FAUN – Violin Bass Plugin VST3 / AU
A Very Unusual Bass Guitar
FAUN is a deeply sampled Höfner violin bass played with a cello bow, alongside finger, pick, mallet and felt articulations.
Play It Like An Orchestra
The bowed articulation opens up a completely different world of sounds and turns the violin bass into a hauntingly beautiful orchestral instrument. With the Wildness knob, you can transform the clean sound into distorted, aggressive bowing with rich overtones and unpredictable sonic character.
Minutes Of Continuous Bowed Samples
For each bowed note, between 5 and 10 minutes of sample material were recorded. Each key press starts the bow sample from a randomly chosen position, creating a different performance every time.
Made For Expressive Performance
The Mod Wheel can be assigned to the most important parameters, and the Pitch Wheel allows pitch modulation while playing. Ensemble, Wildness, Age, Attack and the other controls provide extensive ways to shape the instrument.
Presets That Sound Great Immediately
37 presets, created with much care, are included.
System Requirements
- macOS 11 or later / Windows 10 or later
- Minimum 4 GB RAM, 8 GB or more recommended
- 10 GB free disk space
Self-contained virtual instrument (VST3/AU) — no Kontakt Player or
other sampler required.
Compatible with most modern AU and VST3 hosts.
Tested in: Logic Pro, FL Studio, REAPER, GarageBand, Cubase,
Ableton Live, Vienna Ensemble Pro
A Bass Made For The Bow
FAUN was sampled from a high-quality Höfner violin bass, a modern recreation of the distinctive instrument played by Paul McCartney in the 1960s. I bought this particular type of bass guitar because its shape makes it much easier to play with a bow than a conventional electric bass. And also because I'm kind of obsessed with The Beatles.
But the idea for playing the bass with a bow came from my love for Sigur Rós and the sounds Jónsi creates by playing his electric guitar with a bow. I wanted to try the same approach with a bass and see how far it could be taken.
I use the bowed bass guitar in much of my own music nowadays, mostly to create atmospheric parts in the background. In some cases, it can do something similar to what a string section would do, just with a different character.
Days Of Recording
The bowed sounds took a lot of time to record. I spent days playing and recording the bass, with around seven hours of bow recordings alone. There were also several more hours of picking. The picking articulations were recorded with up to 30 round robins per note.
For the bowed articulation, I wanted to avoid the short, looped notes you often get with sampled instruments. Instead, I recorded very long performances, with each note lasting multiple minutes. When adding additional layers with the Ensemble or Wildness knob, each of the layers start at a different random position each time you press a key, therefore creating practically endless different variations. Nothing ever repeats in the same way and you can hold a note or chord for minutes without artificial loops.
From Tender To Wild
The bowed articulation can be very gentle and cello-like, but it can also become much more distorted and aggressive when turning up the Wildness knob.
Wildness changes the sound completely. These recordings were played deliberately aggressively and rough, with the bow hitting the strings and producing strong overtones, scraping and unexpected sounds. The idea was inspired by Jónsi's use of a bow on guitar with Sigur Rós.
Designed Like An Old Fairy Tale Book
FAUN's interface was designed like an old, magical fairy tale book – atmospheric and inspirational.
Behind the minimal main interface with only four knobs lies a second page filled with detailed controls to shape the sound in many different ways.
The goal was not to create a technical-looking plugin, but an instrument that feels beautiful and inspiring. Something closer to opening a magical, forgotten book than operating software.
For Atmospheric, Cinematic & Experimental Music
Cinematic Music
The bowed articulation can provide a sustained part where you might otherwise use strings. It works especially well when you want something less conventional than a standard string arrangement.
Ambient Music
The long bowed recordings can sit in the background for a long time without sounding like a repeating sample. This makes them useful for slow-moving ambient pieces.
Experimental Music
The Wildness knob can take the bass into very unusual territory.
Post-Rock & Alternative
The bowed articulation can add a dark, expressive layer to guitars, drums, and other instruments.