The world synthesizer
Sometimes a score needs more than an orchestra. Now updated with 50 new presets and NKS compatibility, Orbis offers over 2500 extraordinary sounds, born out of organic performances, then treated and transported to epic new dimensions. Perfect for the progressively-minded composer, the sounds in this gargantuan creative compendium range from distorted loops to evolving textures and visceral one-shots; subsonic low-end to ethereal pads.
Ideal for producing rich-sounding, panoramic scores, Orbis reimagines the work of global sonic explorer David Fanshawe. Over 4 decades, Fanshawe travelled the globe to capture rare, beautiful performances from different cultures, previously unrecorded. Our sophisticated eDNA engine enables you to mix and manipulate these unique sounds to create an almost infinite set of creative possibilities.
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- Compatible with NKS
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Spitfire Audio App required
Listen to Orbis
To The Edge - Homay Schmitz
Stratify - Homay Schmitz
Shrine Of Seldom - Louis Rugg
Shrine Of Seldom - Louis Rugg
Trailer Music - Christian Henson
Trailer Music - Christian Henson
Mystery Of The Bells - Paul Thomson
Back In The Day - Christian Henson
The Journey - Oliver Patrice Weder
Creating Trailer Music
How to Make a Drum and Bass Track
Expand your horizons
Go beyond orchestral with this expansive, inspiring, one-of-a-kind collection of sounds, born out of rare recordings, treated, distorted and taken to new dimensions by our team of engineers, and presented in Spitfire's highly sophisticated eDNA Engine.
Orbis was conceived in January 2015, when Jane Fanshawe introduced Spitfire founder and composer Paul Thomson to Fanshawe’s incredible archive containing over 2000 hours of recordings. Handpicked by the Spitfire team, delve deeper into some of the most rare and distinctive sounds and loops you will ever hear, rich in history, character and emotion, from a range of cultures and communities, many of which no longer exist. Fanshawe’s recordings have been used in massive film scores, from Seven Years in Tibet to Gangs of New York, and are now ready to empower and enhance your next score.
Orbis gives you much more than organic field recordings —
90% of the library is made up of treated content, created from the clean recordings by our expert team of engineers in our own journey of sonic discovery. Our eDNA engine provides you with endless parameters and possibilities to enhance every sound even further. Discover hundreds of sounds, treated in various different ways using our expertise and technology, with every sound run through 3000 lines of code. Some have been subtly manipulated, while others heavily processed, unrecognisable from their original source material. From playable one shots and short phrases to tuned and untuned rhythmic loops and recordings up to a minute long, discover sounds with subtle movement, complexity and evolution. Throbbing basses and pulsing loops, ideal for dance music; thunderous drones, subsonic low-end and visceral, tortured drum hits, for adding movement and depth; Blade Runner-style synths, made from antelope horns, and ethereal pads and breathtakingly beautiful evolving textures, for three dimensional cinematic soundscapes. Designed to take you to new levels of sonic exploration and adventure, this library offers you a lifetime of inspiration, and is an essential resource for any producer, composer or sound designer looking for that new sound or texture.
Professionally and meticulously recorded on his Nagra, Uher, and Stellavox tape machines with expertly placed mics, these recordings were captured at a time when technology’s inexorable development was making the world a smaller place, and rare cultures and traditions were becoming more homogenised. Fanshawe’s pioneering spirit led him to the most remote corners of the earth to capture the traditions and spirit of rare communities by recording instruments, voices, music, and languages. Building on Fanshawe’s archive, a collection of immense cultural and historical significance, Orbis makes these sounds accessible to future generations of composers for the very first time, while taking them to an entirely new place, providing you with the DNA of countless cultures from across the globe.
eDNA Engine
Orbis is presented in our bespoke eDNA Engine (as in our eDNA Earth library), the very latest in sonic sculpting technology offering you endless opportunities to manipulate each sound beyond our own treatments. The engine is now housed in our dedicated plugin, which loads direct into any DAW for even more control. We’ve also created a new user friendly search function with fully tagged searchable content, so you can browse by type of sound, by country, or by instrument.
Imagine the eDNA engine as a set of two turntables and a highly sophisticated DJ mixer. It contains two sound bays, each designed to create differing sonic treatments, with individual and independent modulators, control of trim, bend, glide, cloning, tuning, ADSR, LPFs, HPFs and wobbles that modulate pitch, volume and filters. The gate sequencer allows independent gating between these two bays and unified control of amount, shape, speed and length of sequence. These two signals are then unified with a x-fader.
