3 New Realsamples Products

Realsamples has released Edition Beurmann - Orphica Piano, Edition Beurmann - Italian Harpsichord III as well as Edition Beurmann - French Harpsichord.

The Orphica Piano library offers a special little piano: Invented by Carl Leopold Röllig, the small portable piano type was built by piano maker Joseph Donal at the end of the 18th century.
Produced for about 15 years, the Orphica is said to remain one of the rarest pianos today – worldwide, only 30 instruments have been preserved, according to RS. Inventor Röllig was reminded of the “Lyre of Orpheus”, so he chose the name accordingly for what happens to be a predecessor of today’s portable keyboard.

The instrument featured in this sample library was built around 1798 and according to the company “offers a slinky, charming and lively piano tone unlike any regular piano sound – thanks to its small size featuring three octaves, it has a different main focus: Twinkle-toed, yet present with chocolate-like mids and with the typical piano-like grace, it can be great for any piano track asking for a fresh, unconsumed sound.”

The Italian Harpsichord III library features an instrument built around 1690 by an anonymous maker. Featuring three sounds – a front and a rear 8’ register as well both together – it allows for the traditional rich and slick Italian harpsichord tone, of-fering additional flexibility by choosing the adequate 8’ or using the gentle 2 × 8’ combination with its inspiring and complex harmonics, according to RS.

While it is typical for the Italian style to feature a housing seperated from the painted cabinet, this instrument is said to be one of the rare Italian harpsichords with a fixed housing. Instead, it belongs to the category of so-called “false inner-outer” instruments: The edges of the body as well as the offset cheeks are used to pretend that it features a separate housing.

The sample library contains over 1600 single samples.

The French Harpsichord library features a double-manual instrument by French builder Nicolas Pigalle. The instrument – built in Dijon in 1771 – features an “enchanting sound with singing clarity and a substantial bass”, as Professor Beurmann explains.

These qualities – along with its tone which also manages to bring out its delicate, sophisticated finesse and detail – make it is a representation of the French style. “It is one of only two surviving harpsichords from Dijon, a city once so rich in musical tradition, the other also being by Pigalle.”, according to Beurmann.

The harpsichord is now available for the first time in the sampler with the French Harpsichord library, presented in its original Valotti-tuning at 383 Hz. Based on its two manuals and different registers, the Pigalle harpsichord offers sound, sampled with 5 different register combinations, including the upper 8´, lower 8´ (principal 8´), the 4´, both 8´ as well as the “tutti” combination of both 8’ registers and the 4’ recorded together.

The sample library consists of over 3400 single samples.

For recording the instruments, RS employed custom-made Wagner U47w tube microphones in conjunction with Crane Song Flamingo pre-amps and Universal Audio 2192 digital converters. They were recorded in 192 khz/24 bits resolution, downsampled to 44.1 khz/24 bits.

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