Plectra Series 4: Turkish Oud (Kontakt Library)

Concept

Continuing our tradition of beautifully-sampled, stringed Plectra Series instruments comes the Turkish Oud. This Kontakt library, produced by Dimitris Plagiannis, sets a new standard for depth, playability, and realism in non-Western sampled instruments. We are delighted to present Plectra Series 4 - the most realistic and playable virtual oud ever released.

The history of the oud extends back to antiquity, having been referenced in writings over 1,000 years old. It is a fretless, stringed instrument that has been used in both Middle Eastern and European music for many centuries, and is now played all over the world. The instrument we sampled is a custom-made, double soundboard Turkish oud by Faruk Türünz. The instrument was performed by Stelios Varveris and recorded with pristine Neumann & AKG mics through an SSL console in a treated studio room.

We are thrilled to make this instrument available to you and hope that you will use it in many compositions from film/TV/game scores to authentic mockups, or even rock & pop tracks. Enjoy!

Interface & Engine

Our goal in creating this library was to produce an incredibly intuitive instrument that simply sounds great out of the box. The powerful script engine seamlessly voices notes and chords - no complex key switches are required. Advanced users can delve into the gorgeous, inspiring user interface for custom mix controls like microphone blend, EQ, compression, and reverb, and micro-tuning presets can be used to achieve incredibly authentic performances.

The instrument also boasts a powerful micro-tuning engine, with adjustments of up to a quarter-tone per note. This page includes a dropdown menu with preset tunings of various authentic tuning styles. Additionally, you can change the root note of your micro tuning configuration, and if instead of prepared tunings, you wish to invoke micro tuning on the fly, you can simply turn the key knob to the "custom" setting; this will enable the bottom octave latching key switches for on-the-fly micro-tuning. In this mode, all notes that are micro tuned are tuned down a full quarter tone.

Watch Walkthrough

SOUND DEMO