The glockenspiel, also called orchestra bells or lyra (in its portable form), is a musical instrument similar to the xylophone. The difference is the xylophone's bars are wooden, while the glockenspiels are metal. A pair of hard mallets are used to strike the bars of a glockenspiel, though a keyboard may be attached to the instrument to allow chords to be more easily played.
The glockenspiel produces a very pure, bell-like sound that is bright and penetrating. The glockenspiel's range is limited to the upper register, and usually covers about two and a half octaves. The glockenspiel is very versatile and has been used in countless classical pieces. It is also popular in hip hop, and has even been used by bands such as Radiohead, (in their song No Surprises from OK Computer).
The SoundBrewer sampled version of the glockenspiel contains three velocity layers to fully capture the sound of the instrument. The instrument is chromatically sampled over the entire range of the instrument so no pitch shifting is required. In addition, the entire decay of the instrument is captured, and no loops are used.
Demo Phrases
Click the links below to hear mp3 demos of these sounds. These demo mp3's were created using only samples from the Glockenspiel sample collection.
