The hammer dulcimer, or hammered dulcimer, is an ancient trapezoidal-shaped sound box with metal strings running parallel to the long side of the instrument in sets called "courses" of 2 to 4 strings each. One bridge is positioned so that strings are playable on both sides of the bridge to give different notes. The notes are sounded by striking a course of strings with small wooden or light metal "hammers."
To create the SoundBrewer Hammer Dulcimer we recorded an expertly crafted beautiful 15/14 hammer dulcimer. It was recorded with two large diaphragm condenser microphones to capture the true sound of the instrument. The hammer dulcimer is fully multi-sampled, which means there is a different recording for each string and no pitch shifting is used on the samples. The sampled version has two velocity layers, and uses no loops, to fully replicate the sound of the hammer dulcimer.
The Hammer Dulcimer contains 6 different instruments (or presets). They are:
Full Dulcimer Pitch Shifted - notes from all three bridged chromatically mapped from F1 to B5. Full Dulcimer - notes from all three bridged mapped from D2 to D5. Keyswitch Hammer Dulcimer* - contains the bass bridge, and both treble bridges, changed by a keyswitch (C1-D1). Bass Bridge - all 14 notes from the bass bridge. Treble Bridge Right - all 15 notes from the treble bridge on the right side. Treble Bridge Left - all 15 notes from the treble bridge on the left side.
*GigaStudio Version Only
Demo Phrases
Click the links below to hear mp3 demos of these sounds. These demo mp3's were created using only samples from the Hammer Dulcimer :: Hammered Dulcimer sample collection.
