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Sales on Guzhengs from ISW and WaveFactory - What's Your Favorite?

Reid Rosefelt

Reid Rosefelt

aka Tiger the Frog
I have the World Strings Guzheng from the Evolution Series, which I think is incredible. Honestly, it's everything I need for a realistic and beautiful presentation of a Guzheng with a full set of articulations. I also have the one in Strezov Sampling's Jade Ethnic Orchestra. This has very limited articulations and is not in the same category as the Evolution one, but it blends beautifully with JEO. I wouldn't use the JEO Guzheng as a solo instrument and I wouldn't use the Evolution in a JEO piece. (I have some others in world collections that aren't as good as either of the above.)

You might feel that I am set for life in the Guzheng department. But I am a Guzheng Hound and there are some instruments out there with more exotic articulations, like bowing, etc. Two of them are now on sale for $39

Impact Soundworks



WavesFactory



My current leaning for wasting my money is the ISW. Do any of you have thoughts?*

*I realize that there are other Guzhengs out there, including a $99 one from Soniccouture, but even I have my limits.
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Haha,

I found myself confrontated with the same problem to choose from - as I'm also a Guzheng lover.

And bought the ISW one. I like it so far. The interface has loads of options one has to learn to cope with - will get me some time. Tremolo is managed not via modwheel but per release trigger function eg. (edit: the WaveFactory library does it either that way)

Eventually the Ghuzeng by Wave factory is easier to handle? I don't have it so I dunnow.
But again, the sound is right from the ISW one. Also it has range of over 5 octaves.

PS. I only owned one ghuzeng library til yesterday, the one by ChineeKong, which is also a great value with lots of articulations (no kontakt though).
 
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Got to the bowed articulation in Waves Factory and said, no. I would also go with ISW based on the walkthroughs. I really like ISW's bowed articulation.
 
Thomas Kallweit said:
The interface has loads of options one has to learn to cope with - will get me some time. Tremolo is managed not via modwheel but per release trigger function eg. (edit: the WaveFactory library does it either that way)
Click to expand...
If I understand the ISW TACT system correctly, you can set up articulations practically any way you want them. You might want to check out the manual. :)

If I do spring for another budget Guzheng, I'm probably going to get the ISW one.

Maybe someday I will do a Guzheng shootout video on my YouTube channel. Everybody from Apple Garageband iOS to Best Service has one. By then I bet there will be some game-changing Guzheng technology that will leave today's Guzhengs in the shade.

Definitely waiting for Tari to do an Asian library.
 
Here's my run-down and ranking, once again, of the ones I still own (I'm not going to take the time to dig up whatever annotation I have in a separate document, for ones I have sold).


Gu Zheng (Guzheng/18-23-String Chinese Zither)
  1. ISW Guzheng (Kontakt) — 18 unique articulations
  2. Yellow River Sound Gu Zheng (Engine) — 17 unique articulations; sympathetic resonance
  3. Evolution Series: World Strings: Guzheng (Kontakt) — 14 articulations; four mics to mix
  4. Wavesfactory Guzheng (Kontakt) — 5 articulations, including eBow
  5. Ethno World: Stringed Instruments: Zheng Harp (Kontakt)
  6. EW Silk: China: Guzheng (String) (Play)
  7. Garritan World Instruments (ARIA)
 
Although I did sell that one, it sounded good but was an older product and I have so many that when someone inquired I said I could let it go. I suspect it will be updated at some point, with more scripting. There is no shortage of supply for Gu Zheng libraries, that's for sure!

One especially nice feature of that library is that the notes on the Kontakt keyboard are colour-coded for the original natural range of the instrument vs. the extended fully-chromatic range. I like to have this awareness highly visible as I try to stick to natural note ranges when I can, but I'll break that rule if the piece really demands a western chromatic scale and would suffer otherwise.
 
I have the Best Service Yellow River Sound Gu Zheng. It's very well sampled, and playability is very good. It runs on the Best Service ENGINE Sample Player. Which works fine, no issues.
 
Yep, my top three choices are a tough pick. The sympathetic resonance on the Yellow River library is quite pleasing and welcome.
 
Yellow River Sound's Gu Zheng is included in the Best Service Engine Artists Library, so I have auditioned it and admire it. But reading the manual makes me think it will be more complicated to play than the others. Also, it's $129 and therefore $77 in the BF sale. I could get ISW AND WavesFactory for that. Like most people, I measure money by how many Guzheng virtual instruments it buys.

The ISW and Wavesfactory versions are cheaper (now anyway) and have some unusual articulations.

Plus, Mark, whose taste I respect a lot, rates the ISW numero uno, and I like their stuff generally. So I am leaning in that direction.
 
Although I did say it's a tight race at the top. On the other hand, ISW are known for doing free updates and upgrades to their products. Not so much with other most other vendors.
 
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