NASA Space Pad
A 15 voice atmospheric pad created using NASA's recordings of space over the past 50 years, housed in a flight simulator GUI
ByTim Steemson
The story
A while ago I heard that NASA had made all of their recording available to use as part of a Creative Commons license, so I got in contact with Bert From Nasa and asked if they would be ok if I used those sounds to create a free-to-download sampled instrument. Bert From Nasa got back to me and said that would be fine “as long as there are no human voices”. So after spending at least half an hour thinking about how oddly specific that request was and wondering what kind of non-human voices NASA have got on file, I collected my favourite recordings from their site and set to work cleaning them up, editing them for better playability, and putting them into a Kontakt instrument. The finished product is a pad containing 15 different sounds for you to mix and merge to create whatever kind of extra-terrestrial noises you like.
I’ve added a snapshots folder with some instructions on how to copy the .nksn files into Kontakt from there, and in the readme file there’s more info about what all the different sounds are and how they were recorded if you’re interested in that sort of stuff.
Audio Artemis have also just released ‘Perseverance’, a sample library using NASA’s most recent recordings from the Perseverance rover on Mars, and it’s the perfect library to pair with the Nasa Space Pad. They have a free version here on Pianobook and their full version is available at audioartemis.com.
Nasa Space Pad walkthrough
Interface
Reviews
I can hear ware-wolves in here
This is great. Iv'e only had time to dip my toe into this one. Tweaked a few faders and had wind and ware-wolves chasing me. There is nothing not to like about it. I think that I will be using this one a lot. This is the first time that I have given 5 stars for everything. Truth is, I can't think of any reason not too.
No words to describe this
This is a solid 5/5, hands down. This should be a paid instrument. Everything about it is very carefully done, with attention to quality, detail and with tons of character. A complete, fully featured sci-fi instrument, with tons of options to play around, a GUI with tons of controls and professional-grade graphics, and an endless amount of possibilities. At first you might think there is some noise in the samples, but it's just the character of one instrument. Once you mess around with some settings you will get the hang of it.
Download it and you won't regret it.
Mars Attacks
A great idea with a cool interface, a galaxy of sounds, and killer execution.