Framed Rhythms

Framed Rhythms captures the sounds of a very special collection of natural skin frame drums, each with its own distinct character and timbre:

• The Riqq is bright and jingly, perfect for building up energy and excitement with its mixture of short and percussive drum hits and hig h pitched zills.
• The Tambourello comes in two sizes. The smaller one’s drumhead has more tone and sustain than the Riqq and combines this mid-forward sound with medium pitched zills. The larger Tambourello offers a more mystical sound with its deeper tone and laid back zills.
• The Creature pairs its medium pitched drumhead with some spice from its meaty sounding zills. Very versatile and a go-to for experimenting with heavy saturation.
• The Kanjira has a special spongy quality. It offers a low to medium drum sound with long sustain and distinctive pitch-shifting movement – combined with some healthy crack from its rather muted zills.
• The Mizhar is a mighty drum – its very low tuned drumhead provides lots of bass energy on top of a thunderous foundation.

With framed rhythms we wanted to create a frame drum library that catches the beauty of natural drum skins

For many years now, I have been very fortunate to work with the most outstanding drum maker Norbert Eckermann. He handcrafted all of my frame drums. For each drum, we had a personal conversation beforehand about how the drum should feel like, sound like, and what overall characteristics should be emphasized stylistically. The drums in this library range from very low to very high frequencies, from dark to bright colours, from rooted in tradition, to new and modern in the way they are built and played.

All of the cymbals in the bonus section are from Turkish Cymbals and are the perfect match for my everyday frame drum setup. They were all designed by my mentor Jarrod Cagwin and are all from his signature ‘Soundscape Series’.
All the grooves and sounds you hear are a collection of my personal journey over the last few years. They are a huge part of my stage performances every day. I am very happy with how amazingly Simon and Thomas have recorded, mixed and mastered them for this library.

This music library is meant to be used as a creative tool. Feel free to use it for your music productions, movies and in any other way you can think of.

Personally, I can’t wait to hear what you will create with it.
– Tobias Steinberger

159 loops offer a wide variety of performing styles and rhythmic patterns, ranging from 80 to 130bpm. One-shots can be used for samplers or placed freely to fit any rhythmic structure while additional special percussion sounds can provide interesting texture and character. All files contain unique artwork for each drum type and soundminer/bwav metadata.

The drums were recorded with a combination of close and room mics. Three Austrian Audios OC818s were used as direct mics – two as an ORTF pair and one as a mono mic whose pickup pattern we could modify during the editing process. Coles 4038s were used as a spaced stereo pair (AB) a few meters away to capture the natural room response. Another ribbon (Cascade Fathead II) was placed further down the hall for additional room colour from a distance.

Framed Rhythms can be purchased as a bundle with the sound design mini-pack Framed Particles.

Coverart by Melanie Asböck
Drums by Norbert Eckermann