The story
This is Skimmer Electric, an acoustic double bass performed with an eBow.
from wikipedia
”The EBow is a battery-powered electronic device for playing the electric guitar. The EBow uses a pickup – inductive string driver – feedback circuit, including a sensor coil, driver coil, and amplifier, to induce forced string vibrations. The EBow is monophonic, and drives one string at a time, producing a sound reminiscent of using a bow on the strings.
The name EBow stands for “Electronic Bow” or Energy Bow.”
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The instrument was recorded with several microphones mixed into three different signals for you to play with;
Close – the “main” signal, for everyday use.
Contact – slightly distorted and “airy”.
Room – a stereo signal placed further away in the studio.
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The magic happens when you click the unicorn.
There are effects; Chorus, Delay and Reverb
But more fun is a random round robin that uses the full range of the keyboard. Subtlety is not a feature 🙂
There is also a reverse button that can be used to randomize the sounds even further.
This virtual instrument was specifically made for the Swedish show “Festen”.
https://www.svtplay.se/festen
Have fun!
Reviews for Acoustic Unicorn Series – Skimmer Electric
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Ambient Awesomeness
This is a fantastic little instrument, that can only do good to your compositions, especially if you are after a dreamy soundscape. Here's a couple of observations:
1) Each sample doesn't "loop" perfectly by itself. It fades out and fades in, as if you let the key go. At the end of the sample you can hear a small texture crack, which can be fine in some cases but has to be noted. They last long enough though! I'd give a 4.5/5 if I could.
2) The mic positions are awesome and you can do really cool stuff with CC handling, but at the very "contact" mic overlaps everything else at the top, which seems kind of weird to me.
Finally, the GUI is not my favourite. I don't know why you have to click on the unicorn icon to get the extra options. It could be more dreamy to match the entire theme of the instrument.
Another nice warm pad
Another interesting library to play with. Sound is a warm textured pad. With this kind of warm pad, I think it would have been even better with wider range of keys assigned which would enhance the playability.
Super cool interface...
The interface on this instrument stands out above the rest with some really cool options for customization, but I wish that there was a way to remove distortion, as that might dramatically increase the number of places that this instrument could be used. Great work!
Excellent evolving pad
This is a really great sound! It slowly evolves, pulsing in and out. Another reviewer mentioned that the distortion can't be removed, but this is not true. The distortion is all in the Contact mic, so simply lowering that slider takes it out. Speaking of mics, its super cool to have the room mic, and to be able to control the width. That's super useful and really helps this sound fit into a wide variety of musical uses. This is well recorded, well edited, and very playable. Excellent work here!
Wish i could remove distortion
This is a really awesome and unique sound. The GUI looks really awesome with some nice options for tweaking. Sadly the baked in distortion makes it unusable for me. I love the warbly warm quality of the pad and wish i could turn the distortion down very low or even automate it but the way it just jumps in so loud makes this unusable for me. I still think its pretty cool though
