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Ancient Egypt - Ancient Middle East Libraries

Ancient Era is not Kontakt-based.
I would go for NI discovery series middle east instead. besides it's around $150 less than Ancient Era if I remember correctly
 
Ancient Era is not Kontakt-based.
I would go for NI discovery series middle east instead. besides it's around $150 less than Ancient Era if I remember correctly
Yeah thats one thing putting me off, never used the player it's built in before.

Is the Discovery series loop based or can you play legato/melody lines etc?
 
As I have only used the percussion instruments of it so far I am not sure but looking at this it seems its the usual mix-up of playable, phrases, loops:

Select playable instruments and ensembles, or completely customizable phrases and patterns – create traditional soundtracks or bring unique textures to contemporary tracks.

Think the overview video should answer you question:

 
The discovery middle east is nice, but it can't beat the Ancient Persia Era library. Don't let that sampler put you off. Really worth it for just this library (and it's a free player and quite stable nowadays).
 
Also EW RA has some instruments in there that would suit the style. And obviously using different modes will help. I found Phrygian Dominant worked very well. So use some eastern instruments and then give them the flavour with the mode.

Also somewhere in the EW catalog there is this Persian 60 string ensemble patch that works wonders. With some chord phrases and you instantly transported to ancient Egypt.
 
EW RA was another one I spotted, only thing is I'm a little hesitant to drop £200+ on libraries which are very much settled in one specific genre.
 
Some options to look at:
* Impact Soundworks Turkish Oud and Koron
* Ilya Efimov Armenian Duduk
* Sonokinetic: Sultan Drums, Sultan Strings, Qanun, Shahrazad, Yemenite, Delphi... and on it goes.
* Soundiron Tbilat and Riq Drums
* Evolution Series World Percussion Middle East
* Big Fish Audio - Ancient World: Instruments of Antiquity.

Caveats many of these are not ancient, and Persia, Turkey, Armenia, Greece etc are obviously not Egypt. Also these aren't personal recommendations as some I know very little about.
 
EW RA was another one I spotted, only thing is I'm a little hesitant to drop £200+ on libraries which are very much settled in one specific genre.
If you don't want to buy a genre-specific library, then I would recommend Best Service's Ethno World 6 (instruments) for Middle Eastern music. UVI's World Suite actually has more Middle Eastern instruments but EW6 has a much better Oud IMHO. It also has has a Bendir frame drum, a Darabuka, and an "Egyptian Fiddle."

It is missing a Daf, however, so I recommend you pick up SONiVOX'S excellent Silk Road Percussion, which is available at Reverb.com for $4.99. While you're at it pick up Strezov Sampling's Duduk freebie

The Evolution Series https://www.evolutionseries.com/?page_id=4528 (World Percussion Middle East)library is in a class by its own. For everything else, it depends on the instrument and the price, but you can't go wrong with Tarilonte for quality.

@Batrawi is the only Egyptian composer I know on the forum. Perhaps he will want to chime in. But I know he likes Tarilonte! :)
 
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+1 for EastWest RA and Era Persia.

I also have Ethno World 6. It is really good, but most of the instruments (especially winds) are unplayable on their own, they just sound to "MIDI". If you later them in with some other elements, they can work if you tweak them correctly. The loops and elements are very nice, though.
 
I'd like to help but i need more information about the type of sound you're looking for, "ancient Egypt" is a vague term because we've been around for so long and were influenced by so many culture that it's hard to find a common factor, as the nice folk here already mentioned NI Middle East and Tari's Ancient Persia are the biggest two collection that cover that many instruments with that level of sampling(I only listened to the demos don't own either) Impact soundworks Oud is by far the most authentic sounding one to my ears Koron is also a great choice and the percussion collection in it is very underrated here's a couple more that i think would also help.
Xtant Audio Simsimiyya
Impact soundworks Bouzoki ( the instrument is originally greek)
Soundiron Acoustic Saz
Neocymatics clarinet collection
Ethnaudio Breath of Anatolia
 
While you're at it pick up Strezov Sampling's Duduk freebie (originally an Armenian instrument, but played in Iran and elsewhere)

Yeah, this is one of the best freebies I've ever gotten.

The discovery middle east is nice, but it can't beat the Ancient Persia Era library. Don't let that sampler put you off. Really worth it for just this library (and it's a free player and quite stable nowadays).

I don't have Ancient Era, but I've used the player for the Vocal Codex library, and I agree -- it's nothing fancy, and the interface is a little weird-looking, but it gets the job done. (And the recordings are fantastic, at least on Vocal Codex.)
 
Tarilonte and Evolution series libraries are full of exotic sounds. You should find plenty of Ancient Egypt-era oriented sounds in these ones.
 
The OP

Please listen to what the OP wrote. Money is an issue for him. He is hesitant to drop a lot of money on a library that is very settled in one specific genre.

So that means: no RA, no Ancient Era Persia, no Koron, no NI Discovery Middle East, no Evolution Series Middle East, no Breath of Anatolia, no Zero-G Middle Eastern Percussion, no Volko Alaturka Drum, etc etc etc.

