Precisionsound Nordic Psalmodikon User Manual

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Introduction

The Psalmodikon is a Scandinavian single-stringed instrument for playing hymns in churches.

In the early 19th century, many Christian congregations couldn’t afford an organ, so members built their

own instruments as substitutes.

To simplify the task of learning to play hymns, they burnt numbers into the Psalmodikon. These marked

notes on the instrument that corresponded to numbers on printed psalms. The players didn’t have to

know musical notation, only to play after the numbers written.

Our approach when sampling the Psalmodikon was not to make it “realistic” in the traditional sense. We

treated it more progressively, with an open mind as to how it could sound, instead of how it ought to

sound. We recorded it in a way that makes the final product much more diverse and useful for modern

contemporary music.

The end result is a haunting, primitive “Flintstone” type of cello with traditional articulations like Sustain,

Pizzicato, Marcato, as well as bowing techniques that emphasise what we call the “scraped overtones”

of the Psalmodikon’s string.

We have included a control panel for Kontakt 3+ that provides unique performance features for layering

and shaping the articulations, in addition to effects such as delay and reverb.

The Nordic Psalmodikon library is useful and unusual in its tone, ideal for cinematic scoring and creative

music production if you like to add an “edge” to your sound.