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I have a project where I want to use cimbalom samples (yes like on The Third Man). I found two libraries for about the same price, one from a company called Bolder Sounds and another from Precision Sound. Has anyone ever used anything from either of these two companies. Any info or opinions would be appreciated.
Kinny Landrum

I've not used either of those two, but I like the cimbalom in SAM True Strike 2. It's deep and expressive. TS2 is big library that has a lot of ethnic percussion, so if you're in the market for that then you can kill two birds. Otherwise, it's kind of pricey for just a cimbalom.

http://www.projectsam.com/Online-Shop/True-Strike/

Thanks for the reply Blue. Yes I had seen this and it was a little too pricey for me. But then, in the tradition of "making do with what you got", I looked at my World card on the JV 1080 and found both a cimbalom and a hammered dulcimer preset and used that for the demo and was pretty pleased with the results. Now let's hope the client is pleased as well. Thanks again,
Kinny Landrum

I have considered both of the above-mentioned cimbalom libraries (actually, both companies have multiple libraries as each cimbalom sounds different as there are large ones, small ones, etc.).

PrecisionSound libraries are excellent, with high resolution and good detail, as well as good articulation. But they are a bit pricey, so I wait for their sales, and even then, am cautious and first deeply review what is in RA and Kontakt 3. In most cases the dedicated libraries from PrecisionSound have more detail, but it can get expensive fast if one buys a la carte.

I owned Bolder Sounds' celtic pipes library for the Motif workstation, and it was the most playable bagpipe library out there, being the only one to properly model the drone. I have considered rebuying it in Kontakt format if I find that the pipes in Bela D Anthology: Celtic Winds or in RA and Kontakt 3 do not make it easy to handle the drone. Overall though, his samples come from an earlier hardware-biased period and thus are more limited in depth.

I think I have a cimbalom library or two from the merged Sampletekk/Post Musical Instruments collection, but I'd have to recheck. The one in Kontakt 3 is acceptable and way better than the one in MOTU Ethno (which doesn't seem to have been miked appropriately for a good range of attack envelopes). Or maybe it was the one in RA .

At any rate, PrecisionSounds has a lovely Santur library, which is the Persian variant of the hammered dulcimer family and has a more fluid tone than the more aggressive and percussive sound of the Roma variant commonly referred to as the cimbalom. It would not be at all redundant to get that library and maybe Bolder's or PrecisionSound's other ones for Celtic and Roma applications of hammered dulcimer sounds. Yet I think Kontakt 3 and/or RA also have a fairly good Santur on-board, if I recall (I have to double-check -- I was hesitant to spend $65 on a dedicated Santur library unless I find the one in the larger libraries to be unacceptable).

I would say of all of my sample libraries from companies that have not either gone to standalone players or are on their way to standalone players (and this includes Garritan), PrecisionSound is my favourite in terms of quality, depth, and playability. Nice people too.

But the downloads can be problematic on the Mac; just be patient and don't panic. You might have to try multiple archiver tools to unpack, delete your trash, reboot or restart the browser, try another browser to download from, etc. But it's worth it in the end . Just don't expect to get anything else done.

Thanks for the detailed response. There doesn't seem to be any kind of hammered dulcimer in the Kontakt 3 library, although there is an OK one in the instruments that came with Logic (called a Celtic Hammered dulcimer). But I've already done the demo with what I found in the World card for the JV 180. Let's see if the client buys it and then I'll see what I do next. But thanks a lot for the detailed input. I may go from the PrecisionSound one after all.

Just remember it goes by many names; hammered dulcimer is the anglo/celtic name and isn't commonly used elsewhere.

Check out the Hackebord in PMI Orchestral Instruments from Sampletekk:
http://www.sampletekk.com/proddetail.ph ... 008-FORMAT

I've got that one, but bought that library for the other stuff (during a 50-60% markdown sale). It's by no means my favourite, but does have its own sound. There are audio examples you can judge by.

I can highly recommend the cimbalom samples from these guys:

http://www.store.precisionsound.net/

I asked them for cimbalom, and they actually went out and did it! Hows that for customer response! I've used this in project lately for that mysterious twang I needed......

These guys have other samples that are really interesting, so check them out. They often have good sales too....

By the way, the THIRD MAN didn't use a cimbalom....it used a zither.... a very different sound.

That's good that they now have samples posted; they didn't when I checked a week or so ago.

They also have two other new libraries, including one based on an early physically-modeled Roland digital piano.

In the third man the instrument used is a zither, very different instrument and sound to cymbalom.
Although santoor, hackbret (used in Bavaria and parts of Germany, mainly) and various hammered dulcimers (Celtic, Indonesian, Chinese etc.) and cymbalom are instruments of the same family, they all sound different. Cymbalom sounds very different, with greater range, dumping pedal and built on a steel frame. Listening to samples, the one hellcat recommended (http://www.store.precisionsound.net/ sounds very good. it will not be easy to get it sound real, as the technique of playing it is not easily approximated on a keyboard. But only cymbalom playing experts might notice!

good luck!

As someone who owned the largest Dusty Strings hammered dulcimer (Irish style) for many years, I am quite good at making musical use of sample libraries. It hadn't really occurred to me how handy this background was compared to someone who has never tried playing one, so I might recommend going into a folk instrument store and trying one out for awhile if they have one. There's an interesting rebound effect that one doesn't get from most keyboard based instruments, but which one can emulate anyway.

I just got email that there's an easter sale on at precisionsound, for 30% off all libraries until 31 March. I am going to at the very least add the Santur library, as surely it is more detailed than the Santur in Kontakt 3 -- although that one is pretty good (sorry, my CPU and memory can't handle bringing up VI's or DAW's while the browser is open, so I can't really verify right now that it is in Kontakt 3 vs. RA).

I personally prefer the sound of the Santur to the Irish Hammered Dulcimer, as it seems more fluid and also more piano-like. Many people on this forum may be aware of the fortepiano/pianoforte's complex history that borrows almost equally from the harpsichord and the hammered dulcimer. Hammered dulcimers in eastern Europe were getting bigger and bigger to where they required multiple players, and the idea of attaching a keyboard to better enable a single player took hold, with recent research indicating that the piano may more appropriately owe its origin to eastern vs. western European inventions and innovations.

For the opposite end of the dulcimer menu, you could choose the ultra-mellow Kim from Thailand, which is played with bamboo beaters:

http://www.soniccouture.com/pages/downloads-kim.php

kinnylandrum wrote:Hammered dulcimer). But I've already done the demo with what I found in the World card for the JV 180. Let's see if the client buys it and then I'll see what I do next.

Cool. I got away with one in Roland Soundcanvass (ancient now) for years and no-one noticed, including some some cymbalom players.

Here's a joke: after moving all my sample libraries to a new/larger external hard drive last night, I went into each app to reset the library pointers, and noticed that Quantum Leap Gypsy has its hammered dulcimer instruments divided up into "cymbalom" and "cymbalon" (I'm doing this from memory so am uncertain of the vowels used as those differ based on the country, but the key point is the ending letter as either "m" or "n" and thus having the instruments split in half instead of all gathered together).