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NEW RELEASE from AMPLESOUND - Ample China Erhu


Jason Morin

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Hello Everyone!

 

www.amplesound.net is officially releasing today, August 5th 2022, a new virtual instrument for the China Series: Ample China Erhu.

The Erhu is a Chinese two-stringed bowed musical instrument, and is sometimes known in the Western world as the Chinese violin or a Chinese two-stringed.


aceh01.jpg

 


ACEH is sampled on 3 Erhus in the key of D, C and low G, with 7.6 GB samples, including head, body and legato group articulations, FX sounds, as well as a select collection of improvised licks played by our recording artist Ying Wang (Ph.D. Erhu major, Central Conservatory of Music)

Introduction Price: 127$ (169) until September 5th 2022
Purchase: https://www.amplesound.net/en/purchase.asp

 

 

Here's Ruben from hifimidi.com with an Overview

 

https://youtu.be/6mnrKLq9BR4

 

 

 

Zach Heyde's Overview Video

 

https://youtu.be/m2_g7OtR0yE

 

 

 

 

 

Sampling:

 

-Portamentos with customizable pitch and timing, within one octave. Aided with Virtual Portamento technology that supports customizable slide process.
    
-There are 4 articulation groups (Head, Body, Legato and Special Effects), consisting of 30 articulations in total in the ACEH.

Bowed Articulations: Sustain, Staccato, Ricochet, Grace Tremolo, Expressive Tremolo and Portato.

Expressions: Whispering, Sighing, Crying and Hoarse.

-Fingered Articulations: Pizzicato, Diminuendo, Sforzando, Expressive, Vibrato, Uniform Trill, Variable Trill, Mordent, Inverted Mordent, Double Mordent, Full Slide Up, Full Slide Down, Slide in Below, Slide in Above, Slide Out Downward, Slide Out Upward, Portamento and Virtual Portamento.

-Bowed string instruments have the feature that with higher velocity, the tone is brighter and cleaner and the duration is shorter; with lower velocity, the tone is darker and the duration is longer. If longer notes are needed, users can switch on the Loop function, which will keep the note sustained instead of reaching a natural release (only for a number of articulations). Polyphonic chords can be played using the Polyphonic mode.

-Recorded with 5 mics (Mid low, Mid High, Front, Back and Far Position). Each mic volume is adjustable and equipped with channel EQ. Providing 4 Mic modes: AB, Wide AB, MS and Bright MS, capable of colorful sound designs.


System Requirements:

-Windows: Windows 7/8/10, 64-bit only (32-bit not supported)
-Mac: 10.9 or newer versions.
-VST2, VST3, AU, AAX and Standalone host (Rectangles)
-Intel i5 or higher
-iLok Anti-Piracy system, which requires a free iLok account. The license can be stored on the local machine without an iLok dongle, or on 2nd/3rd generation iLok dongle.


For more information, please visit          https://www.amplesound.net/en/pro-pd.asp?id=41

 

 

Also, please don't forget that AmpleSound SUMMER SALE is now active and will End on August 15, 2022. Discounts from 20% and Up To 60% depending on how many Virtual Instruments you want to purchase.

If you already bought from us in the past, login to your AmpleSound account before visiting our purchase page. You will get a better discount.

Please visit our purchase page to see what is available for you and our calculator at the bottom of the page will let you know about your savings:

https://www.amplesound.net/en/purchase.asp


Don't forget that the AmpleSound Support Team is available at service@amplesound.net if you need to contact them.

Have a Great SUMMER!


Ample-Sound-Summer-Sale.png

Jason Morin of AmpleSound

Edited by Jason Morin
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Hi Jason, I just wanted to drop a huge kudos to you guys for something seemingly trivial, yet impressive. I do not come into the forums as much these days, but was just going through emails and got one directly from Yao about the Erhu release. It has been a couple years or more now that I had mentioned sampling the Erhu after I spent some time with a gentleman in a park in Beijing. I am not sure if the email was a coincidence (I have a truckload of filters to keep my inbox clean), but that email went straight to my inbox, so I was sitting here looking at that and thinking, "Huh, ain't that something?" Not only did you make the library but let me know. THAT is just incredibly impressive!

