KVR Audio

Cosmus · Post by **Cosmus** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 1:53 pm

Hey,
Loomer announced String -String is a virtual instrument that emulates the beautiful sound of the polyphonic string synthesizer. Its authentic tone comes from its accurate emulation of the divide-down oscillator technology and bucket-brigade chorus units behind the lush ensemble synths of the 70s.

http://blog.loomer.co.uk/ some audio demos

cyphersuit · Post by **cyphersuit** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 4:31 pm

Love the design!

dj ray · Post by **dj ray** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 8:09 pm

Love string machines. This one sounds great! Looking forward to it.

HunterKiller · Post by **HunterKiller** » Wed Dec 02, 2009 2:30 am

Man I just had to bump this one.

Well after literally spending a few minutes with it, I've concluded that this is the best sounding software string machine yet.

Beats everything previously released, hands down. (Well except for those Reaktor ensembles by Alienmachine). In terms of sheer functionality, versatility and stellar sound, a lover of the string machine sound cannot go wrong with this one.

I started playing with it for about 10 minutes, and couldn't hit a bum note.
It flows, it just flows, it's an awesome composition tool.
I kept going through the presets and I thought they were quite something, until, until I come to the Hydrogen preset, and uhhh.... holy aural dimensions batman

. That is the preset of the year!

The filters/eq's are extremely useful for creating vast variations on a single sound.
The 2 chorus types are brilliantly done, both infinitely useful, and very pleasing to the ear. Which is more than I can say for some other string softsynths of this year. I'm not gonna go into any comparisons, people can obviously do that themselves. But hopefully everybody will see what makes a good string synth, worth raving about.

The only thing I'd like to see in the future is keyboard tracking. It gives the sound a warmer feeling more reminiscent of the Eminent 310.

Man I just love this thing. It gives me every single stringsynth sound I ever wanted, and with unbelievable gusto.

String is just a sheer joy to play. I wish it had a grander name, 'cause it deserves it.

Instant fave, instant go to synth and stringsynth.

The credit really has to go to the guys at Loomer. They obviously did a great deal of homework on this one. And one can see it's a work of love.

colin@loomer · Post by **colin@loomer** » Wed Dec 02, 2009 11:19 am

Wow, what acclaim! I can't thank you guys enough for this kind of praise, I really appreciate it.

Just because the original post links to the blog, rather than the main Loomer website, here is the link for anyone who wants to download the demo.

@HunterKiller - Could you just clarify what you'd like to see in terms of keyboard tracking?

HunterKiller · Post by **HunterKiller** » Wed Dec 02, 2009 11:58 am

CPB wrote:@HunterKiller - Could you just clarify what you'd like to see in terms of keyboard tracking?

Well from what I have been able to observe about the most perfect string machine of all time, the string ensemble of the Eminent 310 organ, there seems to be a an envelope effect on the notes across the keyboard. In that the lower notes sound duller compared to the higher notes. This has the effect of making the perceived sound, sound more natural across the keyboard and less grating in the lower octaves. A rough emulation of real world acoustic instruments and their behaviour.

The ARP Solina String ensemble didn't have this, which is why it's remembered for it's raspy strings. The brightness of each note remained exactly the same from top to bottom.

If you can get samples of the Eminent 310 strings you'll see exactly what's going on on, and even more on a spectrum analyser.

Another secret of that organ was, that the strings were cut off at around 8KHz+/-, no signal above that could pass through, due to the inferior components used at the time, which ultimately had an unexpected pleasing effect, of coming across as the warmest set of synthesized strings you've ever heard. And due to this it was very popular among musicans of that time.

The lowpass cut off for the strings themselves was at around 6KHz for the top-most note and subsequently lower for each note proceeding downwards. But analysing the notes themselves, esp the lower octaves, you can see that it's not just a straight lowpass filter cut off acting on the notes, but something more reminiscent of an eq setting, per note. Which makes for an even better overall sound.

So yeah, that's what I meant.

colin@loomer · Post by **colin@loomer** » Wed Dec 02, 2009 5:46 pm

@ HunterKiller - Now *that* is how to request features! Thanks for this: it's an absolute goldmine of Eminent 310 analysis, and will give me a great start point for any aural improvements I do for String 1.1. Cheers!

HunterKiller · Post by **HunterKiller** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:03 am

No problem CPB, very happy to help out with String.

dj ray · Post by **dj ray** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:36 am

Perfect time for a Christmas Sale/Group Buy, don't you reckon?

lagavulin16 · Post by **lagavulin16** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:37 am

HunterKiller wrote:Man I just had to bump this one.

