Kontakt player version, Fables is also compatible with Komplete Kontrol.
The library requires 57GB of disk space for installation, using the NCW lossless compression format.
There is one master Fables Kontakt NKI preset which further feeds an additional 270 Kontakt NKSN snapshot presets, found within the Komplete Kontrol browser.
DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION
Being a predominantly Native Instruments product, download & installation is as you would expect entirely handled through Native Access 2.
After purchase the license serial will already be pre registered for you within NA2, so all that remains is to hit the ‘available’ tab and begin the download process.
The hefty 57GB took around 3 hours to download & install here, but fortunately it was a pleasant sunny day with a garden, sun bed, parasol & cool drink beckoning for my attention, and I was afforded the luxury of being able to forget about the whole process for several hours, I returned later and was ready to get stuck in!
KOMPLETE KONTROL PLUG-IN EDIT NKS PARAMETER MAPPING
PAGE ONE – Space, Shape & Solo Instrument
Knob 1 – Reverb
Knob 2 – Noise
Knob 3 – Shape – Boost
Knob 4 – Power
Knob 5 – Solo Instrument: Left On/Off
Knob 6 – Solo Instrument: Mid On/Off
Knob 7 – Solo Instrument: Right On/Off
Knob 8 – Unallocated
PAGE TWO – Instrument, Left, Mid & Right
Knob 1 – Instrument Left: Distance
Knob 2 – Instrument Left: Pan
Knob 3 – Instrument Mid: Distance
Knob 4 – Instrument Mid: Pan
Knob 5 – Instrument Right: Distance
Knob 6 – Instrument Right: Pan
Knob 7 & 8 – Unallocated
PAGE THREE – Velocity & Voicing
Knob 1 – Velocity Curve: Softest, Softer, Soft, Normal, Hard, Harder, Hardest
Knob 2 – Sensitivity
Knob 3 – Voicing, Smartvoice On/Off
Knob 4 – Voice Limit: 0 to 24
Knob 5 to 8 – Unallocated
ACCESSIBILITY
As you will see from the available 3 NKS pages listed above, the mapping for Fables just as with it’s predecessor Lores is quite sparse to say the least.
Arguably the bare essentials are present, but that’s really it, there are so many more features buried in the GUI that Fables has to offer, that are not accessible to us via NKS.
Being able to use the internal sample articulation browser, ADSR controls, Poly Aftertouch mapping, and several other appealing control options like the randomise buttons, are not there for us, which is naturally going to restrict the overall sound design potential , making this pretty much a preset only library.
This disappointment was further endorsed when I cross referenced the Fables master NKI within Kontakt outside of Komplete Kontrol.
Upon inspection of the parameters that had been made available for automation, which potentially means they could also be added to Komplete Kontrol, I found some useful entries that had been omitted from KK and left behind in Kontakt.
There were Volume, Pan, Pitch, Attack, Release, LFO On/Off, LFO Depth, LFO Rate, and LFO Sync parameters available for each of the three articulation layers of each sound channel.
Admittedly,This would have added a further nine or so pages to the mapping, but as there are only three to begin with, it was a somewhat disappointing discovery to make where our access is concerned.
FABLES, THE STORYTELLER
The presets are divided into four banks as a method of grouping the sound types, these are:
Air
Classical
Hybrid
tales
By and large these are accurate definitions, but of course the themes are not entirely rigid and are only intended as guides to aid with the preset selection process.
As mentioned, the Kontakt engine essentially has three sound layers, each of which can also have up to three individual articulation layers loaded into them, ultimately offering the potential of nine sounds in total.
The audible magic really starts to happen when these layers and articulations blend and interact with one another when played.
The velocity levels, expression, and in many cases the newly added polyphonic aftertouch can be employed to trigger further performance events dependant upon the playing techniques used.
As we previously outlined, there is overall a more traditional approach to the instrumentation used for Fables, with the following instruments finding their place within the library:
Ambient Guitar, Bass Flute, Cello Ensemble, Double Bass Ensemble, Female Choir, French Horn Ensemble, Low Brass Ensemble, Low Percussion, Low Winds Ensemble, Male Choir, Metal Percussion, Pads, SFX, Tuned Percussion, Violin Ensemble& , Waterfone.
