Tonsturm has released a new Kontakt instrument library built from the sound of master luthier Guido Falke’s hurdy-gurdies.
Wheel of Strings is designed as an expressive pad and texture instrument, delivering evolving drones, airy harmonic beds, subtle movement and organic grit. Captured from the original hurdy-gurdy recordings and made playable as a modern scoring tool, the instrument also comes with synth-like tones and plucky, bright sounds that work beautifully for arpeggios.
Wheel of Strings runs on the same two-layer engine from Spiral Strings. It’s divided into Layer A and Layer B with identical controls per layer, so you can design contrasting timbres and morph between them fluidly. Users of Spiral Strings will feel instantly at home, load, play, and start sculpting without a learning curve.
Shape evolving textures with a flexible modulation system: three LFOs, two Step Sequencers, and cross-modulation options let you animate drones, bow-noise, buzz, and synth-like sounds. Route modulation to key parameters on both the Main and Effects pages to move from steady underscore to restless motion in seconds.
Wheel of Strings features
- 12 play styles: select 1 of 10 articulations. Independent Drone and Trompette layers are permanently mapped to the lower and upper keyboard ranges, respectively.
- No pre-recorded phrases, fully playable.
- Note-by-note sampling. What you hear are long, expressive sustains with rich overtones, wheel noise and subtle movement, not locked riffs. Because the material isn’t bound to fixed phrases, you can play any key, any scale, and sculpt textures in real time.
- 3 round robins of 10-25 second long files.
- 3 microphone positions – recorded with low-noise sounddesign mics and vintage and modern Hi-End gear grails.
- Uncommon True Stereo Reverb engine with crazy IR’s.
Available for the full version of Kontakt 6 or higher, Wheel Of Strings is available for the intro price of $99 USD until December 9th, 2025 (regular $149 USD).
More information: Tonsturm
