- Native Instruments are best known in the electronic music world for their range of software synths, plug-ins and associated MIDI controllers. But they also make products that cater very ably to cinema soundtrack and sound designers. If a soundtrack is going to be heard on a loud surround-sound system in an acoustically designed room, it's going to have to sound good, and the production values need to be very high. This makes this product area a great resource for dance producers. And since fewer people will be using such instruments than, say, the ubiquitous Massive, they're a great tool to have in your box. Builds, impact noises and reversed sounds are useful in dance music for a range of functions, including building and relieving tension and driving a groove. And Native Instruments' Rise & Hit Kontakt instrument has potential as an especially useful crossover tool.
The clue's in the name: Rise & Hit is built around two types of sound, the first running into the second. Playing a note on the lower half of the keyboard will trigger a rise, which then resolves into a hit if the note is held. A note played on the upper half will trigger just the hit. The interface that allows you to control these sounds is simple but powerful. Probably the most immediately useful function for dance producers is the ability to prescribe the rise time as a number of beats, meaning that you'll have no trouble at all in making it hit at the section change point. (You can specify it in seconds as well.) Four high-quality samples can be layered at any one time, and they can then be mixed together using individual level and length controls. This is done separately for the rise and the hit samples, which aren't bound to each other. With 4,250 samples in total to choose from, there's a vast array of builds and hits possible. This isn't a simple sweep programmer; it's an advanced sound design tool. (You'll need plenty of RAM to run it properly, too.)
Behind each individual sample is an effect and modulation section. You can control pan, pitch and the way each moves with time. You also have two effect knobs: one controls a selection of effects that generally treat the frequency in some way (filter sweeping and so on), while the other controls one of a number of more creative effects, including distortions, phasers and flangers. These, again, can be modulated as the rise goes up or the hit decays, as can the reverb and delay sends to their right. A crossfader also allows you to determine the fade between the two halves and thus tailor how hard the hit slams in.
There are some insert effects in the master section that all of the samples go through next: a four-band EQ with a few presets, a simple distortion with a few types selectable, a simple compressor of a similar nature and a simple limiter. There are also the reverb and delay returns—where the sends from each sample went—just below this. The reverb sends actually go to convolution unit, which offers a variety of standard convolution reverbs alongside more exotic spaces, from real environments like metal tanks or bells through to more alien realms. Unusually the returns don't go through the master insert effects but run parallel to them, meaning that any reverb or delay tails you put on the sounds don't necessarily sit in the mix with them. Unless this is useful for soundtrack work in a way I'm not aware of, it seems like an oversight on the designers' part.
Rise & Hit also comes with eleven different libaries of instruments, which are basically presets containing pre-engineered rise/hit pairs, with the samples, effects and modulations carefully programmed. It's not immediately obvious how you might categorise rises and hits, but Native Instruments have done a good job. Most of the presets (and the individual samples) are very dramatic and should suit producers who boast a cinematic sound. They're mostly dark and edgy, and often they're outright terrifying. Some of the libraries hew closer to straight-up film territory than others. The Percussive library, for example, contains the kind of heavy drum rolls that might see you scoring the next Michael Bay film if you play with it for too long. The Swooshes section contains very aggressive sonic swipes that are often too upfront for a club build, but when shortened and adjusted work very well as reverse noises to push along a groove. The presets in the Lifters section achieve their objective using breakneck pitch rises, which you can cool down to more sensible levels if you wish. Looking further, in the Pure Synth and Hybrid Sounds sections, you'll find a range of unusual, complex sounds that pretty much guarantee your builds will be on another planet from the typical white noise filter rise. And if you're after hits to be used on their own, there's a colossal range of razor-edged pseudo-cymbals, mid-range shots and low-end booms.
Builds and hits have got a bad rep, mostly because they've been milked to death in the mainstream: few other ingredients of dance music deliver an instant rush so bluntly. But they are very useful, not just for a stadium EDM tracks but also in developing genuine, subtle tension and motion in a track. And Rise & Hit is a high-class machine. It'll not just let you sidestep the same sounds that everyone else is using; it'll let you find even more appropriate ones to bolster the vibe of your track more directly. If you find yourself reaching for the same old cymbal sample or white noise generator in every track, then this instrument might be for you.
Ratings:
Cost: 4/5
Sound: 5/5
Versatility: 4/5
Ease of use: 4.5/5