Lead violin sounds?

[muxlow]

I'm using GPO and while it sounds beautiful for pads, backgrounds, etc., I'm frustrated when it comes to getting a good sound for "leads" (sorry, I'm a guitar player...that's what we call them). The sound in my head is very raw, with what I think is a lot of "bow". Less pretty, more gritty. "Gypsy" or "folk" violin...

I have the mod wheel and velocity all the way up and have tried several different dry violin samples to no avail. So far, the best sound is using the keyswitched violins and hitting the D note (I think that's the one; my session's not in front of me - it's the second note from the left in the switch keys)...

Is there something I'm missing, or a trick to try?

Any advice is appreciated!!

[muxlow]

I just stumbled onto the Stradivari samples. THAT's more like it. Is it possible to get that sound out of the GPO Stradivari, or do I need to pony up for the separate library?

[danpowers]

One thing to try would be using an EQ plug-in on the violin. Maybe you could get something closer to the sound you're looking for by boosting the high frequencies just a bit.

[Hannes_F]

Hi,

perhaps try that:

Take the X-Files version and set the Kontakt slider to cc01 = -98%.

Hannes

[muxlow]

One thing to try would be using an EQ plug-in on the violin. Maybe you could get something closer to the sound you're looking for by boosting the high frequencies just a bit.

EQ does help a bit, but not enough....

[muxlow]

Take the X-Files version and set the Kontakt slider to cc01 = -98%.

X-Files version?

[Reegs]

There is a set of "X-custom" sample programming instruments as an addendum to GPO, which feature increased control through the kontakt player and are dowloadable through the support tab on garritan.com. The X-Custom library might be able to let you tweak the violin to the sound you want.

Good luck!

[wst3ae]

Are you looking for the sound of an electric violin, or an acoustic violin through a microphone?

The later is going to be danged difficult to fake, though you might try using a convolution reverb with a microphone impulse response... gonna have to give that a spin later today as I've (embarrasingly) never tried it myself.

The former (think Eileen Ivers, Darol Anger or Caryn Lin) is actually quite do-able. You just need to know two things - first, the output from most electric violins is very compressed, the dynamic range is probably on the order of 20-30 dB max, and quite often much less, so still a fast compressor in your effects chain and make it aggressive.

Second, the sound is much more like that of an electric guitar than an acoustic (no surprise), and there are two primary flavors. Some instruments have magnetic pickups, but most that I've heard have piezo electric pickups that sound like they are already processed a bit on board (I've not taken one apart yet, pesky owners!)

To get that sound you need a parametric equalizer with at least four bands. For a magenetic pickup you'll want to roll the high end off much lower (but gently, very gently) than you might expect. The low end also suffers from a roll off, but given the samples you have to really experiment. Then, with the mid bands create sharp peaks, as many as you have bands left. They aren't particularly large in magnitude, but they are sharp.

For a piezo you still need the low end roll-off, but the high end doesn't roll of at all, and in fact is flat, or even slightly increasing. The peaks are still sharp, but they will be towards the upper end of the register, and they will be more pronounced.

In my studio I use either the UAD 1176 or Kjaerhaus Golden Compressor and the Sonitus parametric equalizer.

Also, you might want to add a phase shifter or flanger, as it is not unusual for the artists to use such toys!

I don't yet own the Solo Strad (I will as soon as I figure out a couple of details or they release the stand-alone), but I think you'd probably get better results with it since it is designed to be "played" even more than GPO. You would still need all the processing though.

At one point one of the sample companies did release an electric violin library (same company that released a Chapman Stick(tm) library I think), but I did not buy it, and I don't remember why.

Hope this helps.