String Tips???

[JRTrumpet]

Hey all,

I'm working with the string sounds right now and I'm having trouble finding a way to have a string section play a slurred line with clarity....In physical terms, a section would be playing long bows while changing notes with their fingers...the clarity of pitch would stay and the sound would be consistent. Right now, all I'm finding in this library are a bunch of samples that retrigger and take what seems like forever to get to the sound...it's like the only programs available have short articulations/bows and really long bow draws that all start slow and speed up...

[ToddK]

The term for what you're describing is "Legato".

The smooth connection of notes in a line. This is much sought after in
sample circles, and some libraries do it better than others.

There are faster attack long bows in there, You just have to look around more.

Try the DXF accent mod patches. Some people glance over them, cause
they assume if its DXF, its a slow attack, but thats not the case.
I use DXF accent for legato/long bows all the time.

Plus, you can get in to the editor and mess with the attack and release envelopes.
Some people go as far as to manually edit in expression and pitch bend cc's
between each note.

What are you using?? Gold? Silver? Platinum?

Best of luck!
TK

[matthew82475]

I have found that overlapping the notes themselves gives a better rendition of legato string lines. In other words, if you're plyaing the part in on your keyboard, you probably will have released the previous note before or just near the moment you depressed the next note. Extend, or increase, the duration of each legato note so that the note off occurs after the next note has begun.

It's still nothing more than a "trick", but I have found that it works well enough to simulate how a real violinist would realize a line. Remember none of this is "real" so you can't apply "real world" concepts to synthetic instruments. The best you can hope for, if you're trying to recreate real instruments, is something that is reasonably close to accurate.

Hope that helps.

Matt

[JRTrumpet]

Thanks guys,

Yeah, I know all about overlapping MIDI notes to connect the lines...I just had a particular sound that I wasn't getting.

Todd...when you speak about going into the editor...do you mean the Kompakt panel that contains the various envelopes/reverbs/chorus/flanger windows? I'm assuming that you do...

I just ordered Kontakt 2 the other day and am hoping for more ability to edit and customize my sample library, which is, by the way the Platinum edition. I have to apologize for my posts, as they make me seem inexperienced and incompetent...I'm still trying to find ways to articulate myself in the tech/synth world.

After reading your responses, I'm thinking that I just need to spend about 6...or 12 hours playing around with the sounds. I got some really good experience with the EXS player in Logic this summer and have been putting off doing my time with the Native Instruments player(s)...I'll keep working on it...I got the library and wanted to skip the important step of making the library usable to me because I wanted to get right into music making!

Thanks again, and any more nuggets of experience you guys have with this library are welcome. I'm hearing some really good demos on this website and I know that I'm not getting all that I can out of my library yet.

Thanks.

Josh

PS Anyone have any suggestions for some things I haven't seen in this library...like marimba and piccolo trumpet (which is mentioned in the extended user's guide)...to my knowledge, I have the most updated 'instruments' and 'multis' folders for my library.