Solo strings - any ideas?

[noiseboyuk]

IMO the Bohemian instruments above are in a league of their own for sounding like living, breathing instruments. It's a remarkable achievement. You sacrifice the usual controls, its all done by very clever scripting based purely on note velocity and speed, and this works very well (and improving all the time). But for some it's - I think - too much of a paradigm shift from conventional VIs. Its a rare beast indeed that begs to take centre stage, usually VIs want to keep in the background as much as possible. These puppies want to shine.

For more sedate / conventional quartet / quintet I still like Audiobro LASS FCs, but they can't really take centre stage and aren't designed to. Not a fan of Chris Hein or Kirk Hunter at all, not really VSL's greatest strength either. Spitfire have a new set coming out which would be worth keeping an eye on, but it is after all just another conventional library.

So for me VIR Harmonic have the crown, albeit just violin and cello for now. It's a very exciting approach to make a virtual musician rather than a virtual instrument, and you just play. There's often tweaks to do after a first pass, but nothing too head-banging.

[Armagibbon]

Bohemian got that baked in vibrato no matter what. Dunno how anyone thinks thats good. Yea good that its playable but you aint gonna control solo strings with just your keys and wheel. Imo best solo strings out there is swam. Learn to play it and its damn close to the real deal you aint even gotta touch keyswitches...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQnYwjZmcs0

[noiseboyuk]

Bohemian has different levels of vibrato, arcing at different points, triggered by the style chosen, key velocity and speed (with optional manual key switch forcing, only intended for occasional use). It is incorrect to say you control with the modwheel - there is no cc1 control at all, one of the things I was referring to when I said it was very unconventional and many wouldn’t like it as a result. I believe VIR have said that they may record totally nv articulations in the future.

The whole idea of Bohemian is to relinquish minutiae control, and treat it as a musician where you might ask to play in a particular style but not dictate on a note-by-note basis. The scripting then interprets the musical notes keyed in into what an actual violinist would play in that style. It does this by having real recorded swells with progressive vibrato of different intensity, so you’re hearing actual real performances (hopefully) seamlessly stictched together. The net result, for me, is that it much more closely sounds like the real deal.

Conceptually, it’s pretty much the polar opposite from SWAM. I personally disliked SWAM from the demos, just sounds like an uncanny valley synth to me.

[Cinebient]

For real time performance....Finger Fiddle app is the best thing out there.
For the pure sound i like the Bohemian and Emotional Cello the most.
The free Reaktor Serenade 3 is also very good but Reaktor use too much cpu and Finger Fiddle app is much better to control (but it has no midi in/out....ouch).
But really no one of these can compete to sitting next to a real string player but all have their pro and contra.
Best combination would be for me a mixture of sound and articulation from Emotional Cello and Bohemian controlled with the real time articulation/morphings like Serenade and Finger Fiddle.
The SWAM things didn‘t impress me really.

[Manzo88]

For me, it´s gotta be Virharmonic Bohemian Cello and Violin. Although the cello, at the moment, lags a little behind the violin, I still think it is still the best out there by far. The lack of control over dynamics and vibrato used to concern me as well, but I must say I do not miss it. Trust me, it may sound far-fetched saying you are going to control a string instrument with just keys and velocity, but that's indeed the way it is with these babes, most of the time. Also, as noiseboyuk has pointed out, if that does not cut it, you can actually select specific articulations and arcs in postproduction or by keyswitches, should you want to, and that gives you a finer control over vibrato and dynamics. There is also a non-vibrato articulation.

If you are willing to spend a little bit of time in your DAW to tweak your performance, what you can achieve is, imo, shockingly good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S8Pl-E5tvA

Sample Modeling strings are also worth checking out.