An Ultimate Tool or Rise & Hit them with Epic…

We recently upgraded to Komplete Ultimate 10. With it’s 440GB of content, it’s worth checking out what comes with this bundle. While doing this, I stumbled on a tool again, which really looked interesting to me: Rise&Hit

I heard about its release back in 2014 and by watching the demos and samples, it seemed that it’s made more for cinematic sound effects. Now that I have it in my toolbox with Ultimate 10, I can say: I was wrong.

Content

Rise & Hit is an instrument for Kontakt 5 or Kontakt 5 Player. It comes with a collection of 8,5GB of samples and each one is saved in four different lengths, to preserve the needed time-stretch possibility. The samples are combined in different patches which are organized in specific categories:

• Orchestral: made up of recordings of the ‘Brandenburgische Staatsorchester’ in Frankfurt.
• Hybrid Orchestral: processed orchestral instruments
• Hybrid Sounds: field recordings like fire, metal, water. Reminded me strongly on whoosh from melted sounds.
• Hybrid Instruments: includes recordings of pianos, electric guitars, acoustic and electric cellos
• Precussive: Orchestral percussion like cymbals, snares, tam tams
• Into the Void: more cinematic sounds which end up almost in silence. You know it from the movies.
• Lifters: mainly synth sounds. One of my favorite category
• Smooth: sweeps and whooshes with reduced hits for more subtle impact.
• Swooshes: mainly contains fast and sharp whooshes. Also made from field recordings.
• Pure Synths: pass bys and lifters made from synths.
• Sub: low frequency stuff

My favorites are Pure Synth, Lifter and Swoosh categories as they are less cinematic and can be used in Imaging. All the samples really sound up to date.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/194201843?secret_token=s-6GUCw” params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /]
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/194201868?secret_token=s-HWx8m” params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /]
 

Handling

The Sounds can be played with a keyboard which is divided at C3. Lower keys play the full sound with riser and hit, higher keys only playback the hit. However, the sounds are not pitched when you play different notes in a section.

In the top you can adjust the length of the rise. Let’s say you are producing a piece and you simply can’t find a riser which fits into your production. Open Kontakt, load a sample, set a midi note, your desired rise time and you’re ready to go. While in beat mode you can choose a value between 1 and 32 beats (quarters) which follows your host’s session tempo. Here the large amount of samples plays a major role. The sounds can be perfectly timed in beats or seconds – and that’s a reason why I think Rise&Hit is an incredible tool for radio imaging too. You won’t hear any stretch artifacts, long or short – it doesn’t matter.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/194201872?secret_token=s-u10dK” params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /]
 
Below the time settings there is a visual feedback of the playbacked sound where you can also choose samples for the selected layer. It’s interesting to note, that you can choose different sounds for rise and decay, which can bring surprising changes to your sound. The small lens opens the browser. Here it’s possible to search for individual samples in different categories.

In the lower section of the instrument you can access the single layers. You can adjust the start point and the volume for each layer plus the hit samples separately or link. By clicking the ‘whoosh’ button, the layer is used to be a short transition between hit and rise. First looks a bit tricky, but it’s really is not.
Note, that each layer can be muted if there is any element which displeases you.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/194201860?secret_token=s-ArpAa” params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /]
 
If you want to get more into detail, each layer can be unfold to access more controls. You can adjust parameters like eq, pan, stereo width, reverb and delay, as well the pitch. It’s possible to set fix values and by clicking on the arrows, each of the parameters can be automated in relation to time.

Swap the page to get to the Master FX page. Here you have access to effects like EQ with useful presets, different kinds of distortion and compression, a limiter, as well as a convolution reverb and delay. In my opinion each of the effects sound pretty useful and straight.

Verdict

Despite the orchestral stuff, which is nice but not necessary to my production, most categories are useful to create unique imaging. The time variation option are incredible! Used with MIDI, Rise&Hit is a fast way to insert your own, perfectly timed effects. But note that some of the sounds really stresses the CPU. If this happens and you just want to use a specific sound, you can still bounce it to a print track.

On my system I had some small disturbing bugs which hopefully will be patched away soon. For example the layer window disappears after switching from effects page and the only way to fix this is by loading a new patch. Also the visual feedback only appears when the top layer is playbacked. On top of that, I think, that some of the hits could be a bit harder.

Rise&Hit is available for 149$/149€ as single Kontakt instrument or you can purchase it as a part of Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate 10.