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

Hi,

I finally Purchased the Embertone JB Violin today !

I will be downloading it tonight. I'm sure I will have a long night session with my new Strad. :)

What I liked about it from watching the videos is :

1. Very good playability.
2. Impressive Timbre.
3. Very nicely implemented articulations and switching between them for very realistic and expressive realtime performance.
4. The Character options sound very good, and are very nice to have.
5. The momentary Key-Switching feature is a smart way to play sustains, and bring in the short articulations via a momentary key-switch when needed, which makes it easier to play fluid phrases, that are made up of sustains and short notes in realtime.
6. The Size of the library is very reasonable (8.1 GB)
7. The great support I see Embertone showing via Video Posts, documentation, support, forum interaction, reasonable pricing, and much more.

A Big round of applause for Embertone Team, and Joshua Bell for their dedication, and effort to excellence, and for creating this impressive Library :2thumbs:

Cheers,
Muziksculp
 
An excellent blend of attractive presets and total control. I wonder if the easy presets would adapt to Friedlander etc.

Reflection: if a scripted vibrato, however well designed, seems always a fraction less convincing than the built-in sort, it might be because it modulates not only the string's pitch, but the violin's own formants, as if the body expanded and contracted in time with pitch variations!
 
I wasn't going to buy another solo violin, but the live stream from yesterday made me buy it. I tried to ask all kinds of nasty questions, and Alex played the virtual violin effortlessly! The sound might be the best of the available virtual solo violins, but what I was truly amazed was the playability. Downloading it :), can't wait to play it.
 
Hi,

Downloaded, and Installed it last night, then started playing ... and the first thing I got was some pops-n-clicks when playing some of the sustains at high-velocity, wasn't sure what was causing it, but after a little head scratching, I got to the bottom of what was causing this, I use Presonus Studio One Pro 3.5.1 and have the low-latency Monitoring / Dropout Protection feature Enabled, so I disabled it, and bingo, No more pops-n-clicks ! So that was my first 30 minutes trying to fix the issue, rather than enjoying playing this wonderful sounding solo violin Library.

@Embertone, if you have access to Studio One Pro 3.5.1 , I would recommend you test JB Violin with the Low-Latency Monitoring/Dropout Protection feature enabled, and disabled. I'm guessing something with your real-time scripting is not getting along with Studio One Pro's low-latency feature.

Well... Now that the pops-n-clicks issue was out of the way, I had a long after midnight session, playing JB's Strad on my Keyboard, and was really amazed to hear how great, and real it sounded, and behaved. It does take some practice to master playing it, but that's normal.

It would be very helpful if Embertone would post a detailed video tutorial on exploring some of the creative possibilities, and options related to the 'Control' page. i.e. Show the preset Control options, and what they offer, then dive into the Custom Configurations, and what can be accomplished with them.

Oh.. and when playing the Staccato articulation, I wished I had the option to switch to a bit of a shorter version, i.e. Staccatisimo Articulation, instead of switching to Spicatto to get a shorter bowing sound, but Spicatto does not sound the same as Staccatisimo, since the bow is bounced off the string rather just a shorter bow motion, which I'm seeking. Any feedback on this would also be interesting, and helpful.

Thanks,
Muziksculp
 
Listened to about 20 minutes. Breath takingly well done. Can't wait for the 3 other instruments. Really love the "emotional rebowing", the releases, and the "contour" sustains.
 
€40 to NVidia just to be able to use future Kontakt libraries. Grrr! Update to K5.7.
(But I haven't installed the 3D drivers, just to annoy my children.)
Joshua in fine shape. I don't feel like playing my own violin ever again...
 
@Embertone is xfading between non-vib and the Natural Vib possible?
I'm afraid it isn't. There is only emulated vibrato that can be gradually be faded in/out. The natural vibrato samples activate when a note is triggered and the CC controlling vibrato is above 64. Anything less than 64 (on a new note) will be synthesized vibrato that can be manipulated from 0 to 127 for as long as the note is being heard.
 
I'm afraid it isn't. There is only emulated vibrato that can be gradually be faded in/out. The natural vibrato samples activate when a note is triggered and the CC controlling vibrato is above 64. Anything less than 64 (on a new note) will be synthesized vibrato that can be manipulated from 0 to 127 for as long as the note is being heard.

On the other hand, it is possible to do something like this, 3 different methods:

(1) start non vibrato and bring up the vib CC gradually. This won’t xfade into real vibrato, but it will use our synthesized vibrato.

(2) start non vibrato and rebow into vibrato. The rebows can be applied with subtlety.

Combination between 1 and 2... start non vib, apply the gradual CC vibrato, then rebow into Joshua’s natural vibrato.

(3) use the dynamic or the contour samples— the crescendos start non vib and gradually bring vibrato in, and the rebow into a vibrato sustain sample. The contour samples could work for this too, they swell and then decrescendo. You can catch the sample at the peak of the swell and rebow into full vibrato.

We don’t like the crossfading option because unless the samples are deeply processed, the phasing is unsatisfying. Hope this helps!
 
On the other hand, it is possible to do something like this, 3 different methods:

(1) start non vibrato and bring up the vib CC gradually. This won’t xfade into real vibrato, but it will use our synthesized vibrato.

(2) start non vibrato and rebow into vibrato. The rebows can be applied with subtlety.

Combination between 1 and 2... start non vib, apply the gradual CC vibrato, then rebow into Joshua’s natural vibrato.

(3) use the dynamic or the contour samples— the crescendos start non vib and gradually bring vibrato in, and the rebow into a vibrato sustain sample. The contour samples could work for this too, they swell and then decrescendo. You can catch the sample at the peak of the swell and rebow into full vibrato.

We don’t like the crossfading option because unless the samples are deeply processed, the phasing is unsatisfying. Hope this helps!

Sounds like some decent workarounds, still not 100% sure if they would sound more satisfying than some minor audible phasing afterall... I'm a scriptedvibratophobe, really!
Maybe developers (who don't like crossfading) should start considering something like an intelligent scripted vibrato that, with some algorithms, can generate imperfect oscillations as a humanly performed vibrato.
 
It's a sensational library. Great, genuine classic sound and genius playability. I love the VirHarmonic for ease of use and that Eastern European flavour but this is a whole new ball game. It's completely playable out of the box but there is enough controllability (vast actually) to do anything with a bit of practise. Fast runs are amazing. You need this.
 
Hi,

Another late night session with my new JB Strad. :)

This time I decided to play with a mute, so Sordino all the way, and what a beautiful tone !

I would comfortably say it is the best sordino solo violin timbre I have heard coming from a sampled instrument. Super expressive, Wow ... I'm totally impressed !


Cheers,
Muziksculp
 
Sounds like some decent workarounds, still not 100% sure if they would sound more satisfying than some minor audible phasing afterall... I'm a scriptedvibratophobe, really!
Maybe developers (who don't like crossfading) should start considering something like an intelligent scripted vibrato that, with some algorithms, can generate imperfect oscillations as a humanly performed vibrato.
I tried analysing my own viola vibrato with Intonia. Together with the pitch modulation, there is intensity and timbre modulation, as the fingertip rolls towards and away from the harder part near the fingernail.
This adds to random or intended variations.
I find scripted vibrato sound best when it is fairly rapid, (e.g. 7Hz), dicreet, varied within fairly narrow limits, and starting just after the "note-on" to avoid that irritating "bulge"on every note.
Like Joshua's, in fact!
 
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