Sonuscore 带来了一款基于 KONTAKT 的凯尔特竖琴音色 Celestial Harp。
这是一款美丽的，具有民族特色的优雅竖琴音源，带你去往《塞尔达传说》的世界。
For many people who grew up playing video games,
their first experience really listening and taking pleasure in harp music
may have been from the Legend of Zelda games,
where the Celtic harp played a prominent role in Koji Kondo’s soundtracks.
对于许多玩电子游戏长大的人来说，
第一次真正聆听和享受竖琴音乐的经验
可能来自《塞尔达传说》，
而凯尔特竖琴在近藤浩治的配乐中发挥了重要作用。
The Legend of Zelda games are now considered as having been one of the biggest influences on game music,
setting the sound for fantasy soundtracks across the board.
From A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time to the latest Breath of the Wild,
Kondo’s, and later Eric Bucholz’s, scores served to not only advance the in-game playing experience,
but also to define the fantasy soundtrack genre itself.
《塞尔达传说》系列现在被认为是对游戏音乐影响最大的游戏之一，
为各类幻想配乐设定了标杆。
从《时之笛》和《荒野之息》到最新的《黄昏公主》，
近藤浩治和埃里克·布科尔兹的配乐不仅推动了游戏内的音乐体验，
还定义了幻想配乐的流派本身。
It’s two instruments that really stand out in the series:
the ocarina and the Celtic harp.
It’s with that fantastic, nostalgic thrill that we have for those classic fantasy video games and movies,
that we approached our opportunity to do the Celtic Harp.
该系列中真正占主导地位的，有两种乐器：
它们分别陶笛和凯尔特竖琴。
正是对那些经典奇幻游戏和电影的梦幻般的怀旧，
我们才制作了这款凯尔特竖琴。
CELTIC VS. CONCERT HARPS
With HA•PI, we had already covered the Concert Harp.
It serves a more prominent role in classical music.
But the Celtic Harp is more what you would have heard in medieval taverns,
Irish pubs, and Elven forests rather than the grand,
imperial opera halls of the Baroque era.
凯尔特竖琴与音乐厅竖琴
在 HA•PI 中，我们已经收入了音乐厅竖琴。
它在古典音乐中扮演着更重要的角色。
但凯尔特竖琴则更多地出现在中世纪酒馆、
爱尔兰酒吧和精灵森林的场景中，
而不是巴洛克时代宏伟的皇家歌剧院。
The Celtic harp has a softer tone than the Concert Harp,
and is far smaller and more portable.
It’s sound gives the listener a greater sense of magic and enchantment,
which is why it was used in the Legend of Zelda soundtracks,
and in Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings soundtrack
and just about any other fantasy film that’s been produced.
凯尔特竖琴的音调比音乐会竖琴更柔和，
尺寸也更小更易携带。
它的声音对听众有着更强烈的魔力和魅力，
所以才会被用在《塞尔达传说》系列、
霍华德·肖尔的《指环王》系列
和几乎所有其他幻想电影的配乐中。
“The CELESTIAL HARP is a Celtic cut,”
project lead Matthias Meeh explains.
“It’s much shorter and has a different sound quality to it.
I think when composers look for more of an Elvish or fairytale harp,
they would rather use a Celtic Harp instead of a normal one.”
“CELESTIAL HARP 是凯尔特竖琴的改编版本，
”项目负责人 Matthias Meeh 解释说。
“它要短得多，并且具有不同的音色。
我认为当作曲家想要寻找更具精灵感或童话感的竖琴时，
他们就会更倾向于使用凯尔特竖琴，而不是传统的竖琴。”
It was in a random conversation that
Matthias discovered someone at Sonuscore had a Celtic Harp,
and the idea was immediately born to bring it into the GLOW family
as a sister to our Concert Harp, HA•PI.
正是在一次偶然的对话中，
Matthias 发现 Sonuscore 的一位成员有一架凯尔特竖琴，
于是立即产生了将其作为我们 Concert Harp HA•PI 的
姐妹乐器引入 GLOW 系列的想法。
CAPTURING THE SOUND
Matthias approached the project with his usual meticulous attention to detail,
carefully recording every aspect of the harp’s sound.
