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The Interface

On the left, it is the main interface for Alphorn. All the controls are in this single screen. In the explanation we will walk through every interface element.

Natural / Extended Mode

Due to the character of the Alphorn we have decided to provide two versions of this instrument which can be toggled from the main interface with a selector switch: Natural or Extended.

‘Natural’ means the instrument will only play the notes available on the actual Alphorn (the nature tones up from a very low F), and we didn’t tune the harmonics to conform to modern scales. For the most authentic monophonic Alphorn experience with true legato, but with the restrictions mentioned above, use this mode. The available playable keys will be indicated by the blue keys on the virtual kontakt keyboard.

In ‘Extended’ mode we have used the power of kontakt to extend the range of the instrument to include all the in-between notes. In extended mode it is also possible to play polyphonic parts, but you lose the true legato, since we couldn’t record transitions that cannot be played on the actual Alphorn. To make the extended version even more useful for playing chordal passages with your virtual Alphorn ensemble, we tuned the instrument to approximate concert pitch.

Mono / Stereo dial

We’ve recorded the Alphorn with both a mono microphone setup close to the instrument and a stereo pair placed slightly further away. You can mix between these two microphone positions with this dial.

Articulation Selector / Keyswitches

Inside the Horn in the interface you can click to select one of four articulations. You can also choose these by using the keyswitches marked yellow and red on your keyboard. You can switch between Sustain, Staccato, Marcato and Sforzando. Note that the Sustain includes legato only in Natural mode, and is only capable of playing polyphonically in Extended mode.

Growl

We recorded some nice ‘Growl’ type sounds, and these can be enabled on the higher velocities by turning the switch in the ‘Growl’ field to the ‘on’ position, or by pressing the velocity sensitive keyswitch on a5. Press the keyswitch with high velocity for growl on and softly for growl off.

You can set the velocity threshold where it switches to the growl samples with the threshold slider. the number in the number field is the midi velocity above which ‘growl’ samples will be triggered.

Playing Legato

When playing Legato in the sustain articulation (with the instrument set to ‘Natural’) the amount of transition sound you will get depends on the length of time you overlap the key presses. So for the best sounding legato play overly slurred to make sure you get the entire transition.

Some transition sounds will be less audible than others, due to the limitations of the actual alphorn in playing these transitions. In general, for fast playing, use the staccato or marcato samples, for realistic slow passages switch to the legato samples.