Move between the sounds with the mouse or the factory-default assigned modulation wheel. We've also designed a custom script that oscillates the x-fader automatically with control over speed and phase, and eDNA's five-stage FX path contains 41 custom plugins, including bespoke IRs pre-loaded. There are two "layer FX" stages that affect sound A or B, plus an auxiliary FX stage that can be sent via the layers or master FX stage. Any parameter of these can be assigned for automation or assignment to your controller.
David Fanshawe
A legend in the music world, Fanshawe (1942-2010) was an English composer, sound explorer and ethnomusicologist who travelled the globe to gather an archive of approximately 2,000 hours of music. The huge David Fanshawe World Music Archive, recorded between 1967-1994, is his legacy to the world – 3200 stereo master tapes, comprising 3000 analogue audio tapes and 200 digital audio tapes, 70 hand-written journals and 40,000 colour images, documented for posterity at a time of great change.
Through the adventures of music and travel, I have been privileged to experience our world as a composer and musical explorer. It is my humble dream to go on sharing my aspirations with future generations through the legacy of my sound archives.
David Fanshawe
His passion for travel, adventure and music started at an early age, and he first worked as a sound editor for the film industry. Although his dyslexia slowed his reading of musical scores, in 1965 he won a Foundation scholarship in composition to the Royal College of Music. He travelled widely in Europe and the Middle East, and while hitchhiking in Jerusalem he heard Islamic music for the first time and was immediately attracted to its beauty.
On his next journey to Bahrain, he took a professional stereo tape recorder and recorded the renowned pearl divers. From 1969-74, he travelled up the Nile from the Mediterranean Sea to Lake Victoria, visiting Egypt, Sudan, Uganda Kenya and Tanzania, inviting many local musicians to be recorded, honouring their music in perpetuity. During a ten-year odyssey across the islands of the Pacific Ocean from 1978, Fanshawe collected hours of indigenous music, documenting the music and oral traditions of remote parts of Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia.
Returning to the United Kingdom with several hundreds of hours of recordings, Fanshawe was inspired to use some of these in what would become his best-known choral work, African Sanctus, which has received hundreds of highly-acclaimed performances worldwide. He composed a number of choral and orchestral works, as well as over 50 scores for films and television and many album compilations. His organic field recordings have featured in countless TV documentaries and international feature films, and his work has also been the subject of a number of award-winning biographical documentaries.
Gate sequencer
The gate sequencer allows independent gating between these two bays and unified control of amount, shape, speed and length of sequence.
FX
This view allows you to control 32 different FX across each sound. It also gives you access to the master mix and aux sends.
What's Included
Treatments
- Each original sample is available in a variety of treatments, from the pure, original recording, to an ambient wash and right up to a chaotic distorted mess. Although the treatments appear throughout the product, each one has been tailored to the original sound, and so each one can sound unique and not every treatment is available on every sound.
Featuring
- Breakup
- Clean
- Dirt
- Crunch/Low Crunch
- Mess
- Shimmer
- Distant
- Hollow
- Metal Space
- Stretched
- Warm Hall
- Slow Fizz
- Space
Loops
- A collection of loops named by country/region. Each key is a different loop, giving you a menu of options to play with. Great to find an authentic loop of an area as a starting point for a track
Featuring
- Atmos
- Bell Stones (A)
- Bell Stones (B)
- China (A)
- China (B)
- China (C)
- China (D)
- China (E)
- China (F)
- China (G)
- China (H)
- China (I)
- Dreams of Chengdu
- Early Industrial 1
- Early Industrial 2
- Egypt
- Hong Kong (A)
- Hong Kong (B)
- Hong Kong (C)
- Hong Kong (D)
- India (A)
- India (B)
- India (C)
- India (D)
- India (E)
- Lights of Chengdu
Loops (playable)
- A selected set of loops split by instrument/recording, tuned to the keyboard and spread across the whole range. Allowing you to easily play the original material as well as adapt it with all the treatments applied.
