EIC users, orchestral strings query

[UKRuss]

Loving the pizzicato bad boys and using them quite a lot, but i cannot get the bowed versions to sound right, anyone done any work on these and have any tips and hints for getting them to sound more authentic?

i do find if i group them as an ensemble they sound good, so you have a violin, viola, cello and double bass playing together, but on their own....not as good.

Anyone?

[necho]

+1

Considering getting EIC - mainly for the strings... is it possible to get vaguely convincing arrangements out of them?

[UKRuss]

My take is, as solo instruments the orchestral instruments are not convincing on their own, but, put them in an ensemble and a reverb space and they sound great.

the brass is woeeful on its own, but put a trumpet, trombone together it starts to sound OK. Same with the strings.

But, I do feel I may be missing something and you need to get under the hood a bit more with the velocity and sample variation, adsr etc. to get it more authentic...

rather than thinking about it to much meself i wondered if anyone had already done the legwork and wanted to share.

[necho]

mmm.... or you could get this: http://www.garritan.com/

I'm considering it muchly.

[ark]

The folks who do Garritan Personal Orchestra claim that sustaining instruments, such as violins, cannot be made to sound natural if all you do is send MIDI velocity and then leave it alone. The trouble is that a good string player will modulate the volume and tone color of every phrase and sometimes every note. For that reason, the GPO libraries pretty much require you to use the mod wheel to control expression, so that you can do so while notes are playing. MIDI velocity controls the attack, but after that you have to ride the mod wheel.

I think that EIC is designed to sound as good as it can without this kind of modulation, which means that if you want more realistic sounding orchestral instruments, you might want to consider using something such as GPO as a plugin.

[UKRuss]

I hear that.

I do wonder how good you can get them to sound in Live though. I might have to have a tinker and get some modulation going with a rack or two, see what i can make them do.

[necho]

Let me know how you get on Russ.... while Garritan is tempting, it would be nice to be able to get a good orchestral sound out of Live... integration and all that. Perhaps its a matter of mapping the modwheel to macros and playing around?

[leedsquietman]

If you have the Suite, layer your EIC strings with Tension strings. Suuueet. Tension gets the bowing part right and EIC's samples are closer to the real thing, so mix them up and Bob's yer uncle.

I have to say though that Cubase 5's VST Expression function with the Halion Symphonic Orchestra for $99 which is offered with Cubase 5 is the business - the Expression maps allow you to set all kinds of filters and key switching for legato, portamento, sweeps etc.

[UKRuss]

Nice tip Leeds, will try that.

[dredd i knight]

abes orchestral strings are pretty good imo. they come with some of the eic stuff, but also with various articulations that can be automated. I dont know how they compare to gpo, or more expensive libraries but i did read somewhere that coldcut are using them for some string arrangements on their work...

[UKRuss]

Automation! Of course! nice one Dredd, that didn't cross my mind....

[leedsquietman]

Automation, multiple layering of EIC samples (rack 'em up) and using Tension's orchestral patches to give the bowing more realism makes for a very decent sound for most applications.

There's also Ableton's OIC - you could demo that and see if it's worth dropping the cash, or consider GPO or East West libraries etc Symphonic Orchestras (pricey unless you get the 11GB Silver edition with less articulations and one mic position, which is similar to GPO).

[dredd i knight]

There's also Ableton's OIC - you could demo that and see if it's worth dropping the cash.

They're the ones i meant actually; i use them and find them good for my uses: ie putting strings over hip hop beats or atmospheric, cinematic type stuff... they are not the best string library around, but they're good enough for stuff that isn't trying to be a real, highly detailed front of mix orchestra.

[necho]

I guess its what you do with them that counts.... getting sampled strings to sound natural always takes quite a lot of fiddling around - even with better libraries...

[leedsquietman]

Sure. This is why layering Tension string patches works well because it physically models the effect of bowing and what occurs sonically if you shift a big range within 2 notes (that kind of squeal effect) - Tension's string patches don't sound as authentic as samples, but if you layer them in with sampled sounds, it can sound quite a bit more realistic.