Harmonic Frontier Audio – Kalimba (Preview, v0.9)

A high-fidelity world instrument dataset designed for AI training, music research, and creative sound development.

Kalimba (Preview), created by Harmonic Frontier Audio, provides a compact reference set demonstrating the quality, formatting, and metadata conventions used in the World Resonance Gallery in the Harmonic Frontier Audio catalogue.

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🔎 Summary

This dataset offers high-quality, rights-cleared recordings of the Kalimba — a plucked idiophone of African origin, also known as the thumb piano or Mbira.
The recordings capture the unique metallic resonance of the instrument’s tines and the warm body tone that follows each strike, making it valuable for AI music modeling, acoustic analysis, and cross-cultural sound synthesis research.

Developed by Harmonic Frontier Audio, this collection follows The Proteus Standard™ for dataset provenance, transparency, and ethical AI use.
It provides researchers, developers, and sound designers with clean, consistent audio files that demonstrate the Kalimba’s percussive clarity, sustained decay, and expressive dyadic and arpeggiated gestures.

If you find this dataset useful, please consider giving it a 🤍 on Hugging Face to help others discover it.

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🎶 About the Kalimba

The Kalimba is a lamellaphone from the Mbira family of instruments, originating in sub-Saharan Africa.
It consists of metal tines attached to a resonating wooden body, played by plucking the tines with the thumbs.
The sound is at once percussive and melodic — metallic transients followed by rich resonant decay.

Kalimbas are often tuned to diatonic or pentatonic scales, though alternate tunings exist across African regions.
This preview dataset was recorded on a 17-key C major Kalimba, offering single-note, dyadic, and arpeggiated gestures across the full playable range.
The goal was to capture the instrument’s core articulations neutrally — not tied to any specific cultural or stylistic context — providing universal training material for AI and creative sound development.

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📂 Contents

Audio Files (.wav)

• Recorded at 96 kHz / 24-bit WAV format
• Exported as mono
• Fade-ins and fade-outs of 3–5 ms for transient consistency
• DC offset minimized
• No EQ, compression, or post-processing applied
• High-pass filtered at ~40 Hz to remove subsonic rumble

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Categories in this Preview

1. Sustain
   • Single tines plucked and allowed to decay naturally
2. Dyad
   • Two tines plucked simultaneously to form harmonic dyads
3. Arpeggio
   • Sequential plucks outlining triadic shapes
4. Chord
   • Three-note simultaneous strikes forming simple triads
5. Rhythm
   • Repeated tine plucks at moderate tempo, emphasizing percussive character

Metadata (.csv)
Includes structured fields for file name, category, content, note pitch, Kalimba tab number (where applicable), microphone, channel configuration, sample rate, bit depth, recording chain, and dataset version.

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🎤 Recording Notes

• Recorded in a treated studio environment using a dual-mic setup blended to mono:
  • Front Mic (transients): Oktava MK-012 (small-diaphragm condenser), 8″ above the tines
  • Rear Mic (resonance): RØDE NT1-A (large-diaphragm condenser), 6″ behind the sound holes
  • Recording chain: Oktava MK-012 + RØDE NT1-A → Zoom F8n Pro
• Captured at 96 kHz / 32-bit float, rendered as 96 kHz / 24-bit mono WAV for release.
• Transient integrity preserved; minor ambient noise retained for natural realism.

⚡ Usage

This preview dataset is designed for:

• Evaluation of Harmonic Frontier Audio dataset structure and fidelity
• Testing AI and DSP systems that model or classify acoustic instruments
• Creative sound design, instrument synthesis, and timbre modeling research

👉 Note: This is not a full dataset.
The complete Harmonic Frontier Audio dataset for Kalimba will include:

• Full dynamic range and velocity layers
• Expanded tuning systems and gesture types
• Additional playing styles (rolls, damping, harmonics)

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💡 Full Dataset Availability

This is a preview pack of the Kalimba Dataset.
The complete dataset — with extended articulations and dynamic layers — will be available for licensing.

For licensing inquiries:
📩 info@harmonicfrontieraudio.com

🔗 Explore More from Harmonic Frontier Audio

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• Irish Tin Whistle in D (Pre…
• Subharmonic Phonation / Voc…

(All datasets follow The Proteus Standard™ for ethical dataset provenance and licensing.)

https://huggingface.co/data…

📜 License

Released under CC BY-NC 4.0.

• Free for non-commercial use, testing, and research.
• Commercial licensing available via Harmonic Frontier Audio.
• A formal rights declaration is included in this dataset bundle.

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📧 Contact

Harmonic Frontier Audio
📩 info@harmonicfrontieraudio.com
🌐 https://harmonicfrontieraud…

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🔮 Future Roadmap

This preview release is part of the Harmonic Frontier Audio – World Resonance Gallery.
Upcoming planned datasets include:

• Kalimba (Full Dataset)
• Didgeridoo
• Shakuhachi

Over time, Harmonic Frontier Audio will expand the World Resonance Gallery alongside its Extended Vocal Techniques Series and Celtic Constellations Series — creating the first unified library of ethical, rights-cleared world and human sound datasets for AI training, synthesis, and sound design.

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🗒️ Release Notes

Version 0.9 (Nov. 2025) – Initial Preview Pack release for Kalimba.
See CHANGELOG.md for detailed version history.

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Citation

If you use this dataset in your research, please cite:

Pullen, B. (2025). Kalimba Dataset (Preview) [Data set]. Harmonic Frontier Audio. Zenodo.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zen…

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003…

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BibTeX

@dataset{pullen_2025_kalimba_preview,
  author       = {Blake Pullen},
  title        = {Kalimba Dataset (Preview)},
  year         = {2025},
  publisher    = {Harmonic Frontier Audio},
  version      = {0.9},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.17588097},
  url          = {doi.org
}