Hopkin Instrumentarium: Handsome Dan

Handsome Dan is an experimental custom creation from the mind of master instrument inventor Bart Hopkin: A stringed Zither with a unique twist. The key is a clever system for picking up and isolating the harmonic resonances in unplayed strings. This flat wooden sound box has 14 strings, with a center bridge dividing them into two segments. A magnetic pickup is placed on one side, but the strings are played primarily on the other side, usually with a slide or plectrum. When a frequency sounding on the played side matches any of the harmonics of the same string on the unplayed side, it sets up a sympathetic vibration in the unplayed segment. That’s the sound that comes through the pickup. The tone is dreamy and ethereal, with a floating, swelling presence.We've faithfully sampled every interesting sound we could get out of this zither, with two stereo mic positions: Contact mics, and mixed mics. Plucks, Slides in a variety of intervals, and Glisses up and down are available in all four layers to easily mix and match. With up to 8x round robin and 6 velocity layers per note, you’ll be swimming in beautiful timbres in no time. We've also included a wide selection of custom FX presets and plenty of our signature sound-designed ambient content, crafted from the raw acoustic source to give you complete creative freedom.