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Best fiddle bolder vs red room?

I know this isn't much help, but, as someone who owns both the Bolder and Red Room fiddles (in the case of Red Room, only Bluegrass, not Celtic), I think they're both great and both developers are a joy to deal with. Naturally enough, they do sound a bit different - as can be heard in the audio demos - and also have a different playing "feel." But without knowing your particular use scenario (and, to be honest, even if I did), I can't make a particular recommendation, other than suggesting that you really can't go wrong either way.
 
thanks for the reply
I am looking at the Red Room Bluegrass fiddle not the Celtic.
 
I don't own either Red Room or Bolder fiddle. But I heard the walkthrus and I only liked a few sounds in them. For melodic stuff it did not convince me. But there is another amazing one - https://www.kontakthub.com/product/folk-fiddle-kontakt-instrument/
This one from Insanity Samples is awesome, and sounds good on a variety of content. I recommend you check out the walkthru. Hope this helps.
 
I have to massage the RRA Celtic Fiddle to get it fit in the mix with other instruments, it's quite boxy. Some GUI features are very nice but that come with some bugs I discover only after a few hours of use. I have not the Bolder's one but I guess it's very straightforward to use. The features and articulations are about the same
 
I have them both. If you are strictly looking for bluegrass then the Red Room Bluegrass fiddle has the typical country fiddle articulations baked in for that style of playing. The Bolder fiddle is also very good and capable of both Celtic and bluegrass styles. Bolder has continued to improve it since it was first released which is a good sign they are committed to making it as good as possible. The demos are quite honest for both products. Pick your favorite.
 
I don't own either Red Room or Bolder fiddle. But I heard the walkthrus and I only liked a few sounds in them. For melodic stuff it did not convince me. But there is another amazing one - https://www.kontakthub.com/product/folk-fiddle-kontakt-instrument/
This one from Insanity Samples is awesome, and sounds good on a variety of content. I recommend you check out the walkthru. Hope this helps.

I also have the Insanity Samples Fiddle including their latest update. While I do like the tone of the samples, even with the delay and reverb turned all the way down it sounds pretty wet. I also find the dynamic layer transitions very abrupt and the range of articulations quite limited. I haven’t been able to use it at all for faster playing. It is overall a very basic instrument compared to the Bolder and Red Room VIs.
 
However, it is sad that both products do not have progressive and romantic vibratos.

It is also an important part of the melody.

 
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I would be using it for more country western sound, so maybe red room would be best.
thanks for the replies.
Dave
 
Well, you cannot beat a live fiddle. But you can get quite some mileage out of the RRA fiddles. I have done a demo for RRA but I am also a fiddler and the typical fiddle ornaments can be found there. Sure, no big romantic vibrato stuff but these are not part of typical Irish or Scottish traditional folk styles anyway. Though I understand that more expressive legato artics could be cool on occasion.
 
However, it is sad that both products do not have progressive and romantic vibratos.

It is also an important part of the melody.



This style of playing sounds to me more like a Stephane Grappelli type of Gypsy Jazz sound. I've never heard a Bluegrass or Celtic player with this kind of vibrato. It seems to me, trying to emulating this style of playing in a VI would require starting a new library from scratch. It's a cool sound though!

Dennis @ Bolder
 
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However, it is sad that both products do not have progressive and romantic vibratos.

Perhaps I should have mentioned this previously in regards to vibrato - the Bolder Sounds fiddle! has a very nice scripted and flexible vibrato. I'm not entirely clear on what progressive and romantic vibrato actually means ... but in the attached graphic, you can see the controls over vibrato on the Bolder fiddle! library.

Fiddle_V2_vibrato.jpg

Dennis @ Bolder
 
I guess I'm late to the party, but I would also recommend taking a look at embertone's friedlander violin, it does a great job as a fiddle too:



I already own it and though it sounds great it seems to be quite like a wild horse sometimes, it requires some work to get it to sound really good but once you do the results sound great. Even in the demo you can hear sometimes how the frequencies are kind of too hard, but it has the sound I like the most out of these three.

I also like the bolder and the red room ones but cannot say much because I don't own them yet, I am actually thinking of getting of them now too as I would like to have one fiddle VSTi with the right articulations for American folk and bluegrass music.

From what I listen in the demos I do like the sound of the bolder the better but the articulations when played fast sound better to me on the red room demos. I'm not sure yet which of the two I will get, maybe even both :)
 
If you want the Stephane Grappelli vibrato, slides and ornaments, the demo of Chris Hein Solo Violingt playing "Stardust" is the most convincing:


If you want realistic country/bluegrass/western swing the most realistic sounding is Band in a Box realtracks.

I'm a fiddle player, and these are the only ones I would ever use, but I'll check out the suggestions here.
 
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