EastWest Hollywood Fantasy Winds

2 Irish Whistles (High)

If you’ve been enchanted by Howard Shore’s melody for the Shire, you know the brilliant sound of the Irish whistle well. It’s a staple in Celtic folk music, and it’s extremely flexible as a topline addition to the melodies you create with other instruments in this collection. It shares similarities with a piccolo, but with much more expressive pitch bending and a dramatic contour between registers. Few instruments offer this rare combination of depth and dynamics in higher frequency ranges, and it will be a welcome addition to any fantasy ensemble.

2 Irish Whistles (Low)

The same mystical sound of the high Irish whistle, but with a lower pitch range and a deeper, rounder and more mellow sound quality. This is a great way to extend the range of a standard whistle and provide a richer, airier quality that translates even more smoothly to orchestral and cinematic settings. If you enjoy the sound of the bass flute and wish there was a variant with more of a folk quality, this should fill that position quite nicely. Try doubling it at the octave with the high Irish whistle and you’ll have a simultaneously warm and piercing melody that captures the most dramatic and beautiful landscapes you can imagine!

2 Renaissance Flutes

This flute has a similar smooth, breathy tone to the concert flute, but its wooden construction provides a rounder and more mellow sound similar to that of an ancient recorder. Its smooth, breathy quality is simultaneously intimate and regal and offers a more pure, gentle substitute for the flute for you to weave into the orchestra or balance out the brilliance of the Irish whistles. Don’t let this mislead you, though — these Renaissance flutes can stand up to scoring tasks of any scale, adding a fullness and mystical quality you’ll be hard-pressed to achieve any other way.

3 Uilleann Pipes

This Celtic classic from the 1700s has been used in countless scores like Braveheart, Titanic, along with Square’s classic game Xenogears. Its construction is similar to that of the bagpipes, but its quality is more lyrical rather than piercing, making these pipes the perfect choice for regal melodies that blend seamlessly with a full orchestra. Uilleann pipe sound libraries have been around for some time, but an ensemble was unheard of until now — layer this with strings or other winds, or let it shine on its own for rich melodic passages fitting for the soundtracks of any scale.

4 Ocarinas

Nintendo’s iconic game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time brought this haunting, hollow-tone but long forgotten instrument back into the public eye. Think of this as a more agile folk complement to the Renaissance flute used more often in court music; it’s soft, flexible, and allows for beautiful trills and ornaments that add depth to anything you play. This ocarina ensemble is the perfect choice for soft, expressive passages when whistles and pipes cut through a little too sharply.