Bentside Spinet

About

Bentside Spinet derives from spinetta, a word used for all quilled instruments in 17th-century Italian. The spinet was a preferred household keyboard since it took up less room than the harpsichord, produced a dark & quiet tone, and was aesthetically stunning. As one of the precursors of the pianoforte, the oldest artifact is dated 1490, but started to gain popularity around 1631. By the 18th century, bentside spinets were found all over Europe and were used for daily home entertainment and musical instruction. The instrument shape resembled a harp laid horizontally, with the keys in the position of the sounding-board. As a result, the spinet produced a rich and sustained timbre, but darker and less brilliant than the harpsichord. It had a five octave range with natural keys re-covered with ebony and ivory topped accidentals, giving it a strikingly memorable look. We recorded each key of Bentside Spinet in stereo close and far mic positions with 8 round robin, as well as note releases and key sound effects. Then we rounded out the natural tone of this baroque keyboard with 20 ambient soundscapes and 20 custom FX presets to launch your musical time machine right into a European parlor… Good luck at your dinner party.

Contents

The Kontakt interface includes a suite of automation-ready sound-shaping controls to give you total creative flexibility. You have control over swell, attack, release, offset, vibrato, filter, pitch (coarse & fine), articulation switching, cross-fading and layering, and so much more. We've also included 20 unique sound-designed custom FX presets to give you lots of creative options. This library comes with an adaptable LFO system, with selectable LFO shape, modulation target parameter, speed, intensity, tempo-syncing and fade-in time. You can also apply your choice of 12 lowpass, high-pass and FX filters, with assignable modulation targets such as velocity, modwheel, expression, after-touch, key position and step-sequencer table control. Our customizable arpeggiator offers a velocity table and control over arp direction, timing, swing, randomization and duration. We’ve included a key and scale lock system to constrain your notes to common scales and keys for easy melodic composition and live performance. The interface is rounded-out by our modular FX rack panel, with 18 different DSP effect modules that you can assign in any of 10 available slots, in any order that you wish. You’ll find classic phaser, flanger, delay, distortion, amp and cab simulators, compressors, EQ, rotator and so much more. The Reverb effect includes our favorite convolution reverb impulse responses, including 99 different rooms, halls, chambers and outdoor environments, plus another 40 custom FX impulses to radically transform the sound and open up whole new worlds of musical possibility. We’ve added a great bank of FX rack chain factory presets to get you started!

Product Specs