Plectra Series
Highland Harps
A trio of beloved folk instruments: celtic harp, lap harp, and lyre.
$49
Hear Plectra Series 2: Highland Harps In Action
- Irish Breeze Andrew Aversa 0:53
- Highland Ride Jimmy Hinson 1:19
- Cosmic Motion Andrew Aversa 1:04
- A Celtic Tale Eduardo Tarilonte 1:57
- Irish Breeze (Naked) Andrew Aversa 0:53
- Irish Breeze (Harps Only) Andrew Aversa 0:53
Reviews
Simon Franglen
Titanic, Skyfall, Spectre, Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water
Impact Soundworks make detailed, emotive instruments. I’ve happily bought over two dozen of their libraries which should say everything. They get used every day.
Mark Portmann
Ariana Grande, Luis Fonsi, Celine Dion, Quincy Jones
"[ISW]'s instruments consistently deliver the sound, feel, and reliability I need to do my best work. Thank you for raising the bar and making tools that inspire."
Neal Acree
World of WarCraft, Diablo III, StarCraft II, Overwatch
"Impact Soundworks has some of the most creative and innovative libraries out there. From world instruments to the insanely deep sampled Shreddage guitar series the Impact catalog is full of must-haves and unexpected and inspiring surprises. Highly recommended!
Stewart Winter
Co-founder, VideoHelper
"I'm a keyboard player -- I can't even make a REAL guitar sound convincing. But Telos and Rosette are my go-to guitars because they sound incredible, sit well in a mix and are so easy to configure to my personal playing habits. I'm constantly discovering new ways to play them and they've saved my ass more times than I can count. And the pedal Steel is still my favorite library of its kind for Country, Folk and organic layering behind synths."
Brian Pickett
PAW Patrol, Lucas the Spider, Daniel Tiger
"I never would have thought that sampled guitars could sound as good as ISW's do. The fact that I can use them to lay down a realistic solo is unprecedented. They’ve pushed the boundaries of realism."
Rosette Mandolin – Sound on Sound
Rosette Mandolin review
"The sound of the library is very pleasing...the more I used the library the more I felt I was learning how to write idiomatically for the instrument." "Rosette Mandolin provides a good sound that could have many applications, with versatile input options that cater to writing realistic mandolin lines, impossible 5+ note chords and everything in between." Thomas Field, September 2024
Richard Jacques
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, Mass Effect, Overwatch 2, James Bond 007: Blood Stone
"I'm a huge fan of the Ventus Winds series. They feature rare instruments deep-sampled to an incredibly high level of detail. It's so liberating to have such a wide range of articulations & phrases that perfectly capture the nuances and performance style of these instruments... from beautiful to haunting, celebratory to sorrowful. Each is expertly recorded and the sound quality is superb, sitting in the mix with ease. If you want to add authentic world winds to your palette, then look no further."
Kevin Manthei
Angry Birds Mystery Island, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Villainous, Neverwinter, Star Trek Online
"ISW creates some of the most inspiring & realistic guitar sample libraries. I had to write a bunch of really gritty, angry heavy metal & sports action rock cues. I used Shreddage 3 Serpent for leads and was blown away by its onboard processing, programming, and amazing live-sounding leads. I also created a signature sound based on the lead guitar in David Lynch's Twin Peaks series, originally played on baritone guitar. [Serpent] built a convincing replica of that sound just using on-board FX. It was so fun and easy to do!"
Audio Demos
- Irish Breeze Andrew Aversa 0:53
- Highland Ride Jimmy Hinson 1:19
- Cosmic Motion Andrew Aversa 1:04
- A Celtic Tale Eduardo Tarilonte 1:57
- Irish Breeze (Naked) Andrew Aversa 0:53
- Irish Breeze (Harps Only) Andrew Aversa 0:53
Overview
A trio of plucked folk instruments from America and Europe with a light, airy tone and our signature deep sampling!
Product Info
Three beautiful instruments
Celtic harp, lap harp, and lyre, all recorded in pristine detail.
Meticuously-sampled for authenticity
Up to 7x round robin variations and 7x dynamic levels.
