What is a Ronroco?

The Ronroco is a stringed mandolin like instrument of the Andean regions. It has a sound box traditionally fashioned from the shell of an armadillo or tortoise, now often made of wood. It typically has 10 strings in five courses of 2 strings each. Primarily played in traditional Andean music, today, it is often to be heard in the music of Gustavo Santaolalla. As a bonus we also recorded a soprano Ukulele which was manually customized from a four to eight string version.

In order to build a realistic instrument we recorded both instruments with 4 different microphones positions. Finally we decided to release two different ronroco instruments: a raw Ronroco with a mix of all microphones and a fine Ronroco with just one close microphone.The Ronroco was recorded in 4 Round Robin variations and 3-5 velocity layers. Both patches are coming along with several options to shape the sound such as EQ, cabinet, distortion, reverb, delay and a soft touch button for a more gentle playing. Beside that, the fine version includes also a simple arpeggiator with separate pad and noise control. The Ronroco is very inspiring and will certainly enrich your music production.
The 8string ukulele is available in 3 kinds of single notes (muted, short and open) and contains a powerful speciality: a 16th note strumming sequencer. In order to achieve a real strumming feeling you can choose between up- or downstroke notes and muted or open notes and you are free to add strumming noise to it. This is fun. Please check out the demos.