Marxophone

Angelical Fretless Zither

Important note: This software requires the FULL version of Kontakt 5.7.3 or above and will only run in DEMO mode when used in the FREE Kontakt Player engine.

The sound of the Marxophone is reminiscent of the various types of hammered dulcimer in music traditions worldwide. It has four sets of chord strings to be strummed with the left hand and two octaves of double melody strings, which are struck by metal hammers activated by the right hand.

Overview

The Marxophone was produced by the Marxochime Colony of New Troy, Michigan, billed as easy to play, and sold on time-purchase plans by door-to-door salesmen. Now available for Kontakt.

Mixer

Marxophone was sampled in different ways, all of them controllable in this panel:

• Chords: strummed with the fingers just like the original unit was intended for.
• Springs: metal keys with springs attached that bounced on the strings, creating a tremolo effect.
• Pick: using a guitar pick for more attack.
• Fingers: using fingers for a more mellow sound.

With a load/purge switch for each articulation. Pan, volume, mute/solo, stereo width from 100% stereo to mono and output selector for mixing the different channels in your DAW.

Effects

The library features Wavesfactory's advanced effect script that lets you insert any effect in any of the 8 available slots for each channel, including:

• High-Quality EQ.
• Various types of compressors.
• Modulation: chorus, flanger, phaser.
• Distortion / Saturation / Tape
• Algorithmic and convolutional reverb with more than 40 custom impulse responses.
• Amp simulators.
• More.

This script boosts exponentially the sonic capabilities of the library, easy to use in a simple and elegant design.

Settings

From the settings page, you can control basically any parameter you might ever need. Divided into four sections you can find:

• Round robin: the instrument was sampled with 4 true round-robin repetitions in order to avoid the machine-gun effect.
• Dynamic range: lets you specify the difference between the loudest and the quietest ones.
• Velocity curve: control how the library reacts to incoming midi notes.
• Springs release: control the volume of the mechanical noises and vibrating strings when releasing the keys.
• Envelope: tweak the attack and release times of each articulation separately.

System Requirements

Important Notes: 

• The FULL version of Native Instruments Kontakt 5.7.3 or above is required to run this software.
• This software will not function in full within the FREE Kontakt Player engine and will only be available in DEMO mode.