The marimba is a direct descendant of the xylophone and looks very much like its ancestor. Although composers have only written extensively for this instrument since 1950, it has recently started to come into its own as part of the contemporary orchestra. The playing technique is identical to the xylophone’s, but the marimba’s mellower, deeper sound has generated a different kind of music.

The Glockenspiel is not easy to record well or make truly convincing, so our extensive array of microphones gives you choices beyond plugins to get the sound you're looking for, from mellow and bell like to bright and sparkling.

Crotales are small bronze disks arranged in a keyboard style layout to produce chromatic pitches. As one of the brightest tuned percussion instruments, they will cut through even the biggest orchestral arrangement, for moments of magical beauty.

A bright sounding wooden barred instrument similar to the Marimba. Whether it be scaling a staircase in the Tom & Jerry cartoons, providing the top end for an awesome systems percussion session, or providing a darker malevolence in a Jon Brion score, a mallet collection would be incomplete without this primordial tuned percussion instrument.