Radel SAARANG SPARSHINI User Manual

SAARANG SPARSHINI DIGITAL TANPURA
USER MANUAL
INTRODUCTION
Congratulations! You are the proud owner of a Radel quality product - the SAARANG SPARSHINI digital
tambura / tanpura. Radel products are renowned for their excellent tonal quality as well as their reliability.
The latest state-of-the-art technology is used in the design as well as manufacture of the products. Being
the inventor of these products and pioneer in the field of electronic musical instruments for Indian music,
Radel keeps on improving the existing models and introducing new products. Radel is an ISO 9001:2015
company. Hence, the name Radel assures you of excellent quality, and, although you may never need it,
dedicated after-sales service.
GENERAL INFORMATION
The Saarang electronic tambura (tanpura) is a sophisticated musical instrument for providing sruti (sur)
accompaniment to performers of music. It incorporates the latest state-of-the-art technology. The Saarang
can be tuned to any pitch over a range of more than one octave thus enabling it to be used by men or
women vocalists as well as instrumentalists.
The Saarang Sparshini is created in the shape of a traditional tambura. It has the unique feature of
being 'plucked' like a traditional tanpura, or used as an automatically playing instrument. The
Saarang Sparshini tanpura (tambura) can be operated on any voltage from 90 – 260V AC Mains, as well
as on a set of six 1.5V dry batteries. An additional speaker is provided in the stem portion of the
instrument.
It has a built-in accurate digital pitch reference allowing the user to select the exact pitch of his/her choice.
It has a range of pitch covering one and a half octaves. Selection of any fractional pitch between the
standard half-note pitch settings is possible by fine tuning. Any setting of pitch, tempo and pluck style can
be stored together in memory so that the instrument selects these automatically when switched ON.
OPERATION: Switch ON the product, by pressing the 'Power' button.
VOLUME (VOL) : To adjust the volume press ▲ or ▼ button either step by step or continuously.
TONE : To get bass/treble sound, 'TONE' adjustment is provided. Tone can be altered by pressing the ▲
or ▼ button step by step or continuously.
PITCH SETTING : Press the 'up' or 'down' arrow keys to change the pitch to any other standard setting (in
steps of half notes). For FINE TUNING close to a standard pitch setting, press MODE key once. The
display will now start flashing to confirm that the instrument has entered the fine tuning mode. Now press
the ▲ or ▼ button to either increase or decrease the pitch in micro-steps. Press the PA key to change the
Pancham note to MA or NI or no note (an LED will light up to indicate the note selected). If the pluck style
for obtaining the fifth note is selected, switch ON the fifth note
TEMPO SETTING (Display shows 't' ):
Pressing MODE key twice from the NORMAL mode (or once from the fine tuning mode) puts the
instrument in the TEMPO setting mode. The display now indicates 't'. Press the ▲ or ▼ button to increase
or decrease the plucking tempo (interval between strings). Pressing MODE key once again restores the
instrument to the NORMAL mode (coarse tuning) without changing the fine tuned pitch.
PLUCK STYLES: Two pluck styles are provided in the instrument. One has a pause after the PA note and
constitutes a cycle of six counts. This style is popular among the South Indian musicians. This style has to
be selected to operate all the five strings. The other style does not have the pause after the PA note and
this style is popular among the North Indian musicians. To change the style to the alternate one, press the
▲ or ▼ button simultaneously.
PANCHAM, MADHYAM OR NISHAD SELECTIONS: Press the PA button repeatedly to change the
pancham note to MA or NI or OFF. A lamp/LED indicates PA/MA/NI selection.
ADDITIONAL 5TH NOTE: First select the pluck style so that there is a pause after the PA note. To switch
ON the 5th note,
press its switch. An LED will glow to indicate that 5th STRING is ON. The user can tune the 5th string /
note, as desired by pressing ▲ or ▼ button. The position of the 5th note can be either before or after the
PA. To change the position of the note, press the ▲ or ▼ buttons together, while the 5th note is ON. The
position of the note will change alternately.