Orange Tree Samples has announced the release of a new Kontakt instrument library featuring the sounds of an autoharp. Americana Autoharp uses advanced scripting to recreate the experience of playing an autoharp from your MIDI keyboard. It achieves this by providing a set of keyswitches to select between the available chords, and then a playable range of keys to pluck and strum the strings.
During the attacks of each strum, the sound of the muted strings getting plucked layers together with the sustaining notes, a characteristic that adds to the percussiveness and definition of the strumming. The volume of the muted strings can be adjusted, allowing you to dial in the intensity of this effect as necessary.
The autoharp found its place in folk and early country music by iconic artists such as Mother Maybelle Carter, Cecil Null, June Carter Cash, and Dolly Parton. Known for its bright, sparkling tone, the autoharp blends nicely with other instruments in an ensemble, or shines on its own as a solo accompaniment to vocals.
What sets the autoharp apart is its array of chord buttons which allow the performer to easily select between chords. When holding one of these buttons, a chord bar with felt dampers is pressed against the strings, only allowing notes in that particular chord to ring while muting the others.
Americana Autoharp features
- True-to-life autoharp chord voicings from a 21 button autoharp.
- Samples include sustains, muted strings, button press/lift noises, and release samples. Each of the 36 strings were sampled individually.
- Select between multiple strum articulations or pluck the strings individually.
- 3 dynamics and 2x round-robin, totaling 1.0 GB (compressed to 481 MB using the lossless NCW audio format) of 24-bit samples.
Available for the full version of Kontakt, the library is on sale for the intro price of $19 USD until September 30th, 2024 (regular $29 USD).
More information: Orange Tree Samples
