Slate + Ash – Landforms

Landforms offers a bold new approach to working with orchestral samples. Part sampler, part synthesiser, it takes textural recordings inspired by the movements and shapes of nature and reimagines them within a multidimensional sound design environment.

Landforms is more than just an orchestral sample library. It’s a complex orchestral sound design environment. While conventional orchestral libraries statically reproduce the traditional sounds of the orchestra, Landforms embraces the unique possibilities and idiosyncrasies of working orchestral samples. The focus is not only on the performance of beautiful acoustic textures. It’s about pushing these textures through layers of unique processing to create constantly shifting, abstract collages of sound. It’s rooted in the orchestral domain, but feels simultaneously alien and unique.

Influenced by the forms and textures of the natural world, articulations were curated and produced with specific compositional intentions. Phrases that fuse together rhythmically and movements that overlap unpredictably to create progressive textural evolutions, mirroring the slowly building intensity of rising tides, the harmonic refractions of rippling water.

The core library comes packed with a deeply versatile collection of factory content, with more than 200 base multisampled articulations split across the families of the orchestra. Strings are broken down into individual trios of bass, cello and violin. The woodwinds section consists of a low ensemble of baritone saxophone, contrabassoon and bass clarinet; a high ensemble of oboe, clarinet and bassoon; and a trio of flutes. Brass consists of a low trombone section and a high ensemble of trumpet and flugelhorn. As well as this, articulations taken from sessions with a solo violinist and flautist are included.

Recorded in the rich, warm acoustics of the Wood Room at Real World Studios and utilising ensembles of three players per instrument, the recordings of Landforms are all about emphasising focus and detail while still maintaining the magic of the ensemble.

The intimacies of players’ individual performances were captured using hyper-focussed spot mics, whilst a range of mics placed throughout the Wood Room captured its sophisticated resonances. These can be combined to create a full-spectrum dynamic mix with a deep tonal range.

It’s not for the purists. It’s not about noiseless, robotic performances. It’s about real recordings and real expression. The rawness and detail of performances were intentionally captured in order to retain the authentic character and emotion of the instruments.

Landforms includes over 400 sound designed preset patches, each of which can be entirely picked apart and adjusted within the engine. Anything from distorted percussive pulses to obscure electroacoustic textures.

Take a multi-sampled articulation from the core orchestral library and blur its real world origin beyond recognition. Pull from a diverse combination of creative modules, macro effects, mixing tools, LFOs, physics based modulation and interactive expression controls to create a sound that is uniquely yours.