Introduction – Precisionsound Dream Whistles User Manual

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Introduction

The sound sources for Dream Whistles are five wooden recorders of different sizes—bass, alto, tenor

soprano, and sopranino.

Recorders of this type were developed and made popular during the baroque era. Each instrument is

chromatic and has a range of about two octaves. The bass, alto, and sopranino recorders are tuned in F,

and the tenor and soprano recorders are tuned in C. Thus there are many overlapping notes, so these

instruments have often been used in ensembles.

In our opinion, each size of recorder has a personality of its own, even for solo playing. The sound differs

from other members of the flageolet family, such as the Celtic tin whistles. The tone character of the

baroque recorders could be described as clean and warm, with less air leakage than their Celtic cousins.

In making this sample library, our aim was to play the notes in a personal and folky way, rather than in a

classical baroque style. We recorded the instruments with lots of “air”, natural vibrato, and glissando.

The result is a highly expressive library with a playful character.

For this V2 release, we created a scripted interface for Native Instruments Kontakt 3 and above, which

allows you to shape the sound, apply effects, and enable realistic legato transitions between notes.