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Out Now! World Strings Oud - an artistic collaboration between Evolution Series and Associate Professor Kim Cunio $99 End of Year Sale!

38 GB for a single instrument?... It's hard to believe.
Yeah its crazy... the reality is that we went above and beyond the call of duty with this instrument. Multi microphone, lots of velocities, techniques and round robin plus hammer on/off and portamento fast/slow. The hammer on/off have 4 round robin and the portamento slides have 2 round robin. All that combined makes a large instrument.

The irony is that a single instrument done to a high degree is no different to recording a high quality ensemble except that you are recording one musician vs a group.

End of the day OCD kicked in and we wanted to make something special :)
 
I forgot all about this great build-up, due to unexpected life events this week, and am surprised it ended up being an Oud (I was expecting a Kemence library).

Thanks for letting us know that it's a Turkish Oud. Those designs are some of the better ones. But it's not accurate to break Ouds down into binary Turkish vs. Arabic. What most people mean by Arabic is Egyptian, and those are mostly considered beginner's models. For a long time, the best luthiers were in Syria, but due to Civil War, some have fled, or have had to temporarily close shop to focus on survival. It's sad. Similarly with Iraq, but in that country, there are additionally some interesting regional variants.

ISW, Sonokinetic, and Eduardo Tarilonte have also all chosen to sample Turkish Ouds. Rast Sound did a Moroccan Oud. I don't think Native Instruments identified what is used in their Discovery Series Middle East library. It will be nice if someone can do a shootout of these libraries.

I will unfortunately probably have to miss the intro sale, as my life situation changed suddenly and drastically this week and I have to avoid any expenses other than food for a while. I don't even know the price, or the discount, and am almost afraid to look at the product site to find out.
 
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Meanwhile, for some perspective on the basis of raw statistics alone, the two main top-end dedicated Oud libraries so far are tiny in comparison to this 118 GB beast. ISW's is 2.5 GB, and Sonokinetic's is 9.5 GB.

I think a key point of differentiation that might come up, is the handling of scales and tunings. As these also vary quite a bit between regions and traditions, it will be interesting to compare the approach of each library, and also how quarter-tones are dealt with (in the context of keyboard-triggering and how intuitive and quick it can be along with support in the context of glissando/portamento). Or even how friendly they are to wind controller and other alternate MIDI input devices such as the ones from ROLI and other similar approaches.
 
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Meanwhile, for some perspective on the basis of raw statistics alone, the two main top-end dedicated Oud libraries so far are tiny in comparison to this 118 GB beast. ISW's is 2.5 GB, and Sonokinetic's is 9.5 GB.

I think a key point of differentiation that might come up, is the handling of scales and tunings. As these also vary quite a bit between regions and traditions, it will be interesting to compare the approach of each library, and also how quarter-tones are dealt with (in the context of keyboard-triggering and how intuitive and quick it can be along with support in the context of glissando/portamento).

This lib. Is 38 GB compressed. Still massive compared to the competition but this is the number you should consider for a comparison.
 
I forgot all about this great build-up, due to unexpected life events this week, and am surprised it ended up being an Oud (I was expecting a Kemence library).

Thanks for letting us know that it's a Turkish Oud. Those designs are some of the better ones. But it's not accurate to break Ouds down into binary Turkish vs. Arabic. What most people mean by Arabic is Egyptian, and those are mostly considered beginner's models. For a long time, the best luthiers were in Syria, but due to Civil War, some have fled, or have had to temporarily close shop to focus on survival. It's sad. Similarly with Iraq, but in that country, there are additionally some interesting regional variants.

ISW, Sonokinetic, and Eduardo Tarilonte have also all chosen to sample Turkish Ouds. Rast Sound did a Moroccan Oud. I don't think Native Instruments identified what is used in their Discovery Series Middle East library. It will be nice if someone can do a shootout of these libraries.

I will unfortunately probably have to miss the intro sale, as my life situation changed suddenly and drastically this week and I have to avoid any expenses other than food for a while. I don't even know the price, or the discount, and am almost afraid to find the product site to find out.
Hope you get past this situation & everything gets back on track soon.
 
Hah, even 38 GB is monstrous! But yeah, it's not always obvious which libraries are compressed or not, looking at the installation folders.

Batrawi, thanks for your empathy. It's actually a good thing, as I'm old (61) and missed several earlier opportunities in life to buy vs. rent. Landlord raised rent by 20% ($500) right as I got back from my godson's wedding in Scotland, at height of summer tourist season, and where I confidently gave a rather large cash gift. So the timing was unfortunate, and I had planned to save towards a purchase six months out or so. But often in life, unexpected events that force us to act sooner, turn out to be for the better.

I have contacted the vendor for the loyalty discount code (and updated contact info) in hopes that I close a house deal quickly enough that I can make this rather cheap purchase (in relative terms) without risking my immediate (and rather short-notice) needs and credit rating/liability. :) It's hard for me to resist these sorts of libraries.
 
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Hah, even 38 GB is monstrous! But yeah, it's not always obvious which libraries are compressed or not, looking at the installation folders.

Batrawi, thanks for your empathy. It's actually a good thing, as I'm old (61) and missed several earlier opportunities in life to buy vs. rent. Landlord raised rent by 20% ($500) right as I got back from my godson's wedding in Scotland, at height of summer tourist season, and where I confidently gave a rather large cash gift. So the timing was unfortunate, and I had planned to save towards a purchase six months out or so. But often in life, unexpected events that force us to act sooner, turn out to be for the better.

I have contacted the vendor for the loyalty discount code (and updated contact info) in hopes that I close a house deal quickly enough that I can make this rather cheap purchase (in relative terms) without risking my immediate (and rather short-notice) needs. :) It's hard for me to resist these sorts of libraries.

Hi Mark Thank you for the bit of history about the oud... I'm still learning too! The main thing I understood was that the Turkish Oud are highly regarded. So it was nice to hear it in more detail from you.

I'm very sorry to hear about your situation... I hope you get some relief soon mate. Either-way I just saw your email come through, you will hear from me soon :)

Regarding the other libraries, The way I look at things is that they are all just different flavours. One instrument will be useful for one track and not so for another. You can never have too many instruments... I'm a bit of an instrument hoarder myself :) The more brushes for my canvas the merrier!
 
Just got sent a new Oud track by the talented multi instrumentalist and composer Meena Shamaly!!!



Always glad to help! Hope y'all enjoy the demo. Personally, I can never have too many oud libraries (or actual ouds for that matter, lol, got two in the studio after having recently sold one - and I want MOAR).
 
Always glad to help! Hope y'all enjoy the demo. Personally, I can never have too many oud libraries (or actual ouds for that matter, lol, got two in the studio after having recently sold one - and I want MOAR).
Thanks for the awesome demo mate!! It is Oudtastic! :)
 
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