Concert Harp - Music Tech - June 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
The concert harp is an instrument heard in many classical pieces and film scores and its delicate sound means it is often synonymous with themes of love, emotion,,, and, of course, anything to do with angels! Most sample libraries and DAWs these days come packaged with some sort of harp sound, be it samples-based or a physically modelled instrument.
However, if you’re really looking to tug at the heartstrings then you may require an instrument with a little more depth. Enter Concert Harp from ProjectSAM. This is a download-only instrument that runs within Kontakt and weights in at a respectable 2.3GB when uncompressed/ You get both close and ambient mic versions with single notes, special playing styles and a variety of glissando runs. The main event here is the plucked instrument, which features seven notes per octave, four dynamic layers with two alternatives for each note (known in harp circles as the ‘round robin’). This all adds up to a beautiful-sounding and expressive instrument that puts around 800MB of samples into your memory.
By contrast, the harp in Kontakt’s own library has only three velocity layers, no round robin and only two playing styles. The other patches here are also god but not quite so deeply sampled, with Harmonics, Pred de la Table (a guitar-like sound), Sons Xylo (a bit like a xylophone), Paper Notes (creates a buzzing sound) and Effects (bent notes). Finally, there are the glissandos in four scales with several variations in direction, speed and dynamics.
Although Kontakt includes a reasonable-sounding harp already, you can definitely notice the difference. ProjectSAM’s harp has more detail in the high end and just feels much more like a string being plucked.
If you need a realistic and expressive harp sound in your music – especially in film or television work – then this is an easy-to-use, well-priced instrument that’s sure to bring tears to a few eyes…
Verdict: A simple but beautiful-sounding instrument that will have you weeping over your keyboard.
Rating: 8/10
Click here for more information on Concert Harp
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