Description
"The idea behind CANDYFLOSS was to create an engine specifically designed to make it easy to instantly produce sweet & glossy sounds with a ton of high frequency detail - all from close-mic'ed organic samples."
Robin Schlochtermeier
Your Next Go-to Genre Scoring Tool
Your Next Go-to Genre Scoring Tool
Gholem effortlessly creates compelling atonal and experimental strings textures.
Go from extended technique soloists to 22 piece aleatoric ensembles in a few clicks.
Audio Demos
- Swarms Robin Schlochtermeier 3:18
- Up Close And Dangerous Nico Willem 1:36
- Skin Shifter Richey Rynkowski 1:34
- Shepard's Delight Robin Schlochtermeier 2:25
- Eden's Door Robin Schlochtermeier 2:23
- Peeling Leather Robin Schlochtermeier 1:04
About the instrument
Gholem is a two-layer instrument, with full controls including envelope for each layer.
With Gholem you can very easily fine tune the size of your ensemble, from 1 player (1 layer only) to 22 players (11 in both layers). This allows for a wide variety of applications, including intimate solo pizzicato drops and quivering wandering vibrato patches to full ensembles with 22 aleatoric cellos and violins.
The different voices' entries and exits are randomised in accordance with the layers' envelope settings, to avoid them all firing up at the same time and sounding fake. The up to 11 voices per layer can also be panned across the stereo field with a Width control, allowing for a spacious ensemble feel.
The instrument really comes into its own with higher numbers of voices, where the aleatoric performances start to gel together to form an unsettling mass of movement and excitement.
If the source sound selected is in “Stretch” Mode the sample playback speed can be adjusted between 1% and 800%.
Settings between 50% and 200% will generally sound realistic, while more extreme settings will result in warped sounds with crunchy artefacts, great for experimentation and sound design.
One application for Time Stretching in this context is to pick a particular moment in one of the samples (Fixed Mode), and slow down the performance just right for a transition or particular musical landing point.
MOVEMENT / LFO
Gholem includes a tempo-synced LFO which allows for time-based oscillations between the two layers.
Four shapes are available here - sine, triangle, square and sawtooth wave. Direction can be inverted and speed and depth adjusted.
Allows for anything from percussive high-low alternating sounds (e.g. with sawtooth, medium speed and strong depth settings) to almost imperceptible shifts between the balance of two flavours of ensemble (e.g. with triangle, slow speed and low depth settings).
With slower speed settings (up to 8 bars) long evolving textures are possible, oscillating very gradually from one layer to the other.
EFFECTS PAGE
On the instrument effects panel there are controls for:
TRANSMOGRIFY I-III - These are the custom Impulse Responses for this instrument, specifically designed to create alienating effects when added to the evolving sample performances.
MIDS ATTENUATION - Using multiple Impulse Responses can lead to a build up of low mids. This control compensates for this.
MANGLED TAPE - This parameter introduces warble, filtering and saturation into the signal, perfect for quickly creating broken, fuzzy sounds.
DELAY - Either Synced or Free Timing, with optional Diffusion setting.
REVERB - Miix and Time/Length settings.
20 Deeply Sampled Articulations
EXPERIMENTAL
Bowed Ceramics
Bowed Chinese Gong
Bowed Metal Drum
Bowed Plant Pot
CELLO
Cluster
Eruptions
Harmonic Vibrato
Moving Tremolando
Waver Vibrato
PASSERELLE GUITAR
(Modified Spanish Guitar with cello-like bridge)
Sautillé
Waver Vibrato
VIOL DA GAMBA
Body Taps
Hair Tremolando
Harmonic Scrape
Metallic Scrape
String Taps
VIOLIN
Moving Trills
Pizzicato Shower
Sirens Up
Waver Vibrato
All sound sources are available as standard and in time-stretchable versions.
PERFORMER SPOTLIGHT
Sarah Davison is a highly versatile Brighton based cellist, performing in both orchestral and chamber music settings across the UK. A seasoned session musician, she is a regular at iconic London studios such as Abbey Road and Air Studios, performing on TV, film, and video game soundtracks including Wicked, Snow White, Alien Romulus, and recording as a soloist on The Winter King, Treason, Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Forbidden West.
Sarah recorded Cello and Viol Da Gamba for this instrument.
PRESETS WALKTHROUGH
PRESETS
150 Deliciously Unholy Presets
Gholem comes with 150 ready-made cinematic and experimental snapshots/presets, including:
39 Mixed Ensembles (Small to Full Sized)
36 Sections (groups from identical articulations)
20 Soloists
20 Percussion Patches
35 Sound Design Patches
Watch the Presets Walkthrough to hear them all in action.
FIND OUT MORE
