Sound Dust has announced the release of Cloud Cello, a new take on an old instrument using unlikely bowing materials and techniques to make entirely new sounds that go from huge ‘superwave’ pads to intimate and delicate solos.

Sound Dust Cloud Cello

Cloud Cello is the big brother (or sister, if you like) of the Cloud Viola. She’s a deeply multisampled hybrid Kontakt sample library created from a ordinary 17th century classical stringed instrument, but played and recorded in an extra-ordinary way.

Cloud Cello opens up new orchestral-ish, cinematic tones and textures that sound both familiar and alien….in a good way.

Cloud Cello features

  • Two instrument variations – solo & ensemble versions.
  • 2GB of 24bit samples (uncompressed).
  • Three octave keyrange – C1 to C4
  • Seven deeply sampled articulations through eight ‘oscillators’.
  • Accented bow: short bowed note with conventional bow. 5 x round robin per note. Two mic positions- valve condensor and contact mic.
  • Col legno: Latin for ‘gently thwacked with the back of the bow’. 5 x round robin per note. Two mic positions- valve condensor and contact mic.
  • Twine: bowed with 5 meters of coarse garden string. 5 x round robin per note, minimum 20 seconds per sample. Two mic positions- valve condensor and contact mic. Hard-wired to CC11 for expression pedal or midi controllers.
  • Dark Cloud: Twine recorded 100% wet reverbed through Strymon Big Sky hardware reverb. Playback through Kontakt grain oscillator.
  • Pale Cloud: the Dark Cloud recorded 100% wet reverbed through Strymon Big Sky hardware reverb unit, so basically 200% wet!
  • Sub Bass: (ensemble only) Moog voyger sine bass.
  • Effects per oscillator: tremolo, vibrato, saturation, pitch selection, pan, lowpass filter, high pass filter, reverb and delay.
  • Master output effects: low pass filter, highpass filter, rotor effect, delay, cabinet modelling and EQ.
  • Master unison control for up to eight voices per note.
  • Velocity to volume amount control.
  • Aftertouch to pitchbend amount control.
  • Aftertouch to filter light/dark control.
  • Advanced architecture with automatable midi control of everything on the interface.
  • 74 specially created convolution reverb impulses recorded from real spaces, expensive hardware, and some less obvious sources including a Roland Space Echo, Strymon Big Sky and the stage of Glyndebourne Opera House.
  • 50 themed instrument presets (.nki’s) each with modwheel patch morphing for gazilions of variation.
  • Built in instruction manual in RTFM tab.

Cloud Cello is available for purchase at an introductory 20% discount until June 26th, 2015. Use code ANTICYCLONE at checkout.

More information: Sound Dust / Cloud Cello