The Search for the Gulf Sound
My relationship with recording sounds and building musical instruments began many years ago, long before I thought about creating ASamples or turning these experiments into products.
Since I began composing and producing music in 2001, the same need kept coming back: sometimes I knew exactly what sound I wanted, but I could not find the instrument that would help me get there. So I started recording samples and building what I needed for myself.
The goal was never commercial. I was a composer trying to build the tools that would help me write the music I could hear in my head.
Over the years, that personal need became part of a larger idea: how can we present the culture and musical identity we value and take pride in to the world in a way that feels true to us, while also giving people from our own region tools that help them express their music without having to start from zero every time?
From Samplers to the Computer
At that time, the world of sampling was very different from what we know today. Memory and storage were limited, and we had to record a sound, cut it, clean it, and map it carefully inside samplers and workstations.
I worked through different systems and machines, from the E-mu Emulator to the Korg Triton. Gradually, everything moved onto the computer with GigaStudio, followed by Kontakt, MOTU MachFive, and others.
As the technology developed, it was no longer just about placing a sample on a key. We began working with velocity layers, round robins, sample mapping, and the way an instrument responds to performance. The more important question became: how do recordings turn into an instrument that a composer can actually play musically?
During those years I recorded and built many libraries for my own use. They were not products or libraries made for sale; they were simply part of my working tools.
2012: From Recording to Scripting
Around 2012, I started going much deeper into scripting and programming. The reason was simple: I discovered that a great recording on its own is not enough.
You can have the best samples, but if the instrument does not behave the way a composer needs it to, you will not get the result you are looking for. I became interested in how the instrument responds, how you move between sounds, how quickly you can control it, and how programming can bring the tool closer to the way a real musician performs.
Programming became a natural extension of composition for me rather than a separate discipline.
A Library Is Not a Replacement for a Musician
Despite all my interest in libraries and sampling, I believe there is no replacement for the real musician.
I still record musicians live whenever possible, because there are details in performance and human interaction that cannot be fully compressed into a sample library.
But before I reach the recording session, I need to build the idea. I need to hear the piece, try the melody, change the arrangement, and understand exactly what I want from the player.
That is why I do not see a library as a replacement for a musician. For me, it is the space where I build the idea before I reach the musician. Once the picture becomes clear, I replace what I can with live recording.
I Need the Right Gulf Feel
This is especially important in Gulf music. If I want a piece to carry a genuinely Gulf character, just any rhythm is not enough. I need a rhythm that gives me the right hank — the right groove and feel.
Rhythm is not simply a set of hits written inside a bar. There is a way the drum is struck, a distribution of weight, spaces between the hits, interaction between the players, and a particular sense of time.
The pattern can be correct while the personality is still missing.
When the rhythm feels right from the beginning, it affects everything I build on top of it: the melody, the arrangement, the choice of instruments, and the shape of the phrase. That is why, while composing, I need tools that carry the spirit of the music, not only its outward form.
When I Began to See the Gap
As I became more involved with the international music world, I started to see how far the virtual-instrument and sample-library industry had developed. There are extraordinary libraries for orchestral music and for many musical cultures around the world.
But when I searched for the Gulf sound that I know and live with, I could see a clear gap.
The problem is not that the market lacks products labelled Arabic or Middle Eastern. Those products exist. But the Gulf is not one musical colour.
Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE contain enormous diversity, and even within a single country there are differences between regions, traditions, and performance styles. Those differences live in the rhythm, the feel, the way the drum is struck, the phrasing, and the interaction between musicians — not only in the name of the instrument.
I began to feel that our musical identity is very strong in real life, yet it is still represented with less depth and presence in the digital world.
Why ASamples?
This is where ASamples began to mean something larger to me. The idea was no longer only to build the tools I personally needed, but to help bring our culture and musical identity to the world in the way we know it from the inside.
At the same time, I want these tools to be available to musicians and producers in our own region.
A composer starting today in Muscat, Riyadh, Kuwait City, Manama, Doha, or Abu Dhabi should not have to reinvent everything from the beginning just to make music that carries their identity.
If we can give them rhythms with the right feel, instruments that represent the sounds of their environment, and tools that help them build ideas quickly, we can shorten part of that journey and give them more space to focus on their own music.
Identity Does Not Mean Staying in the Past
Protecting identity does not mean freezing music in place. A Gulf rhythm can live inside electronic music, an Omani instrument can sit with an orchestra, and a traditional sound can become part of a film score.
Living cultures evolve. What matters is that we understand the source and the character of what we are working with, and then take it wherever we want to go.
For me, authenticity does not mean repeating the past. It means knowing where we came from while we build something new.
From a Personal Tool to ASamples
When I look back at this journey now, I can see that ASamples began many years before it had a name.
It began every time I recorded a sound because I could not find it, in every library I built for myself, and every time I learned more scripting because I wanted a tool to work better.
Over time, the picture became clearer: this region holds an extraordinary musical wealth, a culture we value and take pride in, and sounds, traditions, and knowledge that have accumulated across generations.
That identity deserves to reach the world in a way that does it justice. And the people of this region also deserve tools that help them build on top of it.
That is why I do not see ASamples as a replacement for musicians, or simply as a collection of audio files. I see it as a bridge between the real musician, local musical knowledge, and modern technology.
To build tools that help us create new music from within our own identity, and open our sounds to the world without losing the spirit that made them ours in the first place.