SWAM Bassoon

What it does

A physically modelled bassoon rather than a sampled one. Velocity, expression, vibrato, growl, breath noise and key noise are the instrument here, not a set of recorded articulations, and each control can be MIDI learned to a knob or a pedal. A timbre page steps through warmer and brighter versions, and there is a compressor, EQ, early reflection and reverb section, master tuning, transpose and an onscreen play surface. It loads standalone or as an AUv3.

In the demo

Jade brings it in after the clarinets and plays the same keys soft and then hard, so the breath in the tone is obvious at low velocity, before jamming over an acoustic backing. The walkthrough of the side pages is short here, since she covered them in the two shows before this one.

Worth knowing

It is one of the four SWAM double reeds, each sold separately, with a Double Reeds bundle covering the group. A keyboard on its own will not get much out of it.