SOUNDS FROM BEYOND BY RED ROOM AUDIO
KK-ACCESS REVIEW
Red Room Audio may have seemed a little quiet of late, but now they are back with a follow up to their 2020 release ‘Sounds From Hell’, the focus then as the title indicated was on horror, however this new follow up puts the Science Fiction genre into their laser sights and zaps us into an alternate universe.
Where it’s predecessor Sounds from Hell came in two editions, Ambience & Underscore and also Hits & Transitions, this new venture packs everything into a single library with around 1500 out of this world samples to provide possibly everything you need to score your next sci-fi fantasy related epic.
TECH SPECS
Sounds From Beyond requires the full version of Kontakt 6.7.1 and higher, and it’s important to stress at this point that it is not Kontakt Player compatible, unless you wish to quit and reload every 15 minutes due to the demo mode restrictions.
12GB of disk space is required for installation of the 24 bit/48kHz wav format files.
The use of Wav format files mean that you can use these outside of the SFB Kontakt engine, for dropping into your DAW etc.
There are nine Kontakt NKI presets which house all of the sample content across the various specific content types.
These are:
Collisions, Dreamscapes, Evolutions, Implosions, Interference, Launches & Landings, Movements, Rumbles, & Voices.
Kontakt NKI files are exclusively used, there are no NKSN snapshots, although there are some Kontakt NKA files which are used for certain presets, and are accessible through the assigned controls.
DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION
Downloading & installation is achieved using the accessible Pulse Downloder, where pasting in your serial code enables the entire process.
Pulse handles all of the unpacking and assembling of the Sounds From Beyond sample folder, after which you can move the whole thing to your preferred end destination.
As previously mentioned this library DOES require the full version of Kontakt, but can still be scanned into Komplete Kontrol where it will appear on the user side of your browser, under Native Instruments and Kontakt, the presets will then be titled SFB as a prefix for the patch name in the preset list.
The SFB library did not initially show up for me within Komplete Kontrol, so for me the fix was to batch re save the library to Kontakt version 7.6 which is the version I am running at the time of writing,
after a manual re scan this allowed Sounds From Beyond to show up as stated above.
Fortunately my main rig is still running Komplete Kontrol version 2.94, so I was accessibly able to reach the controls required to carry out these utility tasks.
Red Room Audio being historically mindful of accessibility needs, have taken the time to make the parameters available for automation, and done the additional legwork so that the pages and controls will show up within the Komplete Kontrol environment for us to use accessibly with speech.
KOMPLETE KONTROL PLUG-IN EDIT NKS PARAMETERS
Page One – Settings & Range
Knob 1 – Volume
Knob 2 – Pan
Knob 3 – Pitch: + or minus 12 notes
Knob 4 – Speed: 50% to 200%
Knob 5 – Range: Sample Start
Knob 6 – Range: Sample End
Knob 7 & 8 – Unallocated
Page Two – Envelope & Filter
Knob 1 – Attack
Knob 2 – Decay
Knob 3 – Sustain
Knob 4 – Release
Knob 5 – Envelope Depth
Knob 6 – Filter Cut-Off
Knob 7 – Filter Resonance
Knob 8 – Unallocated
Page Three – Gate, Land On Beat & Reverse
Knob 1 – Gate On/Off
Knob 2 – Gate Depth
Knob 3 – Gate Rate in Hertz (when not synced to DAW)
Knob 4 – Gate Sync
Knob 5 – Rate: 1/1 to 1/64 including triplets
Knob 6 – Land On Beat On/Off
Knob – Reverse: On/Off
Knob 8 – Unallocated
*The SFB Voices patch has the same NKS mapping template, with the exception of relevant parameters being omitted such as the ‘Land On Beat’ & Reverse switch.
As this is essentially a pad based and chromatically playable instrument patch, there is a Sound Selection control within the NKS mapping that allows us to switch between the 42 available internal presets (I suspect that this is where the use of the NKA Kontakt array files emanates).
