- From the heyday of analogue tape, where you had to physically turn the tape over, through the birth of hardware sampling to the present-day simplicity of simply reversing the file in your DAW, reversing sounds is a long-running technique in music production. Backwards sounds can add everything from subtle feel to creative lead parts. So the time is ripe for a reverse-sound instrument, and that's what Output has delivered with REV.
The library uses the Kontakt 5 format (and includes Kontakt's free player if you don't own the full version) to deliver 14 GB of sample-based sounds (6.9 GB on disk in Kontakt's .nkx format). These are grouped into four categories—Instruments, Timed Instruments, Loops and Rises—and each gets its own colour-coded Kontakt instrument. Rather sensibly, each of the four Kontakt interfaces also acts as a portal to its relevant presets, and if you've ever wrestled with multiple folders inside Kontakt's browser, you'll appreciate how much simpler this is. Once each main instrument is loaded, there's further categorisation inside its own preset menu.
All four instruments share some features, including amplitude and filter envelopes, multimode filter and a cool syncable gate effect (Stutter) that can be applied individually to both pitch and volume. There are also a number of effects slots along the bottom, and these can be selected manually, key triggered or key triggered with latch. The effects themselves include delay, reverb, modulation, EQ, filter, saturation, lo-fi, distortion and speaker emulation. The number of effects and their type depends on which instrument you've loaded.
Across the four main instruments there is a difference between the Instruments and Timed Instruments, and the Loops and Rises. The Instruments essentially offer keyspanned playback of the same sound, combining two separate sample layers, each with their own edit window, envelopes and seven effects slots. These are complemented by a main screen with its own seven effects slots, and this is where you load up the main preset. Within each layer sounds are sourced from one of 27 sample sets ranging from pianos, organs and guitars to woodwinds, drums and simple waveforms. Once loaded, each source sound has four available formats (Dry, Wet, Pad and Forward) offering one-shot dry, one-shot wet, looped and forward playback respectively. The main central graphic waveforms update to reflect whichever are loaded, and clicking them activates/deactivates the respective layer. For the Timed Instrument there's a global synced playback speed (whole note, half note or quarter note), and for the plain Instrument type, a global sample playback start point. Finally, the overall layer controls (volume, pan and tune) are always available top-left and top-right.
By contrast, the Loops and Rises instruments include only one layer, but with different sounds on each key of the keyspan. Sample playback can be normal, half and double speed, and there are a bunch of global presets handling the eight effects slots. There are 15 Loop presets each with 24 variations. Meanwhile, the Rises instrument includes three banks of timed, categorised presets, once again with 24 variations in each.
The interfaces are very easy to use and understand, and if you have any problems each instrument includes a couple of excellent on-screen help graphics. I found this particularly useful for the keyboard mapping, as there are some subtle differences between the different instrument types. For example, both the Loops and Rises provide pitched playback over two octaves (one above and one below the original pitch). This is controlled using the red keyspan, with the samples played on the blue keyspan. Meanwhile for the Timed Instruments and Instruments presets, key colouring indicates the keyspan extent of layers one (blue) and two (orange). For all four instruments, activating the triggered effects also reveals the green trigger keys on the keyboard, and these are great for triggering them in real time.
Sonically, REV covers lots of ground. On the face of it, the most functional instrument is Rises. But with a full gigabyte of samples all locked to tempo and categorised (quarter bar up to four bars), it goes way beyond typical white noise uplifters. Each preset also comes in a version with an abrupt end and one with a tail. The synced playback takes the hassle out of initial programming, allowing you to focus on choosing and tailoring the sound. Rather usefully, the rises also retain their timings when pitched away from their original pitch.
The loops are very broad stylistically, and although there is an ethereal nature to many of the banks (Acoustic Piano, Acoustic Guitar and Atmospheres, for example) they still have wide musical uses. The only way to find the real gems, though, is work through each bank. Overall, I loved the Swells bank, which is great for transition sounds, and also the Aggressive bank, which has some great short sounds. Much like the Rises, loops played away from the original pitch still retain their synced timing.
Unsurprisingly, the multi-layer instruments are both the most interesting and the most focused towards ambient and sound design uses. Both have the same set of presets, with the timed ones following host DAW tempo. In both cases, one of the best features is that you can load a preset and then simply spin through the list of source sounds on one layer while retaining all other settings. So if you have a preset that you like but want to try a different timbre, switching from, say, an organ source to a 12-string guitar source for one layer can achieve this quickly.
Of the presets, some of my favourites are actually the simple reverse instruments (piano, Rhodes, acoustic guitar, etc.). But as you can imagine, REV is also a treasure trove, with sounds ranging from lush (Happy Ending) to aggressive (Raptors) and much in between. There are also plenty of one shots and effects. As I've said already, the overriding feel is ambient and ethereal, but dig deep and you'll find all sorts of inspiring stuff in there. Having seen the Forward mode in the Instrument presets, I would certainly like to see this for the Risers, too. But aside from this gripe, REV gets a thumbs-up. Often the key to getting an instrument right is having a great concept. Output have done that and finessed the idea into an easy-to-use and fantastically creative instrument.
Ratings:
Cost: 4/5
Versatility: 4/5
Sound: 5/5
Ease of use: 5/5