Orchestral Strings One was recorded utilizing the legendary acoustics in the famous Berliner Hall - home of the world class BERLINER PHILHARMONIKER. Our full string orchestra contains 14 violins, 10 Violas, 8 Cellos and 6 Double Basses. Now it's your turn to experience this huge orchestral section as a useful string instrument. Sound Magic has created Orchestral Strings One as a single ensemble complete with the beautiful ambience of this amazing hall. This incredible instrument will quickly become your "go to" string orchestra. No longer will you have to try and build a similar sound with several different string instruments or sections, burning up tracks, RAM, CPU cycles and your valuable time.
Violins, violas, cellos and basses are considered to be nearly impossible to sample into realistic sounding instruments. And the String Ensemble is the holy grail of these string instruments. KVR's Developers Challenge has provided Sound Magic with an opportunity to push the boundaries of our Hybrid Modeling Technology by creating Orchestral Strings One. Our quest for extreme realism not only lets us flex our engineering and computational chops - it gives you an incredibly useful freebie.
If you're familiar with the #2 ranked KVR instrument, Piano One, you know how clean Sound Magic's efforts are. To ensure the highest sound quality possible in our samples, we use top-of-the-line gear such as Brauner Microphones and Neve preamps. Couple this gear with the prodigious Berliner Hall and Orchestral Strings One is able to push the boundaries of realism - with the aid of Sound Magic's Award-Winning NEO Hybrid Modeling Technology, of course.
The NEO Hybrid Modeling Engine offers you the best from both the sampling and modeling worlds. The Authentic Sound of Sampling combined with the Playability of Modeling makes for a string experience that you have to try to believe! No steep
hardware requirements here. Orchestral Strings One takes up less than 200MB of disk space and doesn't overly tax your CPU. The NEO Hybrid Modeling Engine gives you absolute control over every aspect of each string - you can even design your own string! There are nearly 20 controls waiting for you to tweak! Some of you (you know who you are!) just HAVE to dial up the legato and velocity, fiddle with the dynamic response, and play with those timbre differences.
Unlike static samples, modeling technology really brings the Orchestral Strings One
to life. And more importantly, Orchestral Strings One focuses on the continuous flow of melody, not on just a single note. For example, you can progressively transform a sustained note by first adding slow vibrato, then medium vibrato and finally fast vibrato. While doing this, you can also use the expression controller to change from crescendo to decrescendo. This sort of control is just about impossible to achieve with sampled strings.
Orchestral Strings One is very easy to use. You can play with all the parameters on the fly with a MIDI keyboard using key switches and controllers. A keyboard player can easily and freely play our Orchestral Strings One without any difficulty. It's perfect for a live performance.
Features:
Reviewed By Spitfire31 [all]
January 29th, 2013
Version reviewed: 1.2 on Mac
This "Orchestral Strings One" is a ridiculously ineptly programmed Maize Sampler plug-in, stuffed with samples likely ripped off from some commercial strings package.
In its latest Mac version, 1.2, VST and AU, (the Win version is 1.3, apparently), it has first of all a new 'feature' - it only works monophonically! That is, one note at a time, until the release stage of the preceding one has finished! Or should that be a 'bug'?
As before, the Max Volume control is a hazard to your hearing (and monitors) - the fully CW position ('Boost') is the quietest one and the CCW position, labelled 'Cut', produces an ear busting shriek.
There's really no reason to go into further details - this is pathetic garbage and if the 'Award Winning Producer' intends it to showcase his other products, you can imagine what you're in for. Caveat emptor!
/Joachim
Read ReviewOnce again (as in Piano One) cutting the Max Volume actually INCREASES the gain. The plugin is already too loud and distorts frequently (when chords have many notes), and cutting Max Volume makes it even worse. Please fix the max volume on these instruments for Logic users (AU plugin). Your instruments are wonderful otherwise, but I cannot use them at all due to this flaw in the Audio Unit version. It's very frustrating, because they sound amazing otherwise. Cutting Max Volume should make the instrument quieter, not louder.
Also, your instrument shows up as misspelled in Logic. It shows up as Orchestral Strin instead of Orchestral Strings.
Just like Piano One, this plug-in does not make sound on my computer. Does anyone have any ideas
First of all, thanks for the great plugin!
But I can't automate or even save the settings of this VSTi in Live.... I hope this will be possible in an updated version, cause the plugin really sounds very good.
Where should I install this? It isn't showing up in Sonar when I install it in the VST folder (or anywhere else that I've tried). Thanks.
The info & graphic indicate a step sequencer is included, but the AU version does not have one and the GUI does not reflect the one shown on KVR - is it only in the WIndows version? Thanks!
I cannot be the only person with the AU gain knob problem in Orchestral Strings and Piano One can I? Would a Logic user please confirm that turning down the Max Volume actually raises the volume? All of their plugins do this on my system. I can't use them at all because their audio output is already clipping on large chords and there is no way to reduce the gain.
I really wish Sound Magic would reply to these concerns. I'm starting to feel like our problems are falling on deaf ears.
Are any posters here using the Windows version? If so, do YOU see a step sequencer, and does your GUI reflect what Sound Magic posted above in their graphic? I prithee good sir?
