The story
A 10-layer bendy clarinet instrument inspired by the Dewanatron Swarmatron.
I’ve made a bunch of versions of this bendy swarmy Swarmatron-inspired instrument over the years in Kontakt and Omnisphere with various sound sources like strings, horns, and synths for my work on shows like Scandal and the film, The Block Island Sound (out now on Netflix!)
As a follow-up to the SWARMITAR, the SWARMINET is made up of 10 clarinets that can bend in and out of tune with one another using a MIDI CC control.
I don’t know how to play the clarinet, but somehow I have two of them, so I did what I normally do when I have an instrument I don’t know how to play (which is most of them) – make it sound weird and sample it. So two beginner clarinets were sampled by a beginner clarinetist in minor thirds as high as I could go. The first set of five as straight as I could play them (not very), and the second set with some blips and noises (ah, much easier).
They were recorded with a Line CM-3 microphone, a fantastic and inexpensive small-diaphragm condenser out of a one-man shop in Sweden.
So go out and transition into or out of tension, ride the mod wheel and play it like a rich, beautiful, detuned (or not) synth pad, use it as an interesting modulating bed underneath a solo instrument, run it through mountains of delays and reverbs to get a filtered Blade Runner horn, maybe even use it like you would use clarinets, but mostly I encourage you to pave your own path and share your experiments with me!
BYOS (Bring Your Own Splosh – you already have your favorite reverbs and don’t need Kontakt’s!) (…unless you really want it and then I’ll add it in)
*Includes a little bonus patch: “The Swarminet – Solo Swarmless”
-Without the strength in numbers (or me knowing how to play the clarinet), this solo patch is unstable and vulnerable in a lovely way. It uses only one layer of the black clarinet, with a slight panning modulation for width. On this patch, the swarm knob does not swarm, it only adds a slight amount of brightness.
Please enjoy, and I look forward to hearing how you use it!
See how it was made: https://youtu.be/0ONNLHX3HF8
(Requires the FULL version of Kontakt 5.6.8 or later)
Thank you!
Paul
Making The Swarminet
Interface
Reviews for The Swarminet
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Very eerie and chaotic, fun to play
Five stars all around. I like that the samples are not too pristine, nor too chaotic starting out, which makes for a wide range of textures. If you haven't yet, grab Paul's Swarmitar on PB and also the acoustic Swarmitar on his website. All top notch instruments, but the Swarminet is the standout in my opinion. One tweak I suggest is mapping the mod wheel to the swarm knob. By default it's mapped to the filter knob.
Incredibly inspiring and professionally done!
This near-perfect instrument is hard to think it's out there for free. The only negative thing I found is that there is some white noise, but if you don't prefer that you can easily tweaking it by turning the modwheel a little down or simply engaging the LFO filter. Other than that, everything is very, very well made. Thank you!
Amazing
Really really great instrument, possibly my favourite on this whole site. Thank you so much for all the hard work that went into this, I love it and I'm using it right away in my dark anxious music, perfect.
Question for the group: I don't know how to link the swarm knob to my modulation wheel? Seems weird that it's set to filter rather than swarm automatically and I'd like to change that but can't immediately figure it outAmazing flute!!
Wow, this is such a really nicely recorded library!! I love the sound of this flute. Amazing warmth with a beautiful sound of flute. I will be using this definitely in the future!
Brilliant, simple, just the right fit
Paul, thank you for this absolute gem!
I love the sometimes wonky character and little bits of grit and noise. The GUI is clean and very attractive. It's one of these tools that just works when you need something like this, and it does what it does really, really well. I just blasted through the opening cue of a feature and it was inspiring and added so much.
I would love to see a strings version of this. One of my favourite cues is Open Spaces from There Will Be Blood, and it features these slow glisses going from chord to chord with tremendous dissonances in between. For all those times where we just need something like that and don't have the budget or time for live players, it would be a godsend.
