World in Gourd

Chinese Hulusi Virtual Instrument

With its gentle, reedy timbre and natural warmth, the Hulusi is one of southern China’s most beloved wind instruments. Featuring a bamboo pipe and gourd resonator, this clarinet-like instrument is especially cherished by the Dai, Yi, and Miao ethnic groups for its lyrical tone—often associated with romance, tenderness, and graceful dance. Three-Body Technology’s World in Gourd captures the full expressive range of the Hulusi in stunning detail, offering a deeply playable and emotionally resonant virtual instrument that blends the instrument’s rich cultural roots with cutting-edge sampling innovation.

From authentic legato transitions and expressive vibrato to the iconic harmony drones of its dual side pipes, World in Gourd brings the Hulusi to life with a wealth of nuanced articulations and performance controls. Featuring multiple mic positions, dynamic glissandos, and real-sample-based vibrato, it delivers a highly flexible sonic palette. Support for treble, alto, and bass tunings, custom pattern creation, convolution reverb from historic Chinese locations, and an integrated effects rack make World in Gourd an inspiring tool for everything from traditional music to cinematic scoring.

Hulusi

Hulusi is a clarinet-like instrument in southern China, and it is especially favored by Dai, Yi, and Miao ethnic minorities. It has a bamboo wind tube and gourd resonance chamber, with two auxiliary wind tubes play two fixed notes for harmonics. Due to the mellifluous and lovely sound of Hulusi, it is massively used to express romantic relationships and accompaniment for lyrical dance.

Adjustable Sound Field

When samples were recorded, 5 different microphones were used with different positions to capture the spatial and reverb characteristics of Hulusi. All these channels were mixed down to four channels: Yin, Yang and far stereo. The volumes of these four channels were adjustable in software, making it possible to obtain most various tone.

Performances

By controlling airflow and finger, Hulusi has a very rich set of performances such as mordent, finger pole popping, trill, flutter, vibrato, staccato and gliss. All these performances can be triggered in World in Gourd software, making it most adjustable Hulusi virtual instrument.

Realistic Expressions

World in Gourd has real-recorded expressions that are freely controllable. With the control of MIDI CC, it can express tone changes like a real Hulusi performance.

Gliss

With three different speeds of real-recorded gliss samples and sample synthesis technique, World in Gourd can perform gliss at freely adjustable speed.

Self-developed Vibrato engine

Real-sample-based LFO engine making World in Gourd performs vibrato that is both realistic and adjustable.

Sampling Engine

Self-developed sampling engine with better sound quality, more powerful disk buffer streaming/sampling compression technology, and brand-new sound fusion technology.

Legato

We recorded the sound between legato notes in two speeds, and apply them according to playing speed in software. In addition, we recorded "regular legato", "fast legato" and "popping legato" that are specific in Chinese Hulusi.

Tune & Harmony

User can switch between bass, alto or treble Hulusi to have different tuning, where alto Hulusi sounds from the original samples. Sounds from the two harmony tubes were recorded into triggerable samples.

Self-developed spectrum fusion legato technology

Real-recorded legato samples can enhance the realism of legato instruments, but the conjugate part by naive cross-fade algorithm of two samples would induce phase-cancellation problems. In order to better cohesive legato performance, we developed the "spectrum fusion legato" technology. When necessary, frequency domain fusion is used instead of time domain cross-fade to create transition part between samples, which improves the smoothness of the connection.

Convolution reverb

At the beginning of Chinese Traditional series development, Three-Body Technology started to record the convolution reverb samples from spectacular places, famous natural and historical heritages in China. Thus you can simulate World in Gourd being played at the Great Wall or Terracotta Army site.

Effect Rack

From the Heavier7Strings' effect rack: Compressor, EQ, Chorus and Ping-Pong delay are included, allowing to create more flexible sounds.

Pattern Library

Complete pattern library allowing to manage your works and ideas easily, with rich preset of patterns that can be updated in the future. And you could create your own pattern by dragging MIDI clips inside.

Features

• Highly detailed Hulusi virtual instrument with authentic tone
• Includes switchable bass, alto, and treble Hulusi tunings
• Dual harmony pipes recorded and triggerable for layered harmonics
• Multiple mic positions with adjustable Yin, Yang & stereo channels
• Realistic gliss, flutter, trill, staccato, vibrato, and mordent articulations
• Three legato types: regular, fast, and popping
• Adjustable-speed glissando using real-recorded samples
• Spectrum Fusion Legato for seamless sample transitions
• Real-sample-based vibrato engine with MIDI CC control
• Self-developed sampling engine for improved quality and performance
• Convolution reverb from iconic Chinese heritage sites
• Built-in effects rack: EQ, Compressor, Chorus, Ping-Pong Delay
• Expandable pattern library with drag-and-drop MIDI functionality

System Requirements

• macOS 10.9+ / Windows 7+

Plugin Formats

• 64-bit VST2, VST3, AAX and Audio Unit.

Important note: Logic 9 is not supported