Origins Vol.1: Steel Tongue & Sansula – Kontakt Instrument by Sonuscore

The Sansula is a modern development of the kalimba, a traditional African instrument. It is played by plucking metal tines attached to a membrane, and the developer describes its tone as soft yet rich. The Steel Tongue Drum is a modern instrument played with mallets or by hand, with a percussive attack.

Used together, the two timbres are meant to complement each other: the Sansula supplies a gentle, melodic layer while the Steel Tongue Drum adds rhythmic punctuation. Each instrument can also be played on its own.

The Multi-Arpeggio-Designer (MAD) is the centrepiece of the instrument. Two fully customizable arpeggiators build interlocking patterns from the two timbres. Sonuscore says the engine is designed to produce a musically meaningful, human-feeling performance rather than randomly placed notes.

The 12 colour settings add further shaping. Each colour has its own character and combines effect settings with multiple impulse responses. Each MAD preset has an assigned colour, and any combination can be used, which the developer puts at over 900 predefined combinations. Arpeggio designs can also be copied to other Origins instruments.