Harmonus

What it does

A sampled recreation of a Magnus Model 300 reed organ, captured in stereo and denoised so the mechanical fan is gone. The keyboard splits into a chord side and a melody side at any note, each with its own volume, transpose, octave and MIDI channel. An ADSR envelope and a small effects set sit on top, covering EQ, stereo tremolo, reverb and chorus, none of which the original instrument had. It runs standalone or as an AUv3, and settings save as presets.

In the demo

Jade sets the split point by note number, then switches the split off and holds chords herself for most of the show. She stacks instances in AUM to build a slow drone, offsetting one an octave down for a bowed string effect and letting Zoa drive another, and plays a nursery tune her grandmother taught her on the same model of organ.

Worth knowing

It is one instrument with one core sound and no preset library shipped, and the download is small. The tone lands between an accordion and a harmonica, which is the reason to reach for it over a general organ app.