Soundiron Hopkin Instrumentarium: Squiggly Amejewar is a unique virtual instrument that brings the exotic sounds of a custom-built stringed instrument to the digital realm. This Kontakt library captures the essence of the Squiggly-Amejewar, a wooden instrument featuring four seven-foot-long strings and a buzzing bridge. The instrument’s distinctive design, conceived by master instrument builder Bart Hopkin, produces complex, evolving tones reminiscent of traditional Indian sitars, tambouras, and Kenyan obokanos, but with its own distinctive character. The library offers a comprehensive sampling of the Squiggly-Amejewar, recorded using three different microphone positions: close mics, pickups, and contact mics. This multi-mic approach provides users with a range of tonal options, allowing for versatile sound shaping. The sampling depth is impressive, with up to 8 round-robin variations and 6 velocity layers per note, ensuring a realistic and dynamic performance.
Pros:
• Unique and exotic sound character
• Deep sampling with multiple mic positions
• Extensive sound-shaping controls and effects
Cons:
• Requires full version of Kontakt 6.5 or later
Squiggly Amejewar goes beyond simple instrument emulation, offering a suite of sound design tools and effects. The library includes 20 ambient pads and evolving drones created from the source content, expanding its utility for atmospheric and textural applications. With 21 powerful Kontakt instrument presets, users have a solid foundation for exploring the instrument’s sonic possibilities.
The Squiggly Amejewar plugin boasts an array of features designed to maximize its versatility and creative potential. At its core is the sampled content, which captures the instrument’s plucked, glissando, and effects articulations across three distinct microphone positions. This multi-mic approach allows users to blend different tonal characteristics, from intimate close-mic recordings to more ambient and textural contact mic captures.
The Kontakt interface provides a comprehensive set of sound-shaping controls. Users can manipulate the instrument’s envelope with swell, attack, and release parameters, add vibrato, apply filtering, and adjust pitch. The ability to switch between articulations and cross-fade between them offers nuanced control over the performance characteristics.
The adaptable LFO system is a notable feature. Users can customize the LFO shape and speed, and assign modulation to various parameters, opening up possibilities for evolving, dynamic sounds. The inclusion of 12 filter options further expands the tonal palette, allowing for dramatic transformations of the original instrument sound.
For those interested in rhythmic applications, the arpeggiator feature is a valuable addition. It includes velocity tables and controls for direction, timing, and swing, enabling the creation of pulsating, evolving patterns from the Squiggly Amejewar samples.
The modular FX rack offers 27 DSP effects with 8 assignable slots. This allows for complex signal chains to be created, with effects ranging from standard processors like EQ and compression to more creative options. The inclusion of both classic and convolution reverb effects, along with 40 custom impulses, provides extensive options for spatial processing.
To help users get started, the library comes with a selection of factory presets. These serve as both inspiration and practical starting points for sound design, showcasing the instrument’s versatility across various musical contexts.
When comparing Squiggly Amejewar to similar plugins, it’s important to note its unique position in the market. While there are many world instrument libraries available, few focus on custom-built experimental instruments like those in the Hopkin Instrumentarium series. This gives Squiggly Amejewar a distinctive edge for composers and sound designers looking for truly unique timbres. In terms of functionality and depth, Squiggly Amejewar holds its own against other boutique instrument libraries. Its multi-mic sampling approach and extensive sound-shaping options are comparable to high-end virtual instruments from developers like Spitfire Audio or Orchestral Tools. However, the focused nature of the library – sampling a single, unique instrument – sets it apart from more comprehensive world music collections.
This plugin is best for:
• Composers seeking unique, exotic string sounds
• Sound designers looking for new textural elements
• World music producers wanting authentic yet unusual timbres
• Film and game composers needing distinctive instrumental voices
Soundiron Hopkin Instrumentarium: Squiggly Amejewar offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of experimental instrument design, translated into a powerful and flexible virtual instrument. Its unique sound character, derived from the custom-built Squiggly-Amejewar, provides a fresh palette for composers and sound designers alike. The deep sampling and multiple mic positions ensure a high degree of realism and tonal flexibility, while the extensive sound-shaping controls and effects allow for creative manipulation far beyond the original instrument’s capabilities. The library’s strengths lie in its distinctive timbre, which occupies a sonic space somewhere between familiar world string instruments and entirely new textures. This makes it particularly valuable for composers looking to evoke familiar emotions with unfamiliar sounds, or for those seeking to create truly original soundscapes. The inclusion of ambient pads and drones extends its utility beyond melodic applications, making it a versatile tool for creating atmospheric backgrounds and evolving textures.