Description
For the past three weeks, I’ve been working on a video about the Bağlama, a type of long-necked lute from Turkey. As part of the project, I sampled the instrument twice – once in a hotel room and once when I got back home. Both versions are presented here.
The instrument owes its beautiful sound to seven steel string, arranged in three courses, each with a slightly different configuration. Because of this odd setup, it’s very hard to know how to map the samples out onto a traditional piano keyboard. The two virtual instruments I’ve created here offer several different modes accessible via the “Mode” knob. Each of these settings activates a different set of strings – my personal favorite is the “Course 1 + Course 3 Combined” mode. Of course, nothing is quite the same as actually holding one of these instruments in your hands and strumming it. If you are able to get your hands on one of these instruments, I highly recommend giving it a shot. 🙂
The recordings I made in the hotel room were done with my trusty Zoom H4n, a recorder I bring with me on just about every trip I take. Of course, when I got home, I had more options available. Ordinarily, when I sample a plucked string instrument like this, I will record it with a condenser or ribbon microphone, as well as with a piezo contact microphone. I find that by combining two or more sound sources, I often am able to get a fuller, more characterful sound. The challenge here was that the Baglama has a very low bridge, and none of the piezo microphones I own would fit. Instead, I opted to record it entirely with two condenser microphones and I’m really happy with the results.
Enjoy!
– Dave
PS. The video will be up soon!
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