SLOWER BY E-INSTRUMENTS

KK-ACCESS REVIEW

So, now having heavily invested in your state of the art computer and digital audio workstation that can run at eye watering processor speeds, alongside your top notch audio interface delivering sparkling crystal clear sound, e-instruments have come along with a painstakingly curated new library that promises to instantly rewind you back to the era of magnetic tape, razor blade editing, wow & flutter, hum, hiss, and warble, in fact all the elements that us old cronies in the recording world have been trying to suppress for decades.

Have they gone completely bonkers?, well maybe not, given the current trend of tape saturation, bit crush, vinyl crackling, and other Lo-Fi Fx, Slower, their brand new library may just have tapped into a rich new source of unique audio degradation for you to explore!

Slower delivers a vintage inspired library of what could otherwise have been regarded as a fairly conventional assembly of instruments, save for it’s unusual approach of first committing everything to four distinct qualities of tape based media at half the normal speed prior to sampling, resulting in the audio equivalent of a time machine that even H G Wells might have been proud of!

Let’s pop up to the attic, dust off the cobwebs and checkout the time slipped sounds of Slower!

TECH SPECS

The library runs in Kontakt 7.10.2 or higher, either the full version or the Free Kontakt Player, and is compatible with all versions of Komplete Kontrol & Maschine.

Slower weighs in at a fairly hefty 39GB, and ironically despite it’s theme of audio degradation , uses 24-bit 48 kHz samples in the lossless NCW format.

Given the breadth of the included sample pool, this as we shall learn later is not altogether unsurprising.

There is 1 single master Kontakt NKI preset, which feeds a further 230 NKSN snapshot presets, which will be found in the Komplete Kontrol browser.

DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION

Download and installation comes courtesy of Native Access following registration of the provided serial number.

Following installation, running Komplete Kontrol will add Slower to your factory browser ready for use.

Full Komplete Kontrol NKS parameter mappings are available at the end of the review following the media links

ACCESSIBILITY

There are 6 pages of mapped NKS controls assigned in the Slower Komplete Kontrol parameter template.

This does allow for some reasonable access to common features of the user interface, however as blind & visually impaired users, without the option of using a mouse, many of the more advanced effect routing, macro assignment, modulation sequencer, and sample selection browser are not available to us via the Komplete Kontrol hardware or use of a screen reader.

Upon my further inspection of the UI parameters that had been made automatable to a DAW parameter list within Kontakt, there was not anything in addition to that which is already present directly through the existing NKS mapping.

SLOWER INSTRUMENTS

Slower features the sounds of more than 65 instruments, such as Strings, Keys, guitars, Brass, Woodwinds, and synths, along with some less obvious world instruments.

There are no drum kits or other percussive sounds included within the library, which would perhaps been a welcome bonus in terms of fully rounding off the instrument content, and also potentially making Slower more of an all in one compositional package based around it’s subject matter.

SLOWER – DOWN ON TAPE

the premise of Slower is that all of the featured instruments come in four tape variations, Studio, Portable, Cassette, & Dictaphone, all of which can be directly selected from the NKS control labelled as ‘Quality’ which is the first control on page 1.

Studio being the highest in relation to sound quality, used Studer and Revox machines to record the instruments, followed by Portable, here Uher machines were used, then comes the cassette format represented by the iconic Tascam Portastudio, and finally the Dictaphone quality was captured by a Sony Micro Cassette.

This was clearly a painstaking process, and certainly accounts for the 39GB size of the library, as it effectively means that all of this content has been duplicated across all four of the quality based tape variants.

Alongside this, there are yet more samples for the reversed equivalent sounds, which can optionally be blended with the traditionally played material to add extra interest.

Understandably, given the work involved, e-instruments are keen to point out that the resultant sounds are audibly different to merely plonking a tape saturation plug-in on top of a standard clean instrument, and I would agree that the instruments within Slower do result in a unique timbre that is discernable from a digitally generated software emulation.

There is apparently an option within the UI to limit the playing area of each loaded instrument to it’s natural pitch range, however this toggle is not mapped to an NKS switch, so the existing default is to spread each instrument far beyond this in both directions.

This in practice, is not actually a bad thing, as it does open up the possibility of hearing the sounds far lower or higher than would usually be possible, which due to the extreme artefacts can open your creative door to some weird and wonderful experimentation if you are so inclined.

The fact that the instruments have already been pitched down and recorded by an octave to begin with, means that from the get go they often have quite unusual audible traits, often giving them a warm, ethereal quality that is difficult to put into mere words.

