The B-2 (Beater version 2) BELLY is designed specifically to simulate Bell-like sounds and most of the presets reflect this. However, since it’s a synthesiser, it can be set to create a very wide of non-imitative sounds too.

It’s a popular practice to mix sampled sounds with synthesised sound, so there is a flexible sample player provided which can optionally be routed through a dynamic filter. Individual hits within a loop can be isolated for this purpose, and the hits can be played at their native pitch or chromatically across the keyboard.

When you have the sound you like, you can export it by using the inbuilt recorder and save the result as a WAV file for use in your favourite sample player or drum machine and/or DAW. This means you aren’t compelled to use the plugin live in a DAW and could thus save CPU.

For anyone interested in the physics and theory of bells and similar, and their synthesis, I have included some papers and links in the download. You will also find a small selection of acoustic samples to play around with right away.

One benefit of the B-2 series is the ability to take a sample and use it as a base, adding other components to the sound, or maybe dynamically filtering the sample itself.

The synth comes with a range of generic presets. These are not meant to be definitive, but to act as starting points for your own sounds. I suspect that if you have a specific sound in mind, or just want something a little different, using this instrument may well be quicker than auditioning loads of samples!