Jon Bentsson Langspil KONTAKT [FREE]

FREE | NKI | 25.6 MB
A traditional Icelandic fiddle, built by my grandfather. The playable range of the melodic string is sampled, plus some drones, strums and soundscapes made by sample manipulation.

Langspil-Icelandic traditional fiddle.

For my first foray into Kontakt sample-instrument creation, I decided to sample my Langspil.
The Langspil is a traditional Icelandic string instrument, a primitive fiddle really.
This particular instrument was built by my grandfather some 50 years ago. He was a self-taught artisan, making all kinds of wooden objects as well as painting in oils.

I am very fond of this particular instruments as is represents my Icelandic musical heritage and, of course, always reminds me of my grandfather, a kind old man who loved making wooden toys for his grandchildren.

The Langspil has been variously played with a bow (violin/viola), hit with a wooden stick or plucked with the fingers.

For this version, I decided to mainly stick with the second method, hitting the strings with a wooden spatula. However, I also included a few strums and plucks.

It is a three-stringed instrument, having a narrow fingerboard under the first string while the remaining two strings drone in 5ths.

The tuning is C-G-C.

I recorded the Langspil using my trusty old modded Oktava MK-219 through a JoeMeek VC3 preamp.

Along with the main instrument, the pack contains a distorted version (useful for a ‘almost but not quite guitar’ sound) and some obligatory pads and droney stretchedversions for soundtracks and such.