What's new

Orchestral tools announces soloists series / nocturne violin released

Hendrik-Schwarzer

Active Member
Hey Guys,

we're proud to announce the introduction of Orchestral Tools' Soloists Series.
A series of beautiful sounds from selected artists from Berlin which we captured with a solo-style dynamic range and a variety of lyrical expressions.

What started with the Soloists for Berlin Woodwinds will now form the basis which we'll expand with additional instruments and newly developed techniques. The former Soloists Expansions will now be part of the new Soloists Series.

Because we recorded all these beauties in the Teldex Solo Booth, they will perfectly fit to the Berlin Series. The specific acoustic properties of this room lead to a more intimate and direct sound to enable you to place your Solo Instruments as close ups in front of the orchestra.

The Nocturne Violin will be the first Solo Strings installment of this Series and will offer a depth of expression and detail you never heard before. Months of development and test recordings led us to new aproaches in legato and articulation sampling and with CAPSULE this instrument will be playable in a very intuitive way.

Each Soloists Collection offers a very unique character, because we recorded each of them with a specific sound and expression in mind.



The following Collections will be released over the following months:

Nocturne Violin

Nocturne Cello

Virtuoso Violin

You can check the production status of the libraries in our Observatory:
https://www.orchestraltools.com/observatory/index.html

The following Collections will be part of the Soloists Series soon:

Woodwinds I (former BWW EXP B)

Woodwinds II (former BWW EXP C)


A new screencast about the upcoming Nocturne Violin:



Remembering - a demo composition to give you an inside into the sounds and expressions of the Orchestral Tools Nocturne Violin.




We have prepared two short tech demos to show the Nocturne Violin in an isolated fashion.

https://www.orchestraltools.com/downloads/nocturne_violin_tech_demo1.mp3 (www.orchestraltools.com/downloads/nocturne_violin_tech_demo1.mp3)

https://www.orchestraltools.com/downloads/nocturne_violin_tech_demo2.mp3 (www.orchestraltools.com/downloads/nocturne_violin_tech_demo2.mp3)

Here is a new demo by Sascha Knorr, showing the Nocturne Violin in a more hybrid and modern context. It blends really well with Berlin Strings here, as well as with all of the synth instruments going on.



Here a new demo by Benny Oschmann, showing the Nocturne Violin playing a more agile virtuoso style.



Here is a new demo composition by Benjamin Botkin, showing the Nocturne Violin in a beautiful, romantic soundtrack context.

 
Last edited:
Hi Hendrik,

Thanks for the update info. regarding your upcoming soloist line.

I'm happy to see you are making a lot of progress in your library development, and look forward to purchasing a good number of your libraries in the near future.

Q. Have you considered doing a Bundle Discount offer ? I think that will be very cool.

Thanks,
Muziksculp
 
Last edited:
Been looking forward to this for quite some time. Soloist wise, there's no Viola & Bass? Just curious. What's the difference between Nocturne & Virtuoso Violin ? Kinda curious. Oh yeah, there's some typo in your observatory. Soloist II is suppose to be Nocturne Cello but your product title is still named as "Soloist II : Nocturne Violin". =D
 
Been looking forward to this for quite some time. Soloist wise, there's no Viola & Bass? Just curious. What's the difference between Nocturne & Virtuoso Violin ? Kinda curious. Oh yeah, there's some typo in your observatory. Soloist II is suppose to be Nocturne Cello but your product title is still named as "Soloist II : Nocturne Violin". =D
I suppose, Nocturn will be a more lyrical version of legato and other articulations, that go well with this kind of playing (smooth staccatos and portato), while virtuoso sounds to me like an agile legato and spiccatos/staccatos that go all the way up to very harsh sounding. Just guessing, but the names certainly suggest that! :)
 
I hope they end up calling it "solo violin" followed by "solo viola" and "solo 'cello"!. Too much of all the hyped names, reminds me of certain makers of dramatic names (from whom I will never buy anything again)
 
Hopefully by lyrical, it doesnt mean that it won't be able to do slightly agile melody lines. It's mentioned that Virtuoso is slightly more concerto sounding. Since Nocturne is already in beta status, i'm so eager to looking forward to the demos soon. Wonder what articulations are offered. Hehehe
 
Hey Guys, thanks for all the great feedback.

There will be two different stylistic directions for our upcoming Solo Violins which differ in sound and expression. The Nocturne Violin is conceptualized with a lyrical and emotive Solo Violin sound with lots of different expressions and legato types.
The Virtuoso Violin will have a more violin concerto character instead with a dedicated dynamic range and sound. So those names are not chosen just to sound nice, but for a contentual reason.

Anyway you´ll be able to perform both Solo Violins in slow as well as very quick and agile passages convincingly. The difference between both Solo Violins is more related to sound and expression. To be honest these two styles differ so much that we simply does´nt wanted to make a compromise between them by trying to merge them into one instrument.

Creating a Solo Violin is really another game as there are so much details you have to build into a playable instrument. We´re just working on a video where the new sampling approach will be explained.

Best,
Hendrik
 
There is a new Video. We talked about the concept and the ideas of the upcoming Nocturne Violin.



More infos and demos soon.

Best,
Hendrik
 
Sounds good! Hope You will Release ist soon, have a good price, possibly a solo strings bundle and I am in! Now, pease start recording those brass modules! I really need some proper brass equvalent to my Berlin strings!:)
 
I think the concept, as with the solo woodwinds, is great. In my opinion you don't need a bunch of dynamic layers for solo instruments. With some smart EQing and some convolution magic you can definitely get good results.

One thing I really miss in most string libraries is same note legato repetition (re-bowing?), with a least a couple of RRs. I want to be able to control when the player re-bows myself. Most libraries have bake in re-bowing which sometimes forces me to write music that fits the library instead of the other way around.

I have no idea if this is something you're planning on doing, but I would love to see it in the library. Even if you're not planning on doing this I still believe this series will be some of the best solo instruments available at the moment.
 
I think the concept, as with the solo woodwinds, is great. In my opinion you don't need a bunch of dynamic layers for solo instruments. With some smart EQing and some convolution magic you can definitely get good results.

One thing I really miss in most string libraries is same note legato repetition (re-bowing?), with a least a couple of RRs. I want to be able to control when the player re-bows myself. Most libraries have bake in re-bowing which sometimes forces me to write music that fits the library instead of the other way around.

I have no idea if this is something you're planning on doing, but I would love to see it in the library. Even if you're not planning on doing this I still believe this series will be some of the best solo instruments available at the moment.
Actually, the only way to have flexible rebowing sound good would be to record different tempi and time stretch the tempi in between. Also, there are different ways to do it, that sound quite unique. It is impossible to record a sustain and a rebow-legato of the same note and expect that to sound really natural. This kind of works better with ensemble strings, but with a dry soloist, you will hear something odd. I think, in this case, the 8dio approach yields the best results for soloists.
 
Since Berlin Strings legato repetitions or rebowing on the same note is absolutely standard.
Our solo woodwinds and the Nocturne Violin have that as well.
 
How does a violinist play a 'same note legato repetition' ? I'm a bit confused regarding what this translates to ?

If it is re-bowing of the same note, do you mean bowing the same note several times, without playing it detache, i.e the bow stays on the string, so you don't here the bow attack with every repetition ? i.e. just slowing down the bowing action, in the same direction, then speeding up, multiple time, to get a legato repeated note feel ? if this is not what it means, can you explain it in terms of violin playing technique ?


Thanks,
Muziksculp
 
Top Bottom