Silkroad - Middle Eastern Instruments

Silk Road - Middle Eastern Instruments CD-ROM

Kurzweil format
Reviewed by Tony Palermo

Sonic Implants (888) 769-3788
www.sonicimplants.com
$249.95 USD

March 30, 2002

Pros: A variety of Middle Eastern instruments sampled as single notes and authentic phrases. Smart Kurzweil programming throughout. Well documented.

Cons: Some characteristic Central Asian instruments are missing. Several keymaps extend to "unusable" ranges. Documentation can be hard to access.

Overall: A clean sounding collection of exotic instruments — good for dropping into modern mixes and useful for creating fairly authentic Middle Eastern tracks.

Jennifer Hruska was one of the original sound developers for Kurzweil's K2000 series. Her Sonic Implants company is a major developer for Kurzweil sounds as well as offering reconfigured versions for the Gigasampler, SoundFont, Akai and E-Mu formats. It's good to have someone creating Kurzweil sounds who so thoroughly understands the capabilities of Kurzweil instruments. It's also good that Sonic Implants has ventured into providing sample collections of offbeat instruments such as those on the Silk Road CD-ROM.

The Silk Road was the trading route between ancient Rome and China. It went from the heart of China through Central Asia to Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. You might assume you'd find instruments from China to Turkey on the Silk Road CD-ROM, but instead it focuses on the Middle East and North Africa — and even Nigeria! However, that's only quibbling over the stretching of the metaphoric title of this collection. The subtitle says "Middle Eastern Instruments" and that's what this sonic caravan delivers.

Here's a list of the instruments you'll find in the collection. It's heavy on percussion:

Winds

There are several different samples of Middle Eastern flutes (Kawal, Nay, May), each with a slightly different character. The sound developers made good use of Kurzweil control sources and provide legato and "dynamic" programs as well as useable tremolos and crossfades. For the Kawal flutes, there are three different soundsets with up to 12 programs each — covering a variety of attacks, dynamics, added octaves, and differing amounts of "chiff." The multi-sampling is even and all the winds are offered in looped and unlooped versions ranging from 8 to 14 MB. This two flavor approach allows the user to choose how to trade off RAM versus sound quality. I found the looping to be generally good, but not always perfect — however that's hard to judge when the ethnic character of the instrument sound is so rough. Overall, I think the flutes are excellent.

However, some instrumental articulations are a challenge for any sampler to reproduce authentically and the trill of the Nay — a reed flute — is handled as best as could be expected here. Some — but not all — of the characteristic trills are transposed way too high, resulting in "chipmunking." You could slip them into a techno mix for some spice, but they would never pass for authentic playing in a traditional song. Of course, it's up to you whether you play those out-of-authentic-range notes. However, many expressive melodic instruments from the Middle East will be impossible to mimic well with a sampler. Sonic Implants has used some clever programming to address these challenges.

For example, the three Nay soundsets offer several programs such as: "Nay 1/Trill 1 on re-strike with Mod Wheel up." What you get is a regular Nay tone with the MW down. To invoke the trill, you must turn the MW up and then re-strike the key. This will require a bit of practice to make good use of. A standard crossfade between the normal and trilled sound controlled by the Mod Wheel is also available in another program.

Other Melodic Instruments

Several melodic instruments are included as small 2-5 MB soundsets with 5-6 programs each. These include the snake-charmer's Zurna, Arabic and Persian violins, Bouzuk (a Turkish banjo) hammered dulcimers (Kanuun, Santur), an Oud and Persian Sitar—not to be confused with the typical Indian Sitar, which is not included in this collection. In fact, NO Indian instruments are found here—maybe because the actual Silk Road ran up into the Himalayas and bypassed India. The included instruments are from North Africa and the Middle East, but there are no Egyptian violins—the swooping, slurring violin sections so popular and essential to the music of Oum Kalthoun and Mohammed Abdel-Wahab. For that, you'll have to program your own violins and make expressive use of the pitch wheel.

The melodic instrument soundsets include some very synthy programs that would be useless to film composers or belly dance accompanists looking for only authentic samples. As synth tones though, you get a bonus of some exotic waves to work V.A.S.T. programming magic on. The few synthy programs included are merely a hint of what can be done with these unusual waveforms.

