Review: The Harmonium by Audiosyncrasy

Invented in the late 1800s, the Harmonium was designed to be an expressive alternative to the pipe organ. Creating sound via the pumping of air through an array of reeds, the harmonium found its way to popularity and could be found in homes across Europe. Though less popular today, through the power of modern sampling, the expressive nuance and unique sound of the harmonium can now be brought to your DAW because of the fine work of the people at Audio Syncrasy.

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Review: The Harmonium by Audiosyncrasy

Though organ pipes will become sharp or flat depending on the pressure of air pushed through them, a reed will not. This fact allows the harmonium to swell expressively in volume. Expressiveness in general, was one of the intended goals of the instrument when it was invented in the late 1800s. This detail and uniqueness can often be lost in the sampling process. This is however not the case with Audio Syncrasy’s debut release as they have done a phenomenal job and have managed to capture so much of the subtle nuances of this fascinating instrument.

The Harmonium sells for $39.99 from Audiosyncrasy

Thoughts

Like any other Native-Access-requiring Kontakt product, installation is a breeze and you’ll be up and running in no time. After registering and installing, the library will appear in Kontakt”# library tab. The instrument itself comes in a single nki. From here we are greeted with a clean and simple interface. As the presets come in the form of Kontakt snapshots which we can access from any panel. There are over 50 of these snapshots which is great as they really show off the instrument’s ability to change and model the sound you want. These are divided into five categories: ambient, bass, processed, shorts, and natural. The natural settings are what I was first drawn to and I was immediately impressed. I will admit I wasn’t fully familiar with the sound of a harmonium so I did some research and did some listening before diving into this instrument. I was immediately struck by how realistic and natural it sounds! This is helped by many factors not the least of which are the realistic key click sounds that really sell the illusion that we’re playing a real physical instrument and not a sample.

From the FX page we are given a collection of FX we can chain together including reverb, filters, EQ, a phaser, a cabinet model, saturation, distortion, and a rotator. With these FX in conjunction with the available ASDR and other controls, we are able to significantly change the sound we are getting. This change can be subtle and keep the natural sound of the instrument, or we can instead push it to a mangled and interesting synth like sound. The instrument gives you however much control you wish to use.

This control is not limited to FX however! One of the key features of the harmonium is how expressive it is. One of the main technical differences between a pipe organ and a harmonium, is that when you blow air into a pipe faster or slower, the dynamics don’t change. Rather, the pitch becomes more sharp or flat. This is not the case with the harmonium as air is being blown not through pipes but through reeds. This allows the instrument to be able to swell in volume as the strength of the current of air passing over the reed is changed.

In the instrument we are given several CC mappable controls which allow us to realistically control our dynamics. We have our expression control as with any instrument which allows for a literal change in volume, but with our swell and dynamics controls, we can do so much more. The swell control crossfades between up to three layers which seems to shape the brightness of the sound while the dynamics crossfades between 3 dynamic layers. This changes the amount of air being pushed through the bellows. A really interesting feature of the dynamics control is that we have a latency after we have made a CC change which simulates the way the actual instrument would fill with air. This dynamic lag can be changed to make it more subtle. The vibrato amount can also be controlled with a CC.

A final thought, and something that impressed me greatly is that upon viewing the company’s site, it appears as though this is their first release! They have done a wonderful job and this is a fantastic debut product in what I’m sure will be a growing collection of quality sampled instruments that I will look forward to playing.

Facts

Weighing in at 3 GB of hard drive space, The Harmonium by Audio Syncrasy is a deep sampled harmonium which features 2 round robins and 9 layers. The instrument is contained in one nki and features over 50 presets in the form of kontakt snapshots. These presets are divided across five categories: ambient, bass, natural, processed, and shorts. The instrument features detailed control of dynamics, swells, expression, and vibrato which can all be mapped to CC controls. The harmonium also features an array of effects including an LFO, an EQ, phaser, filter, reverb, a modeled cabinet, etc. The instrument requires Kontakt 5.7.0 or higher and will work in the free Kontakt player. The instrument activates within Native Access and will appear in your library tab.

The Harmonium sells for $39.99 from Audiosyncrasy

Demos of The Harmonium by Audiosyncrasy

Videos of The Harmonium by Audiosyncrasy

Contributor Shaun Chasin reviews The Harmonium by Audiosyncrasy
“Invented in the late 1800s, the Harmonium was designed to be an expressive alternative to the pipe organ. Creating sound via the pumping of air through an array of reeds, the harmonium found its way to popularity and could be found in homes across europe. Though less popular today, through the power of modern sampling, the expressive nuance and unique sound of the harmonium can now be brought to your DAW because of the fine work of the people at Audio Syncrasy.”