Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 4/5 Stars
If you check out John Walden’s deep dive into Sonuscore’s Time Textures for Kontakt (SOS December 2022), you’ll find much in common with Nordic Spheres, insomuch as both focus on creating evolving sounds by allowing multiple parameters to be assigned to the central Macro wheel, which itself may be controlled from external MIDI sources, such as a mod wheel. Nordic Spheres, which works with both the full version of Kontakt and on the free Kontakt player, is inspired by the frozen lands of Iceland and combines carefully curated samples, categorised as Tonal, Non‑tonal and Percussive. Granular processing can then be applied to two of the four layers enabling the instrument to produce of anything from assertive, pulsating atmospheres to foggy ambience and falling icicles.
By layering sources and adding movement, the end result is a sonic feast of cinematic and ambient sounds. The layers each have their own ADSR and arpeggiator/LFO, and effects options that include EQ, saturation, chorus and tremolo. The sense of movement is provided by arpeggiator‑style parameter control that can also be linked to the Macro knob.
The two upper layers (Tonal, Tonal Effects, Non‑Tonal Effects, and Looping sounds) can utilise the Grain Engines to offer either smooth blurring or tinkly ear candy. The two more conventional sample engines handle Hits, Particles and Sustains. The GUI is uncluttered with the four layers shown on the Main view along with the large centre Macro wheel. Individual layers may be muted, solo’d or transposed in pitch. The slanting lines icon within each layer gets you to the more detailed instrument settings.
A Pan tab brings up the two pan engines, which can be set to any number of steps from three to 64 and can be tempo sync’ed. Mix reveals a four‑channel mixer with controls for level, pan, delay send and reverb send, as well as a button to link the corresponding control to the motion engine. The outputs can be set to stereo or 5.1. Master effects comprise Compressor, Delay and Reverb.
The sounds are a perfect fit for TV/film soundtrack work and also a gift to anybody exploring the more adventurous side of ambient/chillout styles.
The large selection of presets shows off the range of this instrument very effectively, though you can switch out samples very quickly to create your own variation before you decide to delve more deeply. I found many of the preset the sounds very inspirational, especially when experimenting with the movement aspect of the presets, and though few of the sounds would find a place in modern pop music, they are a perfect fit for TV/film soundtrack work and also a gift to anybody exploring the more adventurous side of ambient/chillout styles. Despite the title, not every preset will have you reaching for a warm jacket, but should you be asked to compose music to reflect cooler climes, you’ll find plenty of screen‑ready material here.
$199
$199