Native Instruments has introduced George Duke Soul Treasures, a new Kontakt instrument that offers over 500 licks that can be tweaked and re-arranged to provide royalty-free melodic elements for Hip Hop, R&B, Soul, Funk, Disco, House and similar genres.

For the library, George Duke recorded over 500 original keyboard phrases on his personal grand piano, electric piano, Wurlitzer and clavinet models. In the video below, Duke talks about the instruments he used and behind the scenes processes.

George Duke Soul Treasures can be used both with the free Kontakt Player and in the full-featured Kontakt 4 software sampler. Due to the advanced slicing and time-stretching functions in Kontakt, all loops automatically sync to the song tempo of the sequencer, and can be modulated, re-pitched, and even completely re-arranged in real-time via an intuitive keyboard trigger scheme.

For creative sound mangling, various multi-effect chains can be activated through the keyboard on the fly, with a flexible filter section and a studio-grade convolution reverb offering further sound shaping options. Every lick in George Duke Soul Treasures is also available in an additional “Tubes & Tape” version that was processed through a custom analog recording chain at George Duke’s studio, resulting in an even grittier authentic vintage sound.

George Duke Soul Treasures is available now for US $119 / 99 EUR.

Here, George Duke and sound wizard Erik Zobler talk about the creation of the new instrument.