Uniting the Best of Both Worlds

