Arturia expands its Augmented Series with Augmented PERSIA, a hybrid virtual instrument that blends deeply sampled traditional Persian instruments with modern synthesis engines, giving producers and composers a new palette for cinematic and experimental sound design.
Key Features
- Six sampled Persian and Middle Eastern instruments including Oud, Tar, Saz, Ney, Alto Kamancheh, and Shah Kaman
- Dual-layer Augmented V2 engine combining sampling with virtual analog, granular, wavetable, and harmonic synthesis
- Morphing interface for blending acoustic realism with synthetic textures
- Processed and additional sound layers featuring effects chains, tape treatments, and atmospheric elements
- Advanced performance tools including macros, arpeggiator, and expressive modulation control
There’s something about traditional instruments that feels almost untouchable. The way they carry history, culture, and nuance in every note can make them tricky to translate into modern production workflows. But every now and then, a tool comes along that doesn’t try to replicate that world perfectly, instead, it opens it up and lets you reshape it.
That’s exactly the space Augmented PERSIA sits in.
A growing ecosystem of hybrid instruments
Augmented PERSIA doesn’t exist in isolation, it’s part of a steadily expanding lineup within the Arturia ecosystem. The Augmented Series has quietly grown into a collection of instruments that all follow a similar philosophy: take a recognisable acoustic source and push it into new territory through synthesis and modulation.
Alongside PERSIA, the series now includes:
- Augmented STRINGS
- Augmented VOICES
- Augmented GRAND PIANO
- Augmented BRASS
- Augmented WOODWINDS
- Augmented MALLETS
- Augmented YANGTZE
Each one leans into a different tonal world, but the workflow remains consistent. If you’ve used one, you’ll feel at home immediately. That consistency is part of what makes the series appealing. it’s less about learning a new instrument each time, and more about discovering new source material to shape.
A bridge between tradition and sound design
At its core, Augmented PERSIA is built around six instruments that have shaped Persian and Middle Eastern music for centuries. The Oud, Tar, and Saz bring plucked textures ranging from warm and resonant to bright and percussive, while the Ney offers that unmistakable breathy, almost spiritual tone. On the bowed side, the Alto Kamancheh and Shah Kaman introduce a vocal-like quality that leans beautifully into cinematic scoring.
But this isn’t a straight sample library.
What makes this instrument feel different is how those recordings are treated as a starting point rather than the destination. Each sound can be layered, morphed, and transformed through Arturia’s Augmented V2 engine, giving you a continuum between acoustic authenticity and synthetic abstraction.
You might start with a clean Ney phrase, then slowly push it into granular territory until it becomes an evolving texture that barely resembles its origin. Or take a percussive Tar pluck and stretch it into something that feels more like a rhythmic synth pulse than a stringed instrument.
The Augmented engine: where things get interesting
If you’ve spent time with other instruments in the Augmented Series, you’ll already know the workflow leans heavily on simplicity up top, depth underneath. Two layers sit at the centre of everything, each capable of running either high-fidelity samples or synthesis engines.
Those engines cover a pretty wide spectrum:
- Virtual Analog for classic subtractive tones
- Granular for textural, broken-apart soundscapes
- Wavetable for sharper, evolving digital timbres
- Harmonic for additive-style complexity and metallic textures
What this means in practice is that you’re not locked into “world instrument” territory. You can push these sounds into ambient scoring, electronic production, or even experimental territory without it feeling forced.
There’s also a clear emphasis on movement. The Morph control sits front and centre, letting you glide between two sound states in a way that feels more performative than technical. It’s the kind of control you could easily map to a mod wheel and just ride through a track.
It’s not just about realism
Interestingly, some of the most compelling parts of Augmented PERSIA aren’t the raw instruments themselves, but the processed layers built around them.
Arturia has included additional sound sources that take the original recordings and run them through guitar pedals, tape machines, and heavy digital processing. The result is a set of textures that sit somewhere between organic and completely synthetic.
These layers can feel almost unrecognisable compared to the source material, which is kind of the point. You’re not just recreating traditional performances, you’re building something new out of them.
There’s also a thoughtful approach to how the instruments were recorded. Dynamic layers like tremolo swells have been captured differently depending on the instrument, with softer recordings for more delicate builds and louder articulations for punch and impact. It’s a subtle detail, but it makes a difference when you’re trying to shape something expressive rather than static.
Built for composers, but not limited to them
On paper, this feels like a tool aimed squarely at film composers and sound designers — and it absolutely delivers there. The ability to hold a single note and morph it into a full cinematic underscore is kind of addictive.
But there’s plenty here for producers too.
The built-in arpeggiator can turn plucked instruments into rhythmic engines, syncing easily with your project. You can quickly sketch out patterns that feel organic but still sit tightly in a modern production context. It’s easy to imagine this finding a place in electronic, downtempo, or even techno-adjacent workflows where texture matters as much as rhythm.
And then there are the macros – simple, immediate controls like Colour and Time that reshape a sound without pulling you into menu-diving. It keeps things moving, which is often the difference between finishing an idea and getting lost tweaking parameters.
A different kind of “world instrument” plugin
There’s a fine line when it comes to tools like this. Lean too far into realism and you risk limiting creativity. Go too far into abstraction and you lose the identity of the instruments entirely. Augmented PERSIA sits somewhere in the middle, and that’s probably why it works.
It gives you access to sounds that feel rooted in something real but doesn’t force you to stay there. You can honour the character of these instruments or completely reshape them into something futuristic, often within the same patch.
And in a world where a lot of virtual instruments are chasing either hyper-realism or full-blown synthesis, that hybrid space feels like a pretty interesting place to be.
