Sonica Instruments – SHAKUHACHI (KONTAKT)

By | August 19, 2019

 

Publisher : Sonica Instruments
Website : sonica
Format : KONTAKT 5.4+
System Requirements : Mac OS X 10.10 or newer recommended
Intel Core 2 Duo or better
Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10
Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2
A minimum of 4 GB of RAM (6 GB is recommended) is needed on both Mac and Windows systems.
Quality : 24 bit 44.1 kHz stereo

Description : Shakuhachi, the third release of the Japanese Virtuoso series, is now available as a software tool in the Kontakt format.
Singing sonorous intonation, deep but delicate breathing, and Japanese sound aesthetics spreading around the periphery: shakuhachi – an instrument symbolizing Japan – finally joins the Virtuoso Japanese Series family.
Ray Jin played shakuhachi for sampling. He gave us a whole kaleidoscope of sounds of a bamboo instrument – from soft, sweet long tones to the most bombastic sounds – which can be produced only by the most experienced player. In the studio, we used careful tuning of the microphone along with high-quality, unpainted mic preamps to ensure that we caught the real voice of the instrument. And in order to recreate the liveliness of the special game techniques, the development of special mechanisms and interfaces of articulation was required. Key Trigger Connection allows an artist to switch playing methods on the fly without interrupting sound.
As a wind instrument, various techniques are played on the shakuhachi from time to time, while maintaining one sound: for example, from a direct tone to yuri (vibrato), and then from yuri to a strong and loud air explosion. We designed Key Trigger Connection from scratch to reproduce this typical shakuhachi performance approach. Key Trigger Connection allows you to seamlessly connect articulations by simply pressing the assigned keys during the game. Connected articulations include various techniques of yuri, sforzando, muraiki (breathing), fingering, teach and oshi and tamai (tongue trill). You can combine as many articulations as you want while holding the base note to feel a live instrument.
Blast control. This mechanism allows the performer using the controller to manipulate the duration from the initial breath noise until any sound is made, until the full power of the note is reached. This control makes you play the keyboard like a wind controller, giving you access to smooth, dynamic expressions of breath, even though it is based on samples. When playing legato, this function automatically generates alternating legato, which are necessary for shakuhachi. Atari legato recreates a unique fingering technique that causes the pitch to pop up when the note changes. The Oshi and uchi function allows the performer to add optional fingerings during an exploding note as desired, for accents or tremolo effects.
The library contains almost all the possible articulations of the shakuhachi, including vertical and horizontal yuri and other vibrato, sforzando techniques, many expressions of Muray breathing, tamae trill, korokoro, karakara and other sound effects techniques, as well as improvisations based on short scales. Each chromatic height throughout the register can be individually adjusted. This allows you to access the traditional scales and tones of Japanese music and the “sensations” unique to a particular artist. And, of course, pitch settings can be saved and loaded.

Specifications:

Main Features :
– Precisely captures the scintillating sounds of a veteran shakuhachi player, covering every playing technique and recorded with exacting attention to detail at every musical interval
– Features performance mechanisms designed specifically for this library to recreate the full dynamics of this wind instrument, from the softest sound to the most emphatic pitch
– The unique Key Trigger Connection function lets the performer move through a colorful assortment of articulations without ever interrupting the sound
– Legato and grace note controls reproduce complex fingering techniques such as atari, uchi, and oshi.
– The blow control function lets the performer manipulate the duration from the breath noise to the actual tone with either a controller
– The expression control varies the tone color naturally and continuously without gradations
– A hybrid combination of the shakuhachi (1.8 shakuhachi) and the 2.3 shakuhachi provides a wider register, including lower tones, and more tone color variations
– Create traditional shakuhachi pitch scales, as well as performer-specific pitch scales, with the Scale Tuning function, which provides individual note adjustment over G2 to B5
– Five phrase banks contain a wide array of essential shakuhachi phrases
– Lively powerful sounds sampled in full 24 bit 96 kHz fidelity (the library itself contains 24 bit 44.1 kHz samples)
– Create your own mixes with the multi-microphone samples and a dedicated mixer with individual controls for Direct, Overhead, Room, and Stereo Mix
Packed with 25 articulations, five phrase banks, and breath noises
Articulation list
Key switchable articulations
– Straight
– Tonguing
– Grace Note
– portamento up
– Straight and Atari
– sfortzando
– Uchi & Oshi (Finger Effect)
– Yuri 1 (Vibrato Horizontal)
– Yuri 2 (Vibrato Vertical)
– Yuri 3 (Vib. Vertical Long)
– Iki-Yuri 1 (Vibrato with Breath)
– Iki-Yuri 2 (Vibrato with Breath Fast)
– Muraiki 1 (Breath FX1)
– Muraiki 2A (Breath FX2A)
– Muraiki 2B (Breath FX2B)
– Muraiki 3 (Breath FX3)
– Tamane (FX with Tongue Trill)
– Karakara (FX with Finger)
– Korokoro (FX with Finger)
– Improvisation
Legato
– Fast Legato
– Slow Legato
– Atari Legato
Breath noises
– 24 breath noise and special effects
Five phrase banks
– Short Phrase 1: eight short phrases
– Short Phrase 2: eight short phrases
– Short Phrase 3: eight short phrases
– Short Phrase 4: five short phrases
– Short Phrase 5: five short phrases
Audio mixer
Samples were recorded in three stereo microphone positions – Direct, Overhead, and Room – plus a Stereo Mix. Full mixing control is available, with individual Volume, Pan, Reverb Send, and EQ adjustments for each channel. Shakuhachi also comes with a quality convolution reverb for excellent in-instrument sound creation. The parallel output bus sends the microphone channels to individual DAW tracks for finer mixing sessions.

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