Iconica Sketch

What it does

An orchestral instrument aimed at sketching arrangements rather than finished mockups, covering strings, brass, woodwind, percussion and tuned percussion in one AUv3. Each instrument carries short and long articulations, among them staccato, pizzicato, spiccato, sustain, legato and tremolo, chosen by key switches that can be dragged onto whichever keys suit the controller, and keyboard ranges match the real instrument. The mod wheel drives dynamics and vibrato. A later update added a preset browser with search and favourites, a sustain toggle and chord pads on the playing surface.

In the demo

Jade plays the instrument list one at a time as a standalone, moves the key switches down the keyboard to fit a short controller, then loads it into AUM, Logic, GarageBand and Cubasis, recording mod wheel moves as a second pass over chords already played in.

Worth knowing

Built for sketching, so anyone needing deeply sampled sections with growls and flutters will find it lighter than a full library, and there is no saxophone. The download is 1.8 GB. Inside Cubasis it either installs natively or loads as an AUv3, and it is a separate purchase from the DAW.