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Mark Gordon tested out the Lumen for SOS, and said:

“I enjoyed playing the Lumen, a lot. It feels solid and well built, the pads are responsive, and the a long-lasting battery sets it apart from almost every other electronic percussion device I can sampled sounds are excellent. Having a built-in speaker (that actually sounds very good!) and think of, enabling it to work perfectly for busking, a favourite pursuit of acoustic players.”

“The Lumen takes a unique acoustic instrument into the digital age and is beautifully presented and well implemented. It’s a refreshing newcomer to the digital percussion scene.”

You can read the full review on The Sound On Sound Website

Lumen Is Available to Buy Here

So he’s put together a series of mini-tutorials that just show you how to do one thing with AC-DR. One thing at a. time. That’s the best way, right?

Follow us on Youtube for more @Soniccoutureofficial

Guy Shows you how to put together a contemplative, scandi type piece of music, using ONLY Soniccouture instruments. Features Nyckelharpas, AS Choir, Celeste.. etc

Follow Guy @ThinkSpaceEducation

RECORDING

As well as traditional mics, specialist Ukko drum contact mics were used: to create the ‘knock’ and ‘shell’ sound on the bass drums and toms, the ‘metal’ sounds on the hi-hats & rides, and the ‘body’ channel for the cowbell. While these mics are certainly not full sounding on their own, they add a certain synthetic texture to the mix.

The ‘Trans’ (transformer) signal featured on BD and TT was created by sending the samples through an Overstayer saturation hardware unit. Again, as with all the sampling, a full set of 10 round- robins was captured so that the variation of the samples is repeated in the response of the distortion.

SNARE DRUMS

For snare drums we developed a particularly unusual process: using a Poly End Perc auto percussion device, 8 separate recording passes were made for each snare:

• Snare Off – Damped + Undamped
• Snare On Loose – Damped + Undamped
• Snare On Medium – Damped + Undamped
• Snare on Tight – Damped + Undamped

This process enabled us to separate the snare off ‘body + rim’ sounds of the snare from the bottom mic ‘wire’ sounds; the Polyend giving great precision in terms of hitting exactly the same spot at exactly the same velocity. This meant the different recordings all line up perfectly and recombine into the multi-signal sound you hear in the instrument.
The Polyend Perc was not used to record any other instruments, however, as the natural methods were preferable for sonic reasons.

ROBINS

The recording process itself was combined with editing concurrently – short takes of 30-40 hits were recorded, then edited manually using a proprietary tool for selecting identical round robins. If the take was not tight enough, then more takes would be recorded until the set of round robins could be completed. Balancing the timbral effect between the Accent and Normal layers was also a consideration here, and one or the other would also be re-recorded after auditioning the two layers playing together.

ECHO CHAMBERS

Once all sets of bass drums, snares, rimshots and toms were finalised, we set off to Rockfield Studios in south Wales, to utilise their two amazing echo chambers. Inspired by a visit to Capitol? Studios in the 1960s, owners Kingsley & Charles Ward applied Welsh farmer know-how and built their own – 7 layers of lacquer on the curved plywood ceilings being the key to the reflective sound. Chamber 1 is a much bigger sound than Chamber 2.
The full sets of round robins for each drum (signals summed) was played back through two different echo chambers and the results recorded. The ‘SPACE’ signal on the BD, SD, RS, TT channels is a mono mic from each chamber, and you can choose Chamber 1 or 2. The signal here is mono because the intention is not so much that it functions as a natural reverb, but as an additional sound design element to drums sound. EG: the SPACE signal forms a very useful noise element particularly in the BD module – if you close down the decay until it is only a short attack it adds definition to the front of the kick drum sound.

AC-DR: Acoustic Drum Machine will be released in December 2023

Harvest Shadows is a pack of 128 nkis* for The Attic 2. Hazel had a clear vision for the set – she wanted to theme it around folk horror, most specifically Lets Scare Jessica To Death & The Wicker Man.

It’s interesting how strongly this atmosphere is embedded in the sound design. The pack has a totally different flavour to Ian Boddy’s Vapour Trail Attic sound pack. Even though many of the Attic synths are fairly simple, vintage designs, Hazel imprints her personality in each sound in a surprising and musical way.

As with all SC sound packs, Harvest Shadows is only available to users of The Attic 2. If you own this product, simply login to your account and you’ll be able to purchase it there.

Hazel Mills.com

*(NKIS work better for The Attic than snapshots, because it comprises of many separate synth instruments. If we used snapshots, then you’d fist have to load each specific synth before being able to access any patches made for it. By using NKIS it’s possible to have to whole set in one list, with categories for ease of browsing.)