对于许多从小玩电子游戏长大的人来说，他们真正聆听和享受竖琴音乐的第一次经历可能来自《塞尔达传说》游戏，在那里，凯尔特竖琴在近藤浩二的配乐中发挥了重要作用。《塞尔达传说》游戏现在被认为是对游戏音乐影响最大的游戏之一，全面设定了奇幻配乐的声音。从《A Link to the Past》和《Ocarina of Time》到最新的《Breath of the Wild》，近藤和后来的埃里克·布赫兹的配乐不仅提升了游戏体验，还定义了奇幻配乐类型本身。
在这个系列中，有两种乐器真正脱颖而出：陶笛和凯尔特竖琴。正是带着我们对那些经典奇幻电子游戏和电影的那种梦幻般的怀旧刺激，我们才有机会制作凯尔特竖琴。
有了HA•PI，我们已经报道了音乐会竖琴。它在古典音乐中扮演着更为重要的角色。但凯尔特竖琴更像是你在中世纪酒馆、爱尔兰酒吧和精灵森林里听到的，而不是巴洛克时代宏伟的皇家歌剧院。凯尔特竖琴的音色比音乐会竖琴柔和，而且更小、更便携。它的声音给听众带来了更大的魔力和魅力——这就是为什么它被用于《塞尔达传说》的配乐、霍华德·肖尔的《指环王》的配乐以及几乎所有其他制作的奇幻电影中。
项目负责人Matthias Meeh解释说：“CELESTIAL HARP是凯尔特人的一种切割。”。“它要短得多，音质也不同。我认为当作曲家想要更多的精灵或童话竖琴时，他们宁愿使用凯尔特竖琴而不是普通竖琴。”
正是在一次随机的谈话中，Matthias发现Sonuscore有人有一把凯尔特竖琴，于是立即产生了将其作为我们的音乐会竖琴HA•PI的妹妹带入GLOW家族的想法。
Matthias像往常一样一丝不苟地关注细节，仔细记录竖琴声音的各个方面。该团队使用了与HA•PI相同的麦克风，以保持声音在同一系列中。
Matthias说：“主麦克风是Brauner Phantera，这是一个非常好的麦克风。”。“它在混音中有一个非常温暖的特点。录音室有点特别，因为它通常是由声音设计师使用的，所以它很干燥，没有混响……后来我使用了脉冲响应来混响整个东西，让它感觉就像在一个房间里。[使用脉冲响应的优点是]竖琴有一些很好的音质，你可以控制。它没有不良的共振或任何东西，我实际上很喜欢这种录音风格。
“通常在录音室录音中，你总是会有一些地板噪音，但由于这个房间非常无菌，在不去除谐波信号的情况下很容易去除噪音。当它如此干燥时，很容易制作噪音剖面图。”
Matthias在录音过程中遇到的一个挑战是，琴弦越高，它们就越短，所以自然你必须更用力地拨动才能获得均匀的音量。Matthias说：“我认为在录制竖琴时，保持这样的速度是一个很大的挑战。”。“从竖琴手的角度来看，我认为这是常识，但如果你只是把它当作作曲家来加载，而不去想它，你最终会想知道为什么你的声音越高，它就越刺耳。”但我们想出了如何弥补这一点。
For many people who grew up playing video games, their first experience really listening and taking pleasure in harp music may have been from the Legend of Zelda games, where the Celtic harp played a prominent role in Koji Kondo’s soundtracks. The Legend of Zelda games are now considered as having been one of the biggest influences on game music, setting the sound for fantasy soundtracks across the board. From A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time to the latest Breath of the Wild, Kondo’s, and later Eric Bucholz’s, scores served to not only advance the in-game playing experience, but also to define the fantasy soundtrack genre itself.
It’s two instruments that really stand out in the series: the ocarina and the Celtic harp. It’s with that fantastic, nostalgic thrill that we have for those classic fantasy video games and movies that we approached our opportunity to do the Celtic Harp.
With HA•PI, we had already covered the Concert Harp. It serves a more prominent role in classical music. But the Celtic Harp is more what you would have heard in medieval taverns, Irish pubs, and Elven forests rather than the grand, imperial opera halls of the Baroque era. The Celtic harp has a softer tone than the Concert Harp, and is far smaller and more portable. It’s sound gives the listener a greater sense of magic and enchantment – which is why it was used in the Legend of Zelda soundtracks and in Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings soundtrack and just about any other fantasy film that’s been produced.
“The CELESTIAL HARP is a Celtic cut,” project lead Matthias Meeh explains. “It’s much shorter and has a different sound quality to it. I think when composers look for more of an Elvish or fairytale harp, they would rather use a Celtic Harp instead of a normal one.”
It was in a random conversation that Matthias discovered someone at Sonuscore had a Celtic Harp, and the idea was immediately born to bring it into the GLOW family as a sister to our Concert Harp, HA•PI.
Matthias approached the project with his usual meticulous attention to detail, carefully recording every aspect of the harp’s sound. The team used the same microphones as they did for HA•PI to keep the sound in the same family.
“The main mic is a Brauner Phantera, which is a really nice microphone,” Matthias said. “It has a very warm character in the mix. The recording room was a bit special because it’s normally used by sound designers, so it’s pretty dry and has no reverb… afterwards I used an impulse response to reverberate the whole thing and make it feel like it’s in a room. [The advantage of using an impulse response is] the harp has some nice sound qualities that you can control. It has no bad resonances or anything, and I’m actually quite liking this style of recording.
“Normally in studio recordings, you always have some floor noise, but because this room is so sterile, it was very easy to remove the noise without removing harmonic signals. It’s pretty easy to make a noise profile when it’s so dry.”
One challenge Matthias met during the recording process was that the higher the strings go, the shorter they are, so naturally you must pluck harder to get an even volume. “I think this is a big challenge in recording a harp, to have the velocity retained like that,” says Matthias. “For the harpists’ perspective, I think this is common knowledge, but if you’re just loading it up as a composer and you don’t think about it, you’d end up wondering why it gets harsher and harsher the higher you get.” But we figured out how to compensate for that. |