ARTICULATE ARTICULATIONS
The Australian developer, Evolution Series, who developed the library have already got a number of excellent titles attributed to their name.
KK-Access has already taken a look at Evolution Cellos in an earlier review,
https://kk-access.com/2022/03/11/bowed-colors-cello-vol-1-by-evolution-series/,
and in this review we had noted that the inclusion of many unusual articulations is a hallmark style used within their products.
To this end, Fables also continues to adopt this signature style, and as such should not be thought of as an orchestral library in the more traditional sense of the term.
The entire product is well suited to more cinematic endeavours, with each preset housing interesting movements and atmospheric soundscapes which could work very well as self contained cues alongside accompanying visual media.
The NKS mapping does at least allow us to alter microphone distance perception, and offers the ability to pan, set ambience level, as well as a few other modest shaping controls.
The limitation of not being able to select our own choice of articulations can at times become apparent, it can occasionally be a case where a preset suits your needs well, but is otherwise hindered by a single preloaded sound within one of the sound slots that might not work with your project, so muting that slot is the only real way out.
Without a doubt, Fables is bursting with a plethora of well crafted samples, and with an excess of 400 articulations there are almost infinite combinations.
However at times the results can seem akin to throwing a painstakingly completed jigsaw puzzle onto the floor, and then having to sort it into some semblance of order.
With this being the case, it may feel like there is a bit of a journey involved in hunting down a preset that works exactly for your project, conversely, at other times you may feel inspired by what you discover and are quite content to use one of the factory presets.
FABLE SOUND
The 57GB installation size is not without good reason, the large sample pool and high quality recordings demand this as a necessity for a library of this type which relies on it’s many articulation variations to deliver it’s sounds.
The presets convey a warm and wide stereo field, and the slow and evolving nature of the sounds generally ensure a constant animation of the audio to help maintain listener interest.
In a handful of presets the slightly repetitive nature of some looping samples can make the use of loops a little obvious, but some careful and judicious creative planning can help to alleviate this in practical use.
Overall though, the whole preset range is not widely diverse in nature, the transitions between light and shadow are subtle and measured, certainly the darker material is not aggressively in your face in a jumps care horror style.
Fables is deliberately all about mystic atmospheres, textural underscore, Ethereal soundscapes and environments being used to tell a story with sound.
CONCLUSION
Fables is a worthy partner to it’s sister product Lores, the library can certainly work well for a variety of atmospheric and scene setting projects such as film, game and ambient composition.
However, in terms of the accessibility for further sound design and shaping potential, Fables sadly does fall short of the mark for blind & VI users.
This is further exacerbated with the knowledge that there are several useful controls that have been omitted and left to languish only in the Kontakt master NKI preset.
Boasting 270 factory presets, for some Fables may still hold some appeal while on it’s introductory pricing, or for those whose central composition work revolves around the genres it leans toward, many though, may wish to hangfire for it’s inevitable inclusion somewhere within the 2024 release of a Komplete 15 bundle.
FABLES IS AVAILABLE FROM THE NATIVE INSTRUMENTS WEBSITE, AT THE TIME OF WRITING WITH A 25% INTRO PRICE OF £129.00 (Regularly £179.00).
Fables Product Page:
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/cinematic/fables/
Fables Product Walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5GPc_juzNU
Fables User Manual:
https://www.native-instruments.com/fileadmin/ni_media/downloads/manuals/Fables/Fables_Manual_English_10_08_2023.pdf
(c) Chris Ankin
KK-Access.com
20TH August 2023
Disclaimer
The author can not accept any responsibility for subsequent purchase decisions made as a result of this review,or Any inaccuracies found therein. All opinions and product functions stated are based solely on information perceived as a blind user whilst using the product and/or gathered from official factual sources such as the developer, web or supplied product manual.
About the Author
Based in Buckinghamshire, England, Chris Ankin has worked as a freelance review writer and contributor with articles published in Sound On Sound, Home & Studio Recording and ST Format Magazines.
He has also successfully worked extensively in and around the music, recording, film Soundtrack scoring, Game & media composition, the creative arts, Charitable trusts,publishing, music streaming and property investments since 1982 whilst continuously and deliberately managing to evade any mainstream recognition under his own name by the use of various pseudonyms.
E&OE
KK-ACCESS 