Sound Dust has launched DRIFT CLOUDs, a new virtual instrument that revisits and expands the material from its earlier CLOUD series. The instrument brings together a collection of extended string articulations and places them inside the developer’s custom DRIFT engine.
The original CLOUD instruments were created from 17th-century classical stringed instruments including cello, viola, and double bass. Instead of conventional bowing, Sound Dust used coarse garden twine drawn across the strings to generate sustained tones. Achieving a stable five-metre pull of twine required a custom setup involving a retractable dog lead, pulley system, and vintage fishing reel to maintain tension and produce an even sound. Additional articulations were captured using short bowing, col legno techniques, and percussive strikes.
DRIFT CLOUDs incorporates this recorded material and reorganises it within a redesigned playback environment. Each articulation from the CLOUD series is treated as an oscillator that can be stacked, morphed, detuned, and shaped. The aim is to provide a broad range of string-based textures derived from unconventional performance methods.
The instrument includes several articulation categories:
- CLOUD: sustained string-on-string textures created with twine
- BOWED: traditional bowing applied briefly
- LEGNO: col legno strikes using the back of the bow
- BEATEN: soft percussive hits on the double bass
- HYBRIDS: pre-mixed combinations of clouds and reverb layers
- SUB: multisampled analogue synthesizer layers for low-frequency support
At the core of DRIFT CLOUDs is a dual-layer structure built around the new drift engine. The upper “Cloud” layer contains 22 deeply multisampled articulations, including noise-based and silent sources. The lower “Shadow” layer features the same set of sounds but routes them through a looping engine that can reduce an articulation to a tightly tuned string oscillator at minimal settings.
A semi-random “wander engine” introduces variable movement to selected parameters. Depending on user settings, modulation can range from subtle analogue-style variation to more pronounced shifts. Controls that can be affected include layer mix and pan, drift speed and depth, tremolo depth, impulse response reverb depth per layer, shelving EQ, and a master glue control.
Additional features include:
– 22 x 2 deeply multisampled sound sources, totalling 9GB of content
– 210 snapshots
– Independent Cloud and Shadow layers with mix control
– Wander system with adjustable unreliability depth
– Morph EQ control with 100 selectable settings
– Morph ADSR control with 100 selectable settings
– Polyphonic or paraphonic envelope modes
– Grist control for added noise texture
– 50 custom impulse response reverbs
– Space control with up to 100% wet IR reverb
– BPM-synced drift control designed to emulate tape-style wow and flutter
– Two BPM-synced bipolar ducking modulators
– Polyphonic, monophonic, legato, and offset play modes
– Portamento
– Up to eight voices of detuning
– Full automation support
– An internal “Portal” page for additional controls
– Built-in documentation
DRIFT CLOUDs is available for Kontakt and is distributed through the Sound Dust website.
DRIFT CLOUDs is currently available with a 40% introductory offer priced at £30 / $42 / €35.
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