Bowed Bucket Kontakt instrument artwork by Soundiron showing a plastic bucket with cello strings

Bowed Bucket: Kontakt Instrument Built from a Plastic Bucket and Cello Strings

Bowed Bucket is a Kontakt instrument from Soundiron, built from a recorded plastic bucket fitted with cello strings and a wooden beam. It offers bowed, plucked and percussive articulations plus ambient pads and FX presets.

REQUIRESKontaktHost player sold separately

KontaktWindowsmacOS

AVAILABLE ATPlugin Boutique

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01Overview

Soundiron built the Bowed Bucket instrument from a five-gallon plastic bucket, a wooden 4x4 beam, bass tuners and cello strings. The strings pass through holes in the bucket and are tuned by hand. The library's samples cover bowed, plucked and struck articulations, which the developer programmed into a playable instrument. The result is a raw, bright voice that sits somewhere between an electric cello and a homemade percussion kit.

Best for

Atmospheric pads
Bowed cello-like leads
Ambient drone textures
Percussive bucket hits
Experimental FX design

Developer: Soundiron
Category: Kontakt Instruments
Requires: Kontakt
Store: Plugin Boutique

02Key features

What you get

Bowed, plucked and struck articulations from a homemade bucket instrument
579 stereo samples at 24-bit / 48 kHz uncompressed WAV
22 custom sound-designed FX and ambient presets
Automation-ready swell, attack, release, vibrato and pitch controls
LFO with selectable shape, speed, intensity and tempo sync
12 lowpass, highpass and FX filters with assignable modulation
Arpeggiator with velocity table, swing and randomization
Modular FX rack with 18 effect modules and 10 slots
Convolution reverb with 99 rooms plus 40 custom FX impulses

03In depth

Sound and Character of the Bucket Strings

Soundiron describes the bowed tone as clean yet rich and beefy, with growl, low end and a clear bite. Its character is close to an electric cello but with a rougher, more physical body.

The percussion articulations come from striking the bucket directly, which produces plastic bucket drums. Bowed articulations were captured both inside and outside the bucket, giving you two distinct tonal shades within the same instrument.

Controls, Effects and Workflow in Kontakt

The Kontakt interface offers automation-ready controls for swell, attack, release, offset, vibrato, filter, coarse and fine pitch, articulation switching, cross-fading and layering.

An LFO system with selectable shapes and tempo sync, 12 filter types and an arpeggiator with velocity table and swing controls are included. A key and scale lock helps keep melodic lines in key. A modular FX rack holds 18 effect modules across 10 slots, and its convolution reverb includes 99 rooms, halls, chambers and outdoor environments plus 40 custom FX impulses.

04Specs

Will it run?

Formats, systems and requirements as listed by Plugin Boutique. Missing details are left out, not guessed.

Developer	Soundiron
Type	Plugin
Category	Kontakt Instrument
Requires	Kontakt
Formats	Kontakt
Operating systems	Windows, macOS

05FAQ

Questions, answered

What do I need to use Bowed Bucket?

Bowed Bucket requires the full retail version of Native Instruments Kontakt 5.5 or later. The free Kontakt Player does not support the NKI instrument files in this library.