The story
Hello Christian,
This small 19th century viennese Enzensperger guitar had been sitting on an old chair at my grandad’s house for ages. It had a set of steel strings on, whose excessive tension over the years ended up tearing the bridge off the soundboard.
Feeling sorry for its broken and grubby shape, last summer I endeavored to restore the guitar to a playable state. So I glued the bridge back on, gave the soundboard a fresh lacquering, and finally mounted a set of soft “nylgut” strings, which emulate the timbre and feel of gut strings.
I sampled artificial harmonics across the entire range of the fretboard, in three dynamic layers, using a pair of Rode NT5s. They sound slightly nasal and opaque, with the forte layer having a very snappy quality (like a sustained Bartok pizzicato). I did my best to reduce the noise without degrading the timbre, but I could only count on Audacity for that (I included a noise sample if anyone wants to have a go).
This is my very first experiment at creating a “proper” sampled instrument, so I hope it will be both playable and enjoyable!
Cheers,
Riccardo
Reviews for Romantic Guitar Harmonics
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Oh my god, I am in love!
I have absolutely no words. This is perfect. The quality, the character, the dynamics... This is EXACTLY what I am looking for when it comes to such sound. I am a sucker for harmonics-inspired instruments though, so this is very biased. This is going to be the main character of one of my next pieces for sure! Big thanks to Riccardo!
Character Guitar Harmonics
As a guitar player im not easily impressed by these kinds of libraries. i have to say though that i think harmonic libraries sound more realistic than regular picked guitar libraries. I guess because of how harmonics are played. Im pretty blown away by this library. I think its really realistic and characterful. i say this in every review of a guitar library i like but this would seriously be so good paired with a real guitar recording. Unlike alot of guitar libraries ( in my opinion) it holds up really well on its own too
Great, evocative sample pack!
What a neat sample pack this is! The instrument was well recorded, and it has a very unique voice. To me, it evokes music of eastern Asia, resembling the sounds produced by kotos in many ways. The top velocity layer is a lot louder than the other layer, and there's a timbral shift which is less pleasing, but if you avoid that, the instrument is great. Normally, I'm a believer that the more velocity layers a sample pack has, the better, but in this case, I don't think the top layers is actually needed. However, the instrument is well programmed, so if it's not to your taste, you can easily avoid it.
