It all started with “a mixture of river, wind in the trees, and Autobahn,” the sounds Hainbach heard where he grew up, he tells us. And the new AudioThing plug-in grew from there, into something deep enough for you to explore, too.
Noises is a textural instrument so full of rich ambient sounds that you can just trigger it and sit back and listen to take a break in the studio – as well as use it as a textural instrumental source. It’s meant as an inspiration and discovery source, says creator Hainbach.
The Autobahn and environment sounds of native German gave way to “a bit of a personal lexicon of noise,” Hainbach says. Electro-acoustic experiments, scoring (including a new film score) – this is both an inward-facing autobiographical sound treasure and an outward-facing instrument designed to let you shape something that’s your own.
Composer and creative sound personality Hainbach gives a lovely narrative introduction to his latest collaboration with AudioThing, so I’ll leave that side to him:
What actually is it, though? Let’s break it down:
The concept began with the notion of making a noise source or noise instrument. But now at its core is a set of field and equipment recordings – “rare vintage measurement and tape equipment, analog synths, strange field recordings, electro-acoustic and magnetic field experiments, and more in his lab.”
From there:
- 21 banks, 8 sounds each
- Crossfader knob
- 1.18GB sample library, plus 118 presets
- A Trigger button that will start the sound bed (basically in “hold” function), with host sync and automation
- Envelope controls
- Pitch control
- Multimode filter with resonance
- Bit crusher effect (both bit depth reduction and frequency downsampling)
- Routing and mix controls
- Trip modulation (a feature we saw on Gong Amp – basically a set of modulation to get lost in)
- Randomizer
- VST2, VST3, AAX, AU support on macOS (10.9+) and Windows (7+), 64-bit, Universal 2 Binary support included on Mac (so Apple Silicon + Intel)
- Demo available
And the sound sources, in short:
- Synths with different… noise. (Minimoog, the Roland SH-2, Juno60, Polivoks, and Crumar DS-2… basically a bunch of noise samples)
- The Autobahn, or technically, wait, a Schnellstraße, let’s get it right!
- HP 8006a word generator (that generates some clicky rhythms)
- Bandpass pulses from Hainbach’s wall of gear
- “Cosmic chords” is a Juno 60 playing some chords through test equipment
- “Cosmic root” is test tone generators + ring mod + vintage synths + phaser
- “Cosmic waves” is tape line harmonics
- “Drum drones” is made of pulses blurred into consistent tones, on the Soviet Formanta UDS machine
- Macumbista Sound Box making feedback with line and mic signals, in an instrument designed by Derek Holzer
- EMF stuff recorded with the Soma Ether
- EMS B-1-II filterbank
- The ultra-rare Bontempi M.A.R.S. DSP workstation (which I missed Hainbach even had, must have skipped a video!)
- East German military wire recorder (see also their Wires instrument)
- Noise fed through denoise filters (funny!)
- Peter Blasser’s Mobenthy modular + Gijs Gieskes fan oscillator + Pan Sonic
- Bi-phase phaser
- Soviet tape machine
- Tape hiss of the Telefunken M15, Nagra 4-S, Nagra SNN, Uher Report Monitor 4000, Sony 367, and a Lomo Rytym Reporter
- Test voltages from Wavetek Model 132 + Brüel & Kjaer 2107 bandpass filter
- HP Wave Analyzer
I mean so… yeah, they got seriously carried away. Brilliant.
You can create your own banks, too – so load your own samples and make up your own instant inspiration generator. I’m not sure what my bank would be like in comparison to this, but I might have to go find out.
Demo + manual are freely downloadable; paid license is € 45 intro, then € 69 after that.
https://www.audiothing.net/instruments/noises/