The Dreamscapes & Movements preset files like all of the others, consist of single samples assigned to their own midi keys, however as these two are more tonal in their nature, they have been given an octave of playable keyswitches which lets you play them as notes.
ACCESSIBILITY
Red Room Audio have done a superb job of implementing the NKS controls for Sounds From Beyond, it follows the same template seen in ‘Sounds From Hell’, which we also championed at the time.
They have covered all of the essential controls, but more than this, have scripted them in an intelligent manner, and the process and thought behind this is clearly evident when in use.
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All of the single NKI preset files within SFB have single samples assigned to individual midi notes, which are spread across the octaves of your keyboard.
The clever bit where the Kontakt scripting comes into play, is that you are able to edit each sound independently of one another, which is really useful in numerous situations.
You may for example wish to reverse one of the Collision sounds and retain the forward impact on an adjacent key, thus creating a rise & hit.
It is possible to take this example still further, for instance panning the reversed riser sound to the left, and the collision impact to the right, change the pitch of either or both, change the speed of the riser, the filter cut-off and resonance, and volume levels for each, well you get the general idea, flexibility is order of the day!
HIT THE BEAT!
another very useful feature is the ‘Land On Beat’ toggle switch, when engaged it does exactly what it claims, and ensures that the end part of your allotted sound ends on the beat, which particular beat depends on where the start point is (or in layman’s terms when you hit the key), but this singular on & off switch obviously has some clever time stretching algorithm behind it which time stretches or shrinks the envelope to fit the clock sync of your DAW.
THE GATE KEEPER
On the topic of syncing to your DAW, the Gate feature can be employed to add a gate pulse effect to the overall sound output, unlike other controls this one does work globally for all sounds at once, but it’s not a deal breaker, and in most cases that is exactly what you would want to happen.
The whole range of clock rates are catered for, from a 1 bar cycle, right up to 64 note machine gun trills, again very flexible.
THE SOUND OF BEYOND
Although aimed at the science fiction media creator, the wide sound shaping possibilities of SFB mean that it can easily straddle other genres, so horror, action, thriller themes are not entirely out of the question.
The sounds are generally of good quality, although there is undeniably a few sounds that you might struggle to find a home for, the same applies to the Voices instrument, again some definite offerings from the cheese counter here, but if you were scoring a tongue in cheek retro Flash Gordon slice of media, then this might be the ideal topping for your toast!
In terms of content, here is a breakdown of what’s included in each of the nine instrument categories:
36 Collisions
36 Dreamscapes
36 Evolutions
36 Implosions
36 Interferences
36 Launches & Landings
36 Movements
36 Rumbles
42 Voices
Red Room Audio have created a series of useful videos which demonstrate the nuances of each of the 9 SFB instruments, well worth a watch if this library is on your radar, and I have as always added links at the review footer.
CONCLUSION
Sounds From Beyond is a welcome new addition to the ‘Sounds From’ lineage.
for some, it may lean too much toward a specific genre For everyday use, however for others it will be another very useful palette of oven ready sounds that help you to get a task done quickly, and importantly back out on time to meet your deadline.
In terms of accessibility, Red Room Audio have pulled off something of a masterstroke that other developers would do well to follow, with an NKS template whose scripting delivers a level of sound design tweaking & editing opportunities which belie the overall page count.
Sounds From Beyond can be purchased from the Red Room Audio website at an introductory price of $79.00
There is also a further discount of 10% if other ‘Sounds From’ series products are purchased at the same time.
Sounds From Beyond Product Page:
https://redroomaudio.com/product/sounds-from-beyond/
Sounds From Beyond Walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfT100IpNtI
Sounds From Beyond – Various Shorts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zptY4ErBlI4
SFB Reference Manual:
https://redroomaudio.com/manuals/MANUAL-Sounds-From-Beyond.pdf
(c) Chris Ankin
KK-Access.com
8th November 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.
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