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"Best-sounding" solo strings

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givemenoughrope

Senior Member
Just curious what everyone thinks. I don't mean the best legato or the most versatile or complete set of articulations. Not the best programming or crossfades. Not the player's expression. Just the sound of the instrument and recording only; like what you hear when you go into the groups in Kontakt and play one of the samples on its own.

I've heard people saw VSL is dry and box-y...?
LASS (although expressive when using it) is recorded REALLY hot.
Spitfire Solo Strings sounds really nice but is soft and has plenty or Air air (not a bad thing).
Embertone is very dry (for a reason). Not bad.
EW is sort of bright and roomy.
8dio Adagio I haven't investigated yet.

Any others?

I'm experimenting with my electric cello/viola and match eq with some success. Not incredible but not terrible either.

thanks in advance
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For cello, for me it's hands down the Harmonic Subtones Emotional Cello. Unfortunately right now they just have the cello. In addition to best sounding, it also happens to be the most playable. Tina Guo Legato a close second on sound, but not nearly as versatile.
 
I personally like Tina Guo Cello the most. A beautiful cut through sound.
Emotional cello is more versatile, as posted above, yes, but the player him/herself wasn't that good as Tina Guo. Being married to a violinist and having string players around me every time, I hear a difference.

Other great unconventional solo strings I personally like are 8Dio's Bazantar and Frendo. And oh, totally forgot... 8Dio Solo violin. Only loops and classical violin repertoire, but hey, the Batman figures & arpeggios are quiet cool in there.
 
At this point I feel like Emotional Cello and OT Nocturne Violin are the best sounding. Tina Guo is great for slower passages, but Emotional can do just about anything- stack a cello section behind it and it gives any line more clarity and bite, solo it and it plays well- and mixes in great.

The real question is will Cinesamples hit it out of the park with "CineStrings Solo". Tina Guo's sound is great (except for the baked in reverb), if they could get that expresive warm sound into a solo string library, it could be exceptional. :) This was posted March 10th on Cinesamples FB page.

"We need your input! CineStrings PRO and CineStrings SOLO are slated for 2015 release and production has officially begun! We have a general plan of attack for both these libraries, and we would like your input on additional features. What would you like to see in these upcoming libraries?

Also, we plan to grab additional free material for CineStrings CORE, feedback on that as well. Please post your comments below, and share.

A quick synopsis of where we are headed so far:

CineStrings PRO
• All articulations, with MUTES
• Chords Low and Chords High (Like CineBrass PRO)
• Strings FX

CineStrings SOLO
• Legato for ALL SOLO Strings
• Legato sampling in the Tina Guo Solo Cello method
• SOLO Articulations for all Solo Strings
 
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thesteelydane said:
To me, as a professional violinist/violist, nothing compares to Spitfire in terms of sound. I also think they all sound like crap compared to the real thing, but I'm obviously biased.
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I feel this way about Guitar libraries as I am predominantly a Guitarist! I actually need to get a Solo Violin Library so I think I might go with Spitfire. How do you feel about OT's Nocturne Solo Violin or Virharmonic Bohemian Violin out of interest?
 
For me right now in the following order:

1) Spitfire Solo Strings
2) Tina Guo Cello
3) Embertone's Friedlander and Blakus Cello.

Although, Its possible that Harmonic Subtones could become my favorite. I just havent used it enough yet.

I'm slightly nervous about the CineStrings Solo legato if they're planning on using the same method as they did for TG. While it's a beautiful, smooth and expressive legato it really is not useful for fast lines. I would hope their CS Solo Cello is a bit more flexible.
 
Exactly my thought. Tonewise Tina Guo is really great and you hear the great player behind it. But even at medium tempo the legato "collapses", it starts to become very sluggish. Fortunately the normal sustain is programmed very good and usable so one could switch to this at higher tempos
Btw: the SOUND of solo strings is my biggest concern and in the endlessly meandering discussions about new solo strings becoming available I always miss the discussion about how the SOUND of it is? Not how many articulations or mic positions are available but how does this instrument FEEL? Originally this was the most important point in music, at least for my generation, but got pushed into the background with technology exploding at the moment.
That said the good old spitfire solostrings are of great value for me and are my first chairs in every template since they add a certain "expensive and professional" feel to the sound. (where the viola, as always, is the weakest part. Seemingly hard to capture the spirit of a viola :-( ) As soon as I listen to a real viola player I get shivers from the pleasure all over. That rarely happens with samples (but it happens...)
 
