Subject:Strings soft synth/vsti

Posted by: jeepman83706

Date:2/24/2003 1:25:03 PM

Anyone using a good strings soft synth/vsti that you could recommend?

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: dkistner

Date:2/24/2003 3:05:08 PM

Ah, Jeepman, the quest for good strings...

HQ Orchestral is supposed to have really great strings, but I've heard some of them and was not $150 impressed. They have little soul.

I bought SampleTank XL, which has some nice strings, although the solo instruments require some tweaking to get them to sound like I want them to. But no good cello. I just can't find a good cello. SampleTank XL is big bucks, though. A friend of mine just bought their Symphony Strings add-on collection (which comes with the ST LE engine), and he says they sound quite good...except the cellos are not very good. (What is it about cellos? That's gotta be my favorite instrument.) I also bought EXSC, which is mucho cheap (and mucho controversial, so you'd better get it while you can). With this, I have been able to convert soundfonts into ST format...hence I can get VSTi strings as good as I am able to get strings soundfonts. (Takes some hunting, though.) Alternatively, you could get the VSampler VSTi and load soundfonts into it. Or Kontakt or another VSTi soundfont sampler.

If you don't care if the strings sound very synthesized, the SynthStrings preset that comes with daAlfa2k is pretty nice. I've also managed to make some interesting strings-sounding pads with its random preset generator. Although this plugin is not intended for "real sounding" instruments, I actually put together a classical piece for Dash Synthesis' contest (just to see if I could), "Dash Phantasma" on their Music tab, if you want to hear what you can do with that plugin. (Most of the instruments were out of daAlfa2k, except for the reeds and harpsichord. You can hear the strings going in the background, plus a little weird pad stuff.)

Other than what Stefan Kuhn has done (Ganymed, the Vivaldis--no longer available), I haven't run across any free plugins that have anything that comes anywhere near having decent synthesized strings sounds. I'll bet you could make some decent ones with Crystal 2, but you'd have to really know what you're doing with synth programming. I don't. Some say Cheese Machine does good strings, but I didn't like the sound of the presets. That was a while ago, though, so check CM out.

If anyone else here knows of anything else, especially if it's "affordable," please let us know!

Diane

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: hackfreak

Date:2/24/2003 3:05:28 PM

The best thing out there for this sorta thing would probably be Edirol's Orchestral VSTi. It's a bit costly and CPU hungry but the quality of sounds will blow your mind.

http://www.edirol.com/products/info/hq_orchestral.html

IF ya want something a bit cheaper...better yet free, check out BIg Tick's Cheese Machine. It's not to shabby for string sounds.

http://bigtick.pastnotecut.org/index.php?action=PROD&pcode=110

Another freebie is Crazy Diamonds by Rumpelrausch Taips. It's pretty much the same thing as Cheese Machine but with a sexier GUI and the sound quality seems to be a little bit better.

http://rumpelrausch.de.vu/

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: dkistner

Date:2/24/2003 3:29:32 PM

Rumpelrausch Taips has his heart in the right place. Do check out Crazy Diamonds.

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: spectre1

Date:2/24/2003 3:40:45 PM

I wasn't too fond of Cheeze Machine at first, but I've gotten some pretty good results with it lately beefing it up with some 3rd party effects.

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: dkistner

Date:2/24/2003 4:05:20 PM

What synchronicity. Somebody on KVR just posted a download link to the Saint James Orchestral soundfont and raved about how good it is. I'm downloading it now. It's a whopper, though, so you'd better have broadband. I'm going to run it through EXSC and see if I don't wind up with that cello I've been looking for.

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: jeepman83706

Date:2/24/2003 4:25:29 PM

How would you use that Saint James sound font in Acid? Do you save it in the VST plugins folder or do you have to do something else in order for it to work?

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: dkistner

Date:2/25/2003 11:23:43 AM

I converted it to SampleTank format using EXSC (took all of three seconds), so now I can load any of the instruments into SampleTank, which I can run as a VSTi in Acid. Quite a nice cello in this soundfont! Better than the ones that come with SampleTank, I dare say.

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: jeepman83706

Date:2/27/2003 9:05:45 AM

I checked out HQ Orchestral and I have to say, I was blown away. The sounds are amazing. Of course, I'm no Conductor so I'm probably being much less critical, but I can get all the sounds I've been looking for and more. They have every single orchestral instrument known to man, and then some I've never heard of! I think it's pretty sweet...

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: Laurence

Date:2/27/2003 6:15:14 PM

I like the Edirol HQ Orchestral overall, but there are two things about it that drive me nuts:

1: The copy protection: The program asks you to insert the master CD regularly. I'm a laptop user and the last thing I want to do is carry around master CDs.

2: Regardless of the host, the settings aren't saved with your sequence. You have to make a preset file from within the plugin and reload it every time you need it.

Laurence Kingston

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: Laurence

Date:2/27/2003 6:19:53 PM

Instead of converting the soundfont to a Sampletank sound, you could use Awave Studio and convert it to a DLS and play it back from the Acid DLS synth. The DLS synth sounds great, you already own it, and it's incredibly light on the CPU.

Another option is to use the Jeskola XS-1 available at jeskola.net. It's relatively cheap, has a working demo, is light on the CPU and is the best sounding Soundfont VST out there.

Laurence Kingston

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: MacMoney

Date:2/27/2003 6:30:30 PM

Hi Laurence,
About HQ Orch I agree.
As far as the patches are you inserting bank and patch changes in the midi track?
I works for me. I've been assigning about 6-8 tracks to that one HQ Orch, synth.

George

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: dkistner

Date:2/27/2003 6:49:14 PM

Laurence, does Awave do a clean job of converting soundfonts to DLS? I'd heard some converted using Audio Compositor and there seemed to be some loss. Then I read that the conversion doesn't always go well from soundfont to DLS and so just wrote that off as an option. I like the SampleTank solution, though, since I use SampleTank mostly and it fits in with my workflow.

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: Laurence

Date:3/2/2003 8:22:49 PM

I usually end up tweaking the sounds after importing them. I've just started using the Jeskola XS-1 available at http://www.jeskola.net It is plays back Soundfonts pretty much perfectly except that they sound better than they do on Creative Labs cards, and is about as CPU efficient as the DLS synth.

The CPU efficiency of the DLS synth and the XS-1 is much higher than the CPU efficiency of say Halion or Kontakt. With the DLS synth for instance, a full arrangement will load a PIII 1.1 about half whereas with Halion, you can't even do a decent piano part without a much more powerful PC. There are also a couple of Bismark soundfont VST's but they are even less CPU efficient than Halion, and don't sound as good as the XS-1.

Laurence Kingston

Subject:RE: Strings soft synth/vsti

Reply by: dkistner

Date:3/3/2003 7:01:34 AM

I bought XS-1 and can report that it does, indeed, sound good. I get a little frustrated with the interface, though.