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Sonokinetic Releases Indie

I just finished all of the video content and the only thing I can really complain about is the visual design. It's objectively bad from an accessibility point of view. Even with those videos full screened on my large display, I'm still having a hard time reading the controls. The coloring is very dim which makes it hard to distinguish the letters and words, especially the preset keys. Dark Brown on a slightly lighter dark brown isn't a good choice here. The "accessible" view really needs to be tweaked to give some better contrast to the letters and words as well. That view helps me a bit but it's still frustrating to look at to figure out what is going on there. I'm sure others with worse vision than me would agree but also have a bit more concerns to raise about this.

I get the artistic side of this and in many ways, it's beautiful. However, it's just not practical. Squinting is my biggest concern when it comes to the libraries I use and I tend to avoid those that require it, especially if I'm going to sit for hours staring at this trying to choose the right combination of sounds I would need for a project. (note: I do use many libraries that are hard to see and read but they require little time spent in the GUI unlike your phrase libraries. But, to be fair, I still criticize those other products as well.)

I'm not blind. I know many composers who are though. I've spent a lot of time in the last couple of years learning more about visual accessibility in software when I was still reviewing libraries. Sample developers, by and large, don't put enough effort into the design of their products for those who are visually impaired. There isn't a one-size-fits-all design but there are standards and practices published out there for developers to follow that can certainly make it better for those who have impairments. Food for thought.

As far as the sound of this library. It's great to hear you guys push your products into a new direction. The quality of the phrases sound great, especially when comparing the microphone positions. There's lots of flexibility there given the size of these ensembles. I also like the slightly retro sound this library has. I could hear these phrases used in a lot of period pieces set in the mid-century while still having a modern sound. I hope you guys continue to do these more nuanced phrase libraries with very detailed focus on certain colors. Well done!

Cheers,

Chris
from Indie manual:
If you having trouble using the artistic design of the interface click the sonokinetic logo at the bottom right of the UI. This changes the text to a more standard font, increase the color contrast and unblurs the icons - useful for those with accessibility concerns.
 
from Indie manual:
If you having trouble using the artistic design of the interface click the sonokinetic logo at the bottom right of the UI. This changes the text to a more standard font, increase the color contrast and unblurs the icons - useful for those with accessibility concerns.

hi, yes indeed - when we were in beta I was alerted to the fact that the interface might be hard to see for people with vision impairments, and also people who can't read my scribbling in general. This is why we added the alternate view at that point, hoping that would alleviate some of these issues.

At that point I was already very much married to the focus-focused design, it was actually the starting point for this GUI and I felt strongly enough about it to not change the main look. The whole idea from the start was to blur out everything that shouldn't be getting your initial attention, so you will automatically focus on the block that is currently selected, the phrase drawing for that and its controls.

We are in the process of getting some more feedback about how we can make the alternate look better so we can truly call it accessible.

Talking about accessibility, we have worked hard on making the instrument accessible especially in the Komplete Kontrol application, where you can preview and select any phrase from any section without ever looking at the screen, with the help of audio previews. Accessibility has definitely been a focus for us and we'll keep working to make sure anyone can use these instruments - that said, we do like the artistic take on GUIs and will always be looking to surprise and hopefully inspire people with our GUI design.

With the alternate view and the NKS functionality I hope we have set on a path that can ensure we can do both the artistic and the accessible simultaneously and make our instruments both inspiring and usable for all composers.
 
So 440 would be - 0.06.

- Piotr
Thanks, Piotr and Sonokinetic. But why record at 442 in the first place when 440 is becoming more common? I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with that and I understand the reasons why 442 may be standard in some areas of the world, but your libraries seem to be in the minority when it comes to tuning in the release. Anyway....no big deal and changing the patch to 440 and then saving it is a much better idea than trying to remember the tuning each time one opens the library. :) Cheers!
 
I spent the morning with Indie and I'm blown away by the possibilities, and that's just in the 'mess around' phase. Blending this with other structures and adapting it is going to be fun.

Definitely the most "playable" of theirs yet.
 
I think many Sonokinetic libraries are recorded at 442, and have the option to change to 440 with a switch? I remember that from earlier libraries, but not sure if this is true with more recent releases?
 
I think many Sonokinetic libraries are recorded at 442, and have the option to change to 440 with a switch? I remember that from earlier libraries, but not sure if this is true with more recent releases?
Yes, all the 'phrase'-type Sonokinetic libraries I have can be switched to 440. And it's not a problem, as long as people my age don't have a 'senior's moment' and initially forget to do that! :)
 
I travel while I work and am currently at a spot that has spotty internet...Ugh! Been downloading now for two days and not even sure if I'll have it finished tomorrow lol. 33.79% done and counting! Can't wait to sink my teeth, uh, ears into this.
 