Just in case this is a coincidence, take credit for it. I love you guys anyway 🙂.

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Just got this today.  

It is easily the best Erhu virtual instrument to date.  And it's one of the best world instruments.  As good as the Chinese flutes and stringed instruments from Ample and Three-Body Tech are, this is a much more ambitious undertaking. It's so much harder to create an Erhu, and they've pulled it off beautifully.   

I really love it. 

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7 hours ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

It is easily the best Erhu virtual instrument to date.

I listened to a bunch of demos of other Erhu VIs and I believe you. In comparison, this one sounds glorious and I'm really tempted to get it, because the sound of an Erhu is so unique (in my ears).

My only concern is that the sound is TOO unique, and if I drop an Erhu in a track it's going to dominate and color the whole song, conjuring images of stereotypical Asian things (whatever they may be), even if everything else in the song speaks of Nordic forests or whatever. Guess I'd have to try to know for sure.

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10 hours ago, pseudopop said:

I listened to a bunch of demos of other Erhu VIs and I believe you. In comparison, this one sounds glorious and I'm really tempted to get it, because the sound of an Erhu is so unique (in my ears).

My only concern is that the sound is TOO unique, and if I drop an Erhu in a track it's going to dominate and color the whole song, conjuring images of stereotypical Asian things (whatever they may be), even if everything else in the song speaks of Nordic forests or whatever. Guess I'd have to try to know for sure.

What happens with me when I get a high-quality Virtual Instrument is that it inspires me to make music with it.  And I don't worry about what kind of music it is. 

But you're right, an Erhu is probably going to sound Asian.  😀

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On 8/13/2022 at 4:20 AM, pseudopop said:

My only concern is that the sound is TOO unique

might be a nice problem to have in the days of everything sounding the same, but ya, a highly distinctive sound will stand out in any production, like autotune or DX7 patches.  thankfully there is no shortage of saturation/distortion/lofi-ing plugins to mangle any uniqueness into submission.

(hmm... autotuning an Erhu might sound pretty dope)

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19 hours ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

I don't worry about what kind of music it is.

Usually, me  neither. I let the music go where it wants to and sometimes I end up happily surprised and sometimes in a musical cul-de-sac.

My concerns are actually limited to a particular side project where I have a very clear idea how things should sound, and they should not sound like a Crouching Tiger or a Hidden Dragon. But I wants the Erhu in it. Because.

34 minutes ago, jackson white said:

might be a nice problem to have in the days of everything sounding the same, but ya, a highly distinctive sound will stand out in any production, like autotune or DX7 patches

Yes, the word I should have used is distinctive instead of unique. I have heard plenty of Erhu in modern productions, so I don't think having it in a piece is going to win any awards. But it might make people go "Oh, that's that Chinese instrument, whatsitsname. What are these Vikings doing with it?"

Edit: Just to clarify, I like mixing instruments and styles from different cultures and eras, and the more I think about it the more confident I am that the distinctive sound of Erhu is not going to be the kind of problem I built it up to be in my head.

34 minutes ago, jackson white said:

(hmm... autotuning an Erhu might sound pretty dope)

I like to try running everything through a wah pedal just to see how it sounds.

Edited by pseudopop
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3 hours ago, pseudopop said:

What are these Vikings doing with it?"

Sounds like a great question for Monty Python.

3 hours ago, pseudopop said:

running everything through a wah pedal

Vikings have wah pedals?!!

...

@pseudopop  ya, knew what you meant, totally down with exploring unique combinations for something different. A strong "acoustic" core for a sound is a good place to start. The demos for this erhu sounded richer than the typical one dimensional token instruments you might find in a world Instrument collection.

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