Kenyan Kalimba

About

Kenyan Kalimba is a percussion and mallet plugin by Decent Samples. It is a sampled kalimba, a handheld thumb piano with a metal rattle on every tine, made in Kenya. The instrument was sampled with a condenser and a ribbon microphone recorded at the same time. Each version has 12 notes, and each note has three round robins.

What it sounds like

The buzzers add a metallic sizzle on top of each note, and the sample set includes a version with the buzzers silenced. The condenser recording is bright and detailed and captures the rattle, while the ribbon recording is darker, rounder and woodier. The kalimba is not tuned to a Western scale, so each sample was retuned to the nearest semitone.

Features

• Metal rattle on every tine
• Version with buzzers silenced using tape
• Condenser and ribbon microphone recordings
• Three round robins per note
• 12 notes in each version
• Samples retuned to nearest semitone