The Sound Board

Bunker Perc is available now at an introductory price of $29 (reg. $49) until June 23. All samples included as wav files for ultimate flexibility.

Bunker Samples was borne in a civilian WWII bom shelter bunker in Copenhagen. It's where Bunker Strings was invented and recorded, it's where I worked for 2 years, carrying in water for the coffee machine running water or toilet in the bunker. On the upside it was quiet, being constructed of one meter thick concrete under a meter of dirt. It's a long story, and you can read it in the manual here. To cut to the chase, the bunker is no more - at least it's not a recording studio any more, so there will be no more Bunker Samples libraries recorded there. luckily, because I had a feeling this day would come, I recorded a sonic memory the last time I was there (pre Covid!), recording all the sounds of slamming doors, lock zings and blast door handle drops that had been part of my life for 2 years.

I never intended to turn these recordings into a library, and to be honest I had forgotten about them until I learned the bunker was no more. So I pulled them out of the back corner of my backup drive, gave them a listen and realised that with the right engine, this might just have potential for a cool and unusual percussion library. 6 months forward:

Introducing Bunker PERC

The sonic DNA of the Bunker is embedded in each and every sound in this library – the sound of a damp, underground space full of metal and concrete. These sounds are raw and full of character: big metal doors being slammed and hit, air ducts struck with mallets and locks and heavy metal handles clicking into place, captured in great detail with a pair of AKG 414s.

You not only get all the 21 original sounds exactly the way they sounded in the Bunker, but also 62 organic sound designed hits, conveniently divided into impacts, low booms and low, mid and high hits.

All together this collection offers a refreshing and highly versatile alternative to traditional drums recorded in halls and at a very reasonable price. And best of all, you also get every single sound, with every single variation, as wav files, ready to drag and drop into your DAW for further manipulation.



THE ENGINE​

Designed to be easy and intuitive to use, yet powerful, the PERC engine gives you the flexibility to sculpt each individual sound in detail, letting you create your own completely unique percussion ensemble in minutes.

To edit a sound, simply play it and start moving controls, no menu diving necessary. Radically transform any sound by tuning it up or down, adjust attack, release and sample start offset. The velocity controlled filters can add dynamic realism to your performance, while the 3 band EQ let’s you sculpt the sound in subtle or extreme ways. The punch control can add subtle transient emphasis or extreme snappiness to any sound. The tube compressor is a global control that can add tube saturation, compression and loads of character to the combined output of the engine.

BUILD YOUR STAGE​

At the center of the interface you’ll see the positioning grid which lets you place each individual sound in an environment of your choise, from small ambiences to a huge sounding car park. Together with the per-sound stereo width control, the positioning grid makes it easy to create front-to-back depth and precise panning for each instrument in your ensemble – simply play a sound, move the white puck to your preferred position in the room, done!

REVERSES MADE EASY​

Have you ever bounced out a sound to reverse it and use as a transition, maybe going into a hit? Bunker Perc’s reverse patches makes this easy, hold a note, it plays any sound in the library in reverse, and (if you want it to), when you let go of the key, it plays the corresponding hit. All you have to do now is adjust the length of the midi note, line up the end of it with the beat you want the hit to land on, and done! And best of all, you can edit the reverse or hit independently or together – it’s completely up to you.

Requires the full version of Kontakt 6.7.1. Regular price $49, but intro price of just $29 is good until June 23.

Bumping, because intro sale ends tomorrow. I’m happy to answer any questions of course.

Ok, I don't want to clutter the front page with another post, so I'll just announce the summer sale here. Some sweet deals to be had, especially with the bundles, runs until July 20th! Bunker PERC has been included as well, at the intro price of $29, because it made no sense to leave a single product out, just because it's new.

I'm obviously biased, but The Artist Bundle, consisting of Bunker Strings Complete and The Harmonium, is one hell of a deal if you're new to Bunker Samples: full regular price $187, but during the summer sale just $99!

I had always assumed the "bunker" was in Viet Nam, and of the era when we were at war there. Now that you explained it was in Copenhagen, I realize that makes way more sense, since (from my admittedly lacking knowledge of the war history, aside from what I saw in movies), they had tunnels, not bunkers in Viet Nam.

In any event, that's a cool looking space. It's too bad it's out of commission. Good luck with the sale!

That $99 deal is indeed fantastic. The strings are great and the harmonium is even greaterer. Lovely musical instruments that I actually use quite frequently.

Mike Greene wrote: ↑Jul 10, 2023 6:36 pm I had always assumed the "bunker" was in Viet Nam, and of the era when we were at war there. Now that you explained it was in Copenhagen, I realize that makes way more sense, since (from my admittedly lacking knowledge of the war history, aside from what I saw in movies), they had tunnels, not bunkers in Viet Nam.

In any event, that's a cool looking space. It's too bad it's out of commission. Good luck with the sale!

Thanks Mike, appreciate it! Yeah, I used to spend the summer in Denmark with friends and family, recording stuff in the bunker, then bugger off to Hanoi and edit those recordings and turn them into instruments. It was a good change of scene...

I have indeed not seen any bunkers here, but the tunnels in the south is a famous tourist attraction. They even let you crawl through the tunnels and pop your head up to shoot a real machine gun, if you're into that sort of thing. Never been myself, there's enough reminders of the war everywhere as it is. In fact I used to live very near what they call the B52 lake, which has the remnants of a downed B52 still in it.

In other news, this is the final chance to get Bunker Perc for $29, or indeed anything else in the summer sale. Just a few hours left!