Harbinger 8

System Requirements

Operating System: Windows 10 (build 17063) or newer · macOS 10.15 Catalina or newer
Storage: 2.95 GB installed · 5.90 GB free required during installation
CPU: Any processor capable of running the supported OS versions
RAM usage: 500 MB per instance when Dynamic Purging is disabled · 20 MB – 500 MB with it enabled
Verified Hosts: Cubase 12+, Reaper 7+, Studio One 6+, Ableton Live 11+, FL Studio 20+

Specifications

Note Range

Playable range: MIDI 22 – 88 (Bb0 - E6 where C4 = Middle C)

Guitar Configuration

Strings: 8
Frets: 24
Standard tuning interval: Perfect fourth (5 semitones) from F1
Lowest string drop-tuning: 7 semitones down to Bb0

Round-Robin Count

Articulation	Round Robins
Sustain	8
Palm Mute	16
Power Chord Sustain	4
Power Chord Palm Mute	4
Rake	8
Slide Noise	8

Velocity Layers

Sustain: 2
All other articulations: 1

Keyswitches

Articulation	MIDI Note
Sustain	96
Palm Mute	98
Rake	100
Power Chord Sustain	101
Power Chord Palm Mute	103

Playing the Instrument

The event handler drives every incoming MIDI message through a string-accurate guitar brain before any sampler note is fired. Below is a deeper breakdown of that logic.

String & Fret Selection

Range check: Notes outside MIDI 22-88 are discarded instantly.
Capo awareness: With the capo above fret 0, notes must be played above the capo fret on every evaluated string.
Automatic voicing: In poly mode the script first tries the lowest available string; if busy it cascades upward to find a free one within 24 frets, keeping chord spreads realistic.
MIDI Guitar override: When MIDI Guitar is enabled, each MIDI channel (1-8) hard-maps to strings 1–8 (from the lowest string up) and auto-voicing is bypassed.

Velocity-Driven Articulations

≤ Mutes on Sustain Range → converts to palm-mute (velocity remapped).
≥ Rakes on Sustain Range → triggers rake then delayed sustain (programmable delay).

Legato & Solo Behaviour

Checks for legato bend if Solo active, interval ≤12 st, velocity ≤ bend threshold. Otherwise applies Legato Overlap offset (same string) or Offset (cross-string).

Pitch Bend & Slides

Slides switch enables playable slides. The pitch wheel now has a fixed +/- 12st range, and fret bumps and sliding noises will be audible as you slide. With Slides off, standard re-sampled pitch bend will play according to the Pitch Bend Range setting.

Release & Noise Handling

Flag controls stop-noise/foley on note-off; velocity-mute notes suppress stop-noise.

Control Mapping

Right-click on a control to show a dropdown menu, where you can add, edit or remove a MIDI controller mapping.

How It Works

In the mapping screen, type in a controller number or move a control to register the CC#.

Pressing X will cancel the current changes and return to the previous screen.

Pressing ✓ will confirm the current entry. If the entry is empty, it will remove the mapping for the control.

Main Controls

Vibrato Depth

0 – 100%

Adjust the amount of vibrato.

Vibrato Rate

1 – 10 Hz

Adjust the vibrato frequency.

Offset

0 – 100 ms

Offset the sample starting point. If 'Attack Compensation' is enabled, PDC won't update with any changes while the DAW transport is playing.

Release

5 – 500 ms

Adjust the duration of the sound tail which occurs when a note is released.

Capo

0 – 20th fret

Adjust the capo position on the fretboard. The lowest string is always accessible in full, regardless of the capo position.