PETRICHOR, EARTHY WINDS BY FRACTURE SOUNDS

PETRICHOR, EARTHY WINDS BY FRACTURE SOUNDS

 

 

KK-ACCESS REVIEW

 

 

Our friends over at Fracture Sounds have clearly been extraordinarily busy of late, with a release schedule so packed, it’s been hard for us humble reviewers to keep up with their output!

 

 

This latest release, Petrichor Earthy Winds, is a collaboration with UK Film & TV composer Dan Keen.

 

 

Petrichor is an Woodwind ensemble library, crafted into a beautifully rich palette of multiple instruments, which as you might expect coming from a film composer like Dan, is perfect for the demands of emotive scoring.

 

 

Petrichor, whose literal meaning is the smell of rain, perfectly conveys the gentle and natural warmth and ambience of a contemporary Woodwind Ensemble, which I think can often get overlooked for use within film soundtracks in favour of string sections as a more obvious scoring mechanism.

 

 

TECH SPECS

Petrichor runs in either the full version of Kontakt 6.7 or the equivalent free Kontakt Player or higher, and is compatible with Komplete Kontrol.

 

Weighing in at 3GB, using NCW compression from the original 4GB sample pool.

 

There are 6 Kontakt NKI presets which provide the core factory content.

 

 

DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION

 

the entire installation process for Petrichor is handled through Native Access, making it a simple process after pasting in your post purchase license key.

 

Komplete Kontrol quickly takes care of the rest, adding the library to your browser upon instantiation and running of the auto scan.

 

 

KOMPLETE KONTROL PLUG-IN EDIT NKS CONTROLS

 

Page One – Main & Reverb Settings

 

Knob 1 – Dynamics
Knob 2 – Expression
Knob 3 – Colour
Knob 4 – Reverb
Knob 5 – Reverb Type: Hall, Room
Knob 6 – Reverb Size
Knob 7 – Reverb Damping
Knob 8 – Reverb Modulation

 

 

Page Two – Volume & Atmosphere

 

Knob 1 – Raw (Core instrument volume)
Knob 2 – Atmosphere 1 Volume
Knob 3 – Atmosphere 2 Volume
Knob 4 – Atmosphere 3 Volume
Knob 5 – Atmosphere Intensity
Knob 6 – Atmosphere Layer 1 Selection
Knob 7 – Atmosphere Layer 2 Selection
Knob 8 – Atmosphere Layer 3 Selection

 

Page Three – Settings

 

Knob 1 – Tightness (Sample Start)
Knob 2 – Volume Range
Knob 3 – Keyswitch Range
Knob 4 to 8 – Unallocated

 

 

ACCESSIBILITY

 

 

We have mentioned in previous reviews of how Fracture Sounds are mindful of the needs of their blind & vision impaired customers, and this mandate is again carried forward within Petrichor.

 

 

Articulations are accessible through keyswitches, but this access is further enhanced with a new Keyswitch selection control, which allows users to move the default keyswitch group to their own position of choice on the keyboard.

 

 

This is great news for those not having the full range of octaves at their disposal, so rather than repetitively bashing your octave up & down buttons in order to change an articulation, you can instead move the whole cluster of keyswitches to somewhere a little more convenient to you.

 

 

Other developers would do well to take note of this handy feature, particularly if they happen to feature an iconic British second world war aircraft name in their title 🙂

 

 

PETRICHOR – INTO THE WOODS

 

The petrichor ensemble includes Alto & Bass Flute, Clarinet & Bass Clarinet, & Bass, Tenor, Alto & Soprano Saxophones.

There are 8 articulation keyswitches which default between C0 and G0, however as mentioned these can be moved up by semitones (or half tones if you prefer), up to C2 to G2 with the mere twist of a Komplete Kontrol knob.

 

 

Another clever and noteworthy piece of KSP scripting introduces Smart Trills, which depending on the notes played will automatically trigger either
Maj2nd, Min3rd, or Maj3rd sporadic trill samples, this is a useful feature which adds to the natural feel and realism of the library when played.

