TRAILER VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPcTYbVnSRE
Koto Nation applies the same design philosophy to instruments of the Japanese classical tradition. We focused on the koto, bass koto and shamisen because none of these beautiful instruments have been sampled in any depth, while the taiko and shakuhachi have typically received much more attention. In fact, the bass koto has never been sampled before... a shame, as you'll hear it is an incredible instrument with a deep, warm tone and amazing playability!
To create the best classical Japanese library, we could not settle for an average session player. Our performer, Masayo Ishigure, is among the best koto players in the world; a student of koto legends Tadao and Kazue Sawai, she has continued their legacy and toured the globe with her performances. She has worked with, among others, John Williams for his award-winning score to "Memoirs of a Geisha", and so we consider ourselves both extremely lucky and thankful to have her talent associated with this project. Masayo's extensive background in the classical traditions of Japanese music combined with her experience in recording for film allowed us to capture a true breadth of playing techniques!
Here are some facts and features of the library at a glance.
* Deep, thorough sampling with multiple velocities and round robins - typically 4x velocity layers and 4x round robins per note!
* Close and room mic positions, miced to blend perfectly with our Sitar Nation library
* Simple control schemes 'designed with composers in mind'. As with our other libraries, we map our patches to be as immediately playable as possible.
* Koto articulations include: picked sustains, pizzicato, finger hits, octaves, tremolos (fast and slow), mordents (fast and slow), vibrato (up and down), tonal glissandos, atonal glissandos, scrapes, hard pluck, short phrases and harmonics.
* Bass koto articulations include: sustains, pizzicato, mutes, slides, tonal string hits, and body hits.
* Jiuta-style Shamisen articulations include deep-sampled sustains (up to 8xRR per note, up/down) and various slides/bends.
* An assortment of FX patches, ranging from deep drums to warm pads, airy ambiances and synth sounds (all using nothing but the library's audio files and on/offline processing)
* $99, Kontakt 2 format with nearly 9gb of open 24/44.1 WAVs for your editing pleasure - instant digital download!
Koto Nation is available now at our website, where you can read even more details about the features and instruments, as well as download the product manual:
http://impactsoundworks.com/products/in ... -of-japan/
Or you can check out some demos here below!
Sakura (Traditional) - 100% KN
http://www.impactsoundworks.com/audio/d ... Sakura.mp3
Koto Solo (Traditional) - 100% KN with ext. reverb
http://www.impactsoundworks.com/audio/d ... Demo_1.mp3
Koto & Shamisen Duet (Traditional) - 100% KN with ext. reverb
http://www.impactsoundworks.com/audio/d ... Demo_2.mp3
Bass Koto Dreams (Contemporary) - 100% KN
http://www.impactsoundworks.com/audio/d ... l_Demo.mp3
We hope you enjoy this library as much as we enjoyed making it! Feel free to post any questions or comments here and I'd be happy to answer them
ps. All my demos are of course written using FL!