Aztec Death Whistle

About

Aztec Death Whistle is a deeply sampled folk wind instrument sample library that captures the dark soul of the ancient Aztec death whistle, a ceremonial clay resonator used during human sacrifice rituals and warfare at the height of the Aztec (historically also known as Mexica) empire in Central America in the 14th and 15th centuries AD, in what has now become modern-day Mexico.

This whistle — technically grouped in the same family of whistles as bird and animal call whistles — is made from fired clay. It has two chambers that create air cavities which resonate when you blow into the top of the skull. It produces a harsh, raspy atonal vocal sound that closely resembles a dying breath, but with a shrill, demonic essence that will certainly evoke terror on an almost instinctive level. It is the sound of death incarnate.

We recorded this instrument extensively, in a dry studio, as well as from close and distant positions in a large open hall for a rich, lush atmosphere. With deep velocity layers and natural round-robin variation, plus tons of uniquely sound-designed and atmospheric content, the Aztec Death Whistle library puts the soul and essence of this dark and unique instrument in the palm of your hand.

Content

This is a standard open-format Kontakt library that includes a range of playable articulations. We recorded sustains, flutter tongues, staccatos, and hand percussion in our dry studio with deep dynamic layering and 12x round-robin. You will also find single-shot dramatic stinger effects, such as swells, crescendos and diminuendos. We then recorded the instrument in a large cathedral from both close and distant stereo microphone positions to bring out a darker, more mysterious and ambient quality. We have also created a wide range of dark, ethereal and late sound-designed ambiences, synth patches and FX presets made from the raw acoustic source to give you plenty of nightmare fuel to get your horror on. They make an ideal complement to the primary natural articulations in this library.

The library comes equipped with flexible control features such as attack, release, transient offset, dynamic swell, octave, vibrato and a robust Arpeggiator system that provides a full range of custom dynamic arpeggiation modes and step sequencer pattern creation options. There is also a complete DSP effects rack, including convolution reverb with dozens of unique spaces such as cathedrals, churches, halls, bunkers, garages, tunnels, chambers, rooms and plenty of special FX impulses to fully explore and create an endless variety of strange and unexpected sound manipulations. All samples are also uncompressed PSC stereo wavs, so you can manipulate them directly and import them into any wav-compatible audio software you like.

• Fully multi-sampled Aztec clay resonator whistle.
• 14 Instrument Presets with dozens of selectable articulations and performance controls.
• Special Midi-CC and velocity-crossfaded presets
• Custom sound-designed FX and ambient presets in a range of categories and styles.
• Sustains and staccatos with and without flutter-tongue rolls.
• 3 microphone positions for main articulations: Dry studio, Hall close and Hall far.
• Dynamic hand percussion articulations, played on the clay whistle
• Short and long single-shot effects and stingers
• Round robin for each staccato and hand percussion articulation.
• Multi-mode arpeggiation with step sequencer.
• Convolution Reverb with 70 different cathedrals, churches, chambers, rooms, halls and special effect impulses.
• A full multi-effects rack, with EQ, filter, phaser, flanger, delay, distortion, amp & speaker simulation and more.

Product Specs