Review: Bontastic KONTAKT Instrument by Soundiron

Soundiron is a team of software producers and musicians on a mission to create unique and inspiring instruments for production and composition.

A quick look around their website reveals an incredibly extensive catalog of some really interesting instruments, samples, and effects.

Based on their products you get the feeling they’re not just programmers throwing out products but rather they are sharing instruments they’ve created for their own works.

They’ve just released a new vintage organ instrument modeled after the great 70’s Italian tabletop Bontempi organ named BONTASTIC.

The Bontempi table top organ was a cheap plastic organ that produced sound with an electric fan blowing air through thin reeds.

They were created to fill the huge demand for affordable organs in the 70’s and 80’s. I had a neighbor as a child who used play the hell out of one.

I will never forget that crazy sound of the fan turning on. It wasn’t very touching sensitive there was only on or off.

The plastic casing and reeds gave it a strange character that I liked a lot.

Soundiron has created a Kontakt instrument simulation of this legendary organ that is just as much fun and much more flexible than the original.

Interface

The interface is a colorful funky retro picture of the Bontempi synth with disco style logo header. Here we have the basics, volume, attack, release as well as offset, vibrato, octave, and glide.

There are 2 INIT instruments to choose from, Chord Organ and Ambience. The Chord Organ is very much the default and sounds exactly like the original synth.

The Bontempi had a 2-octave keyboard and chord buttons on the left-hand side.The Chord Organ comes with 7 presets including Sustain, Staccato and major and minor sus chords to imitate the chord buttons.

Just below the synth logo on the interface is an arrow that opens up more parameters. Here is were Soundiron has gone far beyond what the original synth had to offer.

Click the arrow and the logo header opens LFO, Filter and Arpeggio controls.

These 3 options give you grand opportunities to create your own sounds. You can assign the LFO to any source with any waveform, adjust the rhythm, intensity and fade.

There are 13 different filters types that can be automated with an adjusted graphic stepper.

The arpeggiator can be set to several different directions, lengths and automated with a graphic velocity stepper.

Below the keyboard on the synth picture is a page option that opens the effect racks. Here we have 10 slots that can be filled with Kontakt effects.

The racks are very powerful and take the old Bontempi sounds to completely new frontiers. Tweaking these setting and effects brings out some awesome and surprising sounds that I really hadn’t quite expected from the synth.

The second INIT nki file provided is called Ambience. Here we have 38 diverse ambient presets that give the synth a completely different purpose. In reality, it’s much more than just a retro organ it’s a versatile synthesizer.

As well as the 2 INIT files the instrument comes with 20 different custom settings that go way beyond what you might have imagined this synth could do. There’s plucks and pads even ripping leads.

Conclusion

Regardless of the instrument or pre-set you choose the Bontastic maintains a distinctive sound coupled with excellent sound design options.

The synth costs 30€ and is therefore pretty much irresistible. Because of its simplicity and unique timbre it has become instantly one of my go-to synths when I´m in a flow.

For the price, it’s also a great opportunity to get to know Soundiron.

More Details: Bontastic