Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 4/5 Stars
When confronted with a sampled instrument from The Very Loud Indeed Company, you don’t have to be Tom Cruise to work out what might lay ahead. Mobilis is unapologetically a cinematic percussion library, designed for hybrid scoring where you might need some pace and raw power.
The 4.1GB of sampled content supplies close to 3000 samples, which are split across four Kontakt Instrument modules. These modules appear to be far more about convenience than any category of sound. Once selected you can access all of the module’s sounds/loops from a 61‑note keyboard, without the need to shuttle up and down in octaves. There are also seven banks of sounds within each module’s layer, selectable through keyswitching, with the seventh bank specifically labelled Triplets, for that triple‑feel. The samples themselves are presented in either loop or single hit formation, which is useful for adding a final climactic note on a downbeat, or indeed creating your own rhythmic patterns.
Being predominantly loop-based, it will take quite a while to trawl through all of the content, and it can be a bit of a lottery to locate the very sound or DAW‑sync’ed pattern that you seek. There is a degree of sound organisation on offer, though — at the lower end of the keyboard, you’ll find the lower‑frequency sounds, such as rumbling overdriven bass tones and cinematic kick drums. As you ascend the keyboard, you hear content with middle register potential, such as toms, wood block and hand drums. This leaves the upper keyboard zone to handle the ‘ricky‑ticky’ metal and hi‑hat elements. You can trigger all content en masse, creating your own texture, but it’s important to note that all samples play from the loop’s beginning, and will not trigger halfway through a cycle. This is actually my preference, as it allows for greater rhythmic possibilities.
Mobilis is equipped with basic tone control, using high‑ and low‑pass filtering, while an EQ provides a single parametric band. Velocity can be linked to the filtering too, if so desired, with the back end of the output providing reverb and delay, but with no capacity to alter their settings other than the applied amount.
The quality of sound design is excellent and impactful...
As a suite, Mobilis does sound quite West Coast, in both its overall sonic identity and processing. The quality of sound design is excellent and impactful, but it does provide more than a passing resemblance to many sounds which we have heard before. I did have one slight gripe; many of the loops contain a groove‑based delay, which has been captured at source, meaning that you have to live with this component, regardless of how much you’d like to switch it off. However, Mobiliis is true to its descriptive form, being loud and full of action‑packed sounds. Perfect for supporting our action hero, as they jump from one train to another at full tilt!
$199
$199