Home / Plugins / Orchestral / Steinberg Guitar Harmonics Essential
by Unknown
Most guitar libraries treat harmonics as an afterthought articulation buried in a key switch. Guitar Harmonics Essential, a free library for Steinberg’s HALion Sonic 7, builds an entire instrument around them. The sounds were recorded by Cinematique Instruments, a boutique sample library developer that has a strong track record of unusual acoustic libraries (they make some of my favorite free Kontakt libraries). The harmonics here have a glassy, bell-like quality that works well for atmospheric scoring, ambient textures, and melodic lead tones.
The interface is minimal, but I like the design and the simple layout. You can tweak the central tone knob, the amplitude attack and release, and add reverb and delay from HALion’s built-in effects. That’s about it. The library sounds good enough out of the box that I don’t miss deeper controls. If you shorten the decay and add a short delay, you get a pretty cool lead-guitar-harmonics tone. Soften the attack and add reverb, and it turns into a nice glassy pad.
You’ll need to install HALion Sonic 7 first to use Guitar Harmonics Essential, but HALion Sonic 7 itself is free and a useful addition regardless.
Links to www.steinberg.net — the article includes the official download links.
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