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[A Duet With the Maestro Himself!] The Joshua Bell Violin (Developer’s Thread)

Emberton you should put the size of the file on your website, not only RAM, some of us out there need this info, had to dig it from here. So it will take up around 8GB space on harddisk. Oh, I will probably fall for this one. Girlfriend will leave me for wasting all money :) Just kidding...
 
Did you interview him about the process of doing the library? Would be great to hear him talk about it.

We did! There will be a “behind the scenes” video coming out with a couple weeks or so…

Just heard and stunningly beautiful. Great work! Won't be able to not have this! A couple questions :
Are there rr legati, enabling repeated legato notes (D C D C D C D C)?
ETA for other the other strings?
Also, would you be willing to tell us what mic's and preamps were used?

Thanks for the kind words!

If you turn on borrowed RR in the settings, some of the legato would behave this way, but in general, no we did not have enough time to sample “real” legato RR!

Btw when you say this year,you mean by the end of 2017?
Because ISS used to be my favorite solo strings(before joshua bell came this way) and I am about to purchase a new(string) library and if that new ISS release will be a sectional string library it will cost me nothing to wait till the end of the year....
So is it a ISS sectional library(please say yes...so that I could start saving)!!!!

We very much hope to release this before the end of the year. It’s a fun one! I hesitate to say anything else about it :)

Emberton you should put the size of the file on your website, not only RAM, some of us out there need this info, had to dig it from here. So it will take up around 8GB space on harddisk. Oh, I will probably fall for this one. Girlfriend will leave me for wasting all money  Just kidding...

Ha! Hopeful she won't for a VI

I have found that the instrument loads initially slowly, but if you save it — the next time it can load within seconds! On an SSD or not :)

ALSO - as Lode_Runner mentioned, the download is about 8.5GB. We plan to end the promo price period on MONDAY.

Overview video up within hours now. Thank you!

Alex
 
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If you can get Yo-yo, we'll record him :2thumbs:
I'm quite sure a lot of musicians will be looking at this in the coming months, and that Joshua's personal experience/anecdotes will be encouraging (or discouraging!) to others of his friends and acquaintances besides Yo-yo, who might previously have completely dismissed the idea. It's telling that he made the first move on this.

I'm really looking forward to getting this under my fingers soon... Congratulations!
 
We did! There will be a “behind the scenes” video coming out with a couple weeks or so…
Alex

That great to hear! I am very interested in seeing that interview BTS. If I am not wrong, this may very well be the first string sample library to feature a solo performer of this stature. In my opinion this is more than just a great sample library - it is also a landmark moment when a top top musician did a serious foray into the sampling world, which could hopefully attract other world class players to do the same, as other members mentioned... Since Joshua did it (one of the most respected players in the world) other may now think it is not such a big deal. Lets see what the future holds.
 
Posted the 1st overview walkthrough not long ago:

Simply Amazing, I understand why you had a "delay" to deliver. This is truly a big new step, when listening to the demo, I really had the impression the violin was in my room... This lib is a real instrument, we'll have to learn it and i've got the feeling it'll take time to really master it... Like a real instrument. Maybe we'll see some concours, competitions of the best Joshua Bell violin player in live with the library and a keyboard...
 
Thanks for the video Alex, I'm switching between that and the instrument right now. One thing I think i noticed in the video is some behaviour that's different to what I'm getting. It's about keyswitching in general but I noticed it when you were demoing the contours around 14:40.

Here's what I get. I play a sustain note, hit the keyswitch for contour and get a contour. If I then trigger a legato sample on the next note it stays on the legato and sustains the end of the legato note. It doesn't switch from the legato transition to the contour. It seems that it does switch to the contour when you do it in the video though. I'm using the Master Modwheel control preset to do this. I suspect I'm doing something different to what you're doing but I can't figure out what. Are you retriggering the contour keyswitch at the exact same time as you move between notes?

At the moment (and I'm still in very early days of learning to play this instrument!) if I want a particular articulation I'm finding that I have to try to avoid triggering a legato transition to get a smooth sound. I know it's definitely not an issue with the instrument as I can see you trigger them perfectly. So I wonder what numpty old me is doing wrong :)
 
Watched the walkthrough, where you showed the Legato to Trills playing there seemed to be a tone/volume change that made it jump out a bit. I wonder if that can be overcome somehow. However I wonder if the fast legato is agile enough to actually play trills?

Great sound by the way.

The only minor gripe for me is no option to have a softer vibrato and a progressive vibrato. I find solo libraries can start to be a bit obvious if the vibrato intensity is constant. Definitely prefer the real vibrato having owned Friedlander.
 
Watched the walkthrough, where you showed the Legato to Trills playing there seemed to be a tone/volume change that made it jump out a bit. I wonder if that can be overcome somehow...
I noticed that also, but remember he was playing live. We would probably just have to adjust CC1 or 11.
 
It sounds wonderful! How does it handle different attacks of long notes, e.g. soft/medium/hard attacks?

