About Bowin

Bowin is a VST instrument that uses a combination of virtual analogue synthesis and physical modelling to recreate the natural acoustic sounds of bowed strings. Unlike a sample based instrument Bowin’s sound is dynamic and completely controllable allowing it to imitate a wide range of bowed string instruments and playing styles. Bowin is 6 note polyphonic (allowing for four strings plus two spare to accommodate note stealing when playing rapidly).

The instrument consists of an analogue synthesizer acting as a driver (simulating the bow), a physically modelled string and a physically modelled sounding body that can be scale from the smallest violin size to the largest string bass and beyond.

Bowing can replicate both solo instruments and small ensembles, using its chorus facility (in this case this is not a chorus in the conventional sense but works by altering the geometry of the instrument body model and this effectively recreates the sound of multiple instruments playing.

Bowin does not replicate plucked, struck or picked string sounds, but is intended purely for bowed sounds, that have a rich character, natural tonal quality and highly dynamic play.

Installing Bowin

After extracting all files from the archive, copy the Bowin.dll file to your vst host’s vst instrument directory and you are ready to go.

Playing Using Bowin

Play is controlled primarily through a midi keyboard (your host should allow you to transmit midi CC information as the mod wheel and after-touch are both used to modulate the sound. Bowin is specifically designed to allow a great deal of control over the dynamic qualities of the sound and to simulate some aspects of natural playing styles, with the minimum number of controls to learn and therefore the greatest simplicity.

The slide controls the portamento rate of the synth, and this can make a more natural sound to your playing, but playing is greatly enhanced by using pitch bend to add short slurs or glides into notes (pitchbend range is one full tone – two semi-tones). Modulation increase the rate and depth of LFO based effects – this is particularly useful for controlling vibrato and tremolo. Aftertouch cause the sound to swell and also increase the rate and depth of effects just slightly. Finally the velocity you play at controls, the volume (bow pressure) and can also affect the pre-filtering of the sound (prior to the physical modelling part of the instrument) and the rate of the ADSR envelope.

Bowin Controls

Here is a brief description of the controls found on Bowin’s GUI.

Bow and Strings

This pad area allows you to control the tone of the driver model by moving the blue dot between the mellow and birght (M and B) positions across the pad and the smooth and coarse (S and C) positions up and down the pad.

Slide

This controls the portamento rate – the lower the dial is set, the faster the notes will slide.

Accuracy

This controls how accurately tuned one note is in relation to the previous note (in other words, the lower the accuracy the more inconsistent and out of tune the playing), this helps to create the illusion of slightly off key and less than perfect playing on an unfretted instrument and makes play sound more natural and realistic.

Mode Button

Switches between pre-filtering modes and can dramatically alter the character of the sound – useful for creating a wider range of instruments. There are 3 modes – the first emphasises lower frequencies, the second emphasises higher frequencies and the third produces and evenly rich tone.

Velocity

These 3 controls affect the velocity as follows:

• a - how velocity affects overall volume (bow pressure)
  
• b - how velocity influences the attack of the sound
  
• c - how velocity affects the tone of the sound.

A,D,S,R

Standard four stage envelope controls for attack, decay, sustain and release.

Size

This controls the size and to a certain extent the geometry of the instrument body.

Speed

An LFO rate control – it should be noted that the LFO does not run at a totally constant rate but is slightly more chaotic, to help create a more naturalistic simulation.

Vibrato, Tremelo and Chorus

These control the level of the LFOs effect on pitch, amplitude and body geometry respectively.

Bowing

This controls the rate at which the bow changes direction – again this is not totally consistant but has a slightly more chaotic nature to make a more naturalistic sound.

Master

Simple master volume control.