Ventus Winds
Shakuhachi
A beautiful and evocative bamboo flute to evoke the traditional sounds of Japan.
$99
Audio Demos
- Black Lotus (Naked) Solonoid Studio 1:26
- The Old Cherry Tree Henning Nugel 1:34
- Way of a Ronin Martin Krause 1:51
- Tea House on the River Andrew Aversa 1:20
- Under the Sun Brad Jerkins 1:29
- Articulations Showcase (Naked) Solonoid Studio 1:40
- Mr. Sakujitsu Ramiro N. Álvarez 0:45
- Rise of Ninja Dmitry V. Silantyev 1:17
Overview
A traditional Japanese end-blown flute with a distinctive, expressive sound. Includes 15 playing techniques and 600 prerecorded phrases — 6,000 samples in total! Create unique, authentic solo performances made even more realistic thanks to a detailed ornament system that automatically adds ornamentation where a real player would.
Product Info
Over 6,000 24-bit samples
Recorded through warm ribbon and room mics in an intimate studio space.
5 types of sustain articulations
Detailed options to increase realism, such as bends, grace notes, semitones, and emotive sustains. Release articulations include hard stops, slow bends down or up, breathy releases, and ‘honks’.
True legato playing w/ adjustable settings
Play nimble and agile parts or slow, romantic, and emotional lines with true legato transitions.
12 types of trills
Play fast or slow; includes minor/major 2nds and minor/major 3rds.
600+ phrases of multiple lengths and styles
Prerecorded phrases with great variety: shorts, mediums, longs, bends, unique notes, trills, arpeggios, and special FX. Play and edit from within the KONTAKT patch or use the included WAV files.
Features
Beautiful unified VENTUS interface
Ornament system for effortless authentic performances
Phrase playback editor
Digital & analog-modeled FX rack
Customizable articulation mapping and triggers
Requirements
7GB disk space
7200 RPM hard drive or solid state drive recommended.
4GB of RAM
Higher amounts of memory let you load more instruments.
Apple M1, Intel i5 or equivalent CPU
A faster CPU with more cores will allow you to play more simultaneous voices.
Kontakt 5.3.1+ Full
This library is NOT compatible with the free Kontakt Player.
Kontakt Requirements - Mac OS
Intel Macs (i5 or higher): macOS 10.14, 10.15, 11 or 12 (latest update).
Apple Silicon Macs (via Rosetta 2 & natively on ARM in Standalone or in hosts that support it): macOS 11 or 12 (latest update)
Kontakt Requirements - Windows
Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10 (latest Service Pack, 32/64-bit). Intel Core i5 or equivalent CPU. Graphics hardware support for OpenGL 2.1 or higher. Windows 10 strongly recommended.
Tutorials
Library Walkthrough & Overview
TACT (Total Articulation Control Technology)
Featured Artists & Composers
Simon Franglen
Titanic, Skyfall, Spectre, Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water
Impact Soundworks make detailed, emotive instruments. I’ve happily bought over two dozen of their libraries which should say everything. They get used every day.
Matthew Carl Earl
Overwatch 2, Rainbow Six Siege, Call of Duty Mobile, PUBG Mobile, Arknights
"Impact Soundworks creates easy-to-use, great-sounding virtual instruments right out of the box. Highland Harps, Emotional Mallets, and Shreddage 3 are in my daily toolkit."
Mike Reagan
Invincible Fight Girl, Powerpuff Girls, Trials Evolution, God of War, Twisted Metal
"A big thanks to the team at Impact Soundworks for putting inspiration at my fingertips! Your sample libraries are in heavy use in my Orchestral, Rock and Pop templates, and always visible in my top-tier Cue-specific Kontakt. Layering your Shreddage libraries on top of my live guitar tracks creates so much depth, and I get so much out of so many of your other libraries - too many to name. A+ programming and sonic goodness gang!"
The shakuhachi is an ancient end-blown flute used in Japanese music for over 1,300 years. Performing the instrument and using techniques like vibrato is significantly different than Western flutes and recorders. Its five (pentatonic) holes can produce several octaves of pitches with breathy, serene, and emotional tones.
Our shakuhachi library is performed by Josh Plotner, who captured all key articulations and playing techniques of the instrument: from straight sustains and vibrato to bends, ornaments, and phrases.
We started the Ventus Winds series to take you on a journey all over the world, capturing the tones of beautifully performed solo woodwinds outside the Western repertoire. Along with that goal, we want you to be able to create authentic performances without technology getting in the way.
Each Ventus instrument shares several key features, along with a common user interface:
1. Traditional playable articulations alongside a large pool of prerecorded phrases that you can quickly drop into a composition for instant color.
2. An innovative ornaments system designed to automagically create decorative techniques in real-time with no extra sequencing or tweaking needed.
3. The Total Articulation Control Technology (TACT) system to unify and simplify the process of creating your own personal mapping setup for every instrument.
With these three features, combined with our hallmark depth of sampling and attention to detail, we know that our Ventus Winds will become a source of endless inspiration.
Reviews
Ventus Shakuhachi – Original Sound Version
“Ventus Series: Shakuhachi delivers a clear and lifelike performance of the instrument and there are plenty of options for customizing various aspects of the sound. The ornaments feature allows for more spontaneous sounding performances that reflect the strengths of the Shakuhachi’s idiomatic sound. Inclusion of a phrase library offers additional sounds to either enhance existing performances of the main instrument or for use as one shot effects or sound design.” (Original Sound Version)
Ventus Winds Shakuhachi – Producer Spot
“With “Ventus Shakuhachi” you get several times what you pay for, plus the promise of more similar, masterpieces where this came from…If you are like me, and like exotic instruments, produce lots of hip hop or ethnic tracks, or work in film or games, this is almost a must-have. It will make all your Shakuhachi dreams come true, and that without even straining your budget too much.”
Ventus Winds Shakuhachi – Sample Library Review
“The warm sound of the Shakuhachi is as authentic an experience as you can get unless you play the real thing. The inclusion of True Legato, multiple sustains trills and ornaments as well as the breath sounds make this an absolutely beautiful playing experience. The uses for the Shakuhachi transcend beyond traditional Japanese Classical music and meditation pieces. This is a serious instrument for use in movie scores, trailers, electronic, pop and is particularly effective when paired with the Impact Sound Works [sic] Koto Nation.”
Brian Brylow (Sample Library Review)
Ventus Winds: Shakuhachi – macProVideo.com
“Excellent rendition of this classic Eastern instrument. Very deeply sampled library with multiple Mic position, plus the unique TACT technology for phrasing…If you are working on ethnic pieces that focus on the East this is definitely an instrument to add to your toolbox, or it even fits in well with cinematic pieces like film trailers and such….The Ventus Shakuhachi is a super rendition of this classic instrument. It has been sampled with great detail, and making use of the features such as the flutter, dynamics and ornaments can really bring out the character of the instrument.”
Gary Hiebner (macProVideo.com)
Richard Jacques
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Mass Effect, Overwatch 2, James Bond 007: Blood Stone
“I’m a huge fan of the Ventus Winds series. They feature rare instruments deep-sampled to an incredibly high level of detail. It’s so liberating to have such a wide range of articulations & phrases that perfectly capture the nuances and performance style of these instruments… from beautiful to haunting, celebratory to sorrowful. Each is expertly recorded and the sound quality is superb, sitting in the mix with ease. If you want to add authentic world winds to your palette, then look no further.”