Well after literally spending a few minutes with it, I've concluded that this is the best sounding software string machine yet. Beats everything previously released, hands down. (Well except for those Reaktor ensembles by Alienmachine). In terms of sheer functionality, versatility and stellar sound, a lover of the string machine sound cannot go wrong with this one.

I started playing with it for about 10 minutes, and couldn't hit a bum note.
It flows, it just flows, it's an awesome composition tool.
I kept going through the presets and I thought they were quite something, until, until I come to the Hydrogen preset, and uhhh.... holy aural dimensions batman . That is the preset of the year!

The filters/eq's are extremely useful for creating vast variations on a single sound.
The 2 chorus types are brilliantly done, both infinitely useful, and very pleasing to the ear. Which is more than I can say for some other string softsynths of this year. I'm not gonna go into any comparisons, people can obviously do that themselves. But hopefully everybody will see what makes a good string synth, worth raving about.

The only thing I'd like to see in the future is keyboard tracking. It gives the sound a warmer feeling more reminiscent of the Eminent 310.

Man I just love this thing. It gives me every single stringsynth sound I ever wanted, and with unbelievable gusto.

String is just a sheer joy to play. I wish it had a grander name, 'cause it deserves it.

Instant fave, instant go to synth and stringsynth.

The credit really has to go to the guys at Loomer. They obviously did a great deal of homework on this one. And one can see it's a work of love.

1) Have you tried Amber?
2) Thanks for the tip regarding Alienmachine. Never heard of him but going to download those RIGHT NOW.

-string junky

alienmachine · Post by **alienmachine** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:46 am

Hi guys,

I'm glad to see another string machine emulation! And a very well done one.

I haven't played with it much yet but for what I have heard on the demos it sounds wonderful.

FYI: some Eminent 310 resources I used in the past:
http://www.perkristian.net/studio_eminent310.shtml
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may07/a ... ent310.htm This article is the one that actually made me create the Reaktor ensemble

http://www.eminent310.nl/
http://www.jarrography.free.fr/details_ ... id_equip=9
http://www.xs4all.nl/~reedgors/64/dokum ... hedual.pdf
And a lot of demos in youtube

Cheers and congratulations for a great piece of work. I'll buy it when I have some money to spare!

BTW, I have been exchanging comments with Hunter about the Eminent 310 and he really knows what he's talking about. He made a very well and in depth analysis of the Eminent sound. With his suggestions, I hope next year, I can improve my Reaktor ensemble. Again, thanks HunterKiller for your comments and praise

HunterKiller · Post by **HunterKiller** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 7:00 am

lagavulin16 wrote:1) Have you tried Amber?

Was disappointed with it in the first day of playing with it. But that's more likely to do with hype and marketing. The bottom line is, I can't make it sound like an Eminent 310, or a Crumar Performer, or an ARP Solina. By my standards it's under par.

You know, wonderful interface, and a lot of modulation possibilities, but the sound just ain't there. The string sound that is. This is mostly due to the chorus types, they aren't the best I've heard - software or hardware. The synth part of Amber is wonderful though, very useful.
Overall, it's good for certain things, but it could do so much better at others. I get the feeling it's 95% of the way there, but because it's so complex it'd be hard to change it now to something else. Changing the sound of a completed synth, happens rarely. One can only hope for more chorus types in the future.

lagavulin16 wrote:Thanks for the tip regarding Alienmachine. Never heard of him but going to download those RIGHT NOW.-string junky

You're welcome

HunterKiller · Post by **HunterKiller** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 7:05 am

alienmachine wrote:Again, thanks HunterKiller for your comments and praise

It's hard not to, when you've done such a spendid job.

BTW, been playing with your ME-5500, and I've got some presets for you.

red37 · Post by **red37** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 12:25 pm

This sounds fantastic!! A stellar work.

glasgene · Post by **glasgene** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 12:33 pm

dj ray wrote:Perfect time for a Christmas Sale/Group Buy, don't you reckon?

+ 1 on both Apsect and this, a lot of people requesting a group buy on Aspect previously so Im sure this will be no different...

I think one of the issues is spontaneous buying but if part of the sale clause at a good price was NFR on all the licenses it might make people think more carefully. My 2cs 2 pounds 2 euros whatever

Loomer String synthesizer