TCHC announces availability of Vaults - Solo Bodhrán

SOLO BODHRAN - A shallow one-sided drum popular in Irish and Scottish folk music

Music-making community tools-maker The Crow Hill Company is proud to announce availability of VAULTS - SOLO BODHRÁN — acting as a development of one of the world’s most ancient drum designs by bringing the heartbeat of traditional Irish music to its lengthening line of free and accessible instruments arising from company co-founder and composer Christian Henson effectively opening his ‘vaults’ for everyone to enjoy, this time turning to the artistry of Callum Convoy, one of the most sought-after bodhrán players in Scotland, to bring about the authentic sound and expressive spirit of the long-lived frame drum to which the library owes its no-nonsense name — as of February 19…

Instantly Irish-sounding by virtue of its musical roots, the bodhrán is most commonly played in solo contexts. It is shaped like a big tambourine and played on its side with a tipper or beater, while the left hand is placed on the inside of the drum to control pitch and timbre. The bodhrán propels tunes with a vibrant energy and the potential to shine in almost any genre, regardless of the instrument in question’s historically rich roots. And, as The Crow Hill Company’s accompanying artwork for VAULTS - SOLO BODHRÁN helpfully states, YOU PRONOUNCE IT BOR-RAN.

As an inspirational addition to its lengthening line of free and accessible instruments, The Crow Hill Company’s latest library lets anyone experiment with both simple and complex grooves of varying time signatures while also making use of its wild distortion and beautiful multi-band compression controls to twist and shape its authentic sound into something else entirely.

Enter The Crow Hill Company’s Theo Le Derf, digging a little deeper. “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,” he begins, before adding: “Both of these parts are velocity based, and the loops are time-synch’d to your DAW, so will adapt to any BPM that your project is in.”

It almost goes without saying that VAULTS - SOLO BODHRÁN’s GUI (Graphical User Interface) is as intuitive as always. Apart from the obvious background colour change to an appropriate Emerald green, it follows a familiar pattern already established by those products previously released as part of The Crow Hill Company’s lengthening line of free and accessible instruments, though Theo Le Derf duly provides a quick guided tour: “The first large dial on SOLO BODHRÁN is called RHYTHM and it contains two grooves that you can alternate like the A- and B-side of a vinyl record — one side is more simple and the other more complex, and it is automatically assigned to MIDI CC1; DISTANCE fades between the close mics and the spot mics further away — mics used were a pair of Neumann TLM103s and a pair of Neumann KLM184s. The small dials are more concentrated effects, the first one being CRUSH, which is a really wild, fun distortion; SQUEEZE is a beautiful multi-band compressor, which really tightens up the sound; ECHO is a stereo ping- pong delay; and SPLOSH is the standard VAULTS... reverb, both of which allow you to add more ambience to the drums.”

As a working musician himself, Theo Le Derf is perfectly positioned to speculate as to what VAULTS - SOLO BODHRÁN’s (many) musical uses could well be: “If you’re a media composer working on a chase scene or something, it could potentially work as a backbeat to that kind of vibe; certainly the bodhrán doesn’t only shine in traditional Irish music, but can be used in anything that has a particular driving force. Indeed, it has the potential to fit into almost any genre.”

Get this, though: in The Crow Hill Company’s VAULTS... webpage’s words, FREE FOR THOSE WHO TREASURE SOUND, VAULTS - SOLO BODHRÁN is now available for all to download.

Watch Theo Le Derf’s illuminating introductory walkthrough video for VAULTS - SOLO BODHRÁN here:

VAULTS - SOLO BODHRÁN installation and activation requires installation of The Crow Hill App — an easy-to-use app designed by the best in the business to provide seamless download, installation, integration, calibration, and organisation of The Crow Hill Company tools — available for free from here: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/crow-hill-app/

It is worth noting that each VAULTS... release will not be available to add to an account forever, however, since once a new ‘vault’ is ‘opened’ and goes live, another one is ‘closed’ and no longer available, meaning only six such instruments are available at any given time on The Crow Hill Company website. What this means for those who have already added a VAULTS... release to their account is that it is there forever and accessible through The Crow Hill App. As such, loyal fans can add a brand-new instrument to their arsenal every month, collecting and keeping them all. As each VAULTS... release will only be live for around six months, it is worth making sure that it is added to an account while it is live in order to have forever access.

VAULTS - SOLO BODHRÁN is free for everyone — as are all VAULTS... releases from The Crow Hill Company — from here: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/vaults/









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