Heart Of Asia
Sample CD-ROM library for Roland S-series and compatibles

"Heart Of Asia" is a monumental, 2-CD-ROM sample set for the Roland S-700 series and compatibles.

This set is truly a dream for composers of ethnic, new age, and most of all soundtrack music.  The two CDs contain a myriad of Asian samples:  some are full-blown musical phrases that you can re-arrange and include in your music, and some are multi-sampled instruments that you can play via a keyboard.

Heart Of Asia includes brass, beats, cymbals, ethnic, flutes, fretted instruments, FX, mallets, orchestral, pluck, percussion, singing, string, talking, and wind instruments and setups.

The Roland sampler programming is very good, with the usual controls (aftertouch, velocity/switch, modulation wheel) assigned to the performances.
 
This Roland CD-ROM set as described by the company:

"Phrases, instruments & utterances from the Far East for Roland 700 series samplers & sample players - Volume One & Two"

In order to use these CD-ROMs you will need a SCSI CD-ROM drive connected to your S-series sampler or XV-5080.  Keep in mind that certain sound data will need 32MB of memory, supported only by the S-760.  The S-770 and 750 have less.

 

Spectrasonics Heart Of Asia audio demos

All examples below have been run through a Lexicon MPX-1 for reverb ambience.

Stream all audio examples below
 

 

Performance name with audio demo My comments
Disc 1
DEMO - Instant Asia A fascinating trip along the keyboard
BRASS - Tibet Brass Elephants!
BTS - Gamelan Orchestra Phrases 1 Beautiful, hypnotic gamelan orchestra
BTS - Indian Drum Song Great tablas and Indian vocals
BTS - Indian Percussion Ensemble 1 Superb tablas and other Indian percussion
BTS - Indian Veena Guitar 1 Incredible veena samples.
BTS - Malaysian Drums grooves 1 Solid drums
BTS - Malaysian Orchestra Phrases 1 Nice samples
BTS - Thai Orchestra Phrases The Far East!
BTS - Wild Tibet Loops Fantastic atmospheres!
CYMBALS - Chinese Cymbal Phrases 1 (Large) Typical Chinese cymbals
ETHNIC - ANGKLUNGS Ok
FLUTES - BAN-DI -Chinese Flute (v-s, f and p patches) Mega-expressive flute - nice velocity-switch patch.
FLUTES - Malaysian Seruling Flute Phrases Same as above
FRETTED INSTRUMENTS - JAKAY - Thai Zither (v-s, mf and mp patches) Cool
FRETTED INSTRUMENTS - PIPA - Chinese Mandolin (v-s, f and p patches) Wonderful pipa sound, very expressive and easy to play on the keyboard.
FX - Asia Atmospheres Like being there.
Disc 2
MALLETS - BONANG 1 Cool ethnic bowls
MALLETS - GONG BESAR Excellent gong
MALLETS - KULINGTANG Nice mallet sounds
ORCH - GAMELAN ORCHESTRA HITS More gamelan beauty
PERCUSSION - CHINESE PERCUSSION Great Chinese percussion
PERCUSSION - INDIAN PERCUSSION Check out the fast phrases ;-)
PLUCK - GUZHEN -Chinese Koto Love this sound.
SINGING - Chinese Opera Diva Phrases 1 Yep
SINGING - Indian Male - Alaap Phrases Hypnotic
SINGING - Thai Opera Diva Sweet
SINGING - Tibetan Man :-)
STRING - CHINESE ER-HU -violin (v-s and f patches w vibrato) One of China's most famous instruments - superb playability on the keyboard!
TALKING - Dao Poet Yes
TALKING - Malaysian Female :-)
WIND - BESUA REED Cool, expressive patch
WIND - KULUI FLUTE Another quintessential Asian sound

 

Spectrasonics Heart Of Asia specifications

 

Year of release: 1994
Polyphony:  
Sound generation method:  
Preset memories  
MIDI:  
Sound expansion capabilities:  
Sequencer  
Arpeggiator  
Effects  


 

Spectrasonics Heart Of Asia pictures (click on thumbnails to enlarge)

 

Spectrasonics Heart Of Asia manuals

I compiled two pdfs of the manuals:

Heart Of Asia CD listing.pdf 

Heart Of Asia manual.pdf

 

Links

 

SITE Type of resource DESCRIPTION
     
     

Spectrasonics Heart Of Asia review with audio demo