Big Fish Audio releases Vintage Strings for Kontakt and Kontakt Player

Big Fish Audio has released Vintage Strings, a virtual instrument for Kontakt 5 and Kontakt 5 Player designed to emulate the classic violin string section sounds of R&B, Soul, and Funk records from the 1960s and 1970s.

Whether you're an experienced arranger or casual producer, Vintage Strings was designed to make it quick and easy for you to create great sounding string tracks for your productions. Like its sister product, Vintage Horns, Vintage Strings was not designed to be a shiny, perfect sounding virtual instrument. Instead, Big Fish Audio tried to capture the way string sections sounded back in the '60s and '70s; including the decidedly not classical playing style and minor imperfections that added character to those sections and made them sound so good.

For Vintage Strings Big Fish Audio recorded a 6 piece violin section using vintage Neuman U-87 mics and Royer ribbon mics run through a great sounding SSL board. To capture a true vintage string sound, they used close mics, room mics, and string section positioning based on actual session notes from old Motown and Philly Soul recording sessions. Rather than record the violins in a magnificent concert hall or some other large and resonant recording space, they recorded the players in a funky old studio with a smaller, less-reverberant room that had characteristics similar to the rooms used to record classic Soul and R&B records. Using the tracks they recorded in this space, they then created three types of sections:

2 Violins: The 2VLN patches are useful for creating the sound of smaller string sections. Even if played in 3-part harmony, these patches sound like a 6 piece section, rather than a full orchestral string section. The 2VLN patches take up a lot less sonic space in the mix, and also have the advantage of sounding like the smaller types of string sections used on a lot of old Soul and R&B records, which didn't have the time or budget to record a larger section.

6 Violins: The 6VLN patches are great for recording unison (1 part) lines that emulate the sound of a true 6 violin section, which was very commonly used in many old Soul recordings. When used for 2-part harmonies or octaves these patches can be used to replicate the sound of an overdubbed 6 violin section (i.e., a faux 12 violin section), which was a very common recording technique used on many Motown recording sessions.

12 Violins: The 12VLN patches are useful for creating unison (1 part) string lines that sound like an overdubbed 6 violin section. If you want to get a bigger sound with the size of a larger orchestral string section, without the color and character present in a large recording hall or symphonic space, use the patches for string parts in 2 or 3 part harmonies.

The result is a virtual instrument that has a sound and character that is distinctly different from orchestral based sampled string libraries. The sound of Vintage Strings is intentionally not big, rich, and glossy. It's a smaller, more intimate, and more "human" sound, which more accurately emulates the string sound on those classic old records.

Feature Summary:

• 3 group sizes: 2, 6, and 12 players.
• Recorded with the highest quality vintage outboard gear.
• 11 articulations.
• Auto harmonization feature for impressively quick arranging.
• Hand selected IR options available for the convolution reverb.
• 5.1GB (uncompressed).
• Kontakt Player 5 included.

Price: $199.95.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA5OuvDZmKk