Welcome to the Tonehammer Epic Dhol Ensemble. We bought three high-end Punjab Dhol drums and recorded them in the same orchestral hall as our Epic Toms. It is by far the most massive sounding epic percussion ensemble library available anywhere. We designed it specifically for epic and aggressive percussive scoring. The Punjab Dhol is a double-sided barrel drum large and bulky to produce the preferred loud bass.
The drum consists of a wooden barrel with animal hide or synthetic skin stretched over its open ends, covering them completely. These skins can be stretched or loosened with a tightening mechanism made up of either interwoven ropes, or nuts and bolts. Tightening or loosening the skins subtly alters the pitch of the drum sound. The stretched skin on one of the ends is thicker and produces a deep, low frequency (higher bass) sound and the other thinner one produces a higher frequency sound. In contemporary Punjabi music, dhols with synthetic, or plastic, treble skins are very common.

The Epic Dhol Ensemble drums follows our over general direction in terms of recording all articulations at 10 velocity layers and 10 round robin pr. velocity layers. It contains a great variety of articulations, since each side of drum produces very different sounds. Essentially its divided into a bass section and a snare section. We played the bass section with the traditional big wooden Dhol stick, mallet, hands and fingers to ensure we covered the entire range. The sound is similar to that of Taiko drums, but with a little more tonality to it. The snare side was recorded with the traditional thin bamboo Dhol stick, however we also recorded this side with mallets, brushes and fingers. In addition we recorded different rimshot positions on the drum, so the users can create a variety of different soundings rhythmic textures on the drum. Th library also contains a substantial amount (+800) of BPM based loop banks for instant user gratification. We recorded the dhols and other smaller complimentary percussion instruments together. The loops work perfect with the multisampled sets, but also work perfectly as stand-alone instant-gratification type of music loops.

Features:
* Core Dhol Drum Articulations, includes:
* Dhol Bass Drum w/ traditional Dhol stick (10 velocity layers - 10 round robin)
* Dhol Bass Drum w/ mallet (10 velocity layers - 10 round robin)
* Dhol Bass Drum w/ hands (10 velocity layers - 10 round robin)
* Dhol Bass Drum w/ fingers (10 velocity layers - 10 round robin)
* Dhol Body Rim Shot 1 (10 velocity layers - 10 round robin)
* Dhol Body Rim Shot 2 (10 velocity layers - 10 round robin)
* Dhol Snare Drum w/ traditional Dhol bamboo stick (10 velocity layers - 10 round robin)
* Dhol Snare Drum w/ mallet (10 velocity layers - 10 round robin)
* Dhol Snare Drum w/ brushes (10 velocity layers - 10 round robin)
* 874 BPM loops w/ assorted percussion
* 80, 90, 110, 120, 130, 140 BPM
* Extensive read me install, patch and hint documentation (.pdf) (download here)
* Exclusive Mike/Troels talking about the Epic Dhol library (mp3 interview)
* 20 instrument patches, 2.063 samples, 1.7 GB installed, 995 MB .rar download
* Sample resolution: 44.1Khz/24Bit .wav format
* Format(s): Kontakt and .wav
* Note: Native Instruments Kontakt full cracked by AiR or DYNAMiCS is required.
* Note: Free Kontakt Player will only work for 30 minutes with this product. Full version required to remove this restriction.