8Dio has announced the release of Mandolin, a deep-sampled (1600+ samples) pristine sounding studio Mandolin, a descendent of the lute.
The mandolin reaches back to some of the earliest musical instruments (there are beautiful cave paintings made between 15,000 BC and 8500 BC in France).
We included both normal and morphed Mandolin patches to cover all dimensions of the instrument, including hundreds of natural fret and release noises. The morphed patches blend the Mandolin with a wide selection of other instruments (including high-pitched Double Basses, Bulbul Tarang, Steel String Guitars, Plucked and Regular Grand Piano, a large variety of custom Tonal Percussions, etc). In addition, we created a flexible Tremolo Control system that allows you to get your inner Godfather going.
Mandolin features
Deep-Sampled Mandolin.
Normal, Tenor and Piccolo Sets.
Round Robin (repetition) sampled.
21 Morphed Variations.
Live FX & New Tremolo Controls.
1,640 samples (44.1kHz/24-bit stereo), 1.5 GB installed (compressed from 3.4GB).
Mandolin is available to purchase for the introductory price of $99 USD until May 23rd, 2013 (regular $139 USD).
Cinematique Instruments has announced the release of Ronroco & 8string Ukulele, a sample library for Native Instruments Kontakt.
The Ronroco is a stringed mandolin like instrument of the Andean regions. It has a sound box traditionally fashioned from the shell of an armadillo or tortoise, now often made of wood. It typically has 10 strings in five courses of 2 strings each. Primarily played in traditional Andean music, today, it is often to be heard in the music of Gustavo Santaolalla. As a bonus we also recorded a soprano Ukulele which was manually customized from a four to eight string version.
In order to build a realistic instrument we recorded both instruments with 4 different microphones positions. Finally we decided to release two different ronroco instruments: a raw Ronroco with a mix of all microphones and a fine Ronroco with just one close microphone.
The Ronroco was recorded in 4 Round Robin variations and 3-5 velocity layers. Both patches are coming along with several options to shape the sound such as EQ, cabinet, distortion, reverb, delay and a soft touch button for a more gentle playing. Beside that, the fine version includes also a simple arpeggiator with separate pad and noise control. The Ronroco is very inspiring and will certainly enrich your music production.
The 8string ukulele is available in 3 kinds of single notes (muted, short and open) and contains a powerful speciality: a 16th note strumming sequencer. In order to achieve a real strumming feeling you can choose between up- or downstroke notes and muted or open notes and you are free to add strumming noise to it. This is fun. Please check out the demos.
Loopmasters has introduced Mandolin, a World String Series sample library by EarthMoments.
EarthMoments have recorded an acoustic mandolin from the middle east carrying the definitive sound signature, from the Mediterranean to the Balkan.
Optimized with the closest attention to detail, the Classic Mandolin Bundle samples have been recorded using tube Pre-Amps and Mics on 96kHz.
EarthMoments Mandolin features
492 MB content, 24bit quality.
Includes 14 loops in Am at 95BPM, 33 loops in Am at 120BPM, 12 loops in Bm at 120BPM, 5 loops in C at 95BPM, 26 loops in D at 95BPM, 34 loops in E at 120BPM, 22 loops in G at 95BPM, 42 loops in G at 120BPM, 10 loops in G at a free tempo.
Optimized with the closest attention to detail, the Classic Mandolin Bundle samples have been recorded using tube Pre-Amps and Mics on 96kHz.
Wavesfactory has announced Marxophone, a zither sound library for Native Instruments Kontakt.
The Marxophone is a fretless zither that has four sets of chord strings to be strummed with the left hand and two octaves of double melody strings, which are struck by metal hammers activated by the right hand.
The hammers are mounted on spring steel and produce a mandolin-like sound from repeated bouncing on the strings, hence the name mandolin-guitar-zither sometimes applied to the Marxophone. The sound of the Marxophone is also reminiscent of the various types of hammered dulcimer in music traditions world-wide.
Marxophone features
Played with spring steels, pick and fingers.
All major and minor chords sampled.
4 velocity layers.
4 round robin (repetitions).
Release noise also with multivelocities and 4 round robin.
Mono and Stereo WAV files 44.1 kHz 24 bits.
Full natural decay.
Custom Script.
Control volume of all mics and articulations.
Hi quality mics, preamps and converters.
Kontakt 3.5 and superior.
Full version required. Kontakt Player will run in demo mode.
More than 4 Gb installed, 2Gb downloaded.
The Marxophone library is available to purchase for 14.95 EUR.
Kong Audio has released version 1.10 of ChineeLiuQin, a sampled instrument “Willow Mandolin” for Windows.
LiuQin is a grassroot folk instrument which was originally popular in some provinces of China for the last two centuries. LiuQin was a simple and rough instrument at the begining, and it was once referred to as “the plebs’ Pipa” due to its lack of refinement – yet it is much closer to the true rural life. The structure of today’s LiuQin has been redesigned in the mid-20th century. With the improved physical form, plus its higher pitch scale and its Western Mandolin-like acoustic effect, LiuQin has become a prominent instrument in today’s Chinese classical circle.
Changes in ChineeLiuQin v1.10
QIN engine plugin changes:
New Extender introduced: Automatic Select. Automatic Select adds a new condition for sample-triggering according to note and time range between the notes. Especially useful for plucked instruments.
AHDSR envelope slope/curve settings added.
Instrument-specific changes:
Soundbank tweaks.
Presets tweaks.
ChineeLiuQin for Windows (VST) is available to purchase for $60 USD.
Necromare has released another batch of free sample-based VST instruments for Windows.
New Necromare plugins
Dante’s Power Chords – A simple collection of muted and open powerchords. The keys are velocity triggered for each sound. On either end of the keys you will find guitar sounds mixed with demonic growls.
Deep Space Explorer – Great for space or ambient music this VST comes with instruments to make a complete song, all accessed via a drop down menu.
Bang – a collection of everyday obects in a percussive form. Drum map for easy navigation included.
Broken Toy – Old toy gets new life as circuit bent instrument.
Jazz Trumpet – Great solo instrument in its own right. Velocity sensitive, including muted trumpet and fx.
Bongoes – The lower registers are a set of dry bongos, the upper keys are wet.
Celtic Harp – A very pretty version of this beatiful irish instrument. sound great with soom room reverb.
Koto – This graceful instrument is reproduced here.
Mandolin – Exotic instrument with a nice string sound. Try and replicating the style of this instrument warning: Keep the sustain low.
Turntable – Recordings of various sounds from a turntable. Keyboard map included.
The Audience – Foley sounds, including laughter, boos, stomps and cheering.
Bent Furbie – Various bent phrases and effects scattered along the keyboard. Great if you into glitch or Bent music. The controls are represented as small dots.
PONG! – the simple but memorable blip sound from the PONG arcade video game.
Speak and Teach – 8 octaves of samples from speak and spell toys, great for dance, electro, art, industrial, glitch…
These Necromare plug-ins are available to download at no cost.
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