And as he did say ancient Egypt, we might want to stick with instruments that are primarily played there. And libraries that work better for classical playing, not contemporary or pop.

If money was no object and he only wanted to buy a single library, then the choice is Tarilonte. If he starts picking up a lot of solo libraries, he might as well spend a bit more and get Ancient Era Persia.

So, either convince him that he can't achieve acceptable results without buying a Middle Eastern library. (He didn't say no, he just said he was hesitant.) But if he's firm, that means buying something that has middle eastern instruments, but not just middle eastern instruments. That means a world library or a rompler.

I didn't say that all the instruments in Ethno World 6 are good, which is nonsense--there's a wide range of quality. I said that the oud in EW6 was better than the one in World Suite. I have listened to a lot of ouds live and on YouTube, and own many VI Ouds-- and the oud in EW6 is decent and usable. Absolutely not the best oud available--for me that is Ancient Era Persia, and if I remember correctly, that's the favorite of VI:Control member Egyptian composer @Batrawi

This I believe: the thing that makes the most difference with VIs is how well you play them. I think it's true with acoustic instruments too.
Okay, sorry for trying to help.

PS
Koron = US$199 ~ £152.39 = <£200
Evolution Series Middle East = US$99 ~ £75.81 = <£200
Everything else I mentioned also <£200 except the last one, which was the only one I could find that had instruments that were from Mediteranean antiquity.

and while the price of a lot of individual libraries does add up, one can do a lot with just a darabuka and a ney.

And yes, I did note that my recommendations were not exclusively Ancient Egyptian, but provided them because there is no Ancient Egyptian instruments specific library in existence.
 
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I use Middle Eastern instruments more than anything else, and Tarilonte's libraries are must-haves -- especially for the winds.

Percussion gets covered by a lot more people, and can be harder to judge, plus is pretty easy and cheap to pick up on your own and record live vs. using samples.

Although I own all of the Evolution Series stuff, I despise the interface as it is rather difficult to get fine-tuned settings, documentation is almost non-existent as to the miking choices (most of which I dislike anyway) and instrument choices, and there isn't much in the way of idiomatic playing styles for some of the stuff. Some of it is very deeply recorded though, so at the right price, it's a good investment. I own everything they make, and do use it in project work. I turn off the far mics.

World Percussion Middle East has the best darbuka (and the only bass darbuka), by far. Similarly with duff, and it has a few that are unique to that collection (muzhar, tabal, middle eastern tupan -- World Suite has the Bulgarian variety -- and the aforementioned bass darbuka). Its riq is fairly good, but not as deep as the single-instrument library from Soundiron, or possibly even the one in Vir2 World Impact.

As I mentioned elsewhere, Ethno World seems slightly stronger in Middle Eastern melodic instruments than UVI World Suite, with both being somewhat of a mixed bag due to the material coming from many different generations of the products. The most critical instruments are covered by Tarilonte anyway.
 
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As for Ancient Egyptian, there are a few instruments that claim to be in that category, in UVI World Suite, but it's not clear in some cases (also true of some of the older offerings in Ethno World) that they even knew what they had (perhaps bought at a bazaar).

This gets especially confusing with stuff like strings, as there is inconsistency of terminology and also a lack of distinguishing Egyptian or Arabic (or sometimes even Turkish) playing styles vs. instrument styles (which are quite different from the orchestral counterparts).

Looking at my chart right now, it is a bit of surprise that Egypt is one of Garritan World Instruments' specialties, with a few antique instruments that no other library covers:
  • Arghul (Egyptian Reed)
  • Mijwiz (Egyptian Double Reed)
  • Sistrum (U-Shaped Jingle)
There is also a one-off library from Xtant Audio devoted to the Simsimiyya (Egyptian Lyre).

Ethno World includes a 2 or 3 string historical Egyptian Fiddle.

Kontakt's Factory Library includes a Nyatiti (Egyptian Lyre).
 
Although I never use it in project work (so far), the previously mentioned Silk Road Percussion from SONiVOX is probably the strongest library they ever released, and for many years covered material that hadn't yet made it into other libraries. It includes the following fairly well-recorded instruments:
  • Bass Dumbek -- unique to this library still, I am pretty suire
  • Bendir (labeled as Bandir)
  • Copper Bowls -- likewise unique, unless labeled differently elsewhere
  • Daf -- large frame drums; one of the most important instruments
  • Darbuka -- a copper model, which is my own personal preference (though not this library's)
  • Dumbek -- a clay model, and an Egyptian one (metal, I think)
  • Frame Drum (Arabic) -- could be generic, or maybe something like a Tar
  • Nagada -- unique to this library still, and is Ancient Egyptian!
  • Riq -- by far the most important percussion element
  • Tibetan Bowl -- these are the singing bowls where you rub along the edge, as with a glass
  • Tonbak -- labeled Tombek, this is a Persian goblet drum, similar to a Dumbek, but wooden
  • Udu Drum
I think I paid $9 for my copy, as part of a fire sale on SONiVOX libraries a few years back.
 
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