Soniccouture has announced the release of GuZheng - Chinese Zither, a new sample library for Kontakt, EXS24 and Live.

A Guzheng is a traditional Chinese instrument dating from the Qin dynasty (c. 200 BC to the rest of us). It is the ancestor of the Japanese Koto as well as several other zither-like instruments found across East Asia.

The notes are plucked with the right hand, on which the player wears tortoiseshell finger-picks. The left hand is usually bare, but sometimes used to pluck accompanying notes as well as providing pitch bend and vibrato effects behind the bridge. Sometimes virtuoso performers will use finger picks on both hands. Other playing techniques include tremolo (very fast repeated notes), harmonics, and sweeping glissandos.

The Soniccouture Guzheng instrument has been extensively recorded in 24 bit 44.1khz stereo. Three articulations were sampled: right hand (finger picks), left hand (flesh), and harmonics (finger picks). Up to ten velocity levels, three round robin alternations for the right hand, and two round robin alternations for the left hand. This ensures natural attack transients with no 'machine-gun' repetition. Across all 21 strings this amounts to 1027 samples totaling just over 2 gigabytes. Soniccouture provide a method to play the Guzheng in its original tuning, or in chromatic tuning, for each format.

Specification:

• 2.25 GB Sampled Instrument.
• 24 bit Stereo 44.1 Recording.
• KSP 'Last Note Standing' PitchBend Processor.
• KSP Glissando and Tremolo Processors.
• Right (Picked) and Left Hand (Finger) + Harmonics Sampling.
• 3 Round Robin Layers + Up to 10 Velocity layers per note.
• Kontakt 2 / 3, Logic EXS24 or Ableton Live 7 required.

Guzheng is available now, only from www.soniccouture.com. Download price is $99 / £49 (DVD: $104 / £52).