Bodhrán Drum

Kontakt Instrument

 

Background

The Irish Bodhrán — pron. Bow (as in bow to your partner) run — is likely descended from large skin trays used on the farm for winnowing grains. Eventually it was found to be useful as a bass drum, accompanying instrumental players. It is played sideways, with one hand on the back to modulate the tone and the other lightly holding a stick (about 10″ long called a beater or tipper)  and flicking it sideways, up and down from a flexible wrist.

I have looked for Bodhrán sample instruments over the years, but they either sounded like a ringy open frame drum or were overkill in terms of complexity and price. So I bought a drum and sampled it myself to have a simple but effective instrument to use in a mix.

There are three Kontakt instruments here, my Bodhrán recorded with different home-made tippers: a light, hard tipper, a heavy tipper, and a “hot rod” made from a bundle of small rods. Each set has downstroke/upstroke samples recorded at four different pitch levels (determined by the hand position/pressure on the back of the skin). There are also rim shots and double and triple ornaments. Every key has 6 round robins.

Audio Demos

These three samples are the same midi file demonstrating the three tippers.

This original reel is an exerpt from my musical “Diggers” (the motivation behind making this sample instrument). It features the Light Tipper Bodhrán as well as my Jaw Harp and Spoons.

Instrument Info

Key Assignments:

C-C#: Open tone, Down-Up

D-D#: Low tone, Down-Up

E: Rim shots

F-F#: Medium tone, Down-Up

G-G#: High tone, Down-Up

A: double stroke ornament (mid tone)

A#: triple stroke ornament (mid tone)

Specs:

All samples 24 bit/48 Khz

File size  33 Mb 

Requires NI Kontakt 5+ (Player or full version)

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