MEG Autoharp by Oscar Schmidt circa early 1970's

Above is the Autoharp I've had since the early 1970's. It's in excellent condition. I've sampled it thoroughly, and programmed an Autoharp virtual instrument for the Garritan ARIA Player. It's the most complex SFZ instrument I've so far put together.

FEATURES:

--528 24 bit samples.

--All 127 MIDI notes - 10 1/2 octaves of sound.

--SEVEN ARTICULATION LAYERS for each chord.

--Release samples on all chords.

--Pick noise controlled by Mod Wheel.

--Automatic damping noise controlled by Sustain Pedal.

--Three octaves of single notes plus alternates.

--Six octaves of chords.

--Open string strums for atmospheric pads.

--Other effects - key noises, plucks, etc.

Here's an MP3 montage with five segments, demonstrating the Autoharp as a rhythm instrument, as a melodic instrument, and in ensemble with other instruments:

AUTOHARP DEMO

Click below for more demos, more information and the download link to MIDI files, MP3s, a manual featuring a detailed keyboard map of the samples, and the folder with the SFZ file and samples:

AUTOHARP INFO AND DOWNLOAD 

Please notice the Pay Pal button on the download page.  As of June 16th, the full instrument download is only available after $10 has been sent through Pay Pal.  You'll be sent the download link within 24 hours after that.  Thanks.

This is a very detailed virtual instrument, making for a substantially sized folder of data. The Zip file is 217 MB, unzipped size is 233 MBs. The manual includes the simple installation instructions.

Though the Autoharp is used most often in folk and country music, I feel it would also add an interesting texture to other musical genres.

Randy B.

i think this is pretty cool.  Not sure how i would use it but I applaud the result of your efforts

dubdisciple


i think this is pretty cool.  Not sure how i would use it but I applaud the result of your efforts

Thanks, Dubdisciple!  It was a rather large project - very interesting to work on my largest SFZ project to date.


I understand how this instrument may not exactly pop up in your mind as a "must have" instrument --hehe--But, ya never know when you might need a bit of that funky Ziiing! that an Auto-Zither like this can provide!


Appreciate your post.


Randy B.

I will at least demo it.  i work in advertising so i never know what may be needed.  I find the SFZ format fascinating but just have too many other things on my plate to jump into it with any gusto.

dubdisciple


I will at least demo it.  i work in advertising so i never know what may be needed.  I find the SFZ format fascinating but just have too many other things on my plate to jump into it with any gusto.

Great, "Dub" - I hope you do try it out.  So far I've been in conversation with people using it in the Garritan ARIA Player, but don't have feedback yet from any Dim Pro users.  It would help me out to know how it goes.  Autoharp plays perfectly in Dim here on my machine, but need to know if all goes well with other Sonar users.

Randy B.

Could someone run it to a padKontrol and play it like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YocCrCGIU6A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QGAZuSWq7Y

Thought you guys might find that amusing. I wanna figure out how to make my pK work like that. :-)

Got it, bought it, like it, now I need to use it.

It is a very fine piece of work, well thought-out and implemented.

The use of the Pitch wheel to select samples is quite useful, plus the pedals and other stuff.

You spend a lot of time on this, well worth the $10.

By the way, in my musical generation process, I rarely use any sampled instrument in a native output mode - I always process it heavily with other add-on effects (especially Kore and Reaktor-based effects). So this is useful for me in generating strummed sequences (and so on) which modulate into interesting soundscapes.

arachnaut


Got it, bought it, like it, now I need to use it.

It is a very fine piece of work, well thought-out and implemented.

The use of the Pitch wheel to select samples is quite useful, plus the pedals and other stuff.

You spend a lot of time on this, well worth the $10.

Nice!  This is a great review, and I really appreciate it, arachnaut.


And what you said in your other post, #7, is super - that you want to warp out those strums for your heavily processed soundscapes.  I really like hearing about using the Autoharp in a way beyond straight-ahead, emulative way.  Intriguing!  That could inspire other people to experiment with the sample set.  Thanks!


Randy

arachnaut


By the way, in my musical generation process, I rarely use any sampled instrument in a native output mode - I always process it heavily with other add-on effects (especially Kore and Reaktor-based effects). So this is useful for me in generating strummed sequences (and so on) which modulate into interesting soundscapes.

Here is a very simple example of what usually I do, using Autoharp as an example:

I took the Autoharp MIDI clip of the Twilight Zone intro and repeated it a few times with a different set of effects tools on each. The first is the raw Dimension Pro output, the others run it through various Reaktor effects, a different one for each clip.

I did not automate any settings for simplicity, but I usually will start with something like these and add more effects in series until I run out of CPU or it gets too weird. Then I would automate various parameters to add some life.

http://www.arachnaut.net/audio/Autoharp/TwilightZoned.wav