The team used the same microphones as they did for HA•PI
to keep the sound in the same family.
音色捕捉
Matthias 以他一贯的细致入微的方式对待这个项目，
精心录制了竖琴声音的每个细节。
团队使用与 HA•PI 相同的麦克风，
以保持声音具有同样的感受。
“The main mic is a Brauner Phantera,
which is a really nice microphone,” Matthias said.
“It has a very warm character in the mix.
The recording room was a bit special because it’s normally used by sound designers,
so it’s pretty dry and has no reverb…
afterwards I used an impulse response to reverberate the whole thing
and make it feel like it’s in a room.
[The advantage of using an impulse response is] the harp has some nice sound qualities that you can control.
It has no bad resonances or anything,
and I’m actually quite liking this style of recording.”
"我们主要使用的麦克风是 Brauner Phantera，
这是一款非常好的麦克风，" Matthias 说道。
"它在混音中具有非常温暖的特色。
录音室有些特别，因为它通常由声音设计师使用，
所以非常干声，没有混响...
之后，我使用了一个脉冲响应来给整个音频添加混响，
使其有一种在房间中的感觉。"
[使用脉冲响应的好处是]竖琴会有很好的音质，并且便于控制。
它没有难听的共鸣或其他问题，
所以实际上我很喜欢这种录音风格。”
“Normally in studio recordings, you always have some floor noise,
but because this room is so sterile,
it was very easy to remove the noise without removing harmonic signals.
It’s pretty easy to make a noise profile when it’s so dry.”
“通常在录音棚的录制过程中，总会有一些底噪，
但由于这间房间非常干净，
很容易在不丢失谐波信号的情况下去除噪音。
当环境如此干净时，制作噪音配置文件是非常容易的。”
One challenge Matthias met during the recording process
was that the higher the strings go, the shorter they are,
so naturally you must pluck harder to get an even volume.
“I think this is a big challenge in recording a harp, to have the velocity retained like that,” says Matthias.
“For the harpists’ perspective, I think this is common knowledge,
but if you’re just loading it up as a composer and you don’t think about it,
you’d end up wondering why it gets harsher and harsher the higher you get.”
But we figured out how to compensate for that.
Matthias 在录音过程中遇到的一个挑战
是随着琴弦位置越高，琴弦越短，
为了保持音量均匀，自然需要更用力地拨弦。
“我认为这是录制竖琴时的一个大挑战，
如果要保持这种力度的话，”Matthias 说道。
“对于竖琴手来说，我认为这是常识，
但如果只是作曲用它，而没有考虑到这一点，
你最终就会发现它在越高的位置越尖锐。”
但我们找到了解决办法来弥补这个问题。
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Though we departed from the traditional GLOW naming method of four letters split by a dot,
ELESTIAL HARP is still very much a GLOW instrument.
It is a single, lightweight instrument and has all the same features as the other GLOW instruments,
mainly meaning the GLOW slider that
turns the natural sound into a shimmering, ethereal pad.
GLOW 系列的一员
尽管我们在命名上有所不同，
但 CELESTIAL HARP 仍然是 GLOW 系列的一员。
它是一款独特而轻便的乐器，拥有与其他 GLOW 乐器相同的特色，
主要是特点是具有能将自然的声音
转化为闪耀而神秘的音色的 GLOW 滑块功能。
With the GLOW slider, when you hold down a chord,
“it emits random round robins, random velocities,
and random octave ups and downs,” Matthias explains.
“It won’t trigger different notes, but if I’m pressing C and G,
for example, it will trigger all the Cs and Gs and preferably at lower velocities.
And it even can start mid-sample sometimes.”
