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Three Body Technology Raindrop & Blade


Larry Shelby

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Three-Body Technology presents its 3rd product: Raindrop & Blade. A traditional Chinese instrument called Yangqin, based on Chinese hammered dulcimer. With the concept "not only capture the sound of the instrument, but also present the feeling of ancient China", Raindrop & Blade will bring you the beauty and mystery right into your studio, rather than experiencing it from some books or TV shows about ancient China.

Completely self-developed, high-performance sample engine ensures better sound quality, with effects from H7S and 108 MIDI patterns made by professional Chinese Yangqi musicians, make it easy to create the sound like raindrop, without losing its intense feeling.

Check the video below to hear it for yourself! Now available for $149.

Samples:

6,208 samples.

44100/24-bit recording.

Sample Engine:

Completely self-developed, high performance sample engine: better sound quality, faster DFD (direct from disk) Stream, optimized samples compression and new tone transition technology.

Through optimized samples compression, all 6,208 samples only require 2.9G disk space.

Performance:

5 layers of velocity: The STBT (smooth transition between tones) technology brings more natural sound and captures perfect performance details. No matter how hard or soft you hit the keys, you can always get the sound effects that satisfy you.

Separately recorded left-hand right-hand samples: the tone is different. Three modes are provided for Hand Exchange on the software interface to make the instrument played in a natural way.

3-5 RR (round robin) samples: the same pitch being played repeatedly is common in Yangqin. We recorded 3-5 RR for every velocity.

Tremolo: two velocity layers of tremolo samples are recorded. We also recorded samples for octave- and third-playing tremolo.

Clean Mode: inspired by the psychological sound model, we developed clean mode that decays differently for harmonic and non-harmonic tones. This allows sound to be cleaner than a real-world Yangqin.

Common performances: tremolo, flicking, hammer revert, muting, and noises, etc.

Two types of recorded release samples: by hand or by pedal.

Yin-Yang Button: you can transit between polar contrast feelings by this button.

Effects:

From the Heavier7Strings' effect rack: Compressor, EQ, Chorus and Ping-Pong delay are included, allowing to create more flexible sounds.

Convolution Reverb:

About 2 years ago, we started to record the convolution reverb samples from spectacular places, famous natural and historical heritages in China. Thus you can simulate Raindrop & Blade being played at the Great Wall or Terracotta Army site.

Sound Field:

Actual sample recording for near and mid-field. Simulated far-field via reverb.

Adjustable parameters (sound field ratio, width) provides diverse tones for different genres from traditional to pop.

Pattern Library:

Complete pattern library, manage your works and ideas easily.

Rich preset patterns with updates in the future.

Drag MIDI patterns into the host.

Create your own patterns.

Preset:

Various preset from traditional to experimental.

$89 intro price

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/raindrop-and-blade-by-tbtech

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This actually came out in 2019.   I really wanted it bad but didn't get it until the sale in November. It was a lot less than this.

Three-body have a few other Chinese instruments, but as of now they are only available on their Chinese website and at stores in Asia. Definitely a Hulusi and a Xun and a Suona.  I assume the two bamboo flutes are a Dizi and a Xiao. 

https://www.threebodytech.com/cn/

I wrote them and asked them if they would consider bringing the other stuff out in the US, and the guy promised me they would do so by February.   And then he wrote on VI:Control that they would come out this month..  This is good news because a lot of Chinese composers consider them the very best developers of Chinese instruments. 

This is by far the best Yangqin.  But of course until recently there were very few of them available.  Tons of Guzhengs, but very few Yangqins.

As everybody has the Native Instruments freebie, I've decided to do a comparison video of all the Yangqins that are available.  I think the NI one is really good--it's up there at the top.  But Raindrop & Blade is really something special.

The only other ones I know of besides NI and 3-Body are East West's  Silk, Strezov's Jade Ethnic Orchestra, and Orchestral Tools' Phoenix.  So my video will show why I think this is the one. 

Edited by Reid Rosefelt
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2 hours ago, abacab said:

The Yangqin from NI sounds great, but I have no idea how to play it properly...

It's very hard to get authentic sounding music from a world virtual instrument if you don't know a lot about the real one. 

I think using phrases is a good way to get them to sound real.  Silk has interesting ideas in this area.   The NI one has  draggable MIDI patterns.  so you can take their patterns and change them up a bit in your DAW. 

Raindrop & Blade has them too, but there are a lot more of them, they are a lot longer, and most importantly there is more dynamic range. This is where the 5 velocity layers stands out.  NI doesn't offer any info about velocity layers or round robins. 

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13 hours ago, abacab said:

The Yangqin from NI sounds great, but I have no idea how to play it properly...

Same here, but then again does it really matter?

Who's to say that the yangqin player in "the band" is any good either ? Maybe he just hits it randomly and hopes for the best.

Someone once said to me that the drums in one of my songs sounded good, but were wrong as the drummer would need three hands to play like that.

I replied, maybe someone else was playing some of it?

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53 minutes ago, paulo said:

Someone once said to me that the drums in one of my songs sounded good, but were wrong as the drummer would need three hands to play like that.

I replied, maybe someone else was playing some of it?

I once watched a drum duet performed by Phil Collins and his Genesis tour drummer. Two drum kits. It sounded like a single drummer with 4 arms and 4 feet. They were that tight! Totally frickin awesome! ?

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1 hour ago, abacab said:

I once watched a drum duet performed by Phil Collins and his Genesis tour drummer. Two drum kits. It sounded like a single drummer with 4 arms and 4 feet. They were that tight! Totally frickin awesome! ?

Chester Thompson is his name.

Check their work here - probably the best live version of Fifth of Firth out there:

 

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2 hours ago, husker said:

Chester Thompson is his name.

Check their work here - probably the best live version of Fifth of Firth out there:

Yes, Chester, the "other drummer"!

Great guitar solo on that tune!

And I always wondered about that song title, so I looked it up...

"The title is a pun on the estuary of the River Forth in Scotland, commonly known as the Firth of Forth". ?

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