Percussion

The bulk of the 600 MB CD-ROM is devoted to percussion samples, long loops, and improvisations. These will work well with samplers since the nature of percussion is a matter of rhythm and not inflection. There's an assortment of Middle Eastern percussion instruments such as Dumbeks, Tombeks, Riqqs (tambourines) and Zills (finger cymbals) as well some non-arabic ones, like Nigerian Udu (clay pot drums), Tibetan bowls, and Chinese Nagada drums. There are no Egyptian or Indian tablas. Please note that the percussion soundsets include many rolls and other phrases — some 10-18 second long — that you can trigger along with your own playing to create convincing rhythm beds.

It is with the percussion soundsets that you reap the benefits of having Kurzweil-savvy developers behind this collection. Sonic Implants has approached the entire collection keeping in mind Kurzweil limits to RAM and polyphony—especially for the older K2000 family. The percussion soundsets include programs with either "natural release"—meaning the sound stops as soon as you lift your fingers from the keys—or "ignore release"—so they'll play all the way through the sample. Sonic Implants wisely provides these two flavors to allow polyphony-strapped K2000 owners to precisely control how long the notes need to sustain. Additionally, the percussion soundsets are offered as easy-to-load Kurzweil macros — another considerate programming choice

Documentation

The excellent documentation describes all the sampled instruments as well as lists the program names, control sources, and loop BPM and time signatures. However, there's no listing at all for the long improvisations. BPM info would have been helpful.

All the documentation is contained on a PDF file included on the CD-ROM, but since this is in native Kurzweil format, there can be some difficulty in accessing it. Normally, a PC or Mac can't even read a K-format CD-ROM. I ripped the entire contents of the CD-ROM to my PC's hard disk and then opened the PDF documentation file. To rip the CD-ROM, I used Marc Halbrügge's excellent free-ware PC program, KCDread http://www.geocities.com/mhalbrue/kcompact/kimage.htm

Another solution is to use the Kurzweil itself to copy the contents of the PDF file from the CD-ROM to a floppy and then load that into your computer. You could also copy the PDF to your Kurzweil's SCSI HD and then link to it from a computer in your SCSI chain.

Luckily, Sonic Implants has now put this valuable file on-line at their website. Take a look at it before AND after you buy: http://www.sonicimplants.com/sonickurzweil/kurzweilworld.htm See the link titled: Silk Road CD-ROM Documentation.pdf
They also have a downloadable 700K demo available on this page.

If this CD-ROM were available in ISO-9660 format, you could easily read the disk with a computer. However, Sonic Implants knows there are many K2000 owners who don't have OS v3.87 (which can read ISO-9660 format), so they offer Silk Road only in native Kurzweil format--which, of course, works for all Kurzweil K-series models.

Wish list

It would be nice if there were keymaps included to provide an alternative way to easily play the exotic maqams (scales) of arabic music. The average sample-jockey has no idea how these melodic phrases should go. Also the subtle detunings hinted at in the documentation for some instruments aren't provided by the pitch wheel programming. It'll take some creative Kurzweil tweaking of your own to maximize this collection. I also wish there were more instruments (harmonium, dudek, tabla, hurdy gurdy, sarod, saz, Indian and Chinese instruments, etc.) Maybe they'll be included if there's a Silk Road - Volume 2.

Final Thoughts

Sonic Implants should be commended for providing a high-quality sample collection of these exotic instruments and for their consideration and smarts when customizing the samples for Kurzweil's K-series instruments. It's great to have such unusual sounds available—which of course is why I use a sampler in the first place. But as a wind and string player myself, I'm never satisfied with the articulations available when triggering samples from a keyboard.

The melodic samples included on Silk Road have tremendous character, but it is difficult to wring all of an instrument's expression from a handful of samples. One folder on the CD-ROM contains long improvisations of the instruments and you would do well to listen to them to model your own performances. You'll also note that many of the characteristic slurs, bends, double thumbings, and other player's tricks are not included in the soundsets. If you want authentic Middle Eastern melodic sounds, you need to get the real instruments—AND the players who can produce those sounds. There's only so much you can do with a sampler if you wish to re-create authentic ethnic music. The Silk Road will have to serve until you can afford your own harem of Middle Eastern instruments.