Bowed Effigy – Primal Strings

A few months back, I was working on a cue for a film that takes place in ancient times. Traditional string instruments weren’t cutting it. I wanted something that sounded more primitive, raw and full of character. I began experimenting with bowing other instruments and finally landed on my steel string acoustic guitar combined with a bass bow for articulation. I used a violin bridge to create enough space for bowing, but this made intonation and fretting notes very unstable. I settled on long tones and scripted legato to make the instrument sing.

The result is a surprisingly soulful instrument that is programmed for both Kontakt 7+ and DecentSampler. There are a handful of patches to get you started. I included several ‘ensemble’ patches which make use of the multiple round robins recorded at three dynamic layers. You also have a choice of mid-side close mics and a pair of omnis for the room. The knobs provide some filtering options, saturation, wow+flutter and convolution reverb featuring a brand new pack of IRs I recorded of ‘spiritual’ locations.

As per usual, if you play with CC1, you’ll notice something interesting. I recorded sustains with rebows as an alternate sample bank. Moving your modwheel will blend between the more lyrical sounds with the more organic rebowed sustains in most patches.

This instrument took huge inspiration from Northr’s Stringbow (also on Pianobook) and as a nod to him, I’ve also included some custom designed pads based on the raw samples. Also big thanks to the late Big Bob and Nils Lindberg whose WIPS scripted legato is leveraged in the Kontakt version.

I hope Bowed Effigy helps you conjure spirits you intend and some that you don’t. Enjoy.