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There are perfectly explainable reasons why the higher range of strings are difficult to capture musically. Unfortunately, and ironically, by traditional sampling methods you're suffering by the technical excellence of the professional musicians. They'll strive for perfect intonation, which in such a concentrated context (a long note at a time, in isolation, at half or whole note increments) will be rather easy for them to achieve as a group. As they go higher and higher up the highest string, it'll become increasingly difficult to maintain good intonation and vibrato, but because these are professional players they'll make it sound quite effortless. Therein lies the problem. If you're present at the recording session you may marvel at the great tone and technical supremacy being displayed there and then, but when time comes to build a patch in your sampler you'll find it to be anything but realistic sounding in other musical contexts than simple, lengthy static parts. Just for the sake of comparison, if you were to give these musicians some music to play (specifically something less static in the upper register of their instruments) the ensemble would immediately take on a very different character. Why? Well.. because of the inevitably more noticeable intonation discrepancies between each individual player in the group that happen as natural results of playing "sul corda" or in 3rd or 4th position where fingers are cramped, the ensemble will sound bigger and the vibrato will sound wider at the beginning of longer notes before intonation is corrected within the group. What many people don't realize is that the exaggerated romantic high strings hollywood vibrato that you all love is actually considered bad technique among many string players (particularly in Austria I've gathered, hence the relatively conservative string ensemble vibrato in the VSL library) because it essentially comes to life with (oftentimes even deliberately) poor intonation. Knowing this is absolutely crucial to the outcome and success of any string sampling endeavor. This is what developers need to focus on in order to reproduce the high range of string instruments in a way that more accurately resembles people's general conceptions of what strings sound like in that register. It's by no means an easy task, though. It's a given that they'll have to step away from conventional methods of sampling and look into ways of coaxing musicians into performing what will ultimately yield more natural results in the domain of a digital sampler. Sorry if I went a bit off topic. As for more audible rosin noise in the higher range of the violins? Welcome to reality
Hopefully it is not too late for your upcoming session.
@Christian Marcussen said:
Romantic celli - mmmmmmm - me like
@Christian Marcussen said:
Romantic celli - mmmmmmm - me like
@Laurent said:
Absolutly, but don't forget those are the best player in the wold, London Symphonic Orchestrta…
@William said:
SCREW THE LSO.
Long ago I decided that performers and conductors would not not be permitted to SHIT on my compositions any more. The entire idea of using samples is an attempt at getting away from the stupidity and wretchedness of live performance and all the compromises it entails.
You can dream all you want, of having the "wonderful" LSO give you the ultimate compliment of lowering themselves to play your music, but I spit on your dreams. I do not view sampling as a part-time substitute for being screwed over by a conductor or music director or groups of stuck-up classical performers. It is an art of purity and no-compromise (to the few individuals - not you - who view it that way) that is far higher than the LSO or any lousy stinking orchestra/conductor/music director that lives to put down composers and their work.
[...] If we would record our samples with lots of reverb like old-school sampling libraries, we would run into major problems with the realisation of all our advanced Performance-concepts, like true legato, repetitions, free placement on a virtual stage and so on. The reverb inherent to the recordings would be extremely damaging in all these cases. Our release-samples are not meant to be a cheap reverb, they are part of the instrument's own sound. - For Reverbation, we are working on a dedicated solution with multi-sampled orchestral venues.
Apart from that, I kindly invite you to visit our Silent Stage, and you will see that this orchestra stage is far from "dry" (... would be hard to achieve in a room about 7 metres high, BTW). Due to our concept, we had this studio designed to be free of _reverb_, but with lots of controlled ambience.
[...]
