Ethno World 4 – Music Tech Magazine – May 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
World music sample libraries are plentiful, but few are quite as diverse as this...
Our world has shrunk dramatically in the twenty-first century – telecommunications and cheap air travel have seen to that. As a consequence, the demand for ethnic music to accompany the myriad of travelogues and countless other globally inspired media productions is continuously expanding. Small wonder, then, that film composer Marcel Barsotti’s sample library, Ethno World, has grown from a mere 1.4GB of content to 9.5GB in just seven years.
Now called Ethno World 4 Professional, the fourth edition contains more than 200 professionally recorded ethnic instruments and more than 14,000 samples. The GUI has been upgraded too, and is now powered by NI’s ubiquitous Kontakt 2 Player. That means that users can take advantage of the Kontakt 2 audio engine to transpose instruments and playing styles into any chosen key, not possible in EW3.
What’s new?
In addition to the new interface and audio engine there are many new interesting instruments. One is the bowed Morin Khuur, a fretless violin-like affair dating from 12th-century Mongolia. Like most of the instruments it’s supplied as a series of loops in a variety of tempi as well as single notes. Keyswitch articulations (Best Service calls them dimension keys) enable you to select different playing styles on-the-fly. That’s fine, but it’s not always a simple matter to play a melodic line and achieve the required result without further programming. That said, if you go with the flow and use the dimension keys to influence the composition process, unexpected and sometimes inspiring results are quickly obtained. The same goes for the loops, which are great for kick-starting compositions.
Returning to the Mongolian theme: an entire Morin Khuur string ensemble is also available. A first for Ethno World, this makes it possible to create a complete string arrangement with up to nine different key switches, similar to large orchestra libraries. Mongolia features quite heavily in the other new categories, too, notably voices (solo, ensemble, male, female) and world percussion (gongs, bones, drums and Jews harp). Other newbies include a generous helping of woodwinds and brass plus a joochin, which is similar to a European zither.
The sheer number and variety of instruments on offer is mightily impressive – eleven distinct categories with further sub-categories, including two sets of Chinese and Middle Eastern construction kits.
Good player
The sample player has been very well implemented. Each instrument is loaded with a common performance view and parameter set with which you can adjust the offset of start notes in milliseconds and assign controllers other than a keyboard to trigger samples. You can also apply parallel harmonies here. Two freely assignable intervals can be added; convenient for building exotically tuned pads.
Other player views include group effects (volume tuning, filter, envelopes), microtuning (graphical fine-tuning, modes), effects (reverb, modulation, delay, dynamics) and automation. The latter comprises eight slots with dropdown menus for selecting just about any controllable parameter.
If you compose or produce music that encompasses a broad range of world styles, Ethno World 4 Professional could be for you, particularly if you don’t already own many sample libraries. It’s packed with high-quality instruments that can be tweaked to suit your performance style. If you’re not such a good performer, this set also has you covered by providing a vast number of licks and phrases that yield speedy results.
SUMMARY
Why Buy
High quality samples
Sheer instrument diversity
Lots of licks
Walk on by
Fairly expensive
Verdict
Quantity and quality: amazingly diverse set of world instrument samples, licks and phrases plus an easy-to-use, well-implemented interface.
Rating: 9/10
Keith Gemmell, Music Tech Magazine
Click here for more information on Ethno World 4
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