The main instrument sound and reverse samples can also each be independently tuned from one another by either plus or minus 24semitones, making the tuning options plentiful.

Dialling in some additional tape noise, low pass noise, high pass noise, or wobble can further ramp up the instrument degradation and instability to almost absurd levels if desired, but this is of course a personal choice that some may still find a use for depending on the nature of the project.

PRESET CONTENT

The 230 Slower factory presets are divided into nine categories consisting of Acoustic Piano, Electric Piano, Flutes, Guitars, Horns, Rarities, Spotlight, Strings, & Synths.

These are all self explanatory, however the Rarities section features more obscure instruments like Dulcimer, Harmonium, Kalimba , & Glockenspiel

The Spotlight category is designed to give a good overview of the wide range of sounds available within the library.

NKS LIMITATIONS

Due to a lack of access to those more advanced elements such as the FX chains, Macro Assignments, Modulation Sequencer, and Sample Browser, blind and visually impaired users who rely on NKS will be limited to tweaking the factory presets, rather than the fully featured sound design experience.

This, as we have often stated previously, is commonly due to the limitations of NKS itself, which rather than being an accessibility silver bullet, is only as good as any parameters that have, or can be made automation ready within the given plug-in, which in this case is Kontakt.

However, we are now certainly seeing access to library browsers being made possible through NKS, along with the ability to choose convolution reverbs etc.

This is evidence of where KK-Access reviews have been helping to raise awareness among Kontakt scriptors and developers, which has always been the ultimate goal.

Do make a point of checking out the Slower Walkthrough (linked below), which demonstrates the sounds and presets you will find within the library.

CONCLUSION

Slower could happily find a home for itself across several genres, whether it be LoFi, ambient, Soundscape, Down Tempo Chillout, or film game and media composers who are looking for an alternative take on the whole retro vibe to suit certain projects.

In consideration of the accessibility, whilst the full deeper sound design potential of the library is not realised through NKS, it nevertheless still remains comparable to many other signature sound libraries on the market that we have reviewed previously.

Slower works equally well as a single component instrument, or as multiple instances within a full mix, there is plenty of preset content and tonal variations here to keep you amused for hours, just don’t forget to come back to the future!

Slower can be purchased directly from the E-Instruments website at an introductory price of €99 until October 10th (regular price is €149.)

Slower Product Page:
https://e-instruments.com/instruments/tape/slower/

Slower Official Walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHR0xWgefoA

Slower User Manual (note this pdf is not accessible & requires further conversion for blind readers):
https://e-instruments.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Slower-Reference-Manual.pdf

Komplete Kontrol NKS Parameter Mappings

Page One – Quality, Macros, Sound 1

Knob 1 – Quality: Studio, Portable, Cassette, Dictaphone
Knob 2 – Macro 1
Knob 3 – Macro 2
Knob 4 – Macro 3
Knob 5 – Sound 1 Volume
Knob 6 – Sound 1 Pan
Knob 7 – sound 1 Tune
Knob 8 – Unallocated

Page Two – Sound 2, Tape

Knob 1 – Tightness
Knob 2 – Reverse Blend
Knob 3 – Reverse Tune
Knob 4 – Unallocated
Knob 5 – Tape noise
Knob 6 – Noise Low Pass
Knob 7 – Noise High Pass
Knob 8 – Wobble

Page Three – Amplitude & Modulation Envelopes

Knob 1 – Amp Attack
Knob 2 – Amp Decay
Knob 3 – Amp Sustain
Knob 4 – Amp Release
Knob 5 – Mod attack
Knob 6 – Mod Decay
Knob 7 – Mod Sustain
Knob 8 – Mod release

Page Four – LFO 1

Knob 1 – LFO On/Off
Knob 2 – LFO Shape: Sine, Triangle, Square, Saw, Ramp, Random
Knob 3 – Rate: In Hz or beat values depending on sync selection
Knob 4 – Sync On/Off
Knob 5 – Retrigger On/Off
Knob 6 – Fade In
Knob 7 & 8 – Unallocated

Page Five – LFO 2

As above for LFO 1

Page Six – Pattern

Knob 1 – Pattern On/Off
Knob 2 – Mode: Loop, Latch, Oneshot
Knob 3 – Rate: Hz or beat values depending upon sync selection
Knob 4 – Sync On/Off
Knob 5 – swing
Knob 6 – Retrigger On/Off
Knob 7 & 8 – Unallocated

(c) Chris Ankin

KK-Access.com

27th September 2024

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

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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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