Given the ‘Arps’ title, you might be forgiven for thinking Umlaut Audio’s Kontakt-based sample library/virtual instrument is all about synth sounds for EDM styles. As it happens, you would be wrong. Don’t be disappointed though, because tucked away behind the unassuming title is a sample-based drum instrument that manages to deliver something rather special.

ARPS contains four Kontakt patches — Kicks, Mids, Ticks and Percs — each built from a fairly humble set of drum sounds with a different sound mapped to each MIDI note. The Kicks and Perc patches are perhaps self-explanatory, but Mids features snares and toms while Ticks is all sorts of interesting, more mid/high frequency-based sounds including hi-hats, woodblocks and various other objects being struck. Easy to use, compact, sensibly priced, and rhythmically inspiring, Arps is a bit of a gem.

Umlaut Audio’s second offering, PADS, brings a very similar approach to pad and soundscape creation, as found on some of Sample Logic’s high-end Kontakt libraries such as Cinematic Guitars or Morphestra 2. However, Pads does it in a somewhat more compact (in size, features, and price) format, in that it allows you to blend together two samples (as opposed to eight in these Sample Logic titles) from its library, modulate a number of parameters for each sound source (including some rather interesting filter options) and then apply a range of effects to generate the final sound. All these elements are accessed from a single Kontakt patch via a dedicated front-end that includes a good selection of presets and also allows you to browse the individual source samples that can be loaded into the Layer 1 and Layer 2 slots. Continue reading at...

http://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/umlaut-audio-arps-pads