Mobeus – Rhythmic Cinematic Soundscape Generator KONTAKT

Rhythmic Cinematic Soundscape Generator
Mobeus is a brand new amazing loop-based sample library and Kontakt instrument designed to create rhythmic patterns, pulses, grooves and textures. The sounds used are intended for a wide variety of projects and musical styles, but they are particularly suited to cinematic or experimental music where you need something unique, atmospheric, rich and with a contemporary feel.

Over 600 sounds were created from a combination of live recordings, analogue hardware, and digital processing. Many of the parts are from the creator Si Begg’s own personal library of sounds and have been trialled in trailers, scores and other compositions.

At its heart, Mobeus is a 3-channel sample player, with each channel playing one loop and with its own set of dedicated effects, Envelope. Pan, Pitch and Speed controls, LFOs and filters.

Instrument categories include: Abstract, Darkside, Metal & Wood, Organic, Positive, Electronic Melodic, Electronic Percussion, Synths and Pulses. The library also includes over 450 individual snapshots which are custom made by Si Begg to sound amazing straight out of the bag.

With three different channels, a myriad of manipulation methods and an incredible bedrock of samples, your sound creation possibilities are literally endless!

As all the samples come in an uncompressed WAV format, you can use these raw loops in your projects as required. But to get the most out of Mobeus you need to use the Kontakt instrument. We also strongly recommend you install the Snapshots as this will give you hundreds of quick loading presets to play with and adapt.

Kontakt Instruments and Snapshots
Inside the Mobeus folder you will find three folders

Samples
This contains all the WAV samples subdivided into folders of each category. These can be used in your DAW of choice, but make sure to leave them where they are so that Kontakt can find them.

Instruments
As there are more than 600 samples, I have created instruments that use a curated selection in each. For instance Mobeus All Synths has, funnily enough, all the synth based sounds. Whereas Mobeus Abstract has a selection of all the more weird and esoteric sounds.

Snapshots
Here you will find 100s of Snapshots I have created as jumping off point for each instrument. Refer to the ‘How to install the Snapshots.pdf’ to see how to correctly install. The advantage of using Snapshots rather than multiple Kontakt instruments is that they load almost instantaneously without having to reload the whole instrument and sample pool every time.

The Sample Selector
For each channel there is a pop-up menu where you can select your loops. To the left is a button to switch the channel on and off and to the right a randomise option that selects a random sample for that channel only. You will find this particularly useful and a great way of quickly coming up with new ideas.

Speed, Pitch and Volume
Starting from the left we have a standard volume fader, then we get on to the more interesting speed and pitch controls.

For pitch there is an on and off switch and pitch dial. In the on position the pitch corresponds with notes on the keyboard like a standard instrument. In the off position the pitch is fixed no matter what key you press. This could be useful, for example, if one channel contains a bass pulse and another a percussive loop. By locking the pitch of the percussive loop you can change the note of the bass part to follow a composition whilst keeping the percussive sound intact on one pitch.

The pitch dial changes the pitch of the samples. By holding the Alt / Option key you can move in quantised steps of one semitone.

The speed control changes the speed of the sample relative to your DAW’s tempo. To be most effective, you should hold the Alt / Option key to snap the position to 25% / 50% / 100% / 200% / 400% this way the loop will remain in sync with the DAW’s tempo.

Obviously, the sounds can get quite mangled with large changes of speed and pitch, but we wanted to give these options for full creative control and to take advantage of some of the strange artefacts that Kontakt’s time stretch engine can create.

Drive and Reverb Send
The Drive control distorts the signal. The Reverb control sends the signal to a convolution reverb which uses one the impulse responses selected in the pop up menu which his found in the bottom left of the interface. These are creative reverbs rather than basic rooms / halls and can be used to give interesting space and texture to the sounds. The signal is sent to the reverb independently of the volume control allowing you to have just the pure wet reverb signal if desired.

LFO Controls
This section allows you to place an LFO on each channel. With the first dial you can choose from 5 different waveforms: Sine, Saw, Square, Ramp and Random. There are also controls for the LFO rate and modulation depth. The final control lets you assign the LFO to either Pitch, Drive, LP Resonance, HP Resonance, Volume or Pan.

LP LFO
Determines how much of the LFO is sent to the low pass filter (this can be positive or negative).

HP LFO
Determines how much of the LFO is sent to the low pass filter (this can be positive or negative).

Impulse Response Select
Here you will see the name of the current impulse response used for the convolution reverb. Just click on the name to bring up a pop-up menu allowing you to select a new impulse response.

Reverb Size
This stretches the current impulse response to extend or reduce the length of the reverb.

Pre-delay
This adds a small delay between the direct signal and the output, allowing for simulation of the delay that occurs between hearing a direct sound and the first reflections of a distant wall etc.

Damping
Simulates the texture of reflecting surfaces, allowing you to ‘soften’ the environment, making a duller or softer toned reverb.

Master Limiter
A limiter to control the combined final mix of sounds. This allows you to boost sounds that are getting lost and put a limit to sounds that are too loud.

Master LP Filter
A final master low pass filter.

Master HP Filter
A final master high pass filter.