Niladri Kumar’s Priority is an interesting new-age/space music track, and it’s got a really nice animated music video.

Kumar plays the Zitar, and electric sitar, and the DnB tabla is kind of cool, too.

Description:

The Tabla (also known as Arabic drum, darbukkah, darbouka or dumbak) is a single-headed hand- drum found in most Arab music ensembles.

This application provides a Tabla with 5 different beat sounds, the “Doum” in the middle, and 4 different “Taks” in the four corners of the drum. For best sound quality, connect your iPhone/iPod touch to external speakers or headphones.

You can play your iPod music in the background while using this application.

“Sitar Nation” was designed to address the lack of sample collections focusing exclusively on Indian instruments with a level of depth normally reserved for violins and pianos. Priced at $119 as a digital download, the library enables any composer or producer with Kontakt to create realistic, expressive performances of the sitar, tambura, tabla and baya.

You can preview Sitar Nation below:

Details:

“Sitar Nation” features over 2.7 gigabytes of 24-bit samples programmed for Kontakt, making full use of the sampler’s scripting, mapping and processing capabilities. Users can choose from three mic positions for any of the primary playing techniques, which range from fingered and picked plucking to glissandos, whole tone bends, mordents, tremolos, phrases, strums, drones, and more. Extensive velocity layers and round robins are used throughout the library to reduce the “machine gun” effect and improve realism. For composers and producers looking for quick inspiration, a collection of tabla and baya MIDI grooves are included which feature a range of styles and are compatible with any sequencer at any tempo.

Along with a variety of important articulations and strokes, the library also includes a folder of special “FX” patches which make use of extensive offline and realtime processing to create entirely new sounds from the core audio content. Patches in this category include both inharmonic, warped and distorted sounds as well as warm pads, flute-like tones, granulized textures, and a number of others.

The library was produced and designed by composers Andrew Aversa and Wilbert Roget, II. Professional musicians were hired to perform the sounds in a high-end facility in Philadelphia, PA using Neumann and AKG microphones, API preamps and Pro Tools HD.

“Sitar Nation: Classical Instruments of India” is available now directly through the Impact Soundworks website where it can be purchased for $119 as a digital download. The library is programmed for Native Instruments’ Kontakt sampler, versions 2 and higher.

The sound library contains over 835 samples packed in 1,5 Gb and includes 36 instruments and 2 vocals. The collection covers the foundations of the classic Indian sound – Tabla, Sitar, Shenai, Harmonium and Bamboo Flute, and South Indian instruments such as Veena, Ganjira, Maddalam, and rare Indian folk instruments (Edakka, Udukku, Darbuka, etc.)

“The gem of the Sounds of India is the Sitar. Its sound came out more wonderful than expected” according to the manager of the project, Indian Music Producer and Audio Engineer Vipin Venugopalan.

Every sound was captured without alteration in pitch so sample mapping gives a unique sample for every key. Pitches were recorded in Chromatic Order and sounds from the finger board and the frets were not altered in order to preserve the instruments natural essence.

The Sounds of India can be ordered from FL Studio Web shop for $89.

Henry Lowengard’s Sruti Box iPhone application simulates a sruti box with 12 reeds, which can be tuned in various ways, and you pump the bellows by waving the phone. There is a parameter that can be set so you don’t have to do this, but I find it adds to the authenticity in a subtle way.

SrutiBox provides sets of intervals, timbres and voicing controls to build drones for music, meditation, tuning, and educational purposes.

For example, you can use a variety of tuning tables, including Just, Harmonic, equal tempered & Sruti.

Here’s a demo of the Sruti Box in action:

I like that Lowengard is doing something a little left-field with Sruti Box. I downloaded this earlier – not sure exactly what I’m going to do with it, but it’s three bucks in the App Store (App Store link), so it’s cheap to check out.