Tempo Rubato has introduced Historic Harpsichords – Ruckers 1628 – a sampled recreation of one of the greatest and most valuable harpsichords of all time.
According to the company, Historic Harpsichords – Ruckers 1628 has been tested and tuned with ‘hardened harpsichord instrumentalists’ and features full recreation of all stops and combinations. Creative users can play both manuals individually using separate MIDI channels with faithful recreation of manual coupling using key velocity for controlling onset delays.
It includes historic tuning systems such as Werckmeister, Vallotti, Krinberger, Meantone, and more. Main a4 pitch is tuneable by +/- one semitone specifically for historically-correct performances. That said, performances need not necessarily be restricted to faithful recreations of those notable early musical stylings, but are applicable to current genres, too.
Here’s a video demo:
Historic Harpsichords – Ruckers 1628 supports iOS music standards, including AudioBus, Core MIDI, Virtual MIDI, and InterApp-Audio. It can be played using Apple’s InterApp-Audio or from other iOS apps via virtual Core MIDI.
When using it as a sound module for MIDI controller keyboards it is fully playable using Core MIDI-compliant interfaces or Apple’s Camera Connection Kit and class-compliant USB MIDI devices.
Historic Harpsichords – Ruckers 1628 is a Universal app for iOS supporting iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3, iPhone 5S, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 plus or later. It’s available for US $9.99 in the App Store.
If you’ve used Historic Harpsichords, leave a comment and let us know what you think of it!
The $9.99 is a Intro sale that’ll last until December 2nd, 25 bucks after that (according to discchord.com).
I tried the beta, and this 800mb Harpsichord isn’t your typical static, lifeless workstation/rompler Harpsichord. I kinda just hated Harpsichords before trying out this one, outside of said boring rompler/workstations/keyboard Harpsichords, I’ve not had any experience with the instrument. This sample lib really breaths some life into the whole thing, in more then a few ways. One thing in particular that I personally really loved on this is this “lute stop” mode that kinda dampens the timbre of the sounds, making it more soft and pluck-y. Well like a lute I guess? Dunno how it mechanically worked on the Ruckers, but I’m sure Wikipedia or something covers that. 🙂
No off-key samples? Strange.
East West has a decent one too, but this is cool!
If you’re a godlike energy being who wants to toy with the crew of a starship, then you simply must have a good multisampled Harpsichord in your arsenal. Tally Ho!