The story
This is sampled from my trusty Hohner Mellowtone Toots Thilemans harmonica. I have the harmonica sample pack ready for Sampler (LPX10.5) and EX24 (LPX 10.1). I don’t own Kontakt, but feel free to make a Kontakt version too. My harmonica isn’t 100% because I lost a rubber sealer. Of cause I bought a replacement set that… I misplaced ?. That means not every sampled note is pure but there is some leakage to adjacent notes. It adds to the character.
Sounds great with a bit of reverb.
Reviews for vandengengel Harmonica
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Vivid sound of harmonica
It has a very traditional sound of harmonica. It has a clear and vivid sound, not like ambient soft texture. It can play solo, melody line, etc., a versatile instrument.
Very nicely done!
I can't comprehend how hard it can be to sample such an instrument. From the way you have to blow the air, to how airy it can be, I find it almost impossible. That's why I have to congratulate Hengel for sampling this one! The quality is supergood, and it has quite a character to it.
Some notes feature the neighbouring notes which can result to some dissonance, but that might be part of the fun at times, and it adds to its character a lot. The options offered are well enough to help you create different kinds of sounds - I personally loved it with the Tone set very low, with a very high attack and release, so it sounds like a smooth pad.
Awesome!Good, but could be better
I first downloaded this because I was looking for a fun harmonica or accordion library, and this seemed to fit the bill nicely. I didn't end up using it much though. The sound itself is very charming, to be sure, and it could do wonders given the right circumstances. That said, there's some issues that I encountered whilst playing around. First off, this instrument is suited for neither polyphonic play, nor sustained notes. The leakage of air to other notes, and the impurity of some of the notes all of which you had admittedly mentioned, really come to rear their frankly ugly heads once you start playing more than one note. I found E3 to be a particularly bad one. Further more, the noise reduction on the samples is especially bad towards the end of the samples, where you can quite clearly hear a cutoff on the noise floor. For next time, I'd recommend recording the samples a tad bit louder, and simply turning the input gain down; this should lower the noise floor, and make it easier to reduce the noise. All in all, this library has its uses, but I don't think I'll be using it myself.
Maybe my favorite harmonica..
This might be my favorite harmonic instrument sadly there aren't a lot I've found, but I noticed that I don't use it as if it's a harmonica. First, I don't mind the air leakage, if it was a high end costly instrument then I'd expect that changed, but it does make it sound authentic, I can only imagine how hard it is to record! And your note about the REVERB, that is what makes it. Samples sound better pitched down and with some big reverb, and this is a perfect example. I think for melody lines this harmonica is great, but using it as or in combination with low woodwinds is very cool! I do wish that I could switch to a full sustain version though..
Nice but a few issues
Most of the time i personally dont love the sound of harmonicas so im already biased against this. I think the recording is good and very close. It really sounds right in your face. As sam mentioned there seems to be some inconsistency in the way it was acctually played so sometimes you get multiple notes stacked onto one key. Also i feel like this is a pretty difficult instrument to sample realistically because so much of the character of the instrument comes from mouth slides or from the different sound produced from inhaling vs exhaling. Again it sounds good for what it is but apart from the fact that i would almost never use a harmonica in mu music, i just dont feel like this really captures the essence of the instrument.
