Hopkin Instrumentarium: Weighted Strings – Lyre and Zither Library for Kontakt

The Lyre has 17 main strings plus three additional strings that run over a narrow neck and can be fretted. Soundiron says the weights on the Lyre strings are placed to bring out an octave overtone.

The Zither has 34 chromatically tuned main strings. Its weights are not placed to emphasize particular overtones, so the overtone content is highly inharmonic and varies from string to string.

Each instrument was sampled in three stereo mic positions: Close, Room and Contact, giving you a choice between a direct, dry sound and a more spacious acoustic character.

The library includes an adaptable LFO system with selectable shape, modulation target, speed, intensity, tempo sync and fade-in time. You can apply 12 lowpass, highpass and FX filters with assignable modulation sources such as velocity, mod wheel, expression and aftertouch.

The arpeggiator offers a velocity table and control over direction, timing, swing, randomization and duration. A key and scale lock keeps notes within common scales.

A modular FX rack provides 27 DSP modules across 8 slots, which you can order freely. The reverb section includes 99 convolution impulse responses for rooms, halls, chambers and outdoor spaces, plus 40 custom FX impulses.