The story
This coconut xylophone was another holiday souvenir, I believe bought by my aunt from a market in Queensland, which I sampled by striking with a bamboo toothbrush. I had the idea to sample the individual notes from each coconut, then extend the range beyond whatever they gave, but unfortunately there was only 1 tone variance between the 3 nuts. So I decided it was a better use of the instrument and samples to instead combine the sounds of each nut across the full instrument range as far as it could be extended without sounding awful. I then decided it could be nice to allow the user to individually adjust the levels of each nut to alter the tone quality. Nut 1 and 3 have a fairly strong fundamental tone, while Nut 2 is more percussive. There is also a slight stereo effect based on the position of the individual nuts relative to mic. Lowpass filters and Attack knobs have also been provided to allow for some further customisation of the tone.
The result was a surprisingly in-tune toy coconut xylophone sound, but wanting this library to be more than just a gimmick, I added some delay functionality as well as the Kontakt Factory arpeggiator (accessible via tab). This gives the library some extra functionality as a rhythm (or polyrhythm) generator, and I think it can work quite nicely in a ‘tuned percussion’ type role.
Coconut Xylophone Demo
Reviews for Coco Pops
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
A very dynamic and percussive mallet
This is a very simple but great mallet instrument by Eamon. In the incredibly small size of 3MB, it was sudden to realise that, not only it has 3 different Nuts to blend, but there are different dynamics bound to velocity too! The sound coming off of the nuts is similar to a pitched woodblock, or if a cowbell could be wooden. Eamon has done a great job optimizing this instrument, while also maintaining quality and responsiveness to a very high level.
On top of all the goodness, you will find a great arpeggiator that works perfectly well, with all the tools and settings needed in order to create your own sequence. Personally I find a good arpeggiator very inspiring to play around, so it's always awesome to have it. Awesome!
My Favourite Cereal As A Child
I couldn't not download this one.
A nice simple little instrument almost sounding like a very hollow marimba, The arpeggiator is a nice touch to get some extra milage out of the sounds.See a true instruments build with coconuts!!
Les Luthiers is a humorous Argentine musical group that also builds its own instruments. Here is a real marimba made with coconuts!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU4Ku2AwN8MCoco-Rola!
Solid sounding (ahem) instrument that provides easy percussive goodbess. IMHO the instrument is best employed with the included arpeggiator which lets the four velocity layers and four round-robins shine to their fullest. Especially inspiring is to set the arp going and then fade in and out the three different nuts providing great variations for any track.
