Cultural Diversity

Sep 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Geary Yelton

           

Global commerce and the World Wide Web have connected musicians from different cultures as never before. Recordings made on six of seven continents and all points between are available to almost anyone who wants to listen. The result has been an ongoing cross-pollination that fuses diverse combinations of traditional folk and classical music with rock, jazz, electronic, and other modern musical genres. This fusion combines ancient instruments with modern rhythms and modern instruments with ancient rhythms.

All of this multicultural exchange has been a motivating force behind a recent trend in sample-based software instruments. As the demand for sounds from Africa, Australia, the Near East, and the Far East has grown, so has the availability of sample libraries offering vocal and instrumental sounds from those regions.

Around the World 11 Ways

Diving into the world of multiethnic music software, I discovered dozens of sample libraries that might fit the scope of this article. Although many are excellent, there's simply too much sample content to give adequate coverage in a single article. I decided to concentrate on virtual instruments, both plug-in and standalone, that don't require separate sampler software.

I found 11 virtual instruments from 7 developers: Best Service Ethno World 3 Complete, Latin World, and Orient World; MOTU Ethno Instrument; Quantum Leap Ra; Swar Systems SwarPlug; Wizoo Darbuka and Latigo; Yellow Tools Culture; and Zero-G Afrolatin Slam and Beats Working in Cuba. All of the developers except MOTU and Quantum Leap are based in Europe.

Four titles — Afrolatin Slam, Beats Working in Cuba, Latin World, and Orient World — are built around Native Instruments Intakt Instrument, which is oriented for playing tempo-sliced loops. Ethno World 3 Complete and Ra are based on Kompakt Instrument, Native Instruments' more traditional sample player. The six Native Instruments — based titles run standalone or as plug-ins, as do Ethno Instrument and Culture. The remaining three — Darbuka, Latigo, and SwarPlug — run only as plug-ins. The two Wizoo plug-ins have a custom graphical user interface, and Culture, Ethno Instrument, and SwarPlug have distinctive GUIs as well.

Because they all come with large quantities of content, each requires quite a bit of storage space to install. Fortunately, none require that you install their content on your startup disk, and you sometimes get better performance by installing the samples on a separate hard drive. SwarPlug is by far the smallest, with 171 MB of 16-bit content, and Ra is by far the largest, with more than 13 GB of content. Most supply 24-bit samples, and most can stream their samples from hard disk.

All are cross-platform and support AU and VST plug-in formats in Mac OS X and VST in Windows XP. Culture, Ethno World 3 Complete, and SwarPlug run in older versions of Windows, too. Darbuka and Latigo support RTAS on the Mac, and the Native Instruments plug-ins support RTAS on both platforms. Culture supports DXi in Windows and RTAS on both computer platforms. Ethno Instrument is the most all-inclusive, supporting AU, HTDM, MAS, RTAS, and VST in Mac OS X and DXi, HTDM, RTAS, and VST in Windows XP.

For this article, I tested standalone versions of each program. I also used VST versions in Steinberg Cubase SX3, RTAS versions in Digidesign Pro Tools M-Powered 7.1, and AU versions in MOTU Digital Performer 4.61. The only exception was that I used the MAS version rather than the AU version of Ethno Instrument in DP4, and I ran the AU version in Apple Logic Pro 7.1. My computer was a dual-processor 2.3 GHz Apple Power Mac G5, and my audio interface was a MOTU 2408mk3 with a PCI-424 card.

All titles are copy protected. SwarPlug requires only that you enter a serial number called a product key. The six Native Instruments — based packages rely on a simple challenge-and-response system using a Registration Tool application. When you register Darbuka or Latigo by entering data directly into its setup window, you receive an authorization file to place in its content folder. Culture comes with a Yellow Tools — specific USB key, and Ethno Instrument includes an iLok USB key.

Best Service Ethno World 3 Complete

As the title suggests, Ethno World 3 Complete ($449.95) is the third and most comprehensive product to use the Ethno World name. The original Ethno World is still available as a 3-CD or 5-CD sample library for GigaStudio and several hardware samplers. Ethno World 2 builds on that collection, offering six CDs for EXS24 and HALion and four CDs for GigaStudio. Ethno World 3 Complete supplies all the previous editions' content and 40 new instruments. It is available either as a sound library for GigaStudio or as a software instrument. If you own a previous edition, you will qualify for a discounted upgrade.

FIG. 1: Best Service’s Ethno World 3 Complete combines Kompakt Instrument with more than 5 GB of samples from all over the world.

Produced by German film composers Marcel Barsotti and Andreas Hofner, Ethno World 3 Complete furnishes samples of 170 instruments from every continent except Antarctica, totaling 5.14 GB of content. Most presets supply multisampled instruments, allowing you to play polyphonically, but many also supply loops and licks performed by more than a dozen talented musicians (see Web Clip 1). Because Kompakt Instrument is 8-part multitimbral, you can load as many as eight instruments and assign each to its own MIDI sequencer track (see Fig. 1).

Rather than categorizing sounds by their geographic origins, as many multiethnic sample libraries do, Ethno World 3 Complete categorizes them by their instrument type. Unless a descriptive adjective such as African or Tibetan is part of the preset's name, you'll never know its origin unless you look in the excellent 28-page manual, which provides color photos and very brief descriptions of most instruments. The manual also lists each preset's pitch range, size in megabytes, and location on disc, but for presets that offer keyswitching, it doesn't tell you which notes are keyswitches. Additional documentation includes a 42-page Kompakt Instrument manual and HTML files that duplicate portions of the printed manual.

Besides Bell Type, Bowed, Key, Metal Type, and Stringed Instruments, categories include Construction Kits, Gongs and Bowls, Woodwind and Brass, World Drums, and World Percussion. World Drums and World Percussion contain by far the largest number of instruments. Stringed Instruments and Woodwind and Brass are also quite plentiful. Eighteen Bell Type instruments range from Bamboo Vibraphon and Dream Catcher to Tibetan Cymbals and Vietnam Bells. The Key Instruments category contains only Dallape Accordion, Melodica, and Scale Changer Harmonium. Ethno World 3 Complete has seven Construction Sets: a China Set in three tempos and a Mid East Set in four tempos.

Although filter and envelope parameters vary from one instrument to the next, all presets appear to have the same amount of reverb, chorus, and delay. Only a handful offer any Velocity switching. Though some cry out for user-controlled vibrato, none respond to MIDI Control Change (CC) messages. Overall, though, the variety and sound quality make Ethno World 3 Complete a well-rounded introduction to ethnic musical instruments.

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