A Secret Weapon for Breathing Life Into Dated Samples

Anyone who has been using samplers for a long time, probably has at least a few sample sets that were so good, that despite their vintage specs, they’ve kept them in their collection. Back in the early days, almost all samples were monophonic, simply because stereo samples ate up too much precious RAM. Well, there’s a very cool feature in Native Instruments Kontakt 3 that allows you to add some life into those mono samples: It’s called the Stereo Enhancer. Naturally, it can make a stereo sample sound more spacious, but it also has a pseudo-stereo algorithm that will create a stereo signal from a mono source. Add some depth to a slammin’ snare or a bit of air around an acoustic guitar. The only fly in the ointment is that the processing tends to create mono-incompatible sounds, which can disappear from a mono mix. But then again, we can all agree that stereo isn’t going away and mono mixes are quickly becoming a rarity. It’s nice to have a tool like this in our arsenal!