Tablas
Tablas is a deeply sampled percussion library with a wide selection of live performance phrases performed by tabla master and jazz percussionist Sameer Gupta. It covers every classical tabla articulation and creative alternatives for maximum flexibility.
Tablas is a deeply multi-sampled percussion library with a wide selection of live dynamic performance phrases. The tabla is a popular Indian percussion instrument used in the classical, popular and devotional music of the Indian subcontinent and in Hindustani classical music. The instrument consists of a pair of hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres. We worked with tabla master and jazz percussionist Sameer Gupta to capture a range of tabla rhythm, melody and soul. Sameer has been a student and practitioner in the art of percussion for over 30 years, traveling the world to study and perform in some of the world's most prestigious institutions and venues.
This library was recorded close and dry, in a medium wood and masonry studio. We covered every classical tabla articulation along with a variety of creative alternatives for maximum flexibility. Tablas 2.0 comes with an arsenal of new features and a highly-customizable GUI that allows you to shape the live performance phrases in your own way. You'll also find a broad set of special effects, tuned melodic programs and mutations, as well as a mighty set of brand new ambient drones, pads, and soundscapes crafted and sculpted from the heavily manipulated raw source recordings. We covered every classical tabla articulation and a variety of variants and creative alternatives for maximum flexibility. Tablas is perfect for soundtracks, production music, and much more.
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Artist
Sameer Gupta [website] [music] [Patreon]
Sameer Gupta is known as one of the few percussionists simultaneously representing the traditions of American jazz on drumset, and Indian classical music on tabla. He has performed at Lincoln Center Performing Arts Center in NYC, Birla Auditorium Kolkata, Townhall Seattle, SFJAZZ, Nehru Centre London, NYC MoMA and Yerba Buena Gardens San Francisco.
Sameer completed his Jazz studies learning from his peers on the bandstands in San Francisco and Oakland to Harlem and Brooklyn. His own interests and love of tabla helped guide Sameer to become a co-founder of the non-profit collective Brooklyn Raga Massive. Today he lives in Brooklyn, NYC and is actively involved in performing, curating, producing and teaching through various institutions including the Outside (In)dia Series presented by India Center Foundation, Brooklyn Raga Massive, Carnegie Hall’s Global Encounters and Ragas Live Festival.
Contents
We’ve packed the user interface with powerful sound-shaping controls to give you complete flexibility. The main master Tablas preset contains all the multi-samples in the library and a host of powerful expression features. There are 4 independent sound layers, each with a full set of parameters that can be linked, automated and customized. These include swell, attack, start offset, release (with pad-mode), vibrato, filter, coarse and fine pitch, sound bank selection, and crossfader assignment. Next, we used various sound-design tricks to morph the sounds from our journey into tonal and dissonant pads, synth-tones and ambient dreamscapes. You’ll find these in the Layer 3 (Ambience) sound menu. They can be played by themselves, or used to add texture and body to the primary sounds in Layers 1 and 2. Lastly, the Sub-Synth layer is a basic synthesizer with 10 shapes that can be added for transient and tonal support.
In the advanced settings pull-down window, you’ll also find an adaptable per-layer LFO system, with selectable LFO shape, modulation target parameter, speed, intensity, tempo-syncing and fade-in time. You can also apply your choice of 13 lowpass, high-pass and FX filters, with assignable modulation targets such as velocity, mod-wheel, expression, after-touch, key position and step-sequencer table control. Our customizable arpeggiator features a built-in velocity sequencer table and control over arp direction, note timing, swing, randomization and duration. We’ve also included a key and scale lock system that allows you to constrain your notes to a wide variety of common scales and keys for easy melodic composition and live performance.
The Tablas Loops preset contains over 1,350 loops ranging from 70 bpm to 165 bpm. The built-in loop browser lets you quickly preview loops, filter your search by tempo and you can even star your favorite loops for instant recall. Once you load your loops into the slot grid, you can tweak each loop down to the individual transient slice with playback direction, tempo-sync or beat-mode, normal timing, ½-time or double-time, slice order, ADSR and custom step-automation sequencing for volume, pitch, pan, filter cutoff and resonance parameters that you can freely draw with your mouse.
For non-Kontakt users, we’ve named each WAV file clearly by category and keywords and organized them by category for easy browsing and direct use in cinematic sound design, video games and media post-production work.
Kontakt Format
This library is designed for the full retail version of Native Instruments Kontakt 5.8 or later. Kontakt is an industry-standard advanced virtual instrument software platform. You can view screenshots of this library's custom graphical user interface in the image gallery above. This library is packed with features to provide you a wide range of sound shaping parameter controls, each one totally automation-ready in your host environment or Kontakt's stand-alone mode. Learn more about Kontakt by Clicking Here.
This is a standard Kontakt open-format library, so the free Kontakt Player does not fully support it and can only run it in a limited "demo mode". However, the sample directories are unlocked so you can use them in other wav-compatible software, sampler and synth formats. The special Libraries tab doesn't support this open-format Kontakt library, but you can use the standard File browser tab and import this library into the Kontakt Quickload window for easy loading and navigation.
Product Specs
- Two master NKI instrument banks in open Kontakt format
- 3,703 Stereo Samples
- 3.53 GB installed
- 24 bit / 48 kHz uncompressed PCM wav samples
- 20 Custom Sound-Designed FX and Ambient presets
- Unlocked Kontakt presets and wav samples to allow user customization
- Complete collection of multi-samples and multi-tempo loops
- 20 handcrafted ambiences created from the source content
- Flexible and intuitive multi-layer user interface controls, with LFO, filter, glide, and arpeggiator
- Full FX rack with convolution reverb with custom rooms, halls, chambers & FX environments
Documentation
System Requirements
The full retail version of Native Instruments Kontakt version 5.8 (or later) is required to use .nki instrument presets included in this library. The free Kontakt "Player" and "Add Library" import process do not support this standard open-format Kontakt library. Windows 7 or higher. Mac OSX 10.9 or higher. Dual Core CPU, 2 GB System Ram, SATA or SSD hard drive recommended for this library.
Note: This digital product is delivered as a download via the Amazon S3 cloud network. A broadband internet connection is required. Please see our Help Page for licensing information, download and installation instructions, tutorials and to read our End User Licensing Agreement before ordering. All sales are final.
Videos
Walkthrough: Tablas 2.0
Composing With Tablas 2.0
Tablas 2.0: The Sequencer Tab
Soundiron Podcast with Sameer Gupta
Reviews & Endorsements
"Sameer Gupta and the team at Soundiron have truly put together a fantastic product. Tablas are easily some of the most distinct types of percussion out there. They have been used in Indian music for hundreds of years and now find themselves in a wide range of genres, from electronic music to film music and beyond."