Welcome to the Vienna Symphonic Library’s series of Synchron Instruments! This collection features the cimbalom, recorded with a multi-microphone setup at Stage A of our renowned Synchron Stage facility. The cimbalom, once purely a folk instrument, after its reconstruction in 1874 by the Hungarian instrument maker V. József Schunda was more widely recognized, and in the 20th century entered the symphonic stage in works by composers such as Zoltán Kodály, Béla Bartók, and Igor Stravinsky.
The microphone setup consists of 8 discrete recording positions. The Standard Library includes 4 of these positions as well as a RAM-friendly Room Mix section composed of merged samples from the individual positions, allowing you to integrate instruments recorded with a stereo Decca tree into your projects with our Synchron Player software that was designed exactly for that purpose. Adding the Extended Library and thus getting the Full Library not only expands your possibilities to surround formats, but also offers additional close and middle microphone positions.
Microphone positions:
Standard Library
00. Room Mix – Stereo
01. Close 1 – Mono
02. Mid – Stereo
03. Main/Room Mic – Decca Tree Stereo (L/R)
04. Main C/Room Mic – Decca Tree Mono (Center)
Extended Library
05. Close 2 – Stereo
06. Main Surround – Stereo
07. High Stereo 3D – Stereo
08. High Surround 3D – Stereo
In the Synchron Player’s browser window, you will find a tab named “Mixerpreset”. It contains a number of Mixer Presets for room-mix, Decca tree multi mic, surround to stereo downmix, and surround that depict different recording situations. The available Mixer Presets are Close, Classic, and Ambience. In the Player’s “Mix” tab, you can of course create Mixer Presets of your own.
As usual, the Library comes with Flow Presets and Precision Presets. Both types contain all patches with several subdivisions. The basic category is “Beater” for the three different types – Standard, Romanian, and Gypsy.
The beaters, as well as the articulations played with them, are switched with dedicated keys on the keyboard – therefore called “keyswitches”, as well as by the action of the sustain pedal (MIDI CC 64).
Played with Standard, Romanian, and Gypsy beaters: single hits with pedal switch and open, and rolls with pedal switch and open.
There are three Precision Presets with different basic settings named “VelXF”, “VelXF rolls”, and “Velocity”. In the first, all articulations have velocity crossfading activated so that you can control dynamics with MIDI controller CC 1, the modwheel. In the second, velocity crossfading is only activated for rolls, while the dynamics of single strokes are controlled by keystroke velocity, thus facilitating phrasing. Velocity crossfading can be enabled or disabled by clicking its on/off symbol in the Synchron Player's Perform tab, or you can use the dedicated “Velocity” Preset where the dynamics are generally controlled by keystroke velocity.
Range: C2–A6
Beater: A0–B0
Articulation: C1–D#1
Pedal up/down: Dim.Ctrl/B (MIDI CC64)
Rolls
For the rolls, there are short and long release variants.
Short/long release: F1–F#1
Flow Presets give you instant access to the most important parameters of an instrument, its articulations, and general sound settings in the Synchron Player’s Flow view. The display is subdivided accordingly, with the graphic keyboard underneath.
On the Flow Browser page, you can click on “Start Tour” to step through explanations of the different Flow elements and parameters. Alteratively, you can click on the Info Hub icon in the upper right corner of the instrument pane, where you can start the tour or connect to our online instrument academy.
The Instrument section shows a symbolic image, headed by the name of the loaded Preset. You can return to the Flow Browser to select another instrument by clicking on the field. Below this, there is the dynamics fader that displays the keystroke velocity of the note(s) currently being played.
In the Tone section, there are three options.
Beater selects one of the available beaters with keyswitches from A0 to B0.
Timbre (MIDI CC8) affects the tone of the instrument, making it sound brighter or darker.
Expression (MIDI CC11) is an additional volume control defining a percentage of CC7 (volume), and can be used for automation.
The Articulation field hosts the available patches, which can be selected with keyswitches from C1 to D#1.
The Performance field has one or two options.
Pedal switch reacts to the keyboard's sustain pedal (MIDI CC 64) for single hits and rolls.
Long and short Release variants are available for rolls, which can be switched with MIDI CC 4.
In the Sound pane, you can select a basic Category on the top left, and one of the Mixer Presets from that category on the right.
Mic Balance (MIDI CC61) adjusts the relation between intimate and ambient microphoning.
FX/Reverb (MIDI CC5) sets the amount of reverb, which is different in intensity according to the selected preset.
Output Volume (MIDI CC63) takes care of how much of what you do comes out of the Synchron Player.
Finally, there is the choice of Output Routing represented by the four buttons Standard, Category, Multi, and Reverb+:
Standard is the standard Stereo configuration where all microphones are routed to the master output.
Category: here, only the ambient microphones are routed to the master output, while close microphones go to output 2,
Multi routes all microphones to different outputs.
Master out – Main, Room-Mix, Reverb
Output 2 – Main-Center
Output 3 – Surround
Output 4 – High-Surround
Output 5 – Mid
Output 6 – CloseReverb+ is routed like the Multi configuration, but has the Reverb channel routed to its own output 11.
If you’re not sure about the routing options, click on the information button next to the heading, which also provides graphic information on routing paths.