And now for something completely different, as Abbey Road Studios and Charles Jeffrey Loverboy release The Big Nessie, a free multi-instrument library for Kontakt Player.
It’s unusual to begin any post with the title of a 1970s Monty Python classic, but this seems as good a time as any.
The Big Nessie is a free instrument for Kontakt Player, and a coming together of two worlds: music and fashion.
I’m no sartorial savant, but I understand that music, fashion, art, film, etc., all exist under the umbrella of the arts. While each form represents popular culture in its own way, they can influence one another, and sometimes we have direct collaboration, as is the case here.
The Big Nessie is a collaboration between Abbey Road Studios and Charles Jeffrey Loverboy.
If you’re reading this and asking yourself, what the hell is Abbey Road? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
Abbey Road is a recording studio, used by little-known bands like The Beatles and Pink Floyd.
As you all know, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy is a successful fashion house known for thinking outside of the box.
Joking aside, some of the more fashion-aware among us may be aware of Charles Jeffrey’s work and this new collaboration.
The collaboration focuses on the relationship between music and fashion, with the latest Loverboy collection (Prepared Piano) exploring that connection.
The collaboration also spawned The Big Nessie, a free multi-instrument library for Kontakt Player that shares the sound of the Prepared Piano collection.
The instrument splits the keyboard into five sections: Loops, Drums, Bass, Synth, and Sound FX.
The Big Nessie is one you need to try for yourself to get a feel for the sound. But using the available sounds and presets, you can craft ambient chill beats to grungy, distorted rhythms (and a lot of weirdness in between).
Charles Jeffrey designed interface imagery depicting the iconic Loch Ness monster, or Nessie. It’s a retro-gaming/cartoon aesthetic with various parameter controls scattered around.
The controls, from left to right, are:
- Scowl – Reverb
- Chomp – Bitcrusher
- Spit – Saturation
- Pulse – Brightness
- Fang – Distortion
- Scale – Spreader
- Curl – Low-Pass Filter
- Lure – Tremolo
If I’m honest, sampling the sound of instruments and things being hit by a shoe (which is one technique used to create The Big Nessie) is a bit silly to me, and not quite a direct comparison to John Cage’s modified piano.
Fashion, like any creative art, evokes emotion, and there’s always sound to be explored through emotion; I’m just not sure of the upside of defining the sound of fashion so literally.
Anyway, it doesn’t need to make sense to me; it needs to make usable sounds, and there are usable sounds in there.
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Last Updated on February 26, 2026 by Tomislav Zlatic.
