ChromaZone Soundbank by Jeffrey Powell
comments to be really helpful as they often either give you (i) the idea behind its creation or (ii) tips of getting the best sound from the patch. For many patches, the notes point out that you can get some very different, but still useful, sounds by playing different ranges. I'm extraordinarily appreciative when preset designers take the time to put together useful manuals. Secondly, as Simon is an accomplished musician and composer, he has some great demo tracks to show off the presets and his composing talent as well. In fact, there are (get ready!) 32 different demo tracks, and to my ears, each of them is a miniature masterpiece. At this point, I must confess that when I've been in the mood for some interesting music to listen to while at work, I've gone to the Patchpool site and just listened to the demo tracks. Check them out, even if you don't have the corresponding synth. It's nice to have some great demo tracks to get an example of how to use the patches in action. What about the Presets!?
With all that in mind, it's clear to me that his interests and experimental music background are ideal for working with an instrument like Chromaphone that practically begs for experimentation and imagination. Going the Extra Mile Before going into the sounds found in ChromaZone, let me
bring up a couple of things that Simon does well right from the start. First of all ChromaZone comes with a very detailed .pdf manual with installation instructions and a patch list with helpful comments on nearly every patch. These comments can also be seen in the preset browser in Chromaphone (see the nearby screenshot). I find these
ChromaZone consists of 100 core patches and 22 variations on those patches. The presets are organized into five categories: Achromatic Percussion, Chromatic Percussion, Hybrid Instruments, Synths & Keys, and Textures. The presets are in five different bank files (corresponding to the categories) and are delivered in a .zip file along with the manual. Installation is relatively painless thanks to the installation instructions and the fact that the Chromaphone preset manager has a button which opens the folder in which you need to copy the banks. If you're on Windows, note that the
April 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
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