Circle Bells

Circle Bells by Soundiron is a sampled percussion instrument for Kontakt built around Pete Engelhart’s handcrafted Blossom Bells: six tuned steel cones with warm, ringing tones and shimmering overtones. Close stereo recordings capture soft mallet hits and rolls, hard pick taps and scrapes, plus bowed staccatos and sustained textures. The results move from celeste-like melodies to glassy drones, with long decays that lend themselves to ambient music, cinematic scoring, and atmospheric electronic tracks. Velocity layers and round-robin variations help repeated notes feel natural. Beyond the acoustic articulations, 56 ambience patches and 20 sound-designed FX and ambient presets offer more experimental starting points. Multi-layer controls include an LFO, filter, glide, and arpeggiator, while an effects rack adds convolution reverb. It suits producers and composers looking for expressive metallic percussion with an unusual, organic character.