Broken Bells Rack for Ableton

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Xylophone, Glockenspiel, Bells… This rack is a sample of two xylophones, they can be played in unison or separately. Layered underneath those samples are reversed xylophone samples, so when you play, the normal xylophone sounds then reversed ones echo back.

Download the Live set here: http://bit.ly/freesynth10
it includes two versions, one with Sampler and one with Simpler.

*Non Live Users: The actual samples are included and can be imported into your DAW of choice. Instructions on how to do so are included in the download. On this collection, the samples go from notes A,B,C,D,E,F,G,A for three octaves*

There’s a certain feeling created by the sound of the xylophone, maybe it is memories of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood or all the simple musical toys children have, but, to me, the sound is very reminiscent of childhood.  This week’s download is created from samples of two different xylophones.  One, I bought at a music store for about a hundred bucks and another belongs to my friend DF, who plays in an excellent noise rock band from Brooklyn called Imaginary Weapons (check them out, it’s very melodic, noisy, contemplative guitar rock woven together with some beautiful synth parts).   The synth you are getting this week is actually four instruments in one.  The first two are the xylophones layered together.  These can be mixed together to your preference.  Next, while thinking about the nostalgia I get from the xylophone, and how our memories are often distortions of what really happened, I decided to reverse the samples and layer those over the original sounds.  So, when you hit the notes, a traditional xylophone sounds, but then a reversed xylophone creeps back in with an echo of those same notes.  You can play the instrument with just the normal xylophones, just the reversed ones, or a blend of both.  The reversed xylophones are being moved around the stereo spectrum via LFOs, which adds the the cerebral effect I am going for with this instrument.

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