Soundiron – The Ruler

Soundiron is known for its constant evolution in sampling, willing to go to any lengths and explore every inch of the sound world. Our endless quest is to sample literally every measurable sound in the universe that has musical potential. 

Perhaps we are compensating for a long-hidden fear that we will not be able to measure up, or perhaps we simply want to surpass everyone else, to set a new benchmark for excellence. Time after time, we set new standards in sampling and take this art to a whole new level. In our pursuit, we are willing to break all the rules. 

Our goal is always to achieve the highest quality, no matter how high the bar. When we find that our catalog does not meet the requirements, we do not stop there, but do everything possible to fill the gaps.

In short, we’ve all played with rulers and tape measures and noticed the satisfying vibrations they can create. If you clamp a ruler to the edge of a flat surface so that it can vibrate freely, it can produce a musical tone with a frequency proportional to the distance it can vibrate up and down. The longer the section of the prong that can vibrate freely, the lower the note and the longer it can last. 

As you move the ruler further along the surface and reduce the length of the freely vibrating overhang, the pitch increases and the duration of the note shortens. Tiny changes can make big jumps, so to create a wide musical scale, you need to move millimeter by millimeter.

Because we’re strange, we headed into the garage and grabbed our two best-sounding rulers and a couple of self-winding tape measures and then set out to capture one library to rule them all! We took no shortcuts! As the meters danced, we sampled every inch with millimeter precision, using finely calibrated microphones and pristine preamps to capture even the most minute details. 

We recorded 30 notes with our 6-inch ruler (15.24cm) and 38 notes on our 12-inch ruler (30.48cm), plus percussive taps, rattles and drops. We also recorded a wide variety of sound effects and percussive articulations with our 25-foot (3m) and 10-foot (7.62m) tape-measures for a more modern take on the concept. 

We also tried to record a laser range-finder, but it turns out microphones aren’t quite sensitive enough just yet. I guess the exception proves the rule: if it moves matter, it can make music.

Because we always bring you miles of value, we’ve included a collection of uniquely sound-designed ambient pads and tonal atmospheres created by manipulating the source recordings, along with plenty of custom FX presets to let you take the sounds even further. By any measure, The Ruler goes the distance! And now I think we’ve stretched these puns far enough!

The Ruler includes over 24 playable articulations, 20 custom FX presets, 20 sound-designed ambiences, 4825 stereo samples and a full gigabyte of content.

Features

• One main instrument
• Rings, plucks, slaps, drops, rattles, taps and effects sampled from rulers and tape measures
• 20 Ambience patchescreated from source content 
• 20 customizable sound designer effects and ambient presets
• 4825 stereo WAV files
• Flexible and intuitive multi-layered user interface with oscillator, filter, glide and arpeggiator
• Full effects rack with convolution reverb with customizable room, hall, chamber and effect environments