Barrilito Tube
A tropical percussive sound created from a Barrilito cannister.
ByRayMallick
The story
I received this bottle of rum as a gift from a friend who was visiting from Puerto Rico. I’m a huge sucker for great rum, and beautiful packaging. It wasn’t too long until we had polished off the bottle. I kept the bottle and the decorative container, not sure what I was going to do with it.
I just knew it was too pretty to throw away. Well under global lock down, I decided I would take a stab creating my first Kontakt sample. I took the tube and recorded it under two MXL pencil mics, and struck it several times softly with a drum stick. The sound in real life wasn’t entirely the most pleasant thing but it had potential.
Loading it into Kontakt, I cleared up any weird hits and sounds, and from there came this wonderfully tropical sounding hit out of this Barrilito tube. I think it’s quite fitting.
My suggestion is to enjoy this instrument in the lower and higher registers. The middle section sounds okay, but it’s the bottom end and high hits that really feel inspiring somehow. I’ve used this sample a few times in some projects. It sits very well among the NI West Africa series. Additionally, it works wonders as a sound effect in a video game project.
I hope you enjoy using it, as much I loved creating my first Kontakt sample, and finishing off this bottle of rum.
Sincerely
Ray Mallick
Reviews
Fun and playable mallet sounds
This fun library gives you a fun and playable pluck or mallet like sound. It's lightly sharp, unfortunately, but setting the tuning control to .15 puts it closer to being in tune. I love that the sample is dry so that you can apply your own effects. I've had great luck applying granular effects, delay, and reverb to this library. Lots of fun to be had here!
Suprisingly cute!
I didn't expect myself to like this, but I do. I can see some characater on it, even though it is extremely simple. You can hear some cute harmonic-like sounds inside the samples of the low-mid range, but in general there is some noise in the recording that becomes kind of weird as you go high on the register, so keep that in mind when mixing. Nevertheless, it's kind of fun to play with it!
Nice Alternative to Mallets
While it won't replace mallet instruments, this is a good option to have and use along with mallets. The low registers have an interesting sound to them. Great for plucked stuff. Even layered with pizzicato strings can add a great sound blend. Enjoy!