Impact Soundworks Momentum – Natural Rhythm

Hi and welcome to Music Nation TV. This week we’re looking at Momentum, a Kontakt-based library that boasts a clever interface with advanced arrangement controls and an extensive loop library – exactly the kind of thing that piques my interest.

(Review updated May 2021)

Impact Soundworks is well known for producing some really innovative audio libraries based on the Kontakt platform, and after reading the press release for Momentum I just presumed this was yet another sound design percussion library. A quick look through the sample list and maybe this is not your average epic cinematic affair. 

The loops appear to be quite varied, from simple metal hits to washing machines, computer keyboards and the plinky string section on the headstock of an electric guitar.

This all sounds very intriguing, let’s get it installed and fired up.

Overview

Momentum is a huge sample library consisting of some 2500 loops and one-shot recordings, all percussion-themed using a wide range of surfaces, strings and household objects. This might sound a little overwhelming, but the samples are slit down to around 120 unique percussion patches, each with 8 or 10 performance variations.

The basic idea is you choose from a selection of included loops, then once loaded you can playback from your MIDI keyboard. A mapped section is marked in blue on the screen, representing each of the sliced zones in the loop. Holding down a note in the blue region plays the loop from that point. The green keys allow you to pitch the loop up or down a half step each, effectively giving you seven semitones up or down. Finally, there is a selection of performance effects marked in red on the keyboard that allows things like reverse, stutter and randomise.

The keyboard mapping, unfortunately, is often outside the scope of a normal 88-note keyboard, so I found it easier to assign MIDI CC to articulations if you have an additional controller, like a drum pad for instance. If not, you’ll have to mouse-click them.

Each slice has an independent amp and envelopes plus a resonance cutoff with a good selection of filters to choose from. Some patches include a special ‘one-shot’ purple-mapped key region which contains the main samples used in the loop, including individual amp and filter envelopes where applicable.

Each of the slices can be individually pitched, panned, amplified or modded using the complex mod matrix. 

You can’t skip a slice or rearrange them from within the instrument. Also, a drawn response curve with edit points might have been a better option as opposed to one-by-one dragging slice levels up or down.

Fortunately, Impact Soundworks includes all of the raw wave recordings with Momentum, so any custom chopping and arranging can be done outside the plugin on your DAW sequencer.

Road Test

The slick interface is dead easy to navigate, and after only a short time (and maybe a watch through Andrew Aversa’s Excellent tutorial video) you’ll be away.

The recorded samples are all very dry and close sounding, and while there is a huge selection of audio FX included, the initial playthrough is a little underwhelming.

The samples aren’t overly clean sounding either, some with quite high noise floors.  It doesn’t worry me too much as it adds to the feel, but there is a distinct ‘recorded on-location’ sound to many loops.

With the supplied loops and clever sample player it is quite easy to come up with some underscore grooves that would be ideal for theatrical trailers, action sequences or pretty much any sound design application.  As a production tool for pop music, there’s some scope for exporting loop MIDI maps that can be utilised in arrangements, but the loop sources being organic natural instruments, this wouldn’t be the main reason for buying this library.

The loop browser system is adequate but could use a few more filtering choices, and unfortunately, you can’t import your own wav files for slice processing. An included Loop Mapper allows you to compile your own collection of loops that will play as long as you hold a key down plus of course all the filtering and FX as with the main interface.

You can load a selection of one-shot loops that can be played across your keyboard-like instruments. Mostly these sound ok as one-shots, not so much as instruments due to the pitching engine making most things sound quite unrealistic and robotic.

However, it does allow polyphonic chord patterns, which is handy, though you will need to increase the voice count to over 100+ if you want longer-length samples to ring out.

I’m not crazy about the built-in FX, they are your basic Kontakt selection. They work for sketching ideas out, but you’ll want to look at 3rd party processing for anything interesting.

Performance is pretty good, with only a hint of lag when running through the presets quickly. This is a Kontakt instrument, so you’ll need some fairly hefty PC power to run it comfortably, but certainly no more than the minimum specs. Weighing in at around 8GB, it’s not going to chew up much drive space either, so any fairly modern PC should be good to go with this library.

Conclusion

Priced at $149, Momentum is not cheap but offers fantastic value given its extensive array of wave samples that can be seamlessly integrated into your projects.

Momentum has grown on me significantly, largely due to its exceptional drag-and-drop MIDI export feature and the subsequent ability to remap loops via MIDI. While transforming loops into comprehensive arrangements in your DAW will require some additional time and consideration, I found this workflow fast and effective once I got a feel for the sample pool.

Despite the recent abundance of Kontakt-based sound design instruments in the market, Momentum stands out not only for its capability to create intricate arrangements and grooves within its GUI, but also for offering a valuable selection of simple, practical, every day drop-in loops when you need a little extra flavour or boost in your arrangements. This makes Momentum an easily accessible go-to library.

For more information and purchasing options, check the official website right here www.impactsoundworks.com

Like the review? Shout us a cup of coffee!