The traditional family of hand percussion instruments is generally defined as an open shell frame drum with large cymbals or jingles. They are similar in appearance and origin to a very large tambourine, but rather than simply being an accompaniment or backing instrument, the Rik family of drums can often take a lead or solo role. The jingles, rattles or rings are often played as a discreet component of the drum, along with a broad range of unique head and rim finger and hand articulations. This broad family of specialized drums is treated as a very serious and deeply nuanced instrument class in both traditional and modern Middle Eastern, Central Asian and Eastern European music.
For our Riq Drum multi-sample library, we captured a pair of full-sized drums, one larger 15-inch “daf” drum from Greece with metal rings and bearings (actually called a daf) and one smaller 13” riq drum from Egypt with wide tin “cymbals”. We also captured a toy frame drum that we’ve modified into a miniature riq, by adding egg-shakers. We’ve also included a full collection of atmospheric and ambient sustaining instruments, each created entirely through heavily manipulating the source recordings for this library and equipped with multi-layer morphing, performance shaping and FX chaining options.
Note: This library was originally published as “Riq Drum” in 2009 by Tonehammer. For the new 2014 Soundiron version 2.0 of our Riq Drum library, we’ve completely redesigned the programming, added a brand new graphical interface, new control systems, arpeggiation and rack FX and expanded the bonus ambi-ent content.
