Fieldworks Volume 1 is a collection of royalty-free experimental field recordings intended for use in a range of music and sound design applications. Whilst they can be used in any DAW or audio software that supports WAV playback, they also offer an ideal expansion for Sonora Cinematic’s acclaimed sound design tool, Harmonic Bloom.
A variety of interesting sounds are present in the release, from unusual sources such as bath bombs dissolving in water recorded with hyrdrophones to earth movements captured with geophone. All of the sources have been recorded at a sample rate of 192kHz, allowing them to be extensively time-stretched and pitch-shifted in order to create interesting new sounds and effects.
As well as being a useful collection of samples in its own right, Sonora Cinematic say that Fieldworks Volume 1 really excels when loaded into Harmonic Bloom, their Kontakt Player-based sound design tool. Once loaded in, users can use the software to extract harmonics to create unique pitched instruments, and use the built-in LFO to modulate parameters such as pan, volume and filter settings on a per-harmonic basis.
The company have also just released version 1.2 of Harmonic Bloom, making it possible to save patches that utilise custom samples (or sounds from Fieldworks) as snapshots, and recall them as part of a DAW session.
“A few months ago I started collecting interesting microphones: from a Geophone to a couple of very interesting high-quality hydrophones and contact transducers. The recordings I captured were very interesting and dropping them into Harmonic Bloom created unique atmospheres instantly. I had to share them with the world.” - Alessandro Mastroianni, Sonora Cinematic Founder
Compatibility
The samples in Fieldworks Volume 1 are provided as 24-bit / 192kHz and 48kHz WAV files. Harmonic Bloom runs via Native Instruments’ free Kontakt Player, which is supported on PCs running Windows 10 or 11, and Macs running macOS 11 and above. VST3, AU and AAX versions are available, as well as a standalone application.
Pricing & Availability
Fieldworks Vol 1 is available now, priced at £10. Existing Harmonic Bloom customers can take advantage of an introductory price of £5 until 30 September 2023. The company are also offering Harmonic Bloom, Fieldworks Volume 1 and their Verticale upright piano instrument as a bundle for £119. Prices exclude VAT.
