The story
Another marketplace find; this instrument was part of a trove along with several others purchased from a fellow folk-instrument enthusiast who was clearing out space. It appears to be a Nepali Sarangi, though probably an ornamental version as it is smaller than the ‘typical’ version based on images and videos. A body carved from a single piece of wood and partly covered with hide gives the instrument a pleasant resonance, particularly on open strings. It came with an old bow made of fairly loose, stiff plant-fibers, but I recorded the instrument with a violin bow for better results. I also recorded the open strings as plucked notes and extended these across a range to give a consistent, resonant plucked sound, accessible by keyswitch. There are multiple velocity layers and round-robins for each note, but since it’s difficult to get consistent tone from held strings, I’ve avoided my usual habit of oversampling and extended the range mostly digitally for a more consistent tone. There is a legato version and a poly patch, where the legato script has been bypassed.
Nepali Sarangi Demo
Reviews for Nepali Sarangi
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Way too quiet!
While this is a rather lovely instrument with a nice sound,I have to add like five volume boosters just to hear the sound!
A nice folk instrument
This is a simple folk string instrument that has a very nice and textured sound that might just be the right one for you. You will find two patches, whereas the "main" one is a legato-style solo patch that allows only one note to be played, with a nice seamless transition between the notes. The other one allows multiple notes at once, like chords. The playable range is around 2 octaves long, but you might find the kontakt indication a bit weird - that's because of the keyswitches.
The long notes don't last that long, but they are very nicely textured and the sampling is great. After the second D, the notes suddenly get very short, which is definitely a little weird..
In both patches there is also a keyswitch that enables a staccato articulation, with a plucked sound signature. It is exactly the same in both patches (both in poly). I guess it could be more intuitive to have a separate plucked patch instead of a keyswitch. That way the available range wouldn't be a problem either.
New sounds
Well this is a completely new sound for me - very rustic - and one of the beauties of Pianobook - I am sat here in the UK playing an instrument from Nepal, played and sampled in Australia!
I can quite imagine making something significantly Asian sounding with this.
Lovely Nepalese sounds
I really like Nepalese instruments and the whole Himalayan vibe, and have to say I'm not dissapointed. This instrument is fairly simple and has a very usable and pretty basic sound. Its interesting, but has not much under the hood. Nothing too special about it otherwise really, but I definitely recommend it.