通过使用 GLOW 滑块，当你按住一个和弦时，
“它会产生随机的循环，随机的力度，
以及随机的八度起伏，”Matthias 解释说。
“它不会触发不同的音符，但如果我按下 C 和 G，
它会触发所有的 C 和 G，而且更可能是以较低的力度触发。
而且它有时甚至可以在采样中间开始触发”。
“The GLOW instruments are very intuitive and small, and very easy to get a cool,
complex sound without taking too much brain space,
so you don’t have this choice paralysis
that you can have with bigger products,” Matthias continues.
“If you need an easy harp that sounds good on its own without any other special things,
you can just load it up and it won’t take too much RAM or memory space in your project.
It’s also great if you need an easy ambient pad or atmosphere.”
“GLOW 系列乐器非常直观而小巧，非常容易获得出色
且复杂的声音，而无需占用太多算力，
因此你不会因为选择太多而陷入难以抉择的困境，
这个一般只会在大产品中出现，”Matthias 继续说道。
“如果你需要一个简单的竖琴，而它自己的声音就很好，不需要其他特别的东西，
那你就只需要加载它，并不会占用太多的 RAM 或内存空间。
如果你需要一个简单的环境铺底或氛围音，它也非常出色。”
DESIGNING THE PRESETS
In creating the presets, Matthias tried to bring out both the natural qualities and the ambient pads.
“I always go for one or two classic sounds when I’m designing presets,” Matthias says.
“I think most people want something without fancy reverb or anything,
just something natural sounding.
And when I have those basic ones that probably most people would use,
I start getting creative
and use all the possibilities the instrument has to offer to make some sounds that I enjoy.”
设计预设
在设计预设时，Matthias 尝试展现竖琴的自然特质和环境铺底音色。
“在设计预设时，我一般都是选择一两种经典的声音，”Matthias 说道。
“我认为大多数人希望得到一些没有花哨混响
或其他东西的自然音色。
当我有了那些大多数人会使用的基本音色之后，
我就会开始发挥创造力，
利用乐器提供的一切可能性制作我喜欢的声音。”
That’s when he really taps into the true power of the GLOW engine.
For his own preference, he likes to use the GLOW series instruments for the power that the slider offers,
and he shows that in his presets as well.
“I turn my GLOW slider up,
add some delay and reverb and then it goes on the background of my music to fill out the spaces.
So I deliver two or three of those over-the-top presets as well.
“So basically 2-3 bread and butter presets and the rest more ambient.”
这样他真正发挥了 GLOW 引擎的威力，
对于他个人而言，喜欢使用 GLOW 系列乐器的滑块，
在他的预置中也很好的展示了这一点。
"我把我的 GLOW 滑块调高，
添加一些延迟和混响，然后让它在我的音乐背景中去填充空间。
所以我也提供了两到三个这样的过渡预设。
"所以预置基本就是 2-3 个润色的，其余的更多的是环境铺底音色。"
If you’re looking for an expressive instrument that’s perfect for both folk and ambient music,
CELESTIAL HARP is definitely your go-to.
With its beautiful tone and the GLOW slider that sends the sound to space and beyond,
it’s a tool that will be sure to spark your creativity.
“I think some composers will use CELESTIAL HARP as a pad that’s not a synth,” Matthias says,
“but has a realistic or natural sounding quality to it.
And those who want to use a Celtic Harp will also like this.”
如果你正在寻找一款适用于民谣和环境音乐的表现力丰富的乐器，
CELESTIAL HARP 绝对是你的首选。
凭借其美妙的音色和能够将声音发送到太空和更远的 GLOW 滑块，
它是一种能够激发你创造力的工具。
“我认为一些作曲家会将 CELESTIAL HARP 用作非合成器的音色铺底，”Matthias 说道，
“但它同时也具有逼真或自然的音质。
那些想要使用凯尔特竖琴的人也必然会喜欢它。”
官方网站：
https://www.sonuscore.com/shop/celestial-harp/
产品价格：
CELESTIAL HARP 标价 49.00 美元/49.00 欧元，
发布的头两周内享有 39.00 美元/39.00 欧元的优惠价格！
中国区的用户请在总代理飞来音电脑音乐技术购买。
