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Product Details
The autoharp rose to prominence in folk and early country music during the mid-20th century, largely due to Mother Maybelle Carter of the Carter Family and Cecil Null, who not only helped popularize the instrument but also contributed to innovations in its design. Their preference for holding the autoharp in an upright orientation spurred further developments to the instrument over the years. Other notable autoharp performers include Dolly Parton and June Carter Cash.
Despite being fundamentally a zither, the autoharp features a unique addition: chord bars that selectively mute strings, allowing only certain notes to ring. These allow the performer to quickly switch between chords, focusing on the rhythm of their strumming or as an accompaniment when singing.
Americana Autoharp was recorded using a 21-chord autoharp and uses advanced scripting to emulate the muting behavior of the chord bars in addition to their exact voicings. When strummed, the muted strings layer together with the sustained notes, adding to the autoharp’s rhythmic sound. On the topic of strumming, the library includes multiple strumming articulations to choose between as well as adjustable strum speed and distance settings. Beyond providing the quintessential chiming sound of strums, the library also allows you to play single notes on the autoharp, too, just like playing a harp.
The autoharp makes a wonderful addition to your instrumentation particularly because of how it doesn’t crowd the typically overpopulated mid frequencies. Instead, it adds a bright, sparkling sound that occupies a higher register than many other instruments in the mix.
Key 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 sampled individually.
- Select between multiple strum articulations or pluck the strings individually.
Sampling Specifications
- 1.0 GB (compressed to 481 MB using the lossless NCW audio format) of 24-bit samples.
- 3 dynamics with volume interpolation and 2x round-robin variation samples.
Americana Autoharp is NKS-ready. The integration with the Native Kontrol Standard presents many benefits, both when using the library in the Komplete Kontrol software as well as in conjunction with Komplete Kontrol hardware, such as the Komplete Kontrol S-Series keyboards and Maschine.
In addition to Americana Autoharp being displayed in the Native Browser among your other Komplete Kontrol instruments, there are a variety of other benefits. For example, thanks to Native Instruments’ Native Map® technology, you can control the library’s various parameters directly through connected hardware right out of the box. Furthermore, the keyswitches and key ranges are shown using Light Guide, an innovative technology that displays the key colors directly on your Komplete Kontrol S-Series keyboard.
We recommend using Americana Autoharp with a Komplete Kontrol S-Series keyboard for the full experience. While not a requirement, you will be able to take advantage of the Native Kontrol Standard for an intuitive connection between software instruments and hardware.
Product Requirements
Kontakt 5.7.0
This product requires the full retail version of Kontakt and is not compatible with the free Kontakt Player.
Stand-alone, AAX Native, VST, AU
Windows 7, 8, or 10. Mac OS X 10.9 or newer.