WASSOLOU BALAFON

AFRICAN BALAFON WITH SNARES

  • 25 x 5 velocity layers
  • 800 MB Library
  • Kontakt Player NKS
Wassolou Balafon
Wassolou Balafon

RECORDING THE BALAFON

French musician Jean-Philippe Rykiel contacted us about a unique type of African balafon in which each key had snares that vibrated when played, giving it a interesting buzzing quality. 

Usually found in parts of northern Ghana, Burkina Faso, and south-eastern Mali. Hardwood keys are suspended over calabash gourds. Silk or paper covers small holes in the gourds which resonates to produce the characteristic buzzing.

Rykiel has long been involved with West African musicians, having collaborated with both the wonderful Salif Keita and Youssou N'Dour. For the balafon however, he knew of a virtuoso player from Burkina Faso named Mamadou Diabate now living in Austria. He enlisted Mamadou to play the instrument for a recording session that he would conduct himself.

The recordings then made their way to us, and the result is the instrument you find here. We hope you'll find this instrument both curious and inspirational!

PoweredByKontakt+NKS.png

KONTAKT PLAYER COMPATIBLE

This is a Kontakt Player instrument. This means that you do not need to own the full version of NI Kontakt to use it. It will run as a plug-in instrument in any VST/AU/RTAS/AAX/WASAPI,compatible host program or DAW eg: Cubase, Logic, Ableton Live, DP, Reaper, Pro-Tools. No extra purchase necessary.

System Requirements:

Windows 7 or higher (latest Service Pack, 32/64 Bit), Intel Core Duo or AMD AthlonTM 64 X2, 4 GB RAM (6 GB RAM recommended)

Mac: OS X 10.9 or higher, Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM  

Requires KONTAKT 5 or KONTAKT 5 PLAYER version 5.6.8 or later  

Close

25% Off Your First Order

Register And Receive An Exclusive Discount Code

Valid email address required.
Code applies to all full price products. Does not apply to existing discounts or upgrades. Code shown in user account.

REGISTER NOW