I'm a huge fan of the Bohemian Violin, I haven't heard anything that can beat it (just my opinion of course)!
 
jononotbono said:
I feel this way about Guitar libraries as I am predominantly a Guitarist! I actually need to get a Solo Violin Library so I think I might go with Spitfire. How do you feel about OT's Nocturne Solo Violin or Virharmonic Bohemian Violin out of interest?
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Just for you, I went and watched the official walkthroughs/demos. I'm sorry, but I would spot the OT nocturne as fake in a couple of seconds. It's just so obvious to me. The Bohemian would take me a bit longer - something sounded off to me from the first second, in an eerie sort of way, because it actually sounds like a real violin, but it also sounded a bit like it's being played by a really bad student. I don't mean the samples themselves, I'm sure the player is a very fine musician indeed. It's just that a real player would never play like that. Mind you, I would also spot the Spitfire as fake pretty quickly, but it's so much more forgivable, because the tone is to die for.

I think the issue here is that we're forgetting that real violinist spends a lifetime as students of interpretation, honing not only our technical abilities, but also how to play a phrase that is true to the music, and how to do that in front of thousands of people. We will literally spend thousands of dollars to fly around the planet to have a lesson with someone we admire, who may only say "Oh no, but you're wrong - THIS note is more important than that" - and then we will spend a hundred hours in the practice room, trying to figure out how to make those two notes sound exactly the way we hear it in our heads. And there is no way you can ever capture that fanatical attention to interpretation in a sampled instrument, but that is what these companies are trying to do, with their round robbins, and 20 different legato intervals and what not. And I applaud that, I am as much into sampling as everyone else here, but until your sampler becomes self aware, and develops not just a musical imagination, but also an artistic purpose, it will always sound fake - at least with instruments as complex as strings.

Now with that said, that Bohemian violin is impressive as a virtual instruments, so if you can't live with the Spitfire's lack of articulations and other limitations, then that's the one I would get. I think if you wrote for it the way you would write for a real violinist, you could probably get a convincing performance out of it. The same could probably be said for the OT violin - as a virtual instrument is IS impressive, and I'm a huge fan of their other products. But it doesn't sound real to me.
 
thesteelydane said:
Just for you, I went and watched the official walkthroughs/demos. I'm sorry, but I would spot the OT nocturne as fake in a couple of seconds. It's just so obvious to me. The Bohemian would take me a bit longer - something sounded off to me from the first second, in an eerie sort of way, because it actually sounds like a real violin, but it also sounded a bit like it's being played by a really bad student. I don't mean the samples themselves, I'm sure the player is a very fine musician indeed. It's just that a real player would never play like that. Mind you, I would also spot the Spitfire as fake pretty quickly, but it's so much more forgivable, because the tone is to die for.

I think the issue here is that we're forgetting that real violinist spends a lifetime as students of interpretation, honing not only our technical abilities, but also how to play a phrase that is true to the music, and how to do that in front of thousands of people. We will literally spend thousands of dollars to fly around the planet to have a lesson with someone we admire, who may only say "Oh no, but you're wrong - THIS note is more important than that" - and then we will spend a hundred hours in the practice room, trying to figure out how to make those two notes sound exactly the way we hear it in our heads. And there is no way you can ever capture that fanatical attention to interpretation in a sampled instrument, but that is what these companies are trying to do, with their round robbins, and 20 different legato intervals and what not. And I applaud that, I am as much into sampling as everyone else here, but until your sampler becomes self aware, and develops not just a musical imagination, but also an artistic purpose, it will always sound fake - at least with instruments as complex as strings.

Now with that said, that Bohemian violin is impressive as a virtual instruments, so if you can't live with the Spitfire's lack of articulations and other limitations, then that's the one I would get. I think if you wrote for it the way you would write for a real violinist, you could probably get a convincing performance out of it. The same could probably be said for the OT violin - as a virtual instrument is IS impressive, and I'm a huge fan of their other products. But it doesn't sound real to me.
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What you describe here Steelydane I think mostly covers the whole of the sampling world as it currently is. It is easy to forget when trying to put ideas into a musical form that the limitations of samples will only allow for so much, unless the VI becomes an AI, at which point there is no more influence from the human as the creator.
Here Intelligence Amplified will be more applicable instead of Artificial Intelligence .

All in all, all the nuances of a real player will be unachievable for now and so work with what is. And if it sounds close, fantastic, and for those who can afford it, let it be played live and then the music will actually live.
 
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thesteelydane said:
Just for you, I went and watched the official walkthroughs/demos. I'm sorry, but I would spot the OT nocturne as fake in a couple of seconds. It's just so obvious to me. The Bohemian would take me a bit longer - something sounded off to me from the first second, in an eerie sort of way, because it actually sounds like a real violin, but it also sounded a bit like it's being played by a really bad student. I don't mean the samples themselves, I'm sure the player is a very fine musician indeed. It's just that a real player would never play like that. Mind you, I would also spot the Spitfire as fake pretty quickly, but it's so much more forgivable, because the tone is to die for.

