Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: How to improve upon the violins sound? (Read 3631 times) previous topic - next topic

How to improve upon the violins sound?

Hi,

I have a SB-64 card, reasonable speakers, as well as hard drive and RAM to spare. Could anyone advise me as to how I can improve upon the tone/sound of the Violin patch?

[Although I have used NWC for several years, I have yet to become familiar with midi terms such as soundfont and wavetable; kindly bear with me...]

Thanking all, Mark

Re: How to improve upon the violins sound?

Reply #1 –
The biggest single thing I've found to make solo violin, viola and 'cello patches sound more realistic is the use of volume mpc's to swell and fade the sound. Next biggest is the (careful) use of the mod wheel controller to simulate vibrato.

Re: How to improve upon the violins sound?

Reply #2 –
You say that you have enough memory, so using a soundfont would give the best at all result. You can find free soundfonts from http://ftp://207.140.1.221/ and you can find out information about the usage at this forum.

Re: How to improve upon the violins sound?

Reply #4 –
Mark,

To my knowledge the AWE64 does not make use of system RAM but requires an on-card RAM module to load sound fonts.
The AWE32 can use a pair of 30 pin SIMMS as card RAM but the 64 module must be purchased from Creative and it's expensive.

Try Fred's suggestions and if this is not satisfactory consider an SB Live card which overall would be a more economic solution than purchasing a RAM module.
Downloaded soundfonts should give a better result than the synths that come with the card.

Re: How to improve upon the violins sound?

Reply #5 –
Part of my music tech coursework is to arrange and sequence a pop song...i spent hours playing with midi string sounds to try and get them right!
I'm not too sure how the solo violin can be improved but if you're using a string section then put each part on a different channel and use a different synth sound for each.
I doubled up my 1st and 2nd violins - 1 of each part was on slow strings and the others were on "synth strings 1" then i put the rest of my strings on a mixture of synth strings 1 and 2 (but that's subject to change!).
Sounds like a crazy idea but it works!

Lisa
rudesax@hotmail.com