Metloef 15" Lambeg skinned bodhran

(Review by Dirk de Bleser)

• 15" x 7.5"
• Lambeg Skin
• Tool-less tuning
• Taped edge Applique
• Internal patch
• Mahogany finish
• price £$?

My "Ringo" Metloef

A BoDojo members review of his drum,
Edited for BoDojo by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it 12-2006

I'm Dirk de Bleser and I'm teasing the old goat's back for about 6 years now. After the untunable starting model (Mac) got floppy, I decided to buy a 40cm tunable double skin from the Irish maker Brendan White who lives and works in The Netherlands. Mind you, Brendy still plays well (photo 1), but the criticism I got from my fellow musicians was that she didn't produce enough volume and although I taped it and put a Remo Falam slam on the inside of the skin, I was not completely satisfied with the result.

Then I met JoBo, one of the moderators for the Bodhrandojo Yahoo group and his drum called "Loefke", a well played-in 14" Metloef he bought through Paul Marshall a few years back. Loefke is one of the first Lambeg skinned drums made by Rob Forkner and when I played it at that session I was seduced from the first stroke of the cipín, even with a light tipper it produced a volume I've never been able to achieve with any of the different drums I tried out before. Gary Fortune another group member also ensured me he was very satisfied with his Metloef. So all the above and some extra back-reading through the BodhranDojo's archive made Me start an email correspondence with Rob Forkner to decide on my new drum's spec's.

John's "Loefke" was to small for my left hand, and Rob argued a 15" would be better than a 16" sound wise, so I choose the 15" (37.5cm) with the maximum-depth-for-the-same-price 7.5" (18.75cm). I went for a rich, dark mahogany brown coloured, edge-taped rim combined with Rob's tool less tuning and a weighted Lambeg skin . On top of all that, it has something special...

During our email talks back and forth, I made a special request to Rob to make the cut-through as close to the head as possible when building my drum. For some time I had been experimenting with card board boxes to find out where I wanted the hole and found that in going as close to the skin as possible I played a lot easier.
Due to this shallow design I don't have to bend my skin hand wrist at all and this has resulted in a painless left wrist ever since. Rob himself tried it out after he made it and also found it very comfortable to play he told in one of his replies. Because the tuners & tuning ring need some space the hole is made at 7 cm from the skin and It's 12 cm wide, although I still would be able to play comfortably with 9 cm width.

Although I wanted the patch to be placed in the centre of the skin, Rob convinced me that the off-centre patch would work better. He placed the patch at the 70% vertical line in the 4 o'clock position and, indeed, I must confess it works fantastic, especially with the first beat of the reel rhythm played away from the body, as Johnny McDonagh taught us during the Ballaghaderreen Summer School 2006.

It is as a tribute to Johnny that I decided to name my new Metloef 'Ringo'.

Now that I have been playing my Metloef for half a year I'm extremely pleased with the result.
The drum skin is very smooth so my left hand glides easily (I keep using talc powder to keep my hand dry).
The tool less tuning system works quickly and precise while the Lambeg skin makes the bodhrán react immediately, even to the slightest change in pitch and pressure of the left hand, all these features combined with the width/depth of the frame produces an improved tonality and the volume I was after, even with a lightweight tipper. The use of a thinner lighter cipín also enables me to play much faster than with the heavier one I used before, in a session a while back I even succeeded following the bullet tempo of box player Dave Munnelly for the first time in my 'career', and a few weeks ago I played with up to 15 melody instrumentalists and had no problem standing my ground. With my new Ringo I also got no comments anymore about the "body" of my sound... On the contrary...

Listen to a few snippets of the Belgian Trad band Cairdeas I'm playing with here,
Still on my 'Brendy' doh,

Kind greetings from a happy drummer,
Dirk De Bleser aka Dirk De Bodhrán aka Buikligger

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