$99.99
Add to Cart
$99.99
Add to Cart
Explore the world of music like never before. Add the rich, beautiful tones of our deeply sampled Qanun to your music.
The Qanun goes as far back as music itself. Played in the courts of Assyria and written about by ancient Greek historians, it’s still in play today across the Middle East and beyond. As it’s one of the first instruments in play today to emerge in history, it’s only natural that we picked it as our first instrument to release.
What we sampled and present you here is the Armenian Qanun in its truest digital form and was hand-made in a small village in Armenia in the Southern Caucasus. Made of wood with an animal skin-covered base, it has metal levers and wooden tuning pegs to alter the pitch of the note and can play a range of up to 3 and a half octaves. The player wears a silver thimble and a pick made of bull horns on both index fingers.
The Armenian Qanun has an entirely different structure and sound than the other variants of the instrument. It is the only instrument sharing the name to have two diatonic levers, with reference mandals placed at equidistant half-tones (Arabic Qanuns, on the other hand, use quarter-tones, and Turkish models going further). This gives the Armenian Qanun an equal temperament that extends the musical range of the instrument beyond the mughams of the Middle East onto Western-style concertos, symphonies and even jazz.
Besides its exotic merits, the Qanun can serve as a replacement for piano and harp in traditional arrangements. Bring a touch of uniqueness and mystery to your cinematic arrangements or indulge in Middle Eastern flavors with the Qanun at the front.
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The talented Mayranush Rubenyan broke onto the world scene when she first played for the Age of Empires IV soundtrack. The Qanun and her playing were featured to add authentic flair to the Ottomans and Arab cultures. She got her start over 17 years ago at the early age of 6, when she first saw her mother playing it and fell in love with the instrument.
Maryanush mastered the instrument at the Artemi Ayvazyan Music School in Ashtarak and later in the Arno Babajanyan Music College in Yerevan. Still residing in her native Oshakan, she’s continuing her musical education at Yerevan State Conservatory.
Read more about her story on our blog or watch it on the Behind The Scenes video above.
Our Qanun is deeply sampled using 2 mics, catching every pristine pluck by Mayranush with her bullhorn pick in delicate perfection. With up to 5 round robins and 5 velocity layers on each of the 8 articulations, we’re positive that you’ve never heard a Qanun this beautifully or professionally recorded.
There is no instrument like the qanun, and no qanun like this one. From its birth, the maker spent loving care on its creation, passing it on to Mayranush for extraordinary care and nourishing by her delicate style of play.
6708 Samples
3GB 5.84GB (Uncompressed)
Requires Kontakt 6 Full Retail – Latest Version
(Does not work in the Free Kontakt Player)
No. Kontakt Player is a free sampler plugin, which will only load “Powered by Kontakt” libraries designed for Kontakt Player. Kontakt (full retail/paid version) is Native Instruments’ exclusive retail software sampler, which will load all Kontakt libraries, including Kontakt non-player libraries which do not work in the free Kontakt Player.
The retail version of Kontakt also provides users the added benefit of unlocking the instrument to “go under the hood” and tweak, which Kontakt Player users cannot do. Our products only work with the retail version of Kontakt.
If you encounter a “Content Missing” dialog when loading a DAW project or Kontakt Library instrument, it means Kontakt cannot locate its samples. This often happens when library files are moved or their file paths become invalid.
Batch resaving will correct the file paths for samples in all Kontakt instruments within a library.
Ensure you use an older version of Kontakt if you plan to open the library in that version later. Batch resaving with a newer version may make it incompatible with older Kontakt versions.
Only use batch resave on individual libraries; avoid batch resaving entire disks or directories of libraries.
Open Kontakt’s Main Control Panel, then go to the “File” drop-down menu and select “Batch re-save.”
Confirm any warning dialog that appears by clicking “Yes”.
Locate the library folder in your OS file explorer (Finder for macOS or Windows Explorer for Windows). Select the library, then click “Open”.
Kontakt will check the library, and if samples are missing, a “Samples Missing” dialog will appear. Click “Browse for folder”.
In the “Locate Folder” window, choose the library’s “Samples” folder and click “Open”.
Kontakt will proceed to batch resave the library, re-linking all the instruments to their respective sample content. After this process, your Kontakt library’s instruments should load without issue.
To begin the process of downloading your new instrument, please note that all downloads are managed through an application called Pulse. This download manager is designed for sample libraries and ensures fast and reliable downloads. Be sure to have your purchase license key, which you should have received via email after your purchase.
If you don’t already have Pulse installed, you can download it by following this link<
Once the Pulse installer is downloaded, run it to install the application on your computer.
Open the Pulse application, where you will need to either register a new username and password or log in with your existing Pulse account details. Please note that this login is distinct from your Westwood Instruments account.
After logging in, locate the “+ Add a Product” option in the Pulse application.
Copy and paste your license key, which can be found in the purchase email you received, and then click “Redeem”.
You’ll be prompted to choose where you want to save the instrument. Select a location on your computer with sufficient free space and click “Download”.
