EastWest Quantum Leap's Silk
Silk (Mac/Win, $595 [MSRP]) is a 35 GB library from EastWest Quantum Leap of multisampled instruments from China, India, and Persia. Each instrument has its own interface displaying only the essential controls. The underlying engine is a custom-designed, iLok-protected, standalone and VST, AU, and RTAS plug-in virtual instrument. Key features include scripted playing techniques, authentic microtuning and scale correction, convolution reverb, and interval sampling (where appropriate) controlled by the MIDI Mod Wheel. All recordings are by master musicians on their instruments. Check out the video and audio demos featuring Quantum Leap producer Nick Phoenix on the EastWest Web site (soundsonline.com).
Big Fish Audio's Ueberschall Ambient Works
Ambient Works (Mac/Win, $99.95) is the latest in Ueberschall's Nouvelle Series of pliable construction kits utilizing the Melodyne-powered Liquid Player virtual instrument. The 1.8 GB collection contains loops and individual hits arranged in 24 kits covering a cross-section of tempos and tonalities — more than 780 samples in all. You'll find pads, strings, atmospheres, natural sounds, and percussion, and Liquid Player lets you bend both pitch and time to your needs. Ambient Works is distributed by Big Fish Audio (bigfishaudio.com); find full details and audio demos on its Web site.
Wallander Instruments' Saxophone Collections
Saxophones 1 and 2 (Mac/Win, $399 and $299) are the latest releases in the Wallander (wallanderinstruments.com) WIVI collection of resynthesized orchestral virtual instruments. Because the instruments are not sample based, you are not limited by discrete Velocity zones, RAM requirements, or disk-streaming speed. WIVI automatically handles divisi voicing across multiple instruments in ensemble playing and gives you precise control over spatialization and performance expression. Saxophones 1 covers the traditional family of baritone, tenor, alto, and soprano sax. Saxophones 2 adds C melody, mezzo-soprano, C soprano, and sopranino saxes to the mix. In both collections, you get three of each instrument. Wallander instruments are distributed by MV Pro Audio (mvproaudio.com).