Multiple articulations per instrument
Besides standard plucks, articulations like ebow, harmonics, bowing, hammers, and glissandos are available depending on the harp.
Special 'designed' patches included
An additional 10 instruments are included, created using extra processing, filters, and sound design.
Percussive articulations
Play unpitched rhythmic parts on the celtic harp and lap harp with dozens of individually-sampled percussion hits and articulations.
Features
Easy tone-shaping controls
Adjustable reverb and space
Super streamlined and easy-to-use UI
Extremely fast load times
No keyswitching required
Requirements
2.75GB of disk space
7200 RPM hard drive or solid state drive recommended.
Kontakt 4.2.3+ Full Version
This library is NOT compatible with the free Kontakt Player.
Kontakt Requirements - Mac OS
Intel Macs (i5 or higher): macOS 10.14, 10.15, 11 or 12 (latest update).
Apple Silicon Macs (via Rosetta 2 & natively on ARM in Standalone or in hosts that support it): macOS 11 or 12 (latest update)
Kontakt Requirements - Windows
Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10 (latest Service Pack, 32/64-bit). Intel Core i5 or equivalent CPU. Graphics hardware support for OpenGL 2.1 or higher. Windows 10 strongly recommended.
Featured Artists & Composers
Ben Prunty
FTL: Faster Than Light, Into the Breach, Subnautica: Below Zero
“I’ve been using ISW since 2015, and their instruments have shown up in Into the Breach and Subnautica Below Zero, and in nearly all of my solo albums. Shreddage helped me fill in the gaps around my own guitar performances. Super Audio Cart provided some great raw synth sounds for parts of Below Zero. Impact Soundworks is often the first place I go to when I’m shopping for a new project. Everything they make works and sounds great.”
Richard Jacques
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Mass Effect, Overwatch 2, James Bond 007: Blood Stone
“I’m a huge fan of the Ventus Winds series. They feature rare instruments deep-sampled to an incredibly high level of detail. It’s so liberating to have such a wide range of articulations & phrases that perfectly capture the nuances and performance style of these instruments… from beautiful to haunting, celebratory to sorrowful. Each is expertly recorded and the sound quality is superb, sitting in the mix with ease. If you want to add authentic world winds to your palette, then look no further.”
Simon Franglen
Titanic, Skyfall, Spectre, Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water
Impact Soundworks make detailed, emotive instruments. I’ve happily bought over two dozen of their libraries which should say everything. They get used every day.
Continuing our Plectra Series of plucked, picked and strummed string instruments from around the world comes this collection of traditional folk harps! Featuring the lyre, lap harp, and Celtic harp, this KONTAKT 4 sample library evokes images of the Irish countryside, Appalachian splendor, tall tales and a heart mug of mead beside a crackling fire. The intimate, close-mic’d sound is ideal for traditional, folk, medieval and Renaissance music as well as modern scores in any number of styles.
Highland Harps is the second entry into the Plectra Series of virtual stringed instruments from around the world. With this library, we wanted to capture the warm and rustic tones of the Celtic harp, lap harp, and lyre, each of which has a rich tradition extending back hundreds to thousands of years.
Our approach was to record using close mics and a minimum of room ambiance, leaving just the perfect amount of ‘air’ for each note to ring out and breathe. We made sure to extensively record dynamics and round robins, up to 7 layers for some articulations, so the entire range of each instrument could be accurately represented. Playing styles include plucked, harmonics, hammered, bowed, electronic bowed, percussive slaps and glissandos.
A custom scripted interface is provided, allowing easy access to useful controls such as attack and decay, bass, brightness, transposition, octave plucking and humanization, added reverb and spatial width. These controls make it a breeze to customize a patch to your liking for any given project.
Reviews
Testimonial – Jimmy ‘Big Giant Circles’ Hinson (Black Ops 4, Borderlands 2, Threes)
“Between Shreddage, Super Audio Cart, Juggernaut, and Mega Brass I don’t remember the last time I haven’t used an Impact Soundworks instrument in a track. The attention to detail is astonishing and it’s all so easy to use out of the box, which is a big deal.”