Last week, developer Electronik Sound Lab has released their newest plugin instrument: Arctic Dreams.
Arctic Dreams is a hybrid piano VST instrument that combines both acoustic and digitally manipulated sounds. Arctic Dreams Lite is the free edition to the commercially released title, and it provides a taste of what the full plugin has to offer.
Known formerly by the name of BeatMaker, this particular developer has put their main artistic focus on ambient-style VST romplers and experimental acoustic-based virtual instruments that combine both of the two worlds – natural sounds and synthetic waveforms.
A Charming Acoustic/Digital Hybrid
As described by Electronik Sound Lab, the acoustic layer presented in Arctic Dreams is based on a sampled Yamaha C3 concert grand piano, while the ambience layer was created using a variety of audio manipulations performed on the original samples – these are mainly time-stretching and time-warping effects but also more conventional FX, like reverb and delay.
Right off the bat, Arctic Dreams Lite throws you back to a similar sounding (yet more simplistically executed) free ambient piano library released by the same developer in the beginning of 2017, called Atmos. However, the variety is a lot more impressive with this one and tonal options are significantly wider. Quality of sound is at least as good, and even better.
The free version provides 7 tweakable factory presets along with several sound design options, such as LFO modulation, filter cutoff module, global tuning option and some more advanced FX parameters such as a cabinet simulator and distortion.
Other, free similar libraries offered by this developer include the already mentioned Atmos, FORT3 grand piano, Creepy Piano 3 Lite as well as other acoustic/experimental hybrids and combinations like their free Darksichord (harpsichord VST) and Haunted Guitar.
Arctic Dreams Lite is compatible with 64-bit Windows/Mac and is available in VST/VST3/AU plugin formats.