I think the issue here is that we're forgetting that real violinist spends a lifetime as students of interpretation, honing not only our technical abilities, but also how to play a phrase that is true to the music, and how to do that in front of thousands of people. We will literally spend thousands of dollars to fly around the planet to have a lesson with someone we admire, who may only say "Oh no, but you're wrong - THIS note is more important than that" - and then we will spend a hundred hours in the practice room, trying to figure out how to make those two notes sound exactly the way we hear it in our heads. And there is no way you can ever capture that fanatical attention to interpretation in a sampled instrument, but that is what these companies are trying to do, with their round robbins, and 20 different legato intervals and what not. And I applaud that, I am as much into sampling as everyone else here, but until your sampler becomes self aware, and develops not just a musical imagination, but also an artistic purpose, it will always sound fake - at least with instruments as complex as strings.

Now with that said, that Bohemian violin is impressive as a virtual instruments, so if you can't live with the Spitfire's lack of articulations and other limitations, then that's the one I would get. I think if you wrote for it the way you would write for a real violinist, you could probably get a convincing performance out of it. The same could probably be said for the OT violin - as a virtual instrument is IS impressive, and I'm a huge fan of their other products. But it doesn't sound real to me.
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Thank you!
 
Personally using a combo consisting of Embertone's Blakus, Tina Guo's Legato and the Solo instruments in the 8dio Adagio Bundle. The viola and bass are outstanding for me. Blakus is great for the sul pont, col legno, and the color matrix, but I hate the "nosey" character of the cello when played in legato mode. Tina Guo's Legato is sounding great but it lacks room customization and it's a bit fiddly when you want to play faster, that's where the adagio strings come in handy. I used to have the LASS first chairs in my template but I can't stand the slur of Audiobro's Libraries anymore, except when played in a chord context per section. And the Adagio Solo's are really great despite the puzzling setup into a template due to the amount of articulations available.
 
I'm really liking the sound of FluffyAudio's Trio Broz strings, though I've never played them. I might consider buying them, since otherwise I had given up trying to make sampled solo strings sound good. I avoid them altogether unless I'm making a mockup for live players.
 
thesteelydane said:
Just for you, I went and watched the official walkthroughs/demos. I'm sorry, but I would spot the OT nocturne as fake in a couple of seconds. It's just so obvious to me. The Bohemian would take me a bit longer - something sounded off to me from the first second, in an eerie sort of way, because it actually sounds like a real violin, but it also sounded a bit like it's being played by a really bad student. I don't mean the samples themselves, I'm sure the player is a very fine musician indeed. It's just that a real player would never play like that. Mind you, I would also spot the Spitfire as fake pretty quickly, but it's so much more forgivable, because the tone is to die for.

I think the issue here is that we're forgetting that real violinist spends a lifetime as students of interpretation, honing not only our technical abilities, but also how to play a phrase that is true to the music, and how to do that in front of thousands of people. We will literally spend thousands of dollars to fly around the planet to have a lesson with someone we admire, who may only say "Oh no, but you're wrong - THIS note is more important than that" - and then we will spend a hundred hours in the practice room, trying to figure out how to make those two notes sound exactly the way we hear it in our heads. And there is no way you can ever capture that fanatical attention to interpretation in a sampled instrument, but that is what these companies are trying to do, with their round robbins, and 20 different legato intervals and what not. And I applaud that, I am as much into sampling as everyone else here, but until your sampler becomes self aware, and develops not just a musical imagination, but also an artistic purpose, it will always sound fake - at least with instruments as complex as strings.

Now with that said, that Bohemian violin is impressive as a virtual instruments, so if you can't live with the Spitfire's lack of articulations and other limitations, then that's the one I would get. I think if you wrote for it the way you would write for a real violinist, you could probably get a convincing performance out of it. The same could probably be said for the OT violin - as a virtual instrument is IS impressive, and I'm a huge fan of their other products. But it doesn't sound real to me.
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I agree with you thesteelydane, but I think the point is not the realism of the performance but the sound itself.

I mean, if you are composing a music which includes a violin phrase, a melody line etc, then a very good sounding violin vst with good legato and enough articulations should do it. If a solo violin has the leadling role in a piece, than nothing can beat the real one. Trying to write virtuous violin part with a VST is harder to find a good player + recording session.

So we need good solo libraries sounding real for part of music.
 
Sid Francis said:
(where the viola, as always, is the weakest part. Seemingly hard to capture the spirit of a viola :-( ) As soon as I listen to a real viola player I get shivers from the pleasure all over. That rarely happens with samples (but it happens...)
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With which sampled viola does that happen? :)
 
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