Weighted Strings is a set of two amazing custom creations from the mind of master instrument inventor Bart Hopkin: The Weighted Lyre and Weighted Zither. These handcrafted experimental instruments use small weights on the strings to alter overtone relationships and create unusual, beautiful sounds. Made of wood and metal, they have a richly acoustic essence that resounds brightly through each plucked note.

The Lyre has 17 main strings, as well as three additional strings that run over a narrow neck and can be fretted. The weights on the Lyre strings are carefully placed to prominently bring out an octave overtone. The Zither has 34 chromatically tuned main strings. Unlike the Lyre, the weights on these strings are not placed to bring out any particular overtones. As a result, the overtone recipes are highly inharmonic and random, varying from string to string, with highly inharmonic tone qualities.

We've faithfully sampled every interesting sound we could get out of these instruments, with three stereo mic positions: Close, Room, & Contact. We've also included a wide selection of custom FX presets and plenty of our signature sound-designed ambient content, crafted from the raw acoustic source to give you complete creative freedom.

The Kontakt interface includes a suite of automation-ready sound-shaping controls to give you total creative flexibility. You have control over swell, attack, release, offset, vibrato, filter, pitch (coarse & fine), articulation switching, cross-fading and layering, and so much more.

This library comes with an adaptable LFO system, with selectable LFO shape, modulation target parameter, speed, intensity, tempo-syncing and fade-in time. You can also apply your choice of 12 lowpass, high-pass and FX filters, with assignable modulation targets such as velocity, modwheel, expression, after-touch, key position and step-sequencer table control. Our customizable arpeggiator offers a velocity table and control over arp direction, timing, swing, randomization and duration. We’ve included a key and scale lock system to constrain your notes to common scales and keys for easy melodic composition and live performance.

The interface is rounded-out by our modular FX rack panel, with 27 different DSP effect modules that you can assign in any of 8 available slots, in any order that you wish. You’ll find classic phaser, flanger, delay, distortion, amp and cab simulators, compressors, EQ, rotator and so much more. The Reverb effect includes our favorite convolution reverb impulse responses, including 99 different rooms, halls, chambers and outdoor environments, plus another 40 custom FX impulses to radically transform the sound and open up whole new worlds of musical possibility. We’ve added a great bank of FX rack chain factory presets to get you started!