The Mbira is a folk instrument originally from Africa.
Sometimes called a Thumb Piano, Sanza, or Kalimba, they are generally home-made and consist of metal tines attached to a piece of wood, which are plucked with the thumbs. They are mostly small, with a handful of notes.
Array Instruments, started by Bill Wesley and Patrick Hadley, have taken the concept of this ancient African idiophone to a whole new level, not only in terms of instrument design but also in purity of sound, and range of pitch.
The Array Mbira is no toy, it’s a highly advanced musical instrument built to exacting speciï¬cations.
This is not related to the Mbira that is featured in Box Of Tricks
The Mix page allows control of the separate mic and pickup channel levels, as well as the KSP Strummer module, where you can strum the Mbira using the mod-wheel or controller of your choice.
The expanded controls feature Thumb transient, Damping and Key-off setup, the Strummer, and detailed channel controls.
The latest evolution of our generative arpeggiator - Hold a chord, and let it evolve - or loop a section and jam between 12 sequences. Record your patterns with the MIDI recorder, and drag and drop into your DAW..
A completely user configurable FX chain: choose from 16 different effects in 6 insert slots - in any order you like. The Space processor offers everything from straight rooms and halls to ambient convolution effects.
Array Mbiras have a stereo pickup output, shown here.
A shot showing the twin sound holes, straight through the body of the Mbira.
The Array note system marked on the mounting plates.
An overhead view of the mbira.
The Mbira sampling session, showing overhead XY pair and sound hole micing.
The Mbira's large sound box (this model is about 77 cm across ) allows for much deeper pitches to be heard acoustically: the lowest fundamental on our mbira is in the region of 33 Hz.
All Array Mbiras come equipped with a 2-channel piezo pickup system, allowing for easy ampliï¬cation and line-out recording. The low end from the pickups alone is surprisingly smooth and deep; combine it with mics and it's booming.
This is a Kontakt Player instrument. This means that you do not need to own the full version of NI Kontakt to use it. It will run as a plug-in instrument in any VST/AU/RTAS/AAX/WASAPI,compatible host program or DAW eg: Cubase, Logic, Ableton Live, DP, Reaper, Pro-Tools. No extra purchase necessary.
System Requirements:
Windows 7 or higher (latest Service Pack, 32/64 Bit), Intel Core Duo or AMD AthlonTM 64 X2, 4 GB RAM (6 GB RAM recommended)
Mac: OS X 10.9 or higher, Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM
Requires KONTAKT 5 or KONTAKT 5 PLAYER version 5.5 or later
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