Featuring
- 8-bit Game
- Afrika Sky
- Akamba Witch Doctor
- Analog Iz Us
- Analog to Digital Flute
- Baaro Saadhanake
- Bagamoyo Sting
- Balafon ConChacha
- Balafon Solo 1
- Balafon Solo 2
- Bell Stone Rappa 11
- Bell Stone Rappa 1A
- Bell Stone Rappa 1B
- Bell Stone Rappa 2
- Bell Stone Rappa 3
- Bell Stone Rappa 5
- Bell Stone Rappa 6
- Bell Stone Rappa 8
- Bell Stone Rappa 9
- Bronze Age Gongs
- Carnival
- Charusgeshi
- Cheng Solo 1A
- Cheng Solo 1B
- Cheng Solo 1C
- Cheng Solo 2A
- Cheng Solo 3A
- Cheng Solo 3B
- Cheng Solo 4A
- Cheng Solo 4B
- Cheng Solo 4C
- Cheng Solo 4D
- Cheng Solo 5A
- Cheng Solo 6A
- Cheng Solo 6B
- Cheng Solo 6C
- Cheng Solo End 1A
- Cheng Solo End 1B
- Cheng Solo End 2A
- Cheng Solo End 2B
- Cheng Solo End 2C
- Cheng Solo End 2D
- Cheng Solo End 2E
- Cheng Solo End 2F
- Chigogo Animal Song
- Chinese Flute
- Circumcision Song
- Coco Climbers Dance
- Coco Pickers Song
- Courtship Dance
- Dehumaniser
- Dodoma Zese
- Enkasoi Gutteral
- Factory
- Ganoon Solo
- Ganoon Solo Ending
- Ganoon Zither
- Ghostly
- Heaven or Las Vegas
- Hey Ley Ny-a-Ley
- Hijokaidan's Loop Pedal
- Ice Cubes
- Kibugantit Moral
- Kinanda Harp Solo
- Kora Duet 1
- Kora Duet 2
- Kora Duo Song
- Kudu Horn
- Lake Manyara
- Litungu Ngoma
- Lukuji Medi Music
- Lukuji Witchcraft
- Luo Horns
- Mahama Band
- Mahama Mbira
- Malabar Saz Meditate
- Mamachor
- Manora Bird 1A
- Manora Bird 1B
- Manora Bird 2A
- Manora Bird 2B
- Mansane Cisse
- Marimba Sting 1
- Marimba Sting 2
- Marimba Sting 3
- Marra Chant
- Mekong Pleng Sa
- Memories Returning
- Mighty Sun Radiant Moon
- Monolith
- Moon Dance
- Msewe Zanzibar 1A
- Msewe Zanzibar 1B
- Msewe Zanzibar 2
- Mukaro Mukara
- Mwajuga
- Mysterious Skin
- Neubauten
- Ngoma Mouth Organ
- Ngoma Ra Mrongo
- Njemps Tribal Song
- Nubian Dance
- Nyatiti Harp
- Ol Lililililili
- Oud Solo 1
- Oud Solo 2
- Pipa Solo 1 (A)
- Pipa Solo 1 (B)
- Pipa Solo 1 (C)
- Pipa Solo 1 (D)
- Pipa Solo 2 (A)
- Pipa Solo 2 (B)
- Rufiji Marimba 3
- Rufiji Marimba 4
- Sad Rave
- Safari
- Sai Women
- Sai Women 3
- Scorched Rhythm
- Shankara Veena
- Silk Loop Chin A
- Silk Loop Chin B
- Silk Loop Chin C
- Silk Loop Chin D
- Silk Loop Chin E
- Silk Loop Chin F
- Silk Loop Dynasty
- Siwa Oasis 1
- Siwa Oasis 2
- Space Courtship
- Star Cluster
- Summer Palace 2
- Sunthorn Mor Lam
- Tamboura Solo
- Tarabu Orchestra 2
- Temple Drum (A)
- Temple Drum (B)
- Temple Drum (C)
- Temple Drum (D)
- Tibetan Bells 1A
- Tibetan Bells 2A
- Tibetan Bells 2B
- Tibetan Bells 3A
- Tibetan Bells 3B
- Tibetan Bells 4A
- Tibetan Bells 4B
- Tibetan Bells 4C
- Tibetan Bells 4D
- Tribal Frenzy
- Tuken Drinking Song
- Udi - Oud Lute
- Uta Solo
- Veena Sarasathi
- Victoria Falls
- Violin Dar Es 1
- Violin Dar Es 2
- Violin Thodi
- Vipango Chorale
- Vipango Orchestra 1
- Vipango Orchestra 2
- Vipango Solo
- Wai Lam Dang Mo Lam
- Warriors Strength
- Water Bell
- Water Bell 2
- White Bird in a Blizzard
- Womens Song
- Wood Drum
- Xylo Gong Circle A
- Xylo Gong Circle B
- Xylo Gong Circle C
- Xylo Gong Circle D
- Xylo Gong Circle E
- Xylo Pong Lang A
- Xylo Pong Lang B
- Xylo Pong Lang C
- Xylo Pong Lang D
- Ziguinchor Sonf
One shots
- A collection of single shot samples by country/region. Each key is a different sample, giving you a menu of options to play with. Great to hear the sample in its original pitch and find an idea for a track.
