Affiliate disclosure: the "Get this deal" button is an affiliate link to the store. If you buy through it we earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Full policy
Hopkin Instrumentarium: 2+2+1 Black Friday pricing is $19.50, 50% off, until Dec 6, 2026, for Soundiron's Kontakt library of a 14-string acoustic zither.
The instrument was built for this library. Multiple bridges split every string into three segments. Two segments are long and speak in the lower octave. The third is half their length and rings an octave higher.
Pluck any one segment and the other two vibrate in sympathy. The bridges also drive the soundboard, which gives a warm, woody, resonant tone.
The segments share unison and octave relationships, so they pick up shared resonances. Small tuning imperfections add a light chorusing on top.
Every note is captured two ways: the open string with its sympathetic ring, and a single damped segment. Soundiron held a foam rubber pad under the strings near the bridge to damp that segment.
The damped sound is percussive and decays fast. The neighbouring undamped segments still ring around it, which adds a short natural reverb tail.
The maker says it sampled every interesting sound it could get from the zither. Here is what is in the box:
All four layers of the GUI can hold any of the plucks and glisses, so you can mix and match them.
The interface carries automation-ready controls for swell, attack, release, offset, vibrato and filter. Pitch has coarse and fine adjustment, and there is articulation switching, cross-fading and layering.
The library installs at 10.5 GB. It needs the full retail version of Native Instruments Kontakt, version 6.5 or newer. The free Kontakt Player and the Add Library import do not support it.
Yes. The Black Friday price for Hopkin Instrumentarium: 2+2+1 is $19.50, which is 50% off, and the deal ends Dec 6, 2026. It is Soundiron's 14-string zither library for the full version of Kontakt.
You get 21 Kontakt.nki presets, 5,544 stereo.WAV samples and 20 ambient pads and drones built from the zither recordings. Pluck and gliss articulations come in Close and Pickups mic positions, with custom FX presets on top.
No. The.nki presets need the full retail version of Kontakt, version 6.5 or newer. The maker says the free Kontakt Player and the Add Library import process do not support this library.
Bridges split each of its 14 strings into three segments: two long, one half-length. Plucking one segment sets the others vibrating in sympathy. The bridges also drive the soundboard, adding a warm, woody resonance.
Prices and end dates are checked at publishing time and can change, so confirm them at the store before you buy.