Phonautograms is a unique vocal instrument with a rather remarkable pedigree: chromatically sampled vocal sustains captured over 160 years ago. This original method of recording, called ‘Phonautography’ was invented in the early 1850s, by French inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. Sounds were captured by projecting the voice and other sounds into a cylindrical horn attached to a stylus, which transferred the vibration into lines over the surface of oil lamp soot-blackened sheets of paper. These raw archival recordings were preserved by the French Academy of Sciences and finally decoded by First Sounds with the help of laser scanning equipment at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

We chose one of the very earliest human sound recordings - a simple vocal scale sung by Martinville himself in a recording called Gamme de la Voix (or "range of voice"). We then hand-crafted each of these samples by splicing, editing and manipulating raw sound into a fully playable chromatic solo vocal instrument. But that's just where we started. Next, we took that modified sound and warped it beyond all recognition using a variety of sound design techniques to create a diverse and compelling range of different ambient soundscapes, sonic textures, tonal pads, synths, atmospheres, drones and resynthesized drums.

Special thanks to First Sounds for their help and for allowing us to share this piece of recording history with you. First Sounds was founded in 2007 by David Giovannoni, Patrick Feaster, Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessey. It's an informal collaborative of audio historians, recording engineers, sound archivists, scientists, individuals and organizations who aim to make mankind’s earliest sound recordings available to all people for all time.

The Kontakt interface includes a suite of automation-ready sound-shaping controls to give you total creative flexibility. You have control over swell, attack, release, offset, vibrato, filter, pitch (coarse & fine), articulation switching, cross-fading and layering, and so much more. We've also included 20 unique sound-designed custom FX presets to give you lots of creative options.

This library comes with an adaptable LFO system, with selectable LFO shape, modulation target parameter, speed, intensity, tempo-syncing and fade-in time. You can also apply your choice of 12 lowpass, high-pass and FX filters, with assignable modulation targets such as velocity, modwheel, expression, after-touch, key position and step-sequencer table control. Our customizable arpeggiator offers a velocity table and control over arp direction, timing, swing, randomization and duration. We’ve included a key and scale lock system to constrain your notes to common scales and keys for easy melodic composition and live performance.

The interface is rounded-out by our modular FX rack panel, with 18 different DSP effect modules that you can assign in any of 10 available slots, in any order that you wish. You’ll find classic phaser, flanger, delay, distortion, amp and cab simulators, compressors, EQ, rotator and so much more. The Reverb effect includes our favorite convolution reverb impulse responses, including 99 different rooms, halls, chambers and outdoor environments, plus another 40 custom FX impulses to radically transform the sound and open up whole new worlds of musical possibility. We’ve added a great bank of FX rack chain factory presets to get you started!