Panning stereosampled strings

[drjohnny79]

I´ve got a great legato strings ensemble sound, multisampled reverbed and in stereo.

I was thinking of splitting it in the realistic keyranges, panning the instrument so I get a more typical symphonic spread of instruments (violins to the left, violas little bit to the left, cellos center, basses to the right).

Is this even possible to do this with good results? I can think of two problems:

1. I´ve got stereosamples - do I volumepan them?

2. If I only use the monosamples the already sampled reverb wont sound realistic right?

Feel free to give advice cuz I really like the sound but I want it to sound more realistic.

Btw I cant afford new samplelibraries. Maybe some day

[C00kie]

Hmmmmm... personally I don't like reverb to be in the sample, I'd like to add it to taske. Like dressing on a salad.

But you might get away with your approach #1. Just lower the volume on either left or right a bit, so it shifts slightly in the sterero image.

[drjohnny79]

cookie: ok will try it out! Thanx!

Yeah, I like dry samples too, more flexible. But this stringensemble is the best I´ve got, so I will give it a try.

Maybe I should lower volume on both l/r with the centered cellos? ...so they wont be overvolumed compared to the rest.

[drjohnny79]

One idea I had before, when I didnt think bout the bad thing bout mono reverbed samples, was to use monosamples and change between the l/r to achieve more variation. But bummer! mono reverb... yuck!

[TheStorm]

I have no idea how the pros here do it but I add a tiny bit of reverb to the final mix. I'll add reverb to mono samples and pan them on opposite sides if I have to (but only if the panning field is getting crowded), but as a general rule I like to use reverb on the master bus only. That way, you see, everthing sounds like it came from the same room. (Although, of course, this doesn't make sense if you're doing orchestral stuff; you have to pan/reverb then.)

I do know that a lot of pros record all the background parts in mono, focusing on stereo only for the lead instruments/vocals, but I've never been able to do it; my mix sounds too lifeless during recording.

[Herman Witkam]

If you want to do the panning correctly, you should pan the 1st violins far left, 2nd violins somewhat to the left, violas center, cellos somewhat to the right, basses far right.

[Sascha Franck]

I think, whenever there's reverb in the samples themselves, the panning approach will be less convincing.

Which string ensemble is it you're talking about?

[drjohnny79]

It´s an old sound from Natural Pro Recs Natural Collection, Legato Strings. About 16 mb only, but such a lively and crisp sound IMHO easier to use than Miroslavs old collections and Siedlezieks. Cant compare it to VSL but for allround slow legato parts (its not too slow attacks though!), it´s really useful.

I can recommend the cd. They only sell it in emu-format, but with nowadays that isnt such a big problem.