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The SwarPlug synth plugin includes Sarod and over 100 other perfectly sampled
virtual Indian instruments. It can be loaded in most VST, Audio Units and AAX compatible DAWs
(Digital Audio Workstations) like Cubase, Logic, Ableton Live, Protools, FL Studio etc... It also
comes with lots of ready-made MIDI loops for each instrument.
The Sarod is a stringed instrument used mainly in Hindustani (North Indian) music. Alongside the sitar, it is among the most famous and unmistakable instruments. It is known for its profound, significant, reflective sound, conversely, with the sweet, suggestion-rich surface of the sitar, with sympathetic strings that give it a resounding, reverberant quality. A fretless instrument, it can deliver the ceaseless slides between notes known as meend (glissandi), which are significant in Indian music.
The term sarod, meaning tune or song, is of Persian origin, but it seems to have developed in Afghanisthan as a mix of the Seniya rabab, the Afghani rabab, and the Sursingar. The legacy of the sarod is crowned by two Afghani gharanas of sarod players, Niamatullah Khan's Gharana and Gulam Ali Khan's Gharana.
The body of the sarod is made of a solitary square of wood, ideally teak. However, tun and sagwan are additionally used. The instrument's body can be described as three separate sections: the stake box, the fingerboard, and the resonator called pyala, which is encased with dry skin.
The stake box is around one foot long and around seven creeps in measurement. This part is strong from the inside. Tuning stakes of the primary playing strings are placed on one or the other side. In some sarods, a metal resonator is fixed at the lower part of the stake box.
The fingerboard is around one-and-a-half feet long. It is empty from within and smaller close to the stake box, yet bit by bit becomes more extensive close to the resonator. The fingerboard is first covered with a slim wooden board and then with a flimsy metal sheet. The fingerboard stakes of sympathetic strings on the right half are fixed in two lines.
The third piece of the sarod is the resonator. This is roundish in shape and is around nine inches in distance across. This piece is covered with extremely thin dried goatskin. A scaffold made of bone around three inches long is fixed upon the center part of this resonator. It is an extension like that of the violin. The fundamental playing strings rest upon the scaffold in separate sections, yet the strings go through the openings bored in the extension.
The sarod is played with the assistance of a plectrum held in the right hand through two fingers and a thumb. This plectrum is called 'jawa' and is made of coconut shell. Previously a plectrum made of wire was also used.
Try the free SwarPlug plugin demo that includes Sarod along with various other Indian instruments by clicking on the "Try a Demo" button below.