The Sound Board

Chocolate Audio has announced Celestial, a sampled celesta designed for balanced sound and ease of fitting in any mix.

Features:

• 0.5 GB (lossless compressed) library size, 449 samples.

• 4 Layered channels: Spot mics with AKG C414EB, Decca mics with AKG C451E-CK22 and 2 additional sound-designed options, Hyped and Diffuse.

• Sustaining sounds, chromatically sampled.

• Release trails, chromatically sampled.

• Independently controllable sustain-pedal noise.

• Sampled with Millennia preamps fed directly into Apogee converters.

• All of the details of the celesta recreated through the use of custom advanced scripting.

• Recorded at 24-bit / 96 kHz, released at 24-bit / 44.1 kHz.

• Easy-to-use mixer for extreme sound-mangling.

Engine:

• Custom User Interface.

• Velocity curve management.

• Fine-tuned three-band EQ for each channel.

• Many under the hood techniques to make the instrument true to the original (release trails attenuation, intelligent release and pedal action...).

• Master realism control and specific control over release trails, key off, resonances and pedal noise levels.

• Envelope controls.

• 101 custom, high quality IR reverbs.

• 22 (+ 22) compressor + tape presets.

• 17 factory presets + user-savable presets.

Price
$49 USD Introductory offer for 40% off at 29 USD until April 30th, 2019.

http://www.chocolateaudio.com/products/celestial.

Requirements:
4 GB RAM (more if in need of loading more sample sets).
Core2Duo or equivalent Mac or PC.
Kontakt Retail Version: v. 5.5.2 or newer.

Hi quality uncompressed audio demos available at:
https://fidbak.audio/chocolateaudio/pla ... da3feeb693

Walkthrough video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vhf3FIA0es

Sounds exceptionally good, Simone. I'm buying.

_

And having done so, and after playing it for a bit, I have but one word: gorgeous.

_

Simone,

If it's not too much bother, could you perhaps see if you can do something about the note F4? It sounds quite different from all the other ones, particularly that tick-y attack which it has and that none of the others have. Here's an audio illustration. You'll hear immediately what I'm talking about. And you'll also hear that, depending on the part that needs to be played, it can become quite an annoying little problem.

I can easily solve it myself in Kontakt's editor, but perhaps you prefer to do it yourself (and update the library) if only to avoid similar comments/requests from future buyers.

Thanks!

_

Well I agree the demos sound gorgeous. And my experience with Chocolate Audio thus far has been exceptional.

This will be a buy!

My only semi decent one is from EWQLSO. I’m in.

Piet De Ridder wrote: ↑Apr 11, 2019 6:09 pm Simone,

If it's not too much bother, could you perhaps see if you can do something about the note F4? It sounds quite different from all the other ones, particularly that tick-y attack which it has and that none of the others have. Here's an audio illustration. You'll hear immediately what I'm talking about. And you'll also hear that, depending on the part that needs to be played, it can become quite an annoying little problem.

I can easily solve it myself in Kontakt's editor, but perhaps you prefer to do it yourself (and update the library) if only to avoid similar comments/requests from future buyers.

Thanks!

_

Hi Piet,
I will make sure I verify that note again and eventually update the library. I will be on it this coming monday since this weekend I am fully booked with sessions. I guess it slipped through my checking process, as careful as it could have been.
I am also adding another NKI (due to requests) with pre-mapped separate outputs from Kontakt for the 4 channels in the library.

Cheers,

Simone

ok, listened: it's got more 'bell' to it... I remember we had a few problems in that range when sampling it (we had to work on the whole mechanics since these instruments are old and 'beaten'). And this one must have slipped through... I remember very well having to deal with E4.
Will fix that.

Thanks for pointing this out!

Gorgeous!

EDIT: bought!

Thomas Mavian wrote: ↑Apr 12, 2019 5:19 am Gorgeous!

EDIT: bought!

well... thanks!

Thanks for the update, Simone!

_

Thanks to you, Piet!

For the sake of completeness:
we just released an update to Celestial.

We created a 'fork' to Celestial since there is one key with a little bit more bell to it.
But some customers and testers found that a feature rather than a drawback.
So we created a separate set of NKIs for this.

This is the list of NKIs now coming with Celestial:
01 - Celestial.nki: the product as it originally shipped
02 - Celestial - Hi-Pass.nki: an hi-pass filter makes sure the key-down noise is reduced - best in an orchestral scenario - this was a much requested update
03 - Celestial - Multiout.nki: separate Kontakt outs 1 to 4 (stereo) are mapped from each channel - all internal processing is bypassed
04 - Celestial - Multiout - Hi-Pass.nki: same as 03, with 02
05 - Celestial - Re-peat Custom.nki: same as 01 but with a “fixed” key (F4 - midi key 077) due to a request from Piet De Ridder. The "problem" with that key is that it sounded with more 'bell' to it than nearby keys. We decided to keep both versions, since a few testers found that sound a plus feature rather than a negative one.
06 - Celestial - Hi-Pass - Re-peat Custom.nki: same as 02, with 05
07 - Celestial - Multiout - Re-peat Custom.nki: same as 03, with 05
08 - Celestial - Multiout - Hi-Pass - Re-peat Custom.nki: same as 04, with 05
Current customers should already have received an updated download-links email + email notice from me.

I hope this update is welcomed by current and future users.

All the best,

Simone

Bought your Harp as well two days ago. Not that I really needed another one, but there's something about the sound of your libraries — I'm not talking about the timbre, or the room, or the character of the instruments, but about the actual sound of the recordings — which I really, really like.
Very, very few things that come out of Kontakt, even stuff from highly respected developers, have a sound that pleases me, but your work somehow succeeds in sounding un-Kontakt-y.

Immensely pleased with those two Harps, by the way. Like I said, I didn't really need another one; well, that statement is now more true than ever.

Thanks again!

_

Wow! A bit OT maybe, but thanks a million! Such input from artists like yourself is a strong motivator!

Cheers,

Simone

And double wow! Now Piet is actually having presets named after him!

playz123 wrote: ↑Apr 18, 2019 12:04 pm And double wow! Now Piet is actually having presets named after him!

Not the first time we create NKIs customized to a user liking. We did it in the past for other artists too. A request is always welcomed and if it’s an easy thing, there you go