Realsamples has announced the availability of the "Beurmann Bundle", which includes all eight historical instruments currently available in the "Edition Beurmann" series, at a reduced bundle price. These include three harpsichords, three pianos, a spinet and a Dulcitone (an early celesta).
Every sample library offers a vast range of single samples to painstakingly recreate both sound and feel of the magnificent instruments. Pianos were recorded with 32 velocity levels per note, for example. The three harpsichords and the spinet of the series - whilst not being velocity-sensitive - still sound different at each hit due to their intense resonances, so they were sampled with up to eight different samples. This retains the lively feel of the instruments themselves, as opposed to a "digital" feeling recreation which plays the exact same sample over and over again. The Dulcitone, a predecessor of the celesta, featuring a rather limited dynamic range, contains eight velocity levels per key.
In order to complete the experience, every library contains detailed samples of the key releases of each key.
The Beurmann Bundle contains the following libraries:
- English Spinet (Thomas Hitchcock, London 1718)
- Italian Harpsichord (Pierluigi, Livorno 1579)
- Dutch Harpsichord (Andreas Ruckers d.Ä., Antwerpen 1628)
- English Harpsichord (Jacob Kirckman, London 1766)
- Grand Piano (Pierre Erard, London 1837)
- Early Pianoforte (Johann Andreas Stein, Augsburg 1791)
- Dulcitone Celesta (Dyson & Sons, London 1910)
- Pianoforte (Traugott Berndt, Breslau 1848)
The instruments were recorded in the unique rooms of the Hasselburg estate near Hamburg. Vintage Neumann microphones and tube-driven Royer ribbon mics were used in conjunction with Crane Song preamps and Universal Audio digital converters. For maximum sound quality, realsamples recorded in 192 khz/24 bits, down-sampled resolutions of your choice are available as well.
The release of the Beurmann Bundle marks twelve months of intense recording and editing work. "There are so many concepts and approaches when it comes to sampling, and every developer does it according to his mind. Instead of approaching sampling from a technical point of view, we tried to capture the musical nuances of each instrument in order to achieve something that is not going to be beaten just when technology reaches the next level," explains Nicolay Ketterer, head of realsamples.
The virtual historical instruments contain presets for common software samplers including HALion, Kontakt 2, EXS24 and GigaStudio3.
The Beurmann Bundle is available in 44.1/48 khz, 96 khz and 192 khz resolution, starting at $999.95 (saving over $200). It can be purchased directly on the realsamples website.
