Here is my initial version of the Glass Armanica VSTi.

It is a sample based recreation of Benjamin Franklin’s rubbed glass instrument known as the Glass Harmonica, Armonium, Hydrocrystalophone, or Armonica (whew!). I ended up changing the name to be more in line with the official name of Ben Franklin’s invention.

I originally planned to recreate all three octaves of the real instrument, but I ran out of sufficiently large wine glasses. If I come across any enormous goblets in the future I may release an enhanced version of the Glass Armanica.

The samples were created by filling wine glasses with water and tuning them with a chromatic tuner to the appropriate pitches (drop by drop). I used an Oktava MC-012 cardioid condenser microphone running into a Seventh Circle C84 Preamp.

A single octave octave of samples running from MIDI note 72 to 84 (Octave 6)
Amplitude ADSR controls
Velocity sensitivity
Reverb with width, size and mix controls
Hi-Cut and Master Volume controls