| Welcome! The Garrahand was born as a gift for the great Argentinian percussionist, Mariano Cantero. The garrahand was used in its beginnings by percussionists and drummers from diverse styles of music. It began to evolve thanks to the critics that were made by them, so it started to change in behalf of the needs of the professional musician. The Garrahand comes to fulfill a very special hole in the life of a percussionist, because it..s a percusion instrument that can be played by the hands, but it is melodic as well. It takes the space of a small drum, a very small space inside a percussionist set, and it provides 7 notes of unique, chanting sound. It can be played just by the hands without the use of any special sticks (although it can also be played with muffed sticks because it is made with an extra resistant steel). The technics you need for playing Garrahand is very simple. Any person can play very complex pasages after a couple of hours of using the instrument, just by intuition. Some of the features that were thought for the professional musician are: 1- A special microphone system. 2 - Damper 3 - Cymbal holder 4 - 7 tongues / computer managed automatic cuts 5 - Quick and easy tuning with almost 3 tone range 6 - Amplified melodic range, more than 2 octaves 7 - Reduced Size and weight 8 - Other important features.. 1 - A special microphone system: We have created an exclusive electromagnetic microphone (Patent Pending) which is a unique feature of this instrument. This smart microphone design captures changes in the electromagnetic fields of the instrument. Thanks to this technology, the microphone just captures the pure notes made by the tongues, without being contaminated by any other sound (not even the sound of a band or the ambient noise) Because of it special design, this microphone doesn..t make feedback. It has a High-Z output, so you can plug it to any guitar or bass amplifier, or to a direct box. It doesn..t use batteries of any kind and it can be dismantled easily by pushing a clip. We also included a volume knob so you can have full control of the instrument output in your performance! This special microphone system allows Garrahand to be included in a drum set, so you won..t have to worry about the sound of the drums interfering with your Garrahand.The sound of the Garrahand is perfectly "isolated" from the enviroment. 2 - Damper: The Damper, is an internal mechanism that can be adjusted simply by hand, and allows us to change the tone of the instrument. By using the Damper the sound of the Garrahand becomes more versatile: with the tight Damper you will obtains a pure tone sound with few harmonics, meanwhile with the loose Damper we will obtains a more “African” sound, with a high amount of harmonics, and bright. The Damper it..s a feature that gets special interest from musicians; the variation can be made in a minute! 3 - Cymbal holder: The Cymbal-holder system allows the Garrahand to be add in a drum set by using the standar system provided for cymbals. The Garrahand keeps hanging, like you can see on this picture, making it easy to play in a traditional percussion set. 4 - 7 tongues / computer managed automatic cuts Because of the new technologies that are used to make this instrument (Like the Autocad planing design and the tongues computarized cuts) we can guarantee that all our instruments have professional cuts, perfectly equal. We could also achieve the incorporation of the seventh tongue thanks to this new technology. 7 tongues of pure clear sound 5 - Quick and easy tuning with almost 3 tone range This innovative characteristic was also thought for the use of the proffesional player.With a really simple system, we can modify the tuning of any of the tongues just in seconds... up to three tones! This feature gives us the huge oportunity to change tuning, from complete transpositions to modulations and scales of any kind. With this exclusive system, the Garrahand can be adecuated to play in almost any tuning. 6 - Amplified melodic range, more than 2 octaves Another development with patent pending is our cutting pattern, the result of months of tough investigation and development. This special pattern, which has different forms of cutting for the high/medium/low tongues, provides a melodic distance between them much higher that ones made by a common cut achieving the goal of enlarging the range of the instrument. The result is a practical instrument in which you can play low, medium and high notes in a range of more than 2 octaves. This becomes of special interest when we use the Double Garrahand, with 14 notes, which gives us 4 low notes, 4 medium notes and 6 high notes to combine freely! 7 - Reduced Size and weight We tried to "shrink" the Garrahand the most we could in height and weight, without sacrifice its sound, having in mind that musicians often go out touring. (specially the percussionists who take with them 1000 bags!). The result is this “baby" Garrahand, wich only weights 1kg and have a size of 24cm diameter plus 14cm height. Two of them can enter in one bag, the perfect size for touring and giving concerts 8 - Other important features: a) Rotating closure/opening b) Steel-Chromium spherical designed body c) Two-layer ovenproof coat with varnish protection. d) A spiral G form hole for acoustic playing. a) Rotating closure/opening. The new rotating closing/opening system of Garrahand 2009, allows the instrument to be opened in a minute. You only have to release a bit the allen screws (not totally but only a little!) with the included key, and then rotate the instrument clockwise. Rezonator (the lower part of the instrument) will then separate from the upper body and you will have acces to the tuning system, the Damper module, and the microphone, in a minute! b) Steel-Chromium spherical designed body The new Garrahand is made of Steel-Chromium alloy. The Chromium avoids the corrosion and the oxide of the steel. Steel is a 3-time more dense metal than iron. It has outstanding acoustic properties, and it is used in the sound vibration field, for example in the production of modern church bells, where in the past it was only used a bronze-tin alloy. The steel gives Garrahands body a deep sound and a great sustain, at the same time that it provides a high resistance to the whole instrument and specially to its tongues. c) Two-layer ovenproof coat with varnish protection. The two-layer ovenproof coat is the professional finishing this instrument needs. It consists in two different layers, each one baked, water-resitant, sun- resistant, scratch and hit-resistant, of poliester paint. The second layer is a protection and shine varnish which protects the paint. The finishing is made out of "old silver", a very special texturized ovenproof paint, which has the special property to combine little pieces of aluminum in a silver background, creating a striking texture. The ovenproof paint has the special feature of being extremely strong, and because of this the steel sticks to it and vibrates with it. Other common paints take vibration from the sounding body. d) A spiral G form hole for acoustic playing. The spiral "G" form hole has a similar function to the holes guitars have. The pressure of the sound created by the instrument finds its way out in the "G", and this pressure can be controled by the Damper, or the Dumper can be removed to use all the volume of the instrument in an acoustic way. The Garrahand tone with its "G" open is another interesting choice of the instrument, with more brighter sound and more harmonics. . |
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