Why would I name it something easy?
Volcacophony.
I don’t know what I was thinking. But it’s here now. All settled. The next HOLTERGEIST offering is a trio of Kontakt instruments and sample packs that I began calling Volcacophony when I was making it (because, duh, I was using my Volca Keys and making quite the cacophony) and just never stopped.
While I set out to make some bespoke kick drum sounds for a few upcoming album production projects, I was getting such impact and inspiration through the punch emanating from my speakers that I pushed the source and studio kit further than intended and ended up with lots of sounds that weren’t just kicks or bass drums.
When I’m producing samples for my own work here, I usually set up a new processing chain and just hit record for a few hours, letting the tape or hard drive roll on as I fiddle about (the post-Volca toolkit on this set was mostly the Ladder filter from Moog and the incredible Stretch 500-series insanity compressor from Standard Audio… there’s more info in the Read Me and at the product description pages if you’re into this sort of studio nerdery). As I reviewed the next day the mess I had made in the studio, I had lots of stuff that felt like snares and effect-y one shots instead of kicks, so I expanded on the original idea.
So, yes, three groups of sounds from one extended sound design session.
I had already begun the conversation with Sam Ecoff, my longtime friend and collaborator, about porting the HOLTERGEIST Residual Noises sample pack to a proper Kontakt instrument. Instead of jumping in the deep end of the pool with a sound set that has a bit of every type of sample and loop in it, we thought it might make sense to instead try and program some simple drum sample one-shot instruments.
As I was asking question after question about Kontakt scripting of the ever-patient Mr. Ecoff, he jumped in an offered to help put the software instrument side of this idea together. We went back and forth on some interface ideas, what options should we include in this first attempt (K.I.S.S.), and while Sam rolled up his sleeves writing code I dug into some branding and wallpaper and knob design (thank you David Hilowitz and KnobMan), as is my wont.
Can’t thank you enough, Sam!
For the geeks: I bought a few domains related to this new HOLTERGEIST thing, mainly because I wanted to have one of those cool Instagram shopping grids and integrate some promoted posts and whatnot… only to learn that those features only work for physical products, not so-called “digital goods” such as these sample packs here. So, while holtergeist.io is mine and I have some visions around possibly using it someday (and it’s our account name at Instagram), for now the samples/sounds/loops store is here and I think that’s ok? I’d love any feedback on this topic if you have some real world experience to share… please reach out and say hi.
And to each and every one of you reading these ramblings of an obsessive studio rat, I really am grateful that I can do all of this professionally, and this is only because enough of you license, buy, listen, and support the things I make here and with my killer team at The License Lab. So, thank you. Truly.