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Nashville Scoring Strings

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Hey gang, I saw a Facebook ad today that announced the upcoming "Nashville Chamber Strings" by Performance Samples and Audio Ollie! On Ollie's Facebook:

"Been trying out some early patches from our upcoming collaborative string project. Quite possibly the most realistic sounding strings I've ever played. Couldn't be more proud to work with the king of expressive orchestral sampling - Performance Samples. We made a point of recording extremely dynamic performances so it can go from very soft, lyrical and delicate, to very loud and aggressive in a very natural way. PS has paid an obsessive amount of attention to detail on this project and it really shows. Can't wait to share more with you all!! "

In the comments he said they're shooting for an end of year release. No audio clips as of yet.
 
I saw a screenshot of the cello directory on Performance Samples website.

Knowing how great their Con Moto series is, I'm really looking forward to this.
Hoping the price isn't out of my range. NCS-tease.jpg
 
Five cellos... seems to be a queen size chamber.

I had the same thought! Could be like 8 to 10 1st violins? Not exactly chamber size.

In any case, looking forward to it! Performance Samples has brought some much needed expression and musicality to sampling!
 
Hopefully it’s 5 or 6 of everything, except maybe 7 v1s (and 3 or 4 basses, but even one bass could work).
 
Nashville, as in high-budget country music?
Or maybe as in the string section in Nashville Chamber Orchestra? Just a guess...


"NASHVILLE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
In its short twelve-year history, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra has come to be recognized as one of America’s most creative and innovative orchestras. Under the artistic leadership of founder and music director Paul Gambill, the extraordinary music making of this ensemble has heralded a steady stream of national media attention, including feature length articles in Symphony and Eastman Notes magazines, broadcasts on NPR’s Performance Today, recordings for Warner Bros, Angel, Almanac and Alabaster Records, a national award for Adventurous Programming from ASCAP, and now this recording on Naxos.

The NCO has commissioned and premièred 26 works by American composers in the past six years, and in 2002 it hosted the first-ever Nashville Guitar Festival, attracting new audiences for this bi-annual event. Each NCO concert features masterpieces from the traditional repertory, such as these Copland works, alongside new works commissioned by the NCO that fuse folk, jazz, Celtic, bluegrass, American song and World music with the chamber orchestra aesthetic. The NCO’s unique approach to programming and its extensive commissioning is stretching musical boundaries and redefining people’s perception of what a chamber orchestra can be."

 
If the tone is right it will be by a 98% chance the best (chamber) strings library on the market!
Based on the awesome programming by Performance Samples... especially the legato!!!!
Finally something that can compete with CSS & CSSS in that department!
The Con Moto series is definitely already a worthy competitor but incomplete yet so hard to compare...
This one will probably be IT! :D
 
I would think they're using members from the Nashville String Machine, a long-time bunch of studio musicians.
Either that or just freelancers. If they were using String Machine, they have enough of a (excellent) reputation that they would probably use that moniker for the library.
 
BTW, for anyone interested in the subject, String Machine and Nashvill in general does a lot more than just "country. Here is a list of credits: https://www.nashvillestringmachine.com/credits.html (Nashville String Machine credits)
 
Having recorded many of the best players in Nashville over the last 25 years, I'll be greatly interested in seeing how this turns out!

In fact, I recorded a 20 piece section in the very studio pictured on the PS page just a couple months ago. It is a fantastic room.
 
The library is 8-6-5-4 (the idea was half of the standard 16-[14]-12-10-8). Recorded in a moderately dry (by my personal standards) room, with close to 70 session hours across the sections. Up to four (and in one case 5) dynamics - there's focus here on fairly dynamic patches, as well as attention to detail in regards to smoothness between different dynamics.

The most seductive path to me in sampling, bar none, is my long-term pursuit of how to record certain phrases and performances and then (trying to) make it work in post pro in a way which makes sense and is intuitive. This is what I refer to as a "performance-sourced" approach, "sourcing" from performances which I've recorded in a curated manner (with rhythm and reason, organization, etc), then grafted, chopped up, timed, and so forth.

With Nashville, I explored performance-sourced approaches across almost all the articulations. The tremolos and trills have some turbulence and variation in an "active" way, all the sustains are active-bow (including the con sord), and all the shorts are pulled from reps. The pizz. reps are some of my favorites, dirty in a good way with the rustling of the players and the flesh against the strings (esp. if you pull up the close mics) as well as the sound of the players subtly managing their string resonance after the note.

In regards to pricing, the library will certainly be north of the aforementioned $449 intro. It's a full-on workhorse studio string library that required a massive recording budget and an enormous amount of work & experience. Considering the patch consistency, finesse and reasonably comprehensive nature I think you'll be pleased.
 
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The pizz. reps are some of my favorites, dirty in a good way with the rustling of the players and the flesh against the strings (esp. if you pull up the close mics) as well as the sound of the players managing their string resonance after the note.
I've been wanting someone to do this properly for a long time. I'm psyched to hear the result!
 
can't wait also...scary will be the price but if its all inclusive and an actual complete string library, then worth it.
 
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