Press quotes:

Dulcitone 1884

SoundOnSound:

Dulcitone 1884 (link)

The sample library world is one now occupied by a relatively small number of big players so, for a change, it is quite nice to see a sample product that is most certainly the output of a small-scale operation. Pendle Poucher is based in Brighton and, as well as deserving a pat on the back for his cottage-industry approach to sample libraries, he must also be one of relatively few musicians within the UK who owns a Dulcitone. Pendle claims that Dulcitone 1884 is the world’s first multisampled Dulcitone and, knowing how rare the instrument is, I’m inclined not to argue with him. What is provided here is a single sampled instrument, built from some 70MB of stereo samples, and split over three velocity layers. It is available by download only and is offered in Kontakt 2, EXS24, Soundfont, Ableton Sampler and Reason NN-XT formats.

As the Dulcitone is likely to be a bit of a mystery to most SOS readers (myself included until I obtained this library to review), a little bit of history is in order. The Dulcitone is a keyboard-based instrument and, in tone, is not unlike the glockenspiel or celesta: the sound is very delicate but also very atmospheric. It was originally built in Scotland during the late 19th century as a portable keyboard, and many African missionaries transported them between local churches in lieu of pianos. The sound of the instrument is created by a series of tuning forks, and the keyboard triggers covered hammers that strike the forks. These forks had the advantage that, unlike strings in a piano, they did not go out of tune. As anyone who knows anything about the insides of a Rhodes piano will appreciate, there are some similarities in terms of the way the sound is created, and the Dulcitone has been described as a Rhodes without the electric bits.

I experimented with the NN-XT version of the instrument. The sampling itself seems to have been well done and the differences in tone at different velocities are nicely programmed: the sound becomes progressively brighter at higher velocities. There were one or two small areas of the keyboard where a minor amount of mechanical noise became apparent. This was, however, very slight and, in the context of most performances, would not be noticeable, so I suspect Pendle has done a pretty good job here of cleaning up the samples.

Dulcitone 1884 is a specialised product with a niche market, but at £15 it is hardly going to break anyone’s piggy-bank too far open, and I could easily imagine this library finding a home with film or media composers. It is also nice to see an independent library producer — and someone who clearly has a passion for this unique instrument — taking the time and effort to preserve its heritage, even if it is in a digital format! John Walden

Sonic State:

Missionary Possession (link)

The worlds first multi-sampled Dulcitone keyboard is now available 13-Apr-07

The Dulcitone is a rare and beautiful portable keyboard that was originally made for missionaries to hump around remote african village churches to perk up hymn services.
It has a very basic piano action with spring loaded felt covered hammers striking small magnet shaped tuning forks – a bit like a Fender Rhodes electric piano without the electric bit – and has a woody, clonky glockenspiel/celesta kind of sound.
Apparently no one has sampled one before but Pendle Poucher has been in touch to tell us that he has now done just that and has the sample set available for sale in various formats.

Grand Thrift Auto(Harp)

Sonic State

Pendle Poucher Grand Thrift Auto(Harp): AutoHarp For The Criminally Thrifty

The thing about panda bears is that no matter how endangered they get, they just won’t procreate. Pendle Poucher could probably solve this problem. He’s the man behind Grand Thrift Auto(Harp), a plugin that mates a plucked grand piano with a lowly autoharp — usually so incompatible that eHarmony.com won’t even process their applications.

This plugin contains 288 MB of content and four separate, individually adjustable layers of mutli-velocity samples on every note of both the autoharp and the plucked grand. These include:

• Plucked autoharp
• Muted autoharp
• Plucked binaural grand piano
• Binaural autoharp

This sample-set does not contain any sampled autoharp strums. Due to its complexity, it is only available as an instrument for Native Instruments Kontakt 2 or Konakt 3.