A Free Vst Violin

[sweet_trip]

there used to be a VST called Bowed Synth. It sounds ok, but it's an old plug... if i find it in my files i'll up somewhere (?)

[ianweb123]

Mmm, I gave it a try some time ago, I must admit I hated it...

I tried to make string sounds with it for the first 5 minutes, and then I just used it as a great, unique pad synth, ignoring that it's meant to do string sounds.

Just to reinforce (I hope) what Chase was saying (a few days ago, now) ..
This is a short demo using Stringz for something other than strings.. I leave you to guess which sound I mean.. Theres a little bit of help from Richman2, but the feature sound is the one I was interested in..

If you compare that with this that I posted a while ago, you will see that StringZ can do interesting sounds, IMHO

I'm suprised, I thought that the supertramp thing might have got a response

[sonarman]

I spent all afternoon trying to find that harmonica sound on stringz... no luck.

BTW - only just downloaded Chill (I'm so out of touch). Great synth!

[ianweb123]

I spent all afternoon trying to find that harmonica sound on stringz...

It is one of the presets tweaked just a little and with a bit of added reverb.. I would have thought that somebody might recognise which preset.

We can play for a lttle while and then I'll post the fxp

[Lagrange]

Dude this sounds terrible.. But I guess its free..

C

[ianweb123]

Dude this sounds terrible.. But I guess its free..

Like I said, Marmite!

.. this sounds terrible..

Actually it might be quite interesting to hear what Kvr members think is a succesful string synth, which to be fair shouldn't include samplesets.

I ask as it is quite marked the polarity of opinion about string-synths. I have seen similar POV aimed at piano instruments, and 303 clones. It would seem that some people have very clear ideas as to what makes the perfect sound, but we can't all agree on what the perfect sound is, methinks.

As I said StringZ is flawed, but I was pleased with the end result:- it fitted somewhere near the sound I was aiming at, it is clear that that sound is way off target for some and it would be cool to hear what instruments are a better fit..

Discuss

[oxymoron]

ian, congrats on some fine vsts. I really like stringz and was glad to see it in this thread. It's a unique synth and I like to mis-use it for strange sounds...

IMHO, a semi-decent sample/pm is only the start of a convincing violin sound. The rest is in the *performance*. Unless you are surgically going in and swapping samples for bowing articulation or position relative to the bridge, I recommend that you aim for an idiomatic performance. Ride the attack controller to mimic bowing styles, play with filter to vary brightness, use LFOs effectively to introduce vibrato when needed. Etc.

I'm not saying it'll transform a crappy soundfont into Garritan, but you'll squeeze a whole lot more out of it.

[Mango]

i feel i've misunderestimated Stringz and am probably going to re-evaluate all the krakli VST's

[alex zonder]

all the violin soundfonts suck

Except one! The Cadenza Strings soundfont is a string quartet soundfont (violon, viola, cello, bass) of a quite amazing quality.

User reviews: http://www.hammersound.net/cgi-bin/revi ... _Index=464
Download link: http://www.hammersound.net/cgi-bin/soun ... gs.zip;464

A 13 MB download. Be sure to give this one a try.

Another one that really stands out is made by the young composer Nando Florestan. It is absolutely perfect for staccato strings: http://www.sf2midi.com/index.php?page=sdet&id=6066
Florestan made more orchestral soundfonts ( http://oui.com.br/n/download.php?list.2 ), but only this one at www.sf2midi.com is amazing.

[alex zonder]

Here is a short mp3: a fragment of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge (midi file) performed by Nando Florestans strings soundfont. Played, recorded and rendered in REAPER:

http://stashbox.org/uploads/1150595220/Beethoven.mp3

Not bad, is it? And I say that a someone who considers B's GF to be one of the greatest achievements in music.

[ianweb123]

Here is a short mp3: a fragment of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge (midi file) performed by Nando Florestans strings soundfont. Played, recorded and rendered in REAPER:

http://stashbox.org/uploads/1150595220/Beethoven.mp3

Not bad, is it? And I say that a someone who considers B's GF to be one of the greatest achievements in music.

Doesn't work for me.. every note played sounds identically the same, which makes it sound very synthetic to my ears

[tconrardy]

I guess I asked this before..but did anyone try the MIS samples and also try to construct a multi-sample from those?

http://theremin.music.uiowa.edu/MIS.html


Tim

[Patrice Brousseau]

I guess I asked this before..but did anyone try the MIS samples and also try to construct a multi-sample from those?

http://theremin.music.uiowa.edu/MIS.html


Tim

There's a couple of sf2's made with the Iowa samples you could find at sf2midi.com but they are mainly part of the wind and brass sections. There's one cello (RAW sf2 with ff samples) and one cbass (RAW with ff samples too) however... but no Iowa violin I guess.

[Sascha Franck]

Most of the Iowa samples unfortunately aren't exactly worth the trouble anyways.

[alex zonder]

Doesn't work for me.. every note played sounds identically the same, which makes it sound very synthetic to my ears

!?! I'd say, compare this to an actual performance of this piece; maybe Beethoven's notes sound all identical to you
No matter, It's simply a good soundfont in comparison to other "strings".

Here's another short MP3, now of the cadenza violin soundfont I mentioned earlier. I'm not saying it is perfect, but it is certainly better than what you get in Edirol's Orchestral or Synful Orchestra:

http://stashbox.org/uploads/1150670637/ ... ndfont.mp3

And this is a free instrument. Again a midi file (second rate composer this time), played, recorded and rendered in REAPER. Well, just get it if you think it could be useful.