Intimate Viola - Iremia

Intimate Viola - Iremia is dedicated to exploring the most intimate and quiet side of a solo viola, captured in stunning detail with a unique set of microphone positions. The combination of the melancholic and dark sonority of the viola, playing extremely softly and recorded very, very close, has resulted in a virtual instrument of great intimacy, beauty and humanity. With a wide selection of whisper quiet sustains, living and breathing textures as well as natural swells, Iremia is perfect for scoring Scandi Noir dramas or indeed for anyone looking for an instrument that quietly pulls you in and whispers you all its secrets.

I wanted to capture a side of the viola in a virtual instrument that the audience rarely hears, but one that I have had right under my ear for most of my life: the bow noise, the minute fluctuations and tiny little imperfections that makes it sound so intimate, fragile and human. These things really stand out when you play very quiet, so that's how the idea came about; extremely quiet sounds recorded very, very close. I basically wanted the mic to be as close to the instrumemt as my left ear is – and that's when I started wondering what it actually sounds like inside the instrument itself. Well, I wonder no more...

Nicolaj M Nielsen, violist and founder of Bunker Samples.

Every articulation in "Iremia" was recorded both with and without mute, and the sustains we also recorded a version with a giant practice mute, producing an extremely soft sound. There are 11 variations of sustains, as well as 10 different moving and evolving textures. Also included are 3 different types of natural swells, 4,3,2 and 1 second lengths.

The library also comes with crossfade patches that allows the user to seamless morph from a muted to non-muted sound - something that is of course impossible to do in real life.

Intimate Viola - Iremia requires the full version of Kontakt 6.7.1 or later, contains 3425 samples and is 8.61 GB in (lossless compressed) size.