Its not obvious, but you need to click on the panel that says "Basic Panel" (just above the center of the keyboard) to see the step sequencer.
I'm a Windows user, and I see the image shown above as 1 of 2. I don't see the 2 of 2 image.
Hmmm! I see only the 2 of 2 - no such panel saying 'basic panel'... click in that general area though I may. There seems to be a different version for the Mac. Which is a shame, because it was the step sequenceer function that prompted me to download. Many thanks for your response Photoshare. A pity the developer does not appear to be interested in our thoughts.
The Mac AU is broken. The max gain, which is already too high, gets LOUDER when the knob is turned down. It's impossible to use this instrument in production without it clipping, which sucks. I wish they'd fix this. It seems to affect all their AUs.
OK, yup - their site says that 95% of the features are WIndows-only. The AU is a lame duck. Sad.
Sorry to say, this is a waste of 206mb. After the excellent Piano 1, I was expecting something comparable. It's badly synthetic, and a real let down. And they still have the old 1.0 version on their website.
I can't even get Orchestral Strings to download. Piano One is still at 1.1 for Mac. Why the preferential treatment for Windows ??
If you're on a Mac, don't even bother to download this pathetically amaturish hodge podge of a buggy Maize Sampler instrument. "NEO Hybrid Modeling Engine", my a**!
The samples are obviously ripped from various sources in true Chinese copycat tradition (the company is apparently based in Beijing) – the legato and tremolo patches are dry and full of artefacts and noise, sounding like they have been lifted off damaged vinyl records, while the staccato/spiccato sounds are washed in recorded reverb which is cut off with a click when the sample runs out in the higher registers.
The reverb doesn't work at all, there's no sign of a step sequencer on the Mac 1.1 version (it would only make things worse), the Max Volume control represents a clear and present danger to your hearing and your monitors since it works in an opposite way to the standard.
I'm not going to waste any more time writing about this hogwash. Avoid it, at least if you're on a Mac!
Both piano one and orchestral strings are no match for other free or inexpensive plugins that are available. Indeed a waste of space on you precious drives. That said: everybody is free to make his own decision.They are free so try them and see what you think
Please do share... Specifically your free superiors.
I would be very interested to know what other free or inexpensive plugins you think are better than Piano One. I have Pianoteq Stage and Pianissimo, both paid for, but my favourite piano is Piano One (I mainly play classical piano).
i have never felt compelled to leave a review or a comment about anything on here, but this thing sounds like shit!!! how is this so highly rated?
Worked just fine a month ago, Thought it was pretty cool. Now it only triggers randomly no matter what is sequenced.
Any one know why?
So awesome. Thank you thank you. :).
i can't understand why people think this is good, it's unusable, so is piano 1 - soz :(.
Not usable for me in Windows7 x64 FL Studio 10.
It does not save chosen presets and as soon as you try to export a song it resets all presets to default and fucks up all your tweeks BEFORE even rendering. That means it always renders with the default preset, no matter what you set up.
The interface is worse than every VST interface I've ever seen and Max Volume is doing the exact opposite of what it should.
Really too bad because the sound of staccato and pizzicato would be wonderful.
The bad usability and bugs unfortunately make this VST unusable.
THIS POST HAS BEEN REMOVED
I haven't found any version of Orchestral String One compiled for Mac, despite the informations at the bottom of the native page of the developer.
Until quite recently there was a tool created to wrap as AU (or RTAS) the dll compiled for Windows. It was FXpansion. It doesn't exist anymore. And it was not free...
God thanks... You can use another tool. And free! And excellent! It's a opensource tool that makes the same thing as made FXpansion. It is WacVST, distributed on Sourceforge, here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/wacvst/
Hope that will help you...
Unfortunately like piano one the software is still Beta & not user friendly. Its actually not that difficult to write software to point itself at a VST folder used by a DAW. Setup notes are sparse. It must be driving a lot of budding artists crazy.
Where can I download 64-bit Version?
In fact there's no 64-bit version (and there's no Mac version as I said also just above). All is wrong in this page made by the developer on KVR.
If you go to this page http://www.supremepiano.com/product/string1.html of the developer, you will see that Orchestral Strings One exists only as VST 32-bit for Windows (and even in his page he makes mistakes since the application to download is not at all a demo).
You should look at this.
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/versilian-studios-chamber-orchestra-by-versilian-studios
Incredibly beautiful! Far, far, far better... And written in 64-bit native code! It is totally new (uploaded just today) but I've already tested it and it has absolutely everything to make you forget this poor and and pitiful Orchestral String One.
In 3.30 i was download O.Strings and now is 6.00.The time is very implacable(but I'm at the work and for 1 hour i go home)
SPECIAL THANKS TO AUTHOR(s) FOR THIS PLUG IN .I LOVE THAT.
IT'S MY FIRST PLUG IN WITH SOUNDS THAT I NEED FOR MY amatuer ''HOME STUDIO''
THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
That's a very nice free plugin. The sequencer is the feature I was looking for and it works fine. However I realized I can only use the notes as triplets (the size of the step as being a triplet) inside my DAW and not 16th notes for example. Is there anything I'm missing before trying to find out inelegant ways to solve the issue?
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