Anyone know where I can get some middle eastern samples (mostly strings) from? Either a free vst (mac) or a site where I can just download wav files would be much appreciated. thanks.
-damon
There are some very good and high quality VSTi’s for middle-eastern instruments (and other instruments of the world) but not free of course. I’m curious, are you from middle east?
You may find some free middle-eastern and eastern instruments VSTi’s here. A google search will also reveal many middle-eastern free samples, loops and vsti’s…
You can try to download the demo version of stringstudio VST and use the render to sample function to create them, there are some nifty eastern instruments modelled in the banks that come with the plugin.
try SwarPlug and EMM Knagalis - very nice instruments!
Not middle eastern but I will be living in the middle east at the end of next year. I love the sound of classical middle eastern music and a lot of the fusions that artists like Anoushka Shankar, Midival punditz and Idan Raichel have done. I’m trying to find pads like on Einsturzende Neubautens “Armenia” or Massive attack “antistar” and many Hossam Ramzy tracks.
My biggest problem is the ones I find are either a lot of money that I don’t have or only for pc which I don’t use anymore. I’ll check into the ones on this thread so far though…
Anoushka’s music is very forward thinking and progressive, good stuff. Yet, she stay’s away from the Bollywood syndrome.
To be honest, Swarplug is your best as in affordable. Quantum Leap’s Ethnoworld 3 and it’s latest, Gypsy is a very nice professional choice too, yet you will pay a huge price for those.
The problem with Middle Eastern/South Asian vsti’s is often they’re approached in a very westernized format, so that westerners can utilize and make sense of them. What’s missed in the translation is that Eastern mechanics are greatly different from Western. However, if you know the ins and outs of Eastern music/instrumentation, you can work around the limitations. If you don’t, you usually end up with a very generic and stereotypical sound.
A lot of great musical and mathematical workings and complexities came out of the middle east that many other western cultures “borrowed” from. Yet, as a westerner myself, we are led to believe that quite often it was the other way around.
Your average street musician in the Middle east, India and Pakistan would trump a lot of well knowns in the West. I have heard this with my own two ears.
I respect your taste.