Instead of having separate attacks from sustains - we chose to pair the expected attack with the dynamic. So:

Quiet sustains have a gradual attack
MF sustains have a “normal” MF attack
F sustains have an immediate attack
FF sustains have a very harsh attack

SFZ and Fp articulations can be achieved by triggering an F or FF sustain, and then subsequently triggering a dynamic sample with an INSTANT keyswitch…

That great to hear! I am very interested in seeing that interview BTS. If I am not wrong, this may very well be the first string sample library to feature a solo performer of this stature. In my opinion this is more than just a great sample library - it is also a landmark moment when a top top musician did a serious foray into the sampling world, which could hopefully attract other world class players to do the same, as other members mentioned... Since Joshua did it (one of the most respected players in the world) other may now think it is not such a big deal. Lets see what the future holds.

Yes - I agree, this is a special moment! We wanted to make this library as “timeless” as possible. Hopefully it can be considered a snapshot of Josh’s sound in the future… or something similar.

Here's what I get. I play a sustain note, hit the keyswitch for contour and get a contour. If I then trigger a legato sample on the next note it stays on the legato and sustains the end of the legato note. It doesn't switch from the legato transition to the contour. It seems that it does switch to the contour when you do it in the video though. I'm using the Master Modwheel control preset to do this. I suspect I'm doing something different to what you're doing but I can't figure out what. Are you retriggering the contour keyswitch at the exact same time as you move between notes?

You can customize the way these triggers behave. If latching, the keyswitch will cause the articulation to change and then remain. If momentary, the keyswitch will cause the next note to switch, and all subsequent notes as long as the keyswitch remains active. If instant, the switch will happen immediately when the key switch is pressed, and then go away immediately when the keyswitch is released.

If set to INSTANT, a dynamic sample will be triggered the moment you press the keyswitch - then, if you play an overlapped/legato note next, it will revert back. If you lift your finger for a moment and replay the note with the keyswitch held down, you will be able to trigger another dynamic sample.

Basically, you have to break the legato line in order to retrigger the dynamic sample.

Try this: with dynamic samples set as INSTANT key switches, play a crescendo keyswitch and wait for the sample to get more intense, then play the decrescendo and wait for the sample to calm… you can continue this way :)

At the moment (and I'm still in very early days of learning to play this instrument!) if I want a particular articulation I'm finding that I have to try to avoid triggering a legato transition to get a smooth sound. I know it's definitely not an issue with the instrument as I can see you trigger them perfectly. So I wonder what numpty old me is doing wrong

No, I think this is something in the CONTROL logic that can be tweaked… We’re still improving it.

Watched the walkthrough, where you showed the Legato to Trills playing there seemed to be a tone/volume change that made it jump out a bit. I wonder if that can be overcome somehow. However I wonder if the fast legato is agile enough to actually play trills?

We have a volume matching component of the script — and it usually does a good job matching volume of samples. If they are sticking out consistently, it would be worth us having a look at it.

The only minor gripe for me is no option to have a softer vibrato and a progressive vibrato. I find solo libraries can start to be a bit obvious if the vibrato intensity is constant. Definitely prefer the real vibrato having owned Friedlander.

If you need progressive vibrato, you can use the synthesized vibrato to emulate that! We maximized our time with the maestro and didn’t have a chance to record different vibrato styles. You could try a contour/dynamic sample though, those have progressive vibrato naturally because of the dynamic swell(s).

Thanks!

-Alex
 
If you need progressive vibrato, you can use the synthesized vibrato to emulate that! We maximized our time with the maestro and didn’t have a chance to record different vibrato styles. You could try a contour/dynamic sample though, those have progressive vibrato naturally because of the dynamic swell(s).

Forgive me if its been mentioned already. So I have not misunderstood, it seems its possible to momentarily play a Crescendo then switch to a Legato so the next transition is a Legato?

Is this what you mean by Instant Keyswitch? Do these type of switches somehow xfade into the originally chosen articulation?
 
Well I took the plunge and liking it very much so far, also see that you can play a Legato straight from the Cresc/Decresc etc arts so thats good.

To my ears the Minor Trills definitely sound a bit nasely/thinner than the Major Trills/Sustains. Wonder if anything can be done with these samples. It almost sounds like they have a Mute on the bridge. It just seems to make them jump out a bit.

Can you take a listen and see what you think.

Other than that great stuff. Will take a while to master, but not as long as it took Joshua...
 
To my ears the Minor Trills definitely sound a bit nasely/thinner than the Major Trills/Sustains. Wonder if anything can be done with these samples. It almost sounds like they have a Mute on the bridge. It just seems to make them jump out a bit.

There are two dynamics of trills - have you tried both dynamics to compare? It's possible that Josh was in a slightly different bow position for one set of trills-- they aren't sounding too off to me.

-Alex
 
I can see why this took so long... Wow. Well done and thanks for making it Kontakt Player compatible! What Na incredible achievement
 
There are two dynamics of trills - have you tried both dynamics to compare? It's possible that Josh was in a slightly different bow position for one set of trills-- they aren't sounding too off to me.

-Alex

Will try, having said that playing trills in seems to work quite well.
 
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