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Harp Swarm

A nine harp adventure

  • Overview
  • Listen
  • Walkthrough
  • What's included
  • Tech specs
  • A nine harp adventure

    Nine harps playing simultaneously spread out around the Hall at Air Studios. From hauntingly slow and fast tremolandi, to long and short plucks, harmonics, and what has to be the most extraordinary selection of cascading glissandi we've ever heard. The second instalment in the Swarm story offers instant inspiration and a broad variety of uses.
    • Hard drive delivery available at checkout
    • You can buy now and download any time

    Requires Kontakt (full license)

    Listen to Harp Swarm

    The obvious use of nine beautifully maintained harps, playing both on the scoring stage and in the galleries at Air studios, would be to engulf your listener in a cascade of sweeping glissandi. If you're a blockbuster composer working on fantasy and magical material, once you've had nine, you're unlikely to go back! Swarm 2 delivers some staggering epic glissandi resonating around this world renowned hall. But this is only the beginning! The plucks and plucked harmonics offer a hauntingly epic melodic universe that will happily straddle larger strident orchestral arrangements at all dynamics. However, the Spitfire team feel the real magic of this library lies in the slow, fast and granular tremolandi, ranging from a soft choral sea of calm to a ferocious rain storm. Great for anything other-worldly, science fiction, mystery and horror. The long strings, with full speed and dynamic control, have an inherent kinetic movement and energy, even when playing simple and slow chords. This is a magical tool, providing you with new pastures of inspiration.

    Spitfire Swarms are made up of instrument sets rarely grouped together to form large ensembles and presents as viable symphonic 'choirs'. They enable the user to take plucked or beaten instruments and use them like you would a string band, with long shimmering sustains and inspiring epic single hits. Many Spitfire libraries give the user the ability to control vibrato in strings, for Swarm this is replaced by a speed control to vary between a glorious patina of individual notes to engaging "sheens" of sounds where each individual note is imperceptible. Recorded in the much loved hall at Air Studios, the Swarm range fits perfectly into your orchestral palette as a left field sound that is beautiful, engaging and totally original. If you're tired of your existing orchestral writing palette, or your director wants something new but your producer doesn't want to take any risks. If you're looking for something inspiring or something that you can hold for an age without your listener tiring. If you feel your sample set is dry, featureless and still, or you need to add motion and texture as a layer to your existing orchestral samples then it may be time for a Swarm. And if you're writing a fantasy blockbuster, once you've had NINE harps, you'll never go back!

    Smc0163 Gui1 Full

    The Overview panel

    This is the main interface for melodic instruments. Its default view displays all available playing techniques, has a simple microphone mixer and includes the main feature controllers.

    Smc0163 Gui2 Full

    General Controls panel

    This view allows further in-depth control of the instrument, showing all available signals and feature controllers, as well as the ability to purge techniques from memory to reduce system usage.

    Smc0163 Gui3 Full

    The Ostinatum

    In this view you can add notes to a pattern sequencer, select which key it triggers on and then play for instant ostinato creation. It’s like an arpeggiator on a synthesiser.

    What's included

    Articulations

    • Trems - slow and fast
    • Harmonics - pluck
    • Longs - pluck
    • Short - pluck
    • Glisses - blues
    • Glisses - chromatic clusters
    • Glisses - dom 7th - Hollywood
    • Glisses - dom 7th - long
    • Glisses - dom 7th - medium down
    • Glisses - dom 7th - medium up
    • Glisses - dom 7th - short down
    • Glisses - dom 7th - short up
    • Glisses - dom 7th - shorter down
    • Glisses - dom 7th - shorter up
    • Glisses - maj 69 - Hollywood
    • Glisses - maj 69 - long
    • Glisses - maj 69 - medium down
    • Glisses - maj 69 - medium up
    • Glisses - maj 69 - short down
    • Glisses - maj 69 - short up
    • Glisses - maj 69 - shorter down
    • Glisses - maj 69 - shorter up
    • Glisses - major - Hollywood
    • Glisses - major - long
    • Glisses - major - medium down
    • Glisses - major - medium up
    • Glisses - major - short down
    • Glisses - major - short up
    • Glisses - major - shorter down
    • Glisses - major - shorter up
    • Glisses - melodic minor - Hollywood
    • Glisses - melodic minor - long
    • Glisses - melodic minor - medium down
    • Glisses - melodic minor - medium up
    • Glisses - melodic minor - short down
    • Glisses - melodic minor - short up
    • Glisses - melodic minor - shorter down
    • Glisses - melodic minor - Shorter up
    • Glisses - whole tone - Hollywood
    • Glisses - whole tone - long
    • Glisses - whole tone - medium down
    • Glisses - whole tone - medium up
    • Glisses - whole tone - short down
    • Glisses - whole tone - short up
    • Glisses - whole tone - shorter down
    • Glisses - whole tone - shorter up


    Mics

    • C - Close
    • T - Tree
    • A - Ambient
    • O - Outriggers
    • T2 - Surround Tree
    • G - Gallery

    Mixes

    • F - Fine
    • M - Medium
    • B - Broad

    Tech specs

    Mac system requirements

    Mac OS 11, 12 or 13 

    Both Intel and Apple Silicon/ARM are supported

    Minimum: 2.8GHz i5 minimum (quad-core), 8GB RAM

    Recommended: 2.8GHz I7 (six-core), 16GB RAM

    32-bit systems are not supported.

    PC system requirements

    Windows 10 or Windows 11 - (Latest Service Pack, 64-bit)

    Minimum: Intel 2.8 GHz i5 (quad-core) or AMD Ryzen 5, 8GB RAM

    Recommended: Intel Core i7 6th gen and later or AMD Ryzen 7, 16GB RAM

    32-bit systems are not supported.

    File size

    21.00 GB disk space required during install

    10.50 GB download size

    Too large to download? Choose hard drive delivery at checkout


    Kontakt player

    Kontakt Full 5.6.8 or higher required

    For more information on Kontakt Full click here

    Harp Swarm sounds great with…