The story
This instrument is the perfect example of two instruments, lacking that special something by themselves, coming together to form a beautiful whole.
I had asked my friend Catriona, a seasoned clarinet teacher at St. Helen and St. Katharine in Oxfordshire, to provide some breathy samples for me. I always tended to shy away from this instrument in composition. I’m not sure why, it just never moved me the way, say, an oboe did, but it does have this lovely, fragile, autumnal and woody tone.
The other instrument was created by me (very not a string player) playing (very badly) a very scratchy note on a viola (later discovered to be G#6). I fed this into PaulStretch and added some tape saturation and splosh. Again, a cool instrument, but incomplete by itself.
On blending the two together, the viola pad, mixed a little lower, made a perfect reverb bed for the clarinet instrument. So here it is as a multi – pre-blended, but feel free to dial in the amounts yourself.
A perfect instrument to mark drawn-in evenings and clocks going back.
Reviews for St. Helen’s Clarinet Pad
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Beautiful and Breathy
Im blown away by the sound of this and I'm immediately inspired by it. The samples have such a beautiful breathy tone, you even hear a bit of breath before some of the notes start and the kind of natural kind slight overblown sound that makes this feel so organic and burst with character. The range is huge and sounds great all throughout. It seems like some low end rumble builds up in some of the samples so just some moderate eq might be needed but this isn't an issue just an observation. Nothing bad to say about this. Its extremely inspiring and beautiful
Warm and deep sounding pad
very nice! It is combined with viola/clarinet and of course you can use them separately. Each has very nicely warm sound and I love their lower range where they have such a deep and fat sound.
Fantastic!
What a great library! The sounds are enormously expansive, yet delicate and intimate.
Expansive and Flowing
All of the sounds in this instrument are beautifully put together and create some amazing atmospheres and synthesizer-like textures. I will definitely be using these in the near future. As with other libraries of yours, a custom GUI would be super helpful in letting the user control and customize the sound to their liking, ultimately making it a more versatile instrument. Cheers!
Just two awesome pads for ya!
While the Viola pad is really nice and warm, the clarinet is far more interesting in my opinion. The breathy character of the clarinet makes it way more interesting than other more ambient pads, and it can go well with many others, including the included viola of course. It would be even better if there were settings to shape the envelope so the user has more control, but it is honestly real good by default.
