French Double-Manual Harpsichord by Nicolas Pigalle from 1771 Now Available From realsamples

German sample manufacturer realsamples releases a virtual copy of a French harpsichord as part of the Edition Beurmann. The instrument is taken from the famous collection of ancient instruments by Professor Andreas E. Beurmann.

The instrument – built in Dijon by Nicolas Pigalle in 1771 – features an "enchanting sound with singing clarity and a substantial bass", as Professor Beurmann explains. These qualities - along with its huge tone which also manages to bring out its delicate, sophisticated finesse and detail - make it is an excellent representation of the French style. "It is one of only two surviving harpsichords from Dijon.", he continues.

Despite its age of almost 250 years, the harpsichord still remains in excellent condition. It is now available for the first time in the sampler with the French Harpsichord library, featuring presets for all common software samplers including HAlion®, Kontakt2® and higher, EXS24® and GigaStudio3®.

Based on its two manuals and different registers, the Pigalle harpsichord offers lots of unqiue sounds, 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.

To make this sound available to players worldwide, German collector Professor Andreas Beurmann and realsamples joined forces to offer a virtual version. The result is a sample library with more than 3400 single samples of the instrument to provide even subtle nuances.

Like all harpsichords, the instrument 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 resonances of body and strings: Therefore, every key was sampled 8 times (4': 4 times) to provide the slight yet very important timbre changes of the harpsichord. In addition, the release sounds were captured with 4 different samples of each note.

Recorded in the great sounding rooms of the Hasselburg estate, custom-made Wagner™ U47w® tube microphones were used in conjunction with Crane Song™ Flamingo® preamps and Universal Audio™ 2192® digital converters recorded in 192 khz/24 bits resolution. Furthermore, the sample library contains an essay from Professor Andreas E. Beurmann himself, explaining both the historical and musical background of the instrument.

The French Harpsichord library is available in 44.1/48 khz, 96 khz and 192 khz resolution, starting at $159.95 US. The sample library can be purchased directly on the realsamples website.

Sound samples and information: http://realsamples.net/index.html?d\_612\_French\_Harpsichord\_\_\_Edition\_Beurmann 273.htm