Marimba - Frank Ricotti

Frank Ricotti is one of Britain's greatest percussionists and jazz vibraphonists. Growing up in a musical family, Ricotti followed in his father's footsteps when he decided to take up percussion. While in his teens Frank followed the guidance of his teacher Bill Ashton, and embarked on a project that lead him to play in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. Frank's talents are shown in his ability to master a variety of percussion instruments, though he concentrates mostly on the vibraphone, as well as being a composer and arranger. From the late 1960s onward Frank has established himself as a popular studio musician. Frank has now both played and recorded with Dave Gelly, Meat Loaf, Graham Collier, The Pet Shop Boys, Neil Ardley, Freddie Mercury, Mike Gibbs, Tina Turner, Gordon Beck and Stan Tracey. Frank has recorded on a string of successful film and TV soundtracks, including; The Beiderbecke Affair, The Beach, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Golden Compass, Fantastic Mr Fox, Puss in Boots and Skyfall.

The marimba is a direct descendant of the xylophone and looks very much like its ancestor. Although composers have written extensively for this instrument only since 1950, it has recently started to come into its own as part of the contemporary orchestra. The marimba's rosewood bars, also arranged in the keyboard fashion, are of course graduated, but thinner, longer, and wider than the xylophone's, and the resonators have always been part of its construction. The playing technique is identical to the xylophone's, but the marimba's mellower, deeper sound has generated a different kind of music. The size and range of the marimba is fairly standard (although the range of some marimbas goes down to A2 or even F2), and there are no transposition problems since it sounds an octave lower. The music can be notated on one or two staffs, in either the treble or bass clef.

The lower register of this instrument is unique and especially beautiful; in the higher registers, the marimba's tone resembles the xylophone's. The most successfully used mallets for the marimba are those made of yarn or soft rubber..

Engineered by Joe Rubel at Air-Edel Studios, one of the few remaining recording spaces in London's west end, Spitfire has recorded a pristinely maintained Marimba (with bass octave extension) deeply with up to 8 round robins, 4 dynamic layers, with a number of beaters, techniques and from a number of perspectives.

Ricotti Marimba features 7.6 GB of compressed content from over 11,700 samples, over 24.5 GB samples in WAV format (this losslessly compresses very efficiently in Kontakt).

Requires a full version of Kontakt 4.2.4 or Kontakt 5 to run.

{See video at top of page}