Currently the only supported instrument is the Soniccouture Pan Drum, in particular, the Pan Drum Ableton Live pack. This instrument contains samples for a first generation hang and a second generation hang; we support both. For a detailed description of this instrument, see Instrument: Soniccouture Pan Drum (Ableton Live pack).
Unfortunately,
as described in the architecture overview,
we cannot use the instrument itself (which is a series of configured Ableton
Sampler instances), but use a
custom instrument instead; we do of course
use the sample data from Soniccouture.
There are many more handpan instruments/VSTs available, and over time more are bound to come out. The list below are all the instruments I am currently aware of.
-
Cinematique Instruments Pandrum
Possible implementation notes: Tak and doum only available when a scale is selected (not available in chromatic mode), so this will need to be taken into account in the backend. Could perhaps use Zephyr Perc to get access to other percussive sounds.
-
Possible implementation notes: Seems to have quite a few percussive sounds.
-
Possible implementation notes: It's listed under "Ethnic Metals".
It might perhaps also be fun to try and build a synthesized hand pan at some point. Wikipedia says that the hang drum is primarily based on Helmholtz resonance which suggests we might have some hope of being able to construct some kind of useable/passable sound. Moreover, there an an MSc thesis on the topic: Analysis and Synthesis of the Handpan Sound by Eyal Alon.