Expressive Duduk

The duduk has always had a breathy, vocal-like quality that has distinguished it from other woodwind instruments. This uncanny valley of timbre was the perfect sound that could replace a synth or vocal pad in my toolset.

Never having played a double-reed instrument before, I bought an MKS duduk in April of 2020. I started practicing scales, changing out the reeds, learning how to produce the best tone for each note.

I used a pair of stereo condensor mics 1 foot away from the end of the duduk, recording two layers: SOFT and FORTE

Due to the natural tuning of the duduk and my amateur skills, many notes were out of tune, but I knew that I would need to tune it to western standards anyway. I used melodyne to tune and cleaned up some noise with RX.

The modweel is assigned to fade between SOFT and FORTE. Additionally, the modwheel affects the pitch of the forte layer toward the louder end to emulate the strain on the reeds.

The thirt layer, PAD, is the soft layer rendered with a smooth reverberated tone and subtle pitch modulation. Nothing crazy.

Instead of containing different patches, it is programmed to be an all-in-one instrument with 3 distinct layers that can be dialed in to achieve the desired sound.

It’s nice to have an in-tune duduk at the ready, but I find myself using the pad setting more often. I hope you enjoy.