The Kim is a type of dulcimer or zither from Thailand and is related to the Chinese yangqin. Sometimes spelled khim, the instrument consists of a flat soundbox with 42 wire strings stretched across in 14 sets of 3. The strings are struck with two thin bamboo mallets with soft leather tips.
Sounds
Kim
de Soniccouture
The Kim is not a loud instrument, and it is typically played with a lot of tremolo. As there is no damping mechanism, the strings ring to their natural decay, giving an eerie resonance to the background of a Kim performance. The Kim is used in both solo and ensemble situations. This extremely unusual instrument can add an atmospheric edge to all kinds of productions, from film scoring to ambient sound-scaping to folk music.
The Soniccouture Kim was sampled at 24-bit 44.1kHz and contains 137 separate unlooped samples. Each note was sampled individually with up to 5 velocity layers, twice, to give an extremely natural, expressive response.
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