Welcome
For the last couple of months, I have been spending the majority of my time building and establishing this music production blog.
I wanted to create a platform in which I could share all my virtual instrument & plugin recommendations – highlighting those that are free, but also give the appropriate attention to the more cost-effective options out there – when quality meets a certain standard.
Deep Harp
Last September, I decided it was finally time to try and make my own sample pack. Inspired with Pianobook community creations, I went on and sampled one of my instruments at home. Unfortunately, things didn’t work quite as I had hoped, so I ended up going a bit of a different route.
Instead of manually recording an actual instrument, I chose to put my efforts into creating something that is rather synth-based and artificial. I still wanted to maintain a certain level of realism, so I couldn’t quite give up that “authentic touch” of an acoustic instrument. Physical Modeling came as the perfect solution.
With the help of Vital (a free multi-purpose synthesizer), I then began to shape the sound I had in mind. My ultimate goal was to achieve this kind of a soft, plucked, harp-like string sound. After lots of trial and error, I could finally put together my first ever library.
Tech Info
With a two-and-a-half octave tonal range, Deep Harp spans over 32 individually sampled notes, starting from a low G2 to a high D5.
Aside from the instrument’s main, fundamental tone, there are also two additional sound variations that you can tweak according to your production needs.
To the left of the user interface, you can see the three dedicated volume faders, identified by the initials h, r and s.
H – the harp in its natural, dry form
R – reversed samples (for you sound design enthusiasts)
S – time stretched samples (for a more ambient feel)
On the right, the larger knobs represent a 1. Low-Pass filter (“Clarity”) and 2. Reverb (“Atmosphere”). For extra fine-tuning, the classic ADSR controls are also included.
Download
Deep Harp is available for the free Decent Sampler player. Decent Sampler is a VST plugin/host, similar to Native Instrument’s Kontakt and Sforzando by Plogue. You can download and install it by simply following this link (Supporting: Windows, Mac, Linux & iOS).
To get the library, you may click the button below. It will take you to the official sample pack release on the Pianobook website.
