Soniccouture's quest for the unique, the esoteric, and the downright weird and quirky brings us to our latest obsession, the Hang, a relatively new instrument that's hand-built in Switzerland and is difficult to get hold of – the wait to purchase one can be up to two years long. The Hang is a steel, disk-shaped, harmonically tuned percussion instrument that's played with the hands. It's incredibly sensitive and dynamic; the entire disk resonates at a central frequency as your hands move around the edge, teasing the notes out.

There are two types of Hang: the Mk 1 and the Mk 2. The Mk 1 had 8 notes around the Ding (the top side of the Hang). These were available in 45 different tunings, and PANArt produced nearly 4000 of them. The Mk 2 is basically the same shape but has a brass coating on the top and around the rim. The Mk 2 comes in only five different tunings and has only seven notes around the Ding. It is a sturdier design, stays in tune better over time, and has a slightly longer and purer ring. We have recorded an example of each Hang for this sampled instrument.

The Soniccouture Pan Drum instruments feature over 1000 samples per drum, with up to 21 velocity layers. We've sampled six different areas of the drum (called Gu, Ding, Outer Ding, Tone-Field Centre, Tone-Field Edge, and in-between the Tone-Field). Each area was sampled being played by finger, slap and knuckle. Each hit has up to three alternate round-robin versions, to ensure there is no "machine-gun" effect.

Download the pdf manual here.

Hang is a trademark of PANArt Hangbau AG, Bern, Switzerland.