The Sound Board

Cinematique Instruments have released their "silky, symphonic, nylon" Grand Harp.

"As always we set a high focus on capturing the notes in a very realistic and organic way, thus we recorded the Grand Harp with several big condenser around the instrument. All main articulations are provided in four times round robins and up to 5 velocity layer, recorded in stereo 24 Bit. Only the Harmonics articulation was recorded in one round robin.

We have included all six articulations in one patch so that the user can easily and quickly change the articulation. You can do that either by mouse or keyswitches. Furthermore we added reverb and sustain control sliders as well as a tiny but powerful arpeggio with a separate voicing options and a very useful glissando mode. Finally we added an auto-velocity button which sets the note length automatically. This is extremely handsome.

The Grand Harp or better known as Concert Harp or Pedal harp is a large modern harp, designed primarily for classical music. The Grand Harp is a descendant of ancient harps such as a Celtic Nylon Harp. The harp found its early orchestral use as a solo instrument in concerti by many baroque and classical composers. It began to be used in symphonic music by Hector Berlioz. The Grand Harp has a wide range of tones which is six and a half octaves (47 strings) starting typically from C 1 and ends up at G 7. The lowest strings are made of copper or steel-wound nylon, the middle-lower strings of gut, and the middle to highest of nylon, or more or all gut.

The normal and typical way to play the Grand Harp is to play it with the fingertips of the first four fingers, but there are a lot more kinds of playing techniques available. In our version of the Grand Harp we concentrated on six different articulations which are:

Plucked: Plucking the strings with the fingers is the principal technique.
Fingernail: That articulations creates a sharp and slightly penetrating sound. You produce that by plucking the strings with fingernails.
Prè de la Table: Prè de la table produces a dry and nasal sound. The sound is sometimes compared to that of the Japanese koto or the guitar. To produce a pré de la table sound the fingers pluck the string in a normal manner but close to the soundboard.
Xylophonique: Xylophonique is a muted sound with a clearly distinguished pitch. It sounds wooden dry and percussive. To produce xylophonic sounds one hand mutes the strings by pressing them with the fingers close to the soundboard. The other hand plays the strings normally.
Prepared: This prepared articulation produces a dissonant and percussive sounds which is best suitable to produce avant-garde or experimental sounds and noises. We prepared all the the strings with brackets and paper which had the effect that the sound was muted as well as a weird vibrating noise was added to it.
Harmonics: The Harmonics (flageolet) gives a very warm and gentle sound. It is a popular effect in harp music."

Price: 65€
Kontakt 5.6 full version is required.
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https://www.cinematique-instruments.com ... herain.mp3
https://www.cinematique-instruments.com ... dgames.mp3
https://www.cinematique-instruments.com ... stance.mp3
https://www.cinematique-instruments.com ... rtknox.mp3
https://www.cinematique-instruments.com ... lament.mp3

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I have nothing on the radar that would use a harp, but there have been some simply gorgeous harps pop up over the last few months - SoundIron, Chocolate Audio, and now this? From the walk through videos I had been leaning towards Chocolate Audio Glissando, and maybe I should have just bought it, cause now it looks like the decision became more difficult.

All these libraries, and several older ones, all sound great. At this point it seems to come down to features.

I am open to advice...

Anders Wall wrote:Great!
That glissando feature is really nice.

What Glissando feature? Is there one? I only hear arpeggios. It did say Glissando, but he didn't play any, and I don't need anyone to play arpeggios for me....! If you have time, please could you point to the minute and second where this is demonstrated. Ta.

Yes it's strange there have been a lot of new harp VIs but not one has copied Spitfire's idea of a "slid" articulation.

The Spitfire harp is still #1 for glissandos because they actually sampled how the string would be played (more like brushed) inside the context of a gliss. With this, you can build exactly the gliss you want in literally any scale or key or speed. It also makes the other harps sound MUCH less real in an A/B, even the ones that have a so called "glissando engine" (which is really just a step sequencer). It sounds unreal and impossible because no harpist could pluck 30 strings with that force and precision inside of 3 seconds.

It seems to be a mis-prioritization on the part of the devs (similar to how every dev samples Bartok pizz in every string lib). These 3 harps that came out recently have lots of extended techniques but you can't really use them for glisses.

NoamL wrote:Yes it's strange there have been a lot of new harp VIs but not one has copied Spitfire's idea of a "slid" articulation.

The Spitfire harp is still #1 for glissandos because they actually sampled how the string would be played (more like brushed) inside the context of a gliss. With this, you can build exactly the gliss you want in literally any scale or key or speed. It also makes the other harps sound MUCH less real in an A/B, even the ones that have a so called "glissando engine" (which is really just a step sequencer). It sounds unreal and impossible because no harpist could pluck 30 strings with that force and precision inside of 3 seconds.

It seems to be a mis-prioritization on the part of the devs (similar to how every dev samples Bartok pizz in every string lib). These 3 harps that came out recently have lots of extended techniques but you can't really use them for glisses.

Thanks for this bit of info, Noam. I can honestly say that while I really like the Chocolate Audio Gliss Harp's tone, I'm having a hell of a time trying to get a decent and reliable glisses out of it. I have Sonokinetic's Arpeggio, Hollywood Harp, CineHarp, CA Glissando, the old Sonic Implants, and yet, it still takes me far too long to come up with THE gliss I need in any given piece. So if the Spitfire does this very well, I will get it, despite it's proclivity to be exclusive to orchestral use.

interesting

so with the gliss feature from spitfire - it's just notes you'd be inputing, but with this harp - you play a chord and use the mod wheel...

both of which sound fun, but I get the feeling it'll be a PITA to add more dynamics to that one anders... I don't assume the harp player's glis is supposed to be perfect velocities

NoamL wrote:Yes it's strange there have been a lot of new harp VIs but not one has copied Spitfire's idea of a "slid" articulation.

The Spitfire harp is still #1 for glissandos because they actually sampled how the string would be played (more like brushed) inside the context of a gliss. With this, you can build exactly the gliss you want in literally any scale or key or speed. It also makes the other harps sound MUCH less real in an A/B, even the ones that have a so called "glissando engine" (which is really just a step sequencer). It sounds unreal and impossible because no harpist could pluck 30 strings with that force and precision inside of 3 seconds.

It seems to be a mis-prioritization on the part of the devs (similar to how every dev samples Bartok pizz in every string lib). These 3 harps that came out recently have lots of extended techniques but you can't really use them for glisses.

well... to be sincere, that's exactly how we sampled the artics that are used when playing our glissandos

Luciano Storti wrote: Thanks for this bit of info, Noam. I can honestly say that while I really like the Chocolate Audio Gliss Harp's tone, I'm having a hell of a time trying to get a decent and reliable glisses out of it.

Well, just drop us an email and we can take care of you and eventually take note for an eventual fix or advancement of the engine.

Thank you.

Simone