Electronik Sound Lab has just launched a new free ROMpler instrument called Arctic Dreams Lite, for both Windows and macOS users.
It is designed to offer a rich cinematic ambiance through its dual-layered piano soundscapes, featuring an acoustic layer captured from a Yamaha C3 piano and a synthetic layer of sound pads derived from the same original recordings through further processing.
Some sound design techniques used to achieve these layers include digital reverbs, morphing, and structural effects to create a dynamic and compelling sonic palette.
While I am not personally a huge fan of ROMplers, Arctic Dreams Lite sounds fantastic. It is deeply rich in texture and detailed.
It reminds me of some great Spitfire Audio LABS releases, where various hybrid acoustic/electronic blends are explored.
Indeed, we are already submerged by generic piano virtual instruments, so it’s nice to see some ROMplers that try to incorporate more unique timbres.
Arctic Dreams Lite was intended to complement a wide range of genres from Ambient to Pop, Hip Hop, Trap, EDM, and House, but also to address the needs of cinematic production, filmmakers, and sound designers.
It features traditional controls found in other Electronik Sound Lab ROMplers, like an ADSR envelope, single Low-pass/High-pass filter cutoff, Volume, global tuning, LFO modulation controls, and built-in effects.
These include a distortion unit, a delay, and a reverb with essential parameters for each one.
Interestingly, you can blend the piano sound with the synthesized layer with independent volume sliders and panning knobs.
The lite free version of the plugin comes with 7 multi-sampled hybrid piano patches to enjoy.
These sound great, but you may want to further customize them with the included options.
An excellent application would be to remove the piano part of the patch and enhance the soundscape with a long attack, long release, and a touch of reverb and delay for instant cinematic vibes.
Most of these layers sound lush and organic due to being processed after the acoustic piano source.
Arctic Dreams Lite is available as an AU/VST/VST3 plugin for 64-bit Windows and macOS machines.
It requires 890 MB of disk space and a minimum of 500 MB of RAM.
Download: Arctic Dreams Lite (FREE)
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2 Comments
MartinRW
onBeen using Atmos 2 for a while now. Amazing ambient C3 piano. This sounds like an Atmos 2 expansion of sorts. Will definitely try it out.
Numanoid
onJust 7 patches in 800MB+
That is a bit rich, I would rather want 800+ patches in 7MB, like it was back in the early 90’s ;-)