Silk: Silk Road Instrument Library by EastWest Sounds

Silk covers a range of bowed, wind and plucked instruments from China, Persia and India. Recorded legato intervals are included for several of them, including the erhu, jinhu, duduk and bansuri, so passages can be played with smooth transitions between notes.

The developer states that the musicians were recorded at East West Studios using vintage Neumann microphones, Neve consoles and Meitner converters. The library combines about 20 GB of multi-samples with 5 GB of performance recordings.

Silk runs in the OPUS interface, which provides convolution reverb, scripting and a micro-tuning system. Micro-tuning lets you adapt the instruments to different keys and scales, which is useful when you want non-Western tunings or need the sounds to fit a specific harmonic setting.

The OPUS interface is the common thread for controlling these sounds. Scripting and micro-tuning work together to shape how the instruments respond to your playing.