Realsamples Edition Beurmann libraries leave no historically notorious instrument safe from sampling. Their most recent victim is an original harpsichord built by Andreas Ruckers I, son of Hans Ruckers, which is sampled heavily in realsamples Dutch Harpsichord library. With the Ruckers-built harpsichord containing two manuals and several registers, realsamples was able to squeeze out many unique sounds from six different register combinations.

The Ruckers family were very influential in building harpsichords, representing the Flemish design that spread throughout Europe. When translated almost 400 years into the future to a sample library, things can get a little trickier. Harpsichords are not touch sensitive, so to keep from triggering the same sample over and over again, realsamples notes that no two notes will sound exactly alike because of variable body and string resonances. Thus, they've captured every sampled register with up to eight variations per note. Realsamples then recorded every register with four different release samples per note.

Overall, realsamples captured about 3,700 single samples. They did so in the rooms of the Hasselburg estate with tube-driven Royer R-122V ribbon mics and Neumann TLM-170 microphones. They put those mics through Crane Song Flamingo preamps and Universal Audio 2192 digital converters.

Fast features

• Six different register combinations sampled: upper 8', lower 8', tutti, 2x8', 4' and lute stop
• Sampled registers can be combined for even more sounds
• Each register recorded with 8 different samples of each note
• Ready to play HAlion / Reason / Kontakt / Independence / MachFive / VSampler3 / EXS24 or GigaStudio presets
• Wav format (except GigaStudio® version)
• No mastering applied
• Recorded in 192 khz/24 bits resolution and downsampled
• DVD set
• License-free applicable in your music