The story
I am a composer who like many, comes from a band/songwriter background . I do a lot of Cinematic Americana and Roots music, as well as more quirkier and Indie stuff. There are so many great libraries out there with amazing sounding orchestras and multi-sampled pianos etc ( Spitfire being among the very best!) , but I often find myself going for more raw,imperfect sounds to bring a sense of realism to the track. I love Spitfire Labs for that reason!
I appreciate Christian being a champion to people making their own samples and he has helped shift my perspective a bit. What I once saw as limitations that I had as far as gear (ahem.. I mean “kit”:) I now see as an opportunity to be more unique and authentic to my own original voice and style. “Necessity is the mother of invention” as they say!
Pianobook has given me the perfect arena to take off the sampling training wheels off and share what I am making. I’m glad it has featured four instruments so far and that people have been using them! Thanks again Christian, for creating such an amazing community!
Reviews for Mountain Dulcimer
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
New instrument / sound to play with
Interesting and original!! There are many choices of pads and drones. Ambient Mountain Dulcimer is a very nice mixture of pad sound and steel.
Ebow Pads stand out to me
The Ebows are really unique to me, they're very scratchy and organic and i think bring alot of realism and character. Im not as big a fan of the regular dulcimer but i still think its really characterful. There seems to be a decent amount of dynamics and round robins which is really important in stringed instruments so im glad its included. The samples are a bit noisy but nothing crazy. I think the Multi is the best here. Joshua always shines with these multis. Its ambient and beautiful. There seems to be some dead keys in the regular patch but overall its still a pretty solid library.
Comes with some problems...
Starting from the simple "Mountain Dulcimer" patch, I really loved the character of it, but I ran into some problems very quickly. If you play moderately fast between the two "ranges", you will realise that some samples won't be registered at all, resulting in dead key presses, which will be annoying to deal with. This is also one of the noisiest patches I've heard from Joshua, but it's not a dealbreaker by any means.
You will also find a percussion patch that might sit better in an electronic production rather than a classical one, because the lack of round robins, repetition can make things sound artificial. The Blackhole multi is very soothing, to the point I want to cry... There are also some drone-like patches that you can explore. All of those seem quite interesting as always.
Once again, there are no options for you to play with, and this time the image choice kind of takes the magic away...
Really useful "Dulcimer based" collection.
No fewer than 7 Dulcimer/Dulcimer sourced variations. The pads and atmospheres are what Josua excels at and are up to his usual standard here, I particularly like space mountain. The basic dulcimer plucks/strums are great in context, assuming you're not looking for a solo instrument. Also the "drum kit" patches are really useful/interesting - Yes, there maybe a few "issues" here and there if this were a commercial release, but if I'm looking for a commercially sampled Dulcimer with round robins and then I'll go a pay a couple of hundred for one. As it is, inspiring and useful in equal measures. Thanks Joshua.
Not just a Dulcimer
The plucked dulcimer itself is a nice enough sound although not the cleanest with the notes cutting out before they fade.
There are however lots of great organic textured pads that could work in a variety of different situations.