Featuring
- Bell Stones (A)
- Bell Stones (B)
- Bell Stones (C)
- Bell Stones (D)
- China (A)
- China (B)
- China (C)
- China (D)
- China (E)
- China/Thai/Tibet
- Digital Broken Lead
- Digital Ritual Bells
- Egypt
- Feeling So Real
- Hong Kong (A)
- India (A)
- India (B)
- India (C)
- India (D)
- India (E)
- India (F)
- India (G)
- Indonesia
- Kenya (A)
- Kenya (B)
- Senegal
- Sudan
- Tanzania
- Thailand (A)
- Thailand (B)
- Thailand (C)
- Thailand (D)
- Thailand (E)
- Thailand (F)
- Tibet (A)
- Tibet (B)
- Tibet (C)
- Tibet (D)
- Tibet (E)
- Uganda
- Ululation
- Underworld Tribe Hits
- Zaire
One shots (playable)
- A selected set of single shot samples split by instrument/recording, tuned to the keyboard and spread across the whole range. Allowing you to easily play the original material as well as to adapt it with all the treatments applied.
Featuring
- Antelope Horn
- Bell Stone Bora 1
- Bell Stone Bora 2
- Bell Stone Bora 3
- Bell Stone Bora 4
- Bell Stone Rappa 1
- Bell Stone Rappa 2
- Bell Stone Rappa 5
- Bell Stone Rappa 7
- Bell Stone Rappa 9
- Bhavanutha Venu 1
- Bhavanutha Venu 2
- Bronze Age Gong
- Bronze Age Gong 1
- Bronze Age Gong 12
- Bronze Age Gong 2
- Bronze Age Gong 3
- Bronze Age Gong 4
- Bronze Age Gong 5
- Bronze Age Gong 7
- Bronze Age Gong 9
- Cheng End
- Cheng Solo 2
- Cheng Solo 3
- Cheng Solo 5
- Cheng Solo 6
- Chinese Flute A
- Chinese Flute B
- Chinese Flute End
- Chinese Opera
- Chinese Water Bell
- Clangers
- Conche Shell 1
- Conche Shell 2
- Court Storyteller
- Devaranama
- Dragon Dance
- Dragon Dance Cym
- Five Deadly Venoms on VHS
- Gas Cylinder Bell
- Greater Kudu Horn
- Head Over Heels
- Hungry Ghost Ritual
- Ilmugit Horn
- Krong Seng 3
- Krong Seng 4
- Krong Seng 5
- Kudu Horn
- Malabar Saz
- Malabar Stings 2
- Malabar Stings 3
- Malabar Stings 4
- Malabar Stings 5
- Moorlay Flute
- Pipa Recital
- Pipa Solo 2
- Silk Loop Chin
- Silk Loop Dynasty
- Souffara Flute
- Summer Palace
- Temple Drum 1
- Temple Drum 3
- Temple Drum 4
- Temple Drum 6
- Temple Mystery
- Temple Mystery 2
- Temple Mystery 3
- Tibetan Bells
- Venu Flute 1
- Venu Flute 2
- Venu Flute 3
- Wot Panpipe 1
- Wot Panpipe 2
- Zeze Solo
- Zumari Ending
Pads
- A collection of source material made from the playable sections, treated to work well as pad textures (nothing in addition to original sounds).
Featuring
- Darcy's Necklace
- Enter The Void
- HAL's Pads
- Hallucinogen Piano
- Industrial Landscape
- Katabatic Wind
- Mysterious Skin Lead
- Overview Effect
- Possession
- Rainforest at Dusk
- Route 66 at 3am
- Shephard's Ghost
- Swarmer
- Tension in the Wind
- Trouble on The Enterprise
- Viking Warship Low
- Voices of the Dead
Presets
- From a pure sound with a touch of reverb up to complete and utter sonic madness, and everything in between, created by our in-house team of engineers.
