The Crow Hill Company has released VAULTS – SOLO BODHRÁN, a free instrument library featuring the bodhrán, a traditional Irish frame drum. The library, developed with bodhrán player Callum Convoy, aims to bring the authentic sound of the instrument to musicians.
The bodhrán is shaped like a big tambourine and played on its side with a tipper or beater, with the left hand controlling pitch and timbre. VAULTS – SOLO BODHRÁN includes both simple and complex grooves, along with wild distortion and multi-band compression controls. The library is split into two parts: white keys play accented grooves, and black keys offer multi-samples based on velocity. Loops are time-synced to a user’s digital audio workstation.
“The library is split into two parts; the white keys all play varying accented grooves, and the black keys are all multi-samples, going from low to high,” said Theo Le Derf of The Crow Hill Company. “Both of these parts are velocity based, and the loops are time-synched to your DAW, so will adapt to any BPM that your project is in.”
The graphical user interface includes a “Rhythm” dial to alternate between simple and complex grooves, and controls for distance (fading between close and spot mics), distortion (“Crush”), compression (“Squeeze”), delay (“Echo”), and reverb (“Splosh”). Neumann TLM103 and KLM184 microphones were used in the recording.
VAULTS – SOLO BODHRÁN is available for free at thecrowhillcompany.com. Installation requires The Crow Hill App, a free app designed to provide seamless download, installation, integration, calibration, and organization of The Crow Hill Company tools, available at thecrowhillcompany.com.
Note that each VAULTS release is only available for a limited time, with new instruments rotating every six months. Users can add instruments to their accounts for permanent access through The Crow Hill App. Crow Hill members can access an ever-growing collection of free tools and resources at thecrowhillcompany.com.
For more information, visit thecrowhillcompany.com.
