Twine Bass

The Twine Bass is composed of a pair of very special instruments: a modified cello and a traditional Kenyan fretless stringed instrument called a Bolon. We strung the cello with rough hemp twine in various tunings and played it as a stand-up bass. The resulting sounds are deeply sonorous, with rich, warm resonance, powerful low end and a woody, soft quality. The bolon has a cow's horn for a neck and a gourd as a body, with four twine strings and a goat-skin resonating head that the strings pass directly through. In addition to deep-sampling the strings with 10x round-robin and up to 14 velocity layers, we sampled a number of other sounds such as legato slides, string mutes, tuning peg pluck/twists, finger taps and brushes, and other percussive effects on the instrument's body.

This unique custom instrument collection features our brand new, exclusive glissando/chord generator. This powerful tool gives you deep control over a wide variety of chord and glissando functions such as speed, range, scale, stroke direction, string dynamics, humanization and more. You can choose from 26 different chords and 13 different scales. The number of strings is adjustable from 1 to 24 in Glissando mode and 1 to 6 in "guitar" Strum mode. There is also a bank of 16 assignable key-switches for instant access to your favorite selection of chords.

The Twine Bass is a massive library, containing over 2000+ samples and weighing in at over 2 GB. As usual, it comes complete with a full range of performance shaping and effects controls, including full control over our custom convolution reverb impulses, allowing you to take the sound in any number of new directions. We've also included a collection of ambient pads, atmospheric drones and evolving soundscapes, giving this library a vast array of tonal possibilities.

Our newest feature is the Glissando/Chord Generator. In Glissando mode, you can choose the speed of the gliss, the scale, time signature, gliss direction, note duration and either control the velocity in real-time or use the table to draw the velocity of each note in the gliss. You can define the number of strings (up to 24). In chord mode, there's an integrated auto-strum function that allows you to determine up and down strokes or alternate automatically. You can also control strum tightness, timing variability between each note in the strummed chord, the number of strings and the mode/scale that the chord adheres to, with any root note you desire. In both modes, you can play multiple glissandos or chords at different root notes with full polyphony. You can also arrange up to 12 real-time chord/gliss mode changes using our user-definable key-switches.

Key Features:

• Modified Cello and Kenyan Bolon: Deeply sonorous sounds with rich, warm resonance and powerful low end.
• Exclusive Glissando/Chord Generator: Control over speed, range, scale, stroke direction, string dynamics, and more.
• Extensive Sampling: 10x round-robin, up to 14 velocity layers, and various additional sounds.
• Massive Library: Over 2000+ samples, 2.3 GB installed size.
• Performance Controls: Full range of effects controls, including custom convolution reverb impulses.
• Additional Sounds: Includes ambient pads, atmospheric drones, and evolving soundscapes.