 

 

There is only one set microphone position within Petrichor, it’s not too up close and personal, but of mid range, and provides enough breathy detail, and the woody warm tones to serve the purpose of texture.

 

 

With the atmosphere layers turned off, and reverb entirely minimised Petrichor is actually very dry, which is not an entirely undesirable trait to have.

 

 

We only have access to an inbuilt room or hall reverb, so having the ability to add our own ambience of choice is no bad thing.

 

 

In practice, I still preferred the sound of Petrichor with the atmosphere layers in place, but throwing an instance of a Black Hole reverb onto slot 2 of Komplete Kontrol was rather pleasant on the ears.

 

 

ATMOSPHERE LAYERS

 

Petrichor includes three blendable atmosphere layers, each of which hold a choice of seven which are:

Earth, Moss, Root, Heath, Dew, Sine Plus & Flourish which all have suitably organically named titles.

 

 

Like Zen Meditations, which we also recently reviewed , it would perhaps be nice to have pan controls for each of these three choices.

 

 

When it comes to the presets, Petrichor is somewhat sparse in it’s offerings, having only 6 in total.

These are High Winds Main, Low Winds Main, Full Ensemble Main, High Winds Alternative, Low Winds Alternative & Full Ensemble Alternative.

 

The reasoning I would guess, is that Petrichor is not really a sound design oriented library in the same vein as Zen Meditations, and in it’s role as a scoring tool, the main adjustments come in the form of the instantly switchable articulations, alongside your blending of the atmosphere layers, hence the minimal preset count.

 

 

PETRICHOR ARTICULATIONS

 

 

Here is the articulation list as described on the Petrichor product page:

 

 

Wisps
Sustained longs that vary in texture using vibrato.

 

Smart Trills
Intelligently triggers the correct trill or whisp samples to match any notes or chords you play. The individual trills (Maj2nd, Maj/Min3rd) have also been split into separate articulations on the Alternative patch.

 

Blooms
Swells that rise and fall in random patterns.

 

Soft Accents
Short, soft staccatos that vary in length depending on velocity.

 

Swells
Long and short swells of the woodwind ensemble playing in unison.

 

Spores
Sustained notes with random short accents layered over the top.

 

Wild Wisps
Long sustains with Multiphonic (almost atonal) swells in the top dynamic, controlled by the mod wheel (CC1).

 

 

Dan has done an excellent walkthrough for Petrichor which I would recommend watching, and as always I have included various links at the review footer.

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

 

Petrichor is another new and welcome string to the ever expanding bow of Fracture Sounds, although perhaps using string & bow to describe a Woodwind library seems a little off kilter 🙂

 

 

Petrichor is not overly polished to the point of sounding processed, there are occasional quite acceptable imperfections which is not intended as a criticism, in fact they add further realism to the natural textural timbres that this library sets out to achieve.

 

 

To this end, Petrichor is capable of adding a fine brushstroke of woodwind colours to any scoring canvas,where perhaps a rich and gently evolving texture is called for.

 

 

In terms of the accessibility, the Kontakt user interface controls have been replicated for the Komplete Kontrol NKS implementation, making it fully functional for blind & visually impaired composers.

 

 

Petrichor Earthy Winds from Fracture Sounds can be purchased directly from their website at an introductory price of £59.00 (until December 21st).

During the Black Friday sale only, you can combine Petrichor with Midnight Grand in the 99 Bundle, and save 40%.

 

 

Petrichor Product Page:
https://fracturesounds.com/product/petrichor/

 

 

Petrichor Walkthrough with Dan Keen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLVk6Picy9M

 

Petrichor – Behind the library:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edUc63zfNoc

 

 

(c) Chris Ankin

 

 

KK-Access.com

 

 

24TH November 2023

 

 

 

Transparency Statement

 

 

KK-Access believe that out of respect for our readers,product reviews should be honest and unbiased, and that any of our oppinions should not be influenced by financial reward or other incentives from a plug-in or sample library provider for which a review of their wares may be a subject matter.

 

 

Therefore, we do not accept,, and will continue to decline any offers of affiliation links, for all products under review for publication on this website.

 

 

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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