I whiffed the bat at the end in the mixdown, but this isn't exactly album quality songwriting. At first I spent all of my time with the string quartet and various randomizations. Then I decided to layer a few different things together in a couple instances of Indie focused on woodwinds and brass (and some of the percussive), and just for fun, added the NI Noir piano tweaked a bit.
Some bad transitions here (I'm not great at keeping to a click), but overall shows some of the creative things you can do with harmonic shift and a decent amount of phrase changing.



My biggest problem with Sonokinetic libraries is that, at least at this apartment, I only have an NI S49 workstation keyboard here-- it's impossible to have the chord, phrase select, and harmonic shift all accessible at the same time. I'm guessing I can do some sort of split on the keyboard to make it possible, but there's so many unused keys inbetween. Otherwise I have to use my fullsize piano (and lose the lightguide and ability to look at the screen).
 
I'm chiming in a little bit late, and I would like to know 2 things:

1. what was the original tempo the phrases had been played in?

2. I own nearly all of the Sonokinetic stuff, but this library sounds a little bit less "in tune" in the strings section. This was my first impression when I watched the video "Tutorial Play Through".
Is this a problem in the practical work with the library?
 
I'm chiming in a little bit late, and I would like to know 2 things:

1. what was the original tempo the phrases had been played in?

2. I own nearly all of the Sonokinetic stuff, but this library sounds a little bit less "in tune" in the strings section. This was my first impression when I watched the video "Tutorial Play Through".
Is this a problem in the practical work with the library?

Hi:)

1. Indie is recorded in 100 bpm

2. We never do any tuning correction for these libraries except during the session.
I would say that any tuning imperfections will be more noticeable because of the smaller section sizes, but I think if anything it works for the library as long as it is within bounds, which I certainly think it is.
You'd have to judge that for yourself though or maybe someone who has used the library and is not affiliated with us :))) could chime in on that.
My demo uses just indie, and I think the strings ensemble, quartet, woodwinds, brass and percussion work very well together based on that practical experience, I know many of the other demos use it in conjunction with other libs and to my ears at least they sound pretty good:)
 
After finally finishing the download, I must say that this lib is GORGEOUS! Really amazed how delightful this is. Sort of like the 2nd incarnation of Minimal in a lot of ways. For fun, I randomized Noir and Indie in the same instance (since they share the same layout type). I was surprised how well they sound when played in unison. Lots of interesting layers and possibilities. Very complimentary for that small section sound. Anyhow, big thumbs up for this lib!
 
Thank you for your answers. Very helpful!

So YOU did some of the demos for "Indie". Great work!

Some years ago, I was one of the first in the forum, who pointed out that the Sonokinetic libraries were recorded at 442 hz. Sonokinetic then explained to me how to correctly tune KONTAKT to reach 440 hz.
Unfortunately, I sometimes forget to retune Kontakt. My customers have not noticed it yet.

May I ask you the following:
Do you retune the Sonokinetic phrase libraries to 440 hz when you work in a mix with other libraries or do you sometimes also forget to downtune them?





Hi:)

1. Indie is recorded in 100 bpm

2.
........My demo uses just indie, and I think the strings ensemble, quartet, woodwinds, brass and percussion work very well together.......... :)
 
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Thank you for your answers. Very helpful!

So YOU did some of the demos for "Indie". Great work!

Some years ago, I was one of the first in the forum, who pointed out that the Sonokinetic libraries were recorded at 442 hz. Sonokinetic then explained to me how to correctly tune KONTAKT to reach 440 hz.
Unfortunately, I sometimes forget to retune Kontakt. My customers have not noticed it yet.

May I ask you the following:
Do you retune the Sonokinetic phrase libraries to 440 hz when you work in a mix with other libraries or do you sometimes also forget to downtune them?

Thanks:)

I did the one called 'highgate wood' and in doing so discovered an issue where the phrase continue function affected all phrases playing. This actually worked great for this particular demo and it even steered the melodic and rhythmic development, but I found out that it wasn't great in some cases, when you don't want a phrase to start relative to the position of a different one.
We then built in new functionality where you can choose which phrases are rhythmically grouped and which ones will just start from their start. We will be adding this to noir too in a future update.

Re tuning, in general I would say, if it sounds right, it probably is right, so if your 442 doesn't stick out in the 440 piece then it's nothing to worry about and in some cases might even give it a distinct character.
If you always work in 440 you can set the libraries to 440 and resave them, and you won't have to think about it again.
 
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