Kalimba 3.0: Thumb Piano Library for Kontakt by Soundiron

The library samples two kalimba instruments, the smaller covering about an octave and a half and the larger more than two octaves. Soundiron describes the sound as a warm, marimba-like plucked tone with a sharp attack, which makes it useful for adding brightness and playfulness next to piano.

Each tine was recorded with up to 11 velocity layers and up to 10 round-robin variations, which helps the repeated notes sound less mechanical. The Kalimba is available in dry, chamber and bunker environments. The bunker recording was made at 1 meter and 15 meters, and the Release control shortens the decay from a long hall to a tighter room.

The library also includes 86 ambience patches and 62 soundscapes, pads, atmospheres and drones built from the same source recordings, so the acoustic and ambient parts share a sonic character.

The Kontakt interface offers automation-ready controls for swell, attack, release, offset, vibrato, filter, coarse and fine pitch, articulation switching and cross-fading between layers.

Modulation options include an LFO with selectable shape, target, speed, intensity, tempo sync and fade-in time, plus 12 filter types with assignable sources such as velocity, mod wheel, expression and key position. An arpeggiator provides control over direction, timing, swing, randomization and duration, and a key and scale lock keeps melodies within common scales.

The modular FX rack holds 18 effect modules across 10 slots, which can be ordered freely. Convolution reverb includes 99 rooms, halls, chambers and outdoor impulses plus 40 custom FX impulses. Twenty sound-designed FX presets are included as starting points.