MOTU has announced version 2.0 of Ethno Instrument, an upgrade that more than doubles the size of the included sound library of instruments, loops and phrases. Significant new features have also been added, including preset searching, microtonal scales, "state-of-the-art" time stretching, and more.

EI 2 includes new sounds from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Balkans, the British Isles, Latin America, Australia, and many other locations around the globe. Featured sounds include taiko drums, large African drums, thirty new instruments from India, hundreds of urban India loops (in the style of Slumdog Millionaire), Balkanish voices, Arabic voices, Persian voices, an extensive new collection of gongs and bells, extended cymbalum, and much more.

To help users quickly find sounds in this 21 GB library, Ethno 2 lets users browse presets by geographic region or instrument category, or by a new search feature: users type in an instrument name or other text phrase and all presets with that text in their name instantly appear in the browser list. Users then simply click to audition sounds, without having to close the browser, for fast previewing and loading of sounds into separate parts. Version 2 now supports unlimited parts, so users can quickly build ensembles of instrument sounds, loops and phrases, with no limits on the size of the ensemble.

Ethno 2 gives users access to the rich and exotic world of non-western tuning and scales. Users can browse dozens of microtuning presets from all over the world, organized by world region or by scale type, and then play authentic non-western tempered scales of any size (from five tones to 24 tones) via any standard MIDI controller. The supplied microtonal presets were developed by a world expert in micro-tuning and conform to the Scala open file standard (.scl) for microtuning. Users can visit the scala web site, browse thousands of microtuning files, download them for free, and simply drag and drop them into Ethno 2 to add them as user presets. Scales can be freely applied to any instrument presets, allowing users to mix and match microtuning scales with sounds from anywhere around the globe. For example, a microtuning scale from Thailand could be applied to a Celtic harp sound from Ireland.

Since its first release, Ethno has been recognized for its extensive tempo-matching features. Loops always play in time with each other and the host application, when running as a plug-in. Version 2 extends these time-stretching capabilities with enhanced, "state-of-the-art" audio processing technology licensed from the IRCAM institute for advanced research in Paris. Users can speed up, slow down, or match tempos of loops and phrases with "unprecedented" audio quality, even with extreme changes in speed, either faster or slower. Time stretching presets are provided for various types of material (vocals, percussive, etc.) to further maintain excellent sound quality at all tempos.

Other Version 2 feature highlights include:

• Enhanced effects processing: includes new modeled analog EQ, CPU-optimized convolution reverb and eight new analog modeled filters (rez, comb, analog and more).
• Keyswitch presets: dozens of new, richly-layered keyswitch (KS) presets in all categories for ultra-expressive performance.
• Version 1 compatibility: Ethno 2's new sound library is compatible with Version 1, so music programmed with Version 1 presets can be loaded and played with Version 2.
• Latest-generation UVI Engine: provides state-of-the-art virtual instrument performance, 64-bit native operation and robust compatibility with the latest Mac OS X and Windows operating systems, plus the latest DAW hosts.

Pricing & Availability

Priced at $395, Ethno Instrument Version 2 is scheduled to be released in Q1 of 2010. An upgrade path will be offered for Ethno Version 1 users.