Featuring
- 1992 Warehouse
- A Fucking Mess
- Afrika Sky
- Air Machina
- Alien Ordnance
- Ambient Water Bell
- Antelope Dirt MW
- Antelope Horn
- Antelope Horn Synth
- Awesome Lowest Biomorph
- Baaro Saadhanake MW
- Bagamoyo Sting MW
- Balafon Beats MW
- Balafon Solo
- Bell Rhythm
- Bell Stone Alarm
- Bell Stones
- Bell Stones (Clean)
- Bells Texture
- Bhavanutha Venu 1
- Bhavanutha Venu 2
- Blade Running Pad
- Broken Bagpipe
- Broken Guitar Bells
- Broken Horns
- Bronze Age Gong
- Building Dodoma Zese
- Cave Rhythm
- Chaotic Rhythms
- Charusgeshi 2Bar
- Cheng End
- Cheng Mess MW
- Cheng Solo
- China
- China (Clean)
- Chinese Flute Flicks
- Chinese Flute Jam MW
- Chinese Flute Shorts
- Chinese Opera Hit
- Chinese Water Bell
- Clap and Sing MW
- Clean Bell
- Conch Shell MW
- Conche Synth
- Constant Shifts
- Court Storyteller Hits
- Crisp Air Chimer
- Cutting Flutes
- Darkness Descends
- Devaranama Drone
- Dirty Front Clean Tail
- Disconnected Dreams
- Distant Noise
- Distorted Bell Keys
- Dragon Dance Hits
- Dreamy Tamboura MW
- Driving Manora MW
- Driving Pulse
- Duelling Cheng
- Dull Bell Stone MW
- Eerie Pad
- Egypt
- Egypt (Clean)
- Enchanting Vocals
- Fluttering Mekong
- Fuzz Gongs
- Fuzzy Chant
- Gas Cylinder Bell MW
- Gated Antelope Horn
- Gates of Hell
- Ghost Vocals
- Gong Rhythm
- Greater Kudu Horn
- Grit In the Cylinder
- Guitar Horn
- Haunting Souffara
- Hecking Stretched
- Hey Ley Guitar MW
- Hong Kong
- Hong Kong (Clean)
- Hooting Gloriosity
- Hungry Ghost Marimba
- Ilmugit Horn
- India
- India (Clean)
- Indian Plucked Strings MW
- Indian String Organ MW
- Indonesia
- Industrial Bell Stone
- Industrial World MW
- Jaxx Vibe
- Kenya
- Kenya (Clean)
- Kinanda Harp Rhythm
- Krong Hits (Unpitched)
- Kudu Horn
- Laos (Clean)
- Lazy Ziguinchor Rhythm
- Lilting Oud
- Low and Guttural
- Low Chaos Drums
- Low Death Drums
- Low March
- Low Temple Drums MW
- Malabar Saz Flicks
- Malabar Saz MW
- Malabar Saz Strikes
- Malabar Saz Tinkles
- Manora Sonar
- Mansane Lullaby
- Marimba Groove
- Marimba Pulse
- Marimba Sting MW
- Mars Rover
- Matrix Glitch Pad
- Mighty Sun Radiant Moon MW
- Moon Dance MW
- Moorlay Flute
- Mutant Flute
- Nubian Chant MW
- Occult Whispers
- Oddities and Trinkets
- Opposing Bells
- Opposing Plucked Rhythms
- Organum Incredibulum
- Ping Pong Lang
- Pipa Solo MW
- Plucked Radio Interference MW
- Popping Ping Pong
- Popping Springs
- Pulsing Ganoon
- Pulsing Metallos
- Pulsing Noise Stone
- Pulsing Oud
- Reed Party
- Roaring Low Pulse
- Rounded Metallophone
- Safari MW
- Scrape Rhythm Pad
- Senegal
- Senegal (Clean)
- Shankara Veena MW
- Shimmering Skies
- Silk Loop Chin Plucks
- Silk Loop Dynasty Plucks
- Silk Road Haze
- Silken Dynasty
- Simple Harp and Shaker
- Simple Uta
- Siwa Oasis MW
- Skipping Bell Stones
- Sonic Warps
- Souffara Flute
- Space Glider
- Space Marimba Groove
- String Gong Wobbles
- Sudan
- Sudan (Clean)
- Summer Palace Plucks
- Sustained Venu Flute
- Synth Pulse
- Tanzania
- Tanzania (Clean)
- Temple Drum (Unpitched)
- Thailand
- Thailand (Clean)
- The Lotus
- The Space Codes
- Tibet
- Tibet (Clean)
- Ticking Kora MW
- Ticking Mamachor
- Title Sequence
- Tremolo Bell
- Tricky Pulser
- Trouble Ahead
- Tuken Drinking Song MW
- Tuning Drum
- Uganda
- Uganda (Clean)
- Ululations
- Uncontrollable Swells
- Underwater Strings
- Undulating Antelope
- Uneasy Clocking
- Unfortunate Cyclon
- Venu Flute Presence
- Venu Flute Wobbles
- Venu Horn Fuzz
- Vipango Orchestra MW
- Vipango Vibes MW
- Warriors Strength MW
- Womens Song MW
- Wot Panpipe
- Wot Panpipe Flicks
- Xylophone Popcorn
- Zaire
- Zaire (Clean)
- Zanzibar (Clean)
- Zeze Solo
- Zumari Ending
Videos
Orbis — Silk Loop Chin & Water Bells
