Native Instruments East Asia

Instrument

Native Instruments

Christof Baer

last updated this article on

January 21, 2022

and first floated it on

June 29, 2021

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Native Instruments goes East

Native Instruments adds East Asia to its Spotlight Collection/ Discovery Series. The instruments include string, wind, percussion sounds, featuring dulcimer, flute, oboe, gong, drums and cymbals. Going beyond single sounds, Native Instruments captured original performances from expert players in Seoul (South Korea), Shenzhen (China), and Tokyo (Japan).

Expert players were captured in South Korea, China and Japan for NI's EAST ASIA

The instrument’s built-in traditional scales and tunings help musicians shape melodies and rhythms with a more authentic sound. Split into melodic instruments and percussion instruments, each instrument and ensemble comes with preset grooves and phrases, which can be further tweaked with macro controls for personalising your performance.

Highlights include:

42 NKI Instruments: 4 Ensembles, 14 Melodic, 24 Percussion
Sequencer: Built-in step sequencer to build percussion grooves across a full ensemble
Variations: Patterns can be modulated with groove, feel and intensity parameters
Expression: Use the mod wheel to introduce tremolo, and key switches to trigger phrases
Scales: A variety of Western and Eastern scales can be applied to melodic instruments
Effects: Route individual instruments in ensembles to pan, reverb and compression

The plugin runs in the free KONTAKT PLAYER, and weighs in at a heavy 26GB. It is NKS compatible, making the instrument more accessible through Komplete and Maschine hardware.

Native Instruments East Asia captures performances in one plug in

Our View

Whether you are trying to create authentic East Asian music in the computer, inject unusual sounds into modern music, or are a media composer, EAST ASIA offers an interesting option. There are several other KONTAKT libraries available for Asian instruments, including Soniccouture Guzheng, Wavesfactory Guzheng, or Soundiron Angklung. As the owner of several Native Instruments libraries from the Discovery Series (now called Spotlight Collection), the performances have impressed me. They captured character, yet allow you to instantly change performances.

Unfortunately, there is no demo available, and the pricing is not a bargain buy. But if you want to add a unique range of instruments to your sound palette, it may well be worth a closer look.