Continuing our Plectra Series of plucked, picked and strummed string instruments from around the world comes this collection of traditional folk harps! Featuring the lyre, lap harp, and celtic harp, this KONTAKT 4 sample library evokes images of the Irish countryside, Appalachian splendor, tall tales and a heart mug of mead beside a crackling fire. The intimate, close-miced sound is ideal for traditional, folk, medieval and Renaissance music as well as modern scores in any number of styles.

Highland Harps is the second entry into the Plectra Series of virtual stringed instruments from around the world. With this library, we wanted to capture the warm and rustic tones of the celtic harp, lap harp, and lyre, each of which has a rich tradition extending back hundreds to thousands of years. While the Western concert harp has been sampled in depth, these smaller instruments have previously been overlooked by the sampling world.

Our approach was to record using close mics and a minimum of room ambiance, leaving just the perfect amount of ‘air’ for each note to ring out and breathe. We made sure to extensively record dynamics and round robins, up to 7 layers for some articulations, so the entire range of each instrument could be accurately represented. Playing styles include plucked, harmonics, hammered, bowed, ebowed, percussive slaps and glissandos.

We believe Highland Harps is a breath of fresh air in the world of sampled plucked instruments, and we think you’ll agree!

A custom scripted interface is provided, allowing easy access to useful controls such as attack and decay, bass, brightness, transposition, octave plucking and humanization, added reverb and spatial width. These controls make it a breeze to customize a patch to your liking for any given project.