Javanese Gamelan
Immerse yourself in the sound of Javanese gamelan, an ancient, tuned percussion ensemble from Indonesia. Its transcendent timbre has inspired composers for centuries, and with twelve unique instruments and a custom ensemble builder, it’s now at your fingertips.
Gamelan is an ancient art form of Indonesia; is a musical ensemble, most often consisting of percussive, tuned metallophones with meditative, bell-like tones. Gamelan is one of the oldest known instrumental ensembles still played today, known to be at least 1,200 years old. Each instrument in the ensemble has its own unique design, size and tuning, resulting in a rich and transcendent sound when performed together.
Our sampled Javanese gamelan (as opposed to Balinese or Sundanese) consists of twelve instruments made from bronze in Indonesia, carefully played and sampled by composer Gonzalo Varela to capture their full purity and nuance. We’ve presented them here as an ensemble with standard Western tuning, as well as the ability to customize micro-tuning scales and authentic Pelog and Slendro scales.
Javanese gamelan allows you to set up your own ensemble or play individual instruments in their authentic forms. Whether you write for soundtracks, pop, atmospheric electronica or new age, we think you’ll find it incredibly inspiring – just like we do.
The library includes 12 individual instruments that make up the ensemble:
Bonang, Demung, Gambang, Gender, Gongs, Kempul, Kempyang, Kenong, Ketuk, Beijing, Saron and Slentham.
Each is sampled with fully sustained and softened notes across 16 dynamic layers for deep reproduction and responsiveness.
The single instrument patches come in two idiomatic variants – Pelog and Slendro, and with the same temperament suitable for traditional Western music. The Ensemble Builder allows you to customize each instrument, mix effects, and humanize them, allowing you to create your own combination of tones across any note ranges you choose.
Javanese Gamelan: Virtual Instrument Walkthrough
✔️ Additional information
6750 samples in impeccable 24/48 quality
16 dynamic layers per key
Full and softened recordings
12 individual instruments
Bonang, demung, gambang, gender
Gongs, kempul, kempyang, kenong
Ketuk, Peking, Saron, Slentham
You can truly change the sound of gamelan with our integrated mixer console and production rack pictured below. In the ensemble patch, each instrument gets its own channel, allowing you to add up to 8 modular effects for each. Equalizers, compression, reverb, modulation, distortion and many other sound reproduction tools are available, giving you endless tonal possibilities.
The gamelan sound had a huge influence on 20th century Western composers such as Satie, Cage, Bartok, Messiaen and Britten, but can also be heard in famous scores such as Akira, Battlestar: Galactica, The Girl with a Pearl Earring and many others.
