In their tradition of sampling hard-to-find ethnic instruments, Soniccouture just released a multisampled library of the Chinese Guzheng for Kontakt, EXS24, and Live 7 Instrument Rack. The 21 string instrument dates from 200 BC and is traditionally tuned to the D pentatonic scale over a four octave range. Its sound is reminiscent of a Japanese Koto.

The sampler instruments include chromatic and transposable-pentatonic versions along with a variety of control options to facilitate playing the instrument authentically. For example, clever Kontakt scripting uses MIDI Aftertouch to pitchbend only the last-played note.

YouTube videos of the same performance on a real Guzheng and the sampled version are posted on the Soniccouture Web site (soniccouture.com).