# Little trick for a smooth vintage effect on strings



## muk (Mar 13, 2016)

Just passing along a neat little trick to give strings a nice vintage touch or to smoothen harsh strings. Oxo posted about it here:

http://www.neotrax.de/index.php/Thr...g-layering-sound-tipp/?postID=33460#post33460

The only thing needed for it - apart from a strings track of course - is Tokyo Dawn Records free tool 'Proximity'. If you don't know it already, it can be downloaded here:

http://www.tokyodawn.net/proximity/

Insert Proximity on your strings track, and choose the preset 'vocal'. With the fader you can control the amount of dampening you want to apply. Here is a little example. First untreated, then with a liberal amount of Proximity's 'vocal'-preset. I've overdone the effect a bit for demonstration purposes:



Forgive the sloppy and uninspired playing. It was just one pass without correcting anything. Just for demonstration.


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## Przemek K. (Mar 13, 2016)

Thanks for the tip with this plugin muk. It really does what its suppose to.


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## Noam Guterman (Mar 13, 2016)

pretty cool


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## marclawsonmusic (Mar 13, 2016)

I wonder if this effect be achieved with just EQ?


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## muk (Mar 14, 2016)

Pretty neat, isn't it? I'll definitely use it on my tracks where appropriate.

Marc, it can't, though you probably can come close. The air absorption part of Proximity is just EQ as far as I understand, so you can recreate that with eq easily. But the vocal preset also uses stereo width manipulation, psycho-acoustic models to simulate proximity effects of a virtual microphone, and distance based early reflections. So it's a bit more than just eq. But if you are versed with an eq you can probably achieve a similar effect.


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## Gary Williamson (Mar 30, 2016)

I've had that plug for awhile, forgot about it til now! thanks!


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## emid (Apr 5, 2016)

Been using it, specially on pre-master bus. Muk try it on submix bus with the default settings and move the fader up a little bit not too much. This plugin is also far better than using compressor too. Thanks for the 'vocal' preset trick as well.


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