English Harpsichord Sample Library Software

The Best Service English Harpsichord library offers digital samples of a harpsichord built by Jacob Kirckman in 1766. Thanks to its 2 manuals and many registers, the Kirckman harpsichord offers you lots of unique sounds. This harpsichord was sampled with 6 different register combinations, including the upper 8', lower 8' (principal 8'), both 8' together, the 4' register, the lute stop, and the nasale stop which is only available with Kirckman harpsichords.

Jacob Kirckman's harpsichords are highly sought-after because of their distinctive signature sound. This harpsichord is one of 7 Kirckman harpsichords within the Beurmann Collection. It remains in excellent playing condition despite its age. This Kirchman harpsichord is available for the first time for your sampler within this English Harpsichord library. The Kirckman harpsichord is presented in its original Valotti tuning at 368Hz (presets at 440Hz tuning included), giving you 3600 single samples.

Like all harpsichords, the Kirckman is not touch-sensitive. However, even if the differences are minuscule, variances in note quality are apparent due to different resonances of body and strings. Until now, many keyboards and samplers represented harpsichords by always triggering the exact same digital sample, leaving a cold and sterile sound. In order to improve upon previous recreations and to pay tribute to the liveliness and depth of this antique harpsichord, the producers of this collection captured every sampled register with up to 8 variations of each note. To complete the harpsichord experience, they recorded every register with 4 different release samples of each note.

Recording in the great sounding rooms of the Hasselburg estate, the engineers employed vintage Neumann TLM-170 microphones in conjunction with Crane Song Flamingo preamps and Universal Audio 2192 digital converters to do theKirchman harpsichord justice. For maximum sound quality, the producers recorded in 192KHz/24-bits, downsampled to the resolution of your choice.

The English Harpsichord sample library also contains an essay in German from Professor Andreas E. Beurmannf, explaining both the historical and musical background of the Jacob Kirchman harpsichord.