Rigid Audio shows with Padstation I & II that especially Indie developers have very exciting Kontakt 5 library for little money on the market. Padstation offers 5 GB of sample content, includes a proper sound design oriented interface and all this for only $6 USD.
If you like to expand your Kontakt 5 sampler with new sounds, this can quickly be expensive. Known for this are developers such as Native Instruments, Spitfire, and others. For this, the buyers also get sounds that you can use without further problems in soundtrack productions for Hollywood.
Musicians with a small budget should consider a look at the indie market where can you find developers offering exciting products with lower price tags. One of these is Dennis Lenz of Rigid Audio from Germany. Formerly known as Prodyon, he now works as Rigid Audio and regularly publishes interesting but affordable Kontakt 5 libraries. In this review, we look at Padstation I & II, two libraries that are already a bit older but all the more worth to mention because they are currently available for very little money.
What Does Padstation I & II Include?
Before making a report on the included content, it must be mentioned that in PADSTATION II, 2.2 GB (200 sounds) are from PADSTATION I. Thus, in my opinion, it makes little sense to write about PI as the same sounds are also available here and even more. Also, the interface differs minimally to the second version.
With PADSTATION, Rigid Audio created a dual layer ROMpler style virtual instrument for Kontakt 5. It features in every layer 400 different looped cinematic pad sounds that range from choirs, strings, sweeps, and textures. The downloading of the library takes some time because it’s relatively big with 5GB. As mentioned early, the library consists of 2.8 GB of newly developed material and 2.2 GB of sounds from PADSTATION I. All sounds are embedded in a new scripted Kontakt 5 interface and instantly playable with your keyboard. Additionally, each sound is available as a normal wav file.
PADSTATION Lives From The Kontakt 5 Interface
In addition to the 5GB of sound content, Rigid Audio delivers the library with a simple but easy to use Kontakt 5 interface. This can be called the control center of the PADSTATION library. The interface is split into two different layers A & B that you can blend seamlessly from within one patch. The user can select a sound from the 400 sounds manually in each layer or with the help of a random generator. If you want to be surprised, I recommend the second variant with which you can discover different combinations every time. It’s a shame that you can only activate the random generator on both sounds. Individuals would certainly be interesting too.
Simple Interface With Useful Features
Each part features an own volume, pan, auto-pan, and semi tune parameter as well as a lowpass filter with an envelope. The latter one works here only as a classic filter envelope and is not routed to the amp. To refine the sounds, every layer features a selection of effect processors: step-filter, distortion, phaser, flanger and convolution reverb with 60 impulse responses. The step filter can affect the sound character very much because you can incorporate simple but nice rhythmic elements with it. The interface includes also a variation knob in the middle that gives you instant part variation. It’s a clever feature because it gives you instant new creative input with just a few clicks. Last but not least, you have modwheel targets per parts: lowpass filter, high-pass filter, and vibrato.
By and large, one can say that the interface is very successful. Simple, not crowded with knobs and with useful features. It is so simple that everyone can enjoy it immediately. There is some criticism of the names of the sounds. In PADSTATION I, there were still names for the individual sounds, so they are called here only Pad 1, Pad 2, Pad 3… With 400 sounds, it would be better to have names that help the orientation.
Sounds Sounds Sounds
In my several hours of testing, the global sound quality convinced me a lot. There are occasional highlights, some less exciting sounds but also many that can be called classic bread and butter sounds. As the name of the library says, pads dominate the entire library. Above all, it’s suitable for musicians who are interested in atmospheric and ambient-oriented sounds. Also, lovers of soundscapes are not missing out here. The sounds range from classic synth pad sounds to aggressive noisy, experimental textures.
The exciting thing is about it is that you can easily combine the sounds with the help of the interface and design so many new sounds. To be honest, I would probably need a few days to try out all the combinations. I combined a lot of sounds, some randomly and many of them satisfied me a lot with the character and the sound.
Sound Demo & Video Review
Summary
Overall, PADSTATION I & II is a beautiful and versatile collection of Pad sounds. With the included 400 tones and the easy-to-use interface, musicians can combine and create almost unlimited sounds. Especially lovers of pads, soundscapes and textures will have fun with this Kontakt 5 instrument. Due of the fact that I bought this library for only $6 USD, I can’t really criticize it a lot because you get here a lot of sounds for a very tight budget. 5GB of sounds for just $6 is my opinion an extremely fair offer from Rigid Audio.
PADSTATION has so seen a virtual instrument especially for lovers of pads, soundscapes, and textures. If you work a lot with Kontakt 5 instruments, would like to support smaller sound designers and would like to get a lot of sounds for little money, then the PADSTATION bundle is the right choice. On top, buyers receive an additional sample library for free when purchasing this bundle.
Pro
- very low price ($6 USD)
- big collection of sounds (5 GB)
- very good price/value factor
- easy-to-use Kontakt 5 interface
- random generator offers instant new creative input
- PADSTATION I included in the bundle
Improvements
- Names of the sounds (Pad 1, Pad 2, Pad 3…)
- A random generator for each layer
Contra
- nothing
PADSTATION by Rigid Audio is now available for $5.99 USD instead of $122 USD for the full version of Kontakt 5.
More information here: Rigid Audio
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