What is a Lap Harp?

The Lap Harp is a music instrument from eastern Europe also known as 'Perepyolochka' in Cyrillic, which literally translates to „Little Quail“. Due to its easy playability its popular with musical beginners. In nature it has 15 diatonically tuned strings, which are often in the key of G major. In the Kontakt patch you can play it chromatic and well tempered.

We recorded the Lap Harp with 3 Articulations, 4 Round Robins and 2 Velocitys at a quiet low volume. For the articulations we chose a plectrum, the fleshy side of a thumb and a piano hammer. As a microphone we chose a Schoeps condencer and positioned it pretty close to he strings in order to get a direct and detailed sound. As an additional gimmick we implanted a Glissando and a Tremolo function via the script, which affects the midi behavior and enables you to get a step closer to the natural playability of the real instrument. Furthermore we added several effects such as the control of reverb, delay, lo-& hi-cut, chorus, octave and rotary, which expands the entire sound of the Lap Harp and gives you some further options to kick-start your creative process.

All in all we came out with an instrument which enriches your music with a nice and organic feel whether you used it as a solo or just as a background instrument.