New from Soniccouture is Bowed Gamelan, the third free instrument in the company's Exclusive Content series. The samples in this unique library were made from just one instrument, the ugal, instead of the entire gamelan ensemble.

The ugal, which is pitched in the middle of the gamelan range, is a versatile instrument that often leads the gangsa section of a traditional Balinese group. With 14 keys, the ugal covers a range of almost three octaves.

In typical Soniccouture fashion, the samples were created and recorded in unconventional ways. The ugal's metal keys were bowed with a standard cello bow, vertically across the thin edge of the metal. And instead of using a conventional microphone, the makers recorded with a Trance Audio Trance Inducer contact mic, for a detailed, surgical scraping quality.

The library's 140 samples are of 24-bit, 44.1 kHz quality, looped with a bow change for a natural sounding sustain. Five alternate round robin samples per note are included, in addition to key-off samples. Bowed Gamelan is available in formats ready for Kontakt, EXS, and Ableton Live. For more details, turn to Soniccouture's official Web site.