Looking for pop strings

[jprykiel]

Hi all.
All string banks I heard so far have this in common, the staccatos, spicatos, marcatos are played with fast attacks, and the sustains are played with slow attacks. I would like to get sustains with fast attacks. The only real strings example I can think of to give you an idea is


thanks for your help,

[goldenhelix]

LA Scoring Strings has a very satisfyingly solid attack on its legato patches (which, if you turn off the "legato" button, will play polyphonic sustains). This is a great library, but if you are just looking for pop string sections it might not be for you, as the strength is really in the ability to write for different divisi (sections) and they have a fairly dry sound overall. For $800 it's probably going to be overkill.

Heavyocity's Novo, which is a relatively new library has a reasonably fast attack on the "long" articulation. I am not sure I'd recommend this library for just this purpose though. It's got a decent sound but the strength is really more as a designer of orchestral textures than it is as a traditional string library. It's good, but if you're just looking for normal strings, justifying the cost will be difficult.

Auddict's United Strings of Europe, another newer library (and currently on sale for $65 - an outstanding bargain considering the quality of the library) has very fast attack. Unfortunately only the violins have been released so far but the developer says they plan on releasing the other string sections within months.

What string libraries have you tried so far that didn't do what you wanted them to do?

Also, if you have existing libraries that have marcatos or other "fast attack" articulations, you could try layering them with slower attack sustains and you might get a satisfying result.

[jprykiel]

Hi goldenhelix.
Thanks for this very detailed reply.
So far, I have only tried 8dio, as I thought they had a rather good quality/price balance. It has very good string banks indeed, Except for what I am precisely looking for at this moment,but then I don't know much about other companies, can't try them all : )
Cheers.

[goldenhelix]

Yes, when one starts delving into the world of instrument libraries it is very easy to get overwhelmed. The fact that few of them have demos you can try out without committing to a purchase makes it that much more difficult. Fortunately there are a lot of demos on Youtube you can usually check out to see the range of sounds they are capable of producing. In the end, you are still gambling when you buy something without having tried it yourself, but you can make a somewhat informed decision based on stuff you hear and see.

One thing you could consider is signing up for East West's Composer Cloud program. It's $30 a month and you get access to fully functional versions of every library they make. You can pay month by month so you could basically try out every East West library for $30 if you wanted to try one month. I haven't personally used any East West libraries but they are considered among the best. The only "down side" is that you obviously have to download the library you intend to use. For strings, I imagine even their smallest library is probably at least around 50GB (this is a guess, of course). But it could be something to try if you don't want to invest a lot of money trying out something that may not work for you.

Also, I recommend looking for soundfonts / sfz files you can use in a program like sforzando. A lot of these small humble sound sets are not exactly rife with articulations, but you aren't really looking for that. Some of them may sound quite good for just pop string sustains and they are free.

[nineofkings]

With Kontakt you should be able to get a "fast legato strings" patch, either by layering staccato and legato patches or by chopping off most of the attack of a legato section in the wave editor and copying the sample start settings to all groups.

[jancivil]

Yes, this is a matter of using an Offset function of a library, cutting into the sample to effect sharper attack. See if what you have features that.

[bigcat1969]

Would negative delay help? In some ways you are just starting the sample sooner than you think you are and not effecting the actual attack, but that is really the same as moving the start points up in Kontakt isn't it? Also if you go in and look at the sustain groups that are triggering in Anthology, or whatever 8dio strings you are using, you can move the attack from a couple hundred to maybe 25.

[donkey tugger]

In ye olde times we used to move the entire part a bit forward to compensate for slow attacks. We also used to eat coal etc, etc...

[jprykiel]

Thanks all.
All these are good advices, only Kontakt is not exactly designed for Blind users. This kind of Under the hood tweaking requires a great deal of expertise and a good pair of eyes. I can't do it myself.
Furthermore, I don't think it would sound very natural anyway. There's also the release problem, these release samples don't work in this case. What One would need is a good low-pass filter and an ADSR to mimic staccato release after a long sustain. In fact, I have Designed the kind of articulation I like in my NordStage 2, except that the library itself is a Tiny one…
I will check These SFZ libraries,.

[goldenhelix]

A few of the soundfonts that sound decent are: HS Strings, Florestan Strings, Papelmedia Strings, KBH Ultima Strings... there are a lot, so just look for free soundfont strings, but these are the ones that I have that sound alright and have fast attack and solid sustain.

If you use sforzando and import the soundfonts, it will convert them automatically to an .sfz file which is slightly different.

Keep in mind the flexibility of the sounds is not usually as good as some Kontakt libraries (it might not have many, if any, articulations) but it sounds like what you're looking for is relatively simple and you might not need all of that anyways. At any rate, they're free so it is worth trying at least.

[nineofkings]

KBH Ultima strings are maybe the most beautiful soundfont strings, but they also have a very slow attack. Florestan might be more of the move here.

[jancivil]

Would negative delay help? In some ways you are just starting the sample sooner than you think you are and not effecting the actual attack, but that is really the same as moving the start points up in Kontakt isn't it? Also if you go in and look at the sustain groups that are triggering in Anthology, or whatever 8dio strings you are using, you can move the attack from a couple hundred to maybe 25.

Grammar Authoritarian time: this does *effect* an attack. One may say it does not *affect* the actual, given attack. Effect as a verb means to bring about, to cause, to achieve. Affect as a verb means to influence.

I don't know what negative delay is. I would imagine 8Dio, eg., to exploit Kontakt and have an offset function. Sorry, didn't see 'blind user'.

[goldenhelix]

Your important work of correcting the grammatical errors on the internet must be exhausting. Society really owes you a debt of gratitude that will never be paid.

[goldenhelix]

KBH Ultima strings are maybe the most beautiful soundfont strings, but they also have a very slow attack. Florestan might be more of the move here.

True, I realized after I wrote this that this particular one is probably not what he wants, I guess I just listed it because they sound beautiful. I dare say for slow filmic strings, they even sound as good if not better than the Albion One strings, and $450 cheaper.

[bigcat1969]

Unless I'm misunderstanding, the negative delay in Studio One, and I assume the same for other DAWs, moves a midi track 'forward' so that notes trigger fast than the other midi tracks. So -20 ms delay would trigger all the string sustains in this case 20 milliseconds before all the other instruments.

Also note that you might want to carefully check the clearances on soundfonts. When I was looking to make Kontakt instruments from them I discovered that not all free SFs are sourced legally. This could be why some of them are such good 'deals'.