Palette is a series of themed professional orchestral and cinematic virtual instruments by Kontakt for songwriters and composers. It was recorded in a special room with world-famous performers by a passionate and experienced team of exemplary masters. It was our dream, and we hope that this extensive set of voice tools will inspire you to write great music.
There is a lot of content here, therefore, to make things more accessible, we divided it into several products. The first is the “Palette – Symphonic Sketchpad”, which contains building blocks to quickly and easily bring your cinematic ideas to life. Then, to add detail and color to your compositions, we put together additional tool kits that we call “Brush Packs”. Brush Packs focus on deeper and more specific game elements such as orchestral FX, drum loops or melodic ensembles with a true legato. Pick the tools you need. Since all Palette instruments were recorded in the same room by the same production team and the same musicians, they complement each other perfectly.
PALETTE – SYMPHONIC SKETCHPAD
“Palette – Symphonic Sketchpad” is a 26 + GB library featuring strings, woodwinds, brass, choir and percussion and to fill out the list of essential writing tools we added piano, harp and even a set of modern trailer instruments. The orchestral ensembles offer a nice variety of articulations, including 4 kinds of short notes, as well as trills, tremolo, pizzicato, and other deeper techniques. We recorded 3 dynamic layers and up to 7 round robins and to give you even more flexibility we recorded everything in 2 different ensemble sizes (chamber and full) so you can go epic or go intimate.
As with the entire Palette line, our players were recorded in standard orchestral seating position with 3 microphone perspectives – close, decca tree and hall. The room is spacious but fairly dry, with only a 1.2 second tail, which allows for easy blending with other libraries using your favorite reverbs, so you’re not limited to the sound of one particular hall. Since “Palette – Symphonic Sketchpad” was recorded by the same amazing musicians and production team with the same equipment and in the same hall, it was designed to blend perfectly with all the other Palette libraries.
THE ENSEMBLES
The core of “Palette – Symphonic Sketchpad” are the strings, brass and woodwinds ensemble patches. With our players in standard seating position across the stage we recorded the full range of each ensemble in unison, from lowest to highest note. Instruments play together when their ranges overlap and drop out when they reach their limits (see graphic below). We’ve dubbed this approach “True Ensemble Recording.” The result is a rich, playable patch that’s natural, unscripted and full of life – instantly gratifying and perfect for quickly laying down ideas without sacrificing realism.
To provide you with an additional level of flexibility we recorded our ensembles in two sizes – Full and Chamber. These were not accomplished by layering samples – they are 2 unique sets of recordings, each featuring a different number of players. This allows you to achieve the ideal breadth for your score, be it powerful and dramatic or tranquil and moving.
CHOIR, PERCUSSION, PIANO & HARP
Our 24-piece choir features separate Womens & Mens sections performing sustains and staccato articulations in 3 vowels (Ah, Oh and Mm).
PSS also offers 23 essential tonal and atonal orchestral percussion instruments, sampled in up to 7 dynamics with 5 round robin for both left and right hand (where applicable). Standard hits, rolls and other unique articulations are included. The drums, cymbals and auxiliary instruments are combined in one simple GM-style patch to minimize your track count. We also added 6-player ensemble trailer drums and hand percussion patches with the v1.1 update.
Our piano is a beautiful Steinway B Grand, recorded in the hall with 6 dynamic layers and multiple round robin.
The concert harp patch features standard plucks and a unique “glissandi maker” script, which simulates realistic pedaling to produce hundreds of scales you can perform at any length or speed by simply sweeping your controller’s keys up and down.
TRAILER TOOLS
No modern all-in-one cinematic sketching solution would be complete without a set of custom sound design and trailer tools for adding instant impact to your score. “Palette – Symphonic Sketchpad” includes over 250 unique hybrid samples in 7 categories – Impacts, Sub-booms, Reverses, Whooshes & Transitions, Risers, Downers and Braaams - all custom created by our team of sound designers. There’s also a dual-layer subtractive synth patch to add extra grit or low-end to the orchestra.