The Italian Harpsichord library contains a historical harpsichord built in
1579 by Pierluigi in Livorno. Sharing its tonal qualities for almost half
a millenium, it is a classic example of how Italian harpsichords were built
for about 200 years.

Compared to its Dutch and English siblings, the Pierluigi harpsichord stands
out due to its light and simple design (one 8' register) and mostly because
of its fundamental, sonorous warm and deep tone.

This unique instrument in the collection of Andreas Beurmann still remains
in excellent playable condition despite its age. It is now available for the
first time for your sampler within the Italian Harpsichord library, presented
in its original meantone tuning at 383 Hz (Presets in 440 Hz are included as
well).

Like all harpsichords, the Pierluigi is not touch-sensitive in the sense of a
piano. However, even if the differences are minuscule, not any given note
will sound exactly the same due to different resonances of body and strings.

Until now, many keyboards and samplers represented harpsichords by always
triggering off the exact same digital sample, leaving a cold and sterile
sounding impression.

In order to improve upon previous recreations and to pay tribute to the
liveliness and depth of this antique instrument, we captured 8 variations
of each note.

The release sounds of the keys are also of major importance: What was
originally side noise is now often overlooked and even simply left out in
artifical simulations, resulting in a very abstract overall picture.
Therefore, we recorded 4 release samples of each note.

http://realsamples.net/d_600_Italian_Harpsichord___Edition_Beurmann203.htm

Download File Size:2.2 GB

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