Very nice MMKA! I really enjoyed listening to this, nice musicality and I appreciate the simplicity, I mean this in a positive way of course. Also excellent programming on the violin.

Very enjoyable to listen to and it also sounds very professional. Thank you for sharing.

God Bless,

David

Thank you, Guy, tchampe, David and William for your reactions.
@ William: I used a little MIR (Synchron wide) in the first version (only 13 %). 

Because of other work and making a new version my response is somewhat delayed, 
I made that because of what William wrote about accoustics, 
Bringing in more accoustics took a lot of time because the balance disappeared when I brought in more reverb.
I hope you enjoy it. 

Sweet Memories version 2

Very expressive performance. The playing of the Violin sounds very natural and lively to me!

Best Stefan

O.K. I see - that is what I was reacting to.  I definitely do not like that violin as much as either the Vienna Solo 1 or 2.  It may have a lot of articulations but the basic sound is not natural to my ears even with more reverb and space and reminded me EXACTLY of the electric violin used on Bernard Herrmann's own London recording of The Day the Earth Stood Still. That's what I instantly thought of when I heard it.   I wish you could do this with the Vienna, but that is probably way too much work as they are totally different libraries.  

Anyway I like your composition very much and your programming is extremely expressive. And of course the piano sounds awesome!

Beautiful performanc by both you and Chiara. 

I assume you recorded both the voice and piano at the same time?

Thanks for sharing.

Hi MMKA,

Beautiful piece! I'm especially interested in what presets you used for the VSL Steinway. I find the upper registers sound like the hammers are almost metallic on my VSL Steinway regardless of what I do, but yours are much more mellow. What did you do to achieve that? Would you post your preset file, please?

I think the artificial part people are hearing consists of two things in the violin, and it may or may not be correctable, since I dont have any of Vienna's libraries outside of the special edition complete.

1. Its the vibrato on the violin. It is exactly the same for every note that is making this sound artificial. Also, the vibrato starts at the beginning of every single note... Vibrato should be expressive, and some notes should have it, some should not, and some notes should have vibrato added to the end of the note. In rare cases, vibrato at the beginning of the note and then moving into a straight tone even works. As I said at the beginning, I dont know if this is correctable with the library you have, I know with the special edition library, it is not, I have no way to control when there is vibrato and how much vibrato there will be (sadly).

2. Every note in each section of the piece has the same dynamic, each note has a soft crescendo and de-crescendo. This part you can fix, try having some notes without having the crescendo or decrescendo.

A bonus tip, EQ the violin if you can, bring the highs down a small bit and boost the mids a smidge, in particular, the lower mids. It will give the violin better tonal character.

It is a fantastic piece, and I dont mean to dump on it, absolutely wonderful. I particularly like the middle section, it has a bouncy, yet almost slightly somber tone to it. I almost wonder how this might sound bringing the ambient mic's up a bit on the piano and bringing down the closer mics a tad. The distant nature of the piano might add a sense of loneliness to it, as if the piano and violin were two friends that found each other. Thats kind of the impression I got...the beginning is two lonely instruments, like two lonely friends, and then the mid section, they find each other and they are so happy to have found each other..

Originally Posted by: William

littleweirdo - 

it is not a VSL violin.  

I realize that, and the wording I used might have suggested otherwise. Some libraries have customizable vibrato, some do not. Im not even sure if VSL libraries have it, which is what I was trying to say (I know the Special Edition libraries do not).

Unfortunately, I have yet to find a solo violin that sounds as realistic and is as expressive as the real thing, and vibrato is the biggest issue with most solo violin sounds. Every note in most violin libraries has the same amount of vibrato (same amount of pitch bend), the vibrato starts at exactly the same time for every note played, and is identical in speed for every note played. Vibrato is meant to be expressive, and it is the thing that makes all solo violin soundfonts sound fake.

Not that I think this point needs demonstrating, but here is a video demonstrating this, the violin comes in around 30 seconds in, notice how each note she plays is unique, some notes having vibrato, some not, some having a delayed vibrato, some having vibrato through the whole note, and varying speeds of vibrato. I hate to use such a beautiful piece to demonstrate technique, as it is just a wonderful performance.

Schindler's List Theme

Unfortunately, we are working with the limits of sounds available today, and my comments were not to dump on the piece at all, I think it is a wonderful piece. I was merely trying to shed some light on what I think people were hearing, but not able to adequately explain, which is why the violin sounded "fake".

I dont have this library, but I did a bit of minor research, this library seems to have a significant amount of control over vibrato, and a huge selection of articulations. Its a $600 library of solo strings (violin, viola, cello, and bass) and can also be used for small ensembles as well. Might be worth a look... there is a video on this page that goes through all the settings pages, he doesnt spend time going through the features, so you'll have to pause the video to get a good look at the feature set, the vibrato page has about 20 settings alone.

Chris Hein Solo Strings

or, an even better more in depth look here (click the video button in the lower right corner of the solo strings library).

Best Service Orchestral Strings