The Pan Flutes
Pan flutes (or pan pipes) are instruments that developed independently all over the world, featuring tuned pipes or tubes created from various kinds of wood or reed. For our library, we sampled the versatile Romanian nai, whose beautiful and breathy tone is instantly recognizable from countless film scores and albums. The nai offers a fairly large pitch range compared to many pan flutes, making it ideal as both a melodic and accompanying instrument for many styles.
We paired this instrument with a pan flute from an entirely different region – the powerful, bassy toyo, originating in the Andean Peru and Bolivia. So large is the toyo that it was traditionally played by two people; these performers (usually women), would become musically bonded and play only with each other. The toyo belongs to a greater family of pan flutes known as siku, which in turn gives its name to the musical genre known as sikuri.
These two flutes were a perfect fit for the Ventus series. Their bright, breathy tones can easily be used for soft and ambient music, but they are also capable of extremely bright and agile playing as well with sharp staccatos, pops, and tongued notes. The majesty of pan flutes is particularly suited for music evoking nature, wind, sky, and sea.
Our pan flute library is performed by Josh Plotner, who captured all key articulations and playing techniques of the instrument: sustains, ornaments, staccatos, legato, portamento, bends, phrases and much more!
Ventus Series Concept
We started the Ventus Ethnic Winds series to take you on a journey all over the world, capturing the tones of beautifully performed solo woodwinds outside the Western repertoire. Along with that goal, we want you to be able to create authentic performances without technology getting in the way.
Each Ventus instrument shares several key features, along with a common user interface:
1. Traditional playable articulations alongside a large pool of pre-recorded phrases that you can quickly drop into a composition for instant color.
2. An innovative ornaments system designed to automagically createdecorative techniques in real time with no extra sequencing or tweaking needed.
3. Our unique Total Articulation Control Technology (TACT) to unify and simplify the process of creating your own personal mapping setup for every instrument.
With these three features, combined with our hallmark depth of sampling and attention to detail, we know that our Ventus Ethnic Winds will become a source of endless inspiration.
