SonicCouture - Ghost Planet by Ian Boddy (add-on sound bank for Haunted Spaces) In December 2017 I published my review of SonicCouture's Haunted Spaces, an extremely atmospheric and worthy follow up to their earlier release GeoSonics, both of these excellent libraries featured the remarkable sound recordings of Chris Watson see the previous review for his biographical background. Ghost Planet... Drawing from the same core sample pool of Chris Watson recordings, this new add-on snapshot soundbank adds a further 128 new presets to those already included within Haunted Spaces to increase the already abundant selection. On this occasion the presets have been created entirely by highly acclaimed British sound designer, musician and composer Ian Boddy. Ian's work spans back to the early 1980's. The amount of projects and works he has been involved with are far too numerous to be included here, but he has many albums and sound design credits to his name. Having designed some of the included patches for Haunted Spaces, Ian was invited back to create a collection all of his own and Ghost Planet was the outcome. Specs... Bear in mind that it is a prerequisite to own Haunted Spaces to be able to use Ghost Planet. Just this once you won't need to check your hard drive space for one of my reviews, the entire content weighs in at a mere 48mb, installation is easy and just a case of dropping the unzipped folder into the existing Haunted Spaces snapshot folder, and performing a KK standalone rescan, if you find the new content does not appear you may as I did need to initiate a manual scan of your library factory path using either the auto hotkey script for Windows or Macros for keyboard Maestro. NKS Mapping... The browser side of Ghost Planet is sparse to say the least, however it doesn't need to be anything other than this given that there is only one preset type available, this being 'Synth Pad', there is a sub type of evolving pad and layer pad, and as you start to explore the library you will pretty much know from the get go what genre of sounds to expect, however there are some pleasant surprises and innovative variations along the way. Edit Pages... As a result of my review last year, SonicCOuture were kind enough to add a few more pages from the original 4 availble to further enhance accessibility, so we now have a total of nine on offer which I have outlined below. These updated mappings are present in both Ghost Planet and in Haunted Spaces follwoing a previous update. the ability to turn off reverb and the addition of decay and sustain to the original attack and release were very welcome and appreciated editions, and there are also some filtering options now offered on the extra pages. Page 1: Knob 1 X control, Knob 2 Y control, Knob 3 play, Knob 4 Reverb on/off, Knob 5 level, Knob 6 level B, Knob 7 level C, Knob 8 level D The X and Y controls allow for mixing and intensity of sound between the allocated sound sources within a given preset, turning off the 'play' switch of Knob 3 allows unrestricted morphing away from preassigned x & y automations saved in the presets, the other knobs are straightforward volume level controls of the sources. Page 2: Pitch & Pan, very simply Knobs 1 to 4 control pitch of the four sound sources, Knobs 5 to 8 control panning of the same Page 3: Again very simple Knob 1 to 4 controls frequency cut-off of the allocated sound sources, Knobs 5 to 8 provide control of resonance Page 4: Attack & Decay, Knob 1 to 4 are attack and Knobs 5 to 8 are Decay Page 5: - Sustain, Knobs 1 to 4 are Sustain, Knobs 5 to 8 are Release Page 6: HPF & Velocity, Knobs 1 to 4 are a High Pass Filter, whilst Knobs 5 to 8 are Velocity Page 7: FEG Attack & Decay, Filter Envelope Dept controls, Knobs 1 to 4 Attack, Knobs 5 to 8 Page 8: FEG Sustain & Release, as above for Sustain and Release Page 9: FEG Depth & LFORate, again each knob is assigned to a layer for Filter Envelope Depth, and LFO Rate. Sounds... These are big patches and I mean this in as much as there is a lot going on within them, Ian has made great use of all four layers with some creative modulation effects kicking in as the patches morph and evolve over time when notes are sustained. As ever I would recommend you checkout demos of the library from the links provided below, but you can expect to find some fantastic sweeping electronic landscapes inside the library, there are hints of BBC Radiophonic workshop,Vangelis and everything inbetween all of course in Ian Boddy's own personal style. Some of the patches can be dominent to the degree where they are almost complete works in themselves, and as such may not need an awful lot adding to them. Others would serve as atmospheric backdrops to more ambient works, and of course there is always the option to mix out individual layers from the four available to tweak and thin them out to create the sound you are aiming to achieve. Conclusion... Ghost Planet is a good and low cost way of expanding the already ample capabilities of Haunted Spaces if you are in need of a little extra inspiration, or the starting point on which to base a new idea. if looking for some padding for a bridge or background scene within a film based project some of these presets could arguably do the job without any further musical intervention, provided your creative inner self can live with the guilt as you bank your clients cheque! Whatever your musical pleasure, Ghost Planet is a great and unexpected edition to an already wonderful library and I would hope to see more additions in the future, perhaps even with additional sample content. It is also worth recognising that SonicCouture's entire library catalogue has now been made NKS ready thanks to a mammoth scripting session which occupied the first six months of 2018. With this groundwork now in place I'm told the team are now focused on creating some new products, and us Komplete Kontrol users can relax in the knowledge that NKS accessibility is firmly in place and will continue to be so. Ghost Planet Ian Boddy Soundpack is availble to existing owners of SonicCouture's Haunted Spaces library for just £15.00 (log into your account to purchase). If you do not currently own Haunted Spaces at the time of writing (July 16th 2018) SoniCouture have a partner deal with Native Instruments to celebrate total NKS intergration of all their products, and Haunted Spaces can be purchased for half price at £69.50 or as part of a larger bundle until July 30th. Links... SonicCouture Ghost Planet: http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products/28-rare-and-experimental/g60-haunted-spaces/ Native Instruments/SonicCouture NKS offer: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/specials/komplete/soniccouture-offer-2018/ Ghost Planet Preset Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hecPxAovJNE Ian Boddy Website: http://ianboddy.com/ (c) Chris Ankin July 2018 KK-Access Disclaimer The author accepts no responsibility for subsequent purchase decisions made as a result of this article,or Any inaccuracies found within this review. All opinions or product functions stated are based soly on information perceived as a blind user whilst using the product or gathered from official factual sources on the web or product manual. About the Author Chris Ankin has worked previously as a freelance review contributor with articles published in Sound On Sound, Home & Studio Recording and ST Format Magazines.