Better Violin?

I think you are using studio Instruments. Dimension Pro has great strings and includes the Garritan Pocket Orchestra too. You can select from solo violins, legato, sol etc.

If you go to the Dimension Pro page and then select sound examples from the left column and finally pick Garritan Pocket Orchestra from the Dimension song exmaples you can hear what the strings sound like.

Robin

EastWest/Quantum Leap (www.soundsonline.com) has some pretty good violin sounds in their Symphonic Orchestra series, and right now, the "Silver" bundle is FREE! It doesn't have as many articulations/samples as the "Gold" or "Platinum" bundles do...but it's FREE!

Their Hollywood Strings also sound good, but I haven't checked them for individual violins.

Steve

I do and I do!

There's an "ad" for it half-way down this page: http://www.soundsonline.com/home.php.

I have the "Silver" bundle. I bought it a couple of years ago. I thought some of the sounds were great, but in hindsight, I wish I'd bought the "Gold". I just didn't know how useful I'd find this stuff.

IK Multimedia's Philharmonik has some decent violin samples, too. I'm not a huge fan of what I've heard in the demo, though. Other people love it, but they have access to more sounds, no doubt. The demo doesn't really show me much. You can get that from their Web site, if you want it.

Steve

Actually, I believe it's the entire "Silver" bundle that, like a sucker, I paid for 2 years ago! If I'd known then that they'd be giving it away in 2 years, I would have waited!

It also appears to include the new PLAY engine, which means they're no longer using NI's Kontakt software.

They had a great offer last month--$200 off the "Gold" bundle...but it looks like we've missed that.

Oh well...enjoy!

Steve

You can use the mod wheel, but its use varies depending upon the patch and articulation. In some cases, it changes the attack (to give the strings more "bite"), and in some cases it crossfades between sounds.

Steve

I haven't tried it using the new "PLAY" engine, but it appears you can't affect the patch modulation with the mod wheel--and there's nowhere I've found to do it. I even tried the same patches in the Kontakt 4 player, with no luck. I guess EWQL wanted to add natural vibrato or tremolo to the samples where they thought it would be appropriate (or in other articulations), and they didn't design the patches in a way that we could do it ourselves.

However, in the Kontakt 3 player, you CAN add modulation to a patch, and control it. (I knew I kept that version for some reason!) You can even control the modulation from aftertouch--or pretty much any other controller.

I'm not sure LFO modulation applied by a mod wheel sounds as "natural" as the real thing, since it makes all the celli (or violins, or whatever) modulate at the same frequency and/or volume...and that isn't how it works in the real world! However, if you can get your hands on the free Kontakt 3 player, you should be able to modulate the EWQL sounds to your heart's content! I know I'm going to play with it a bit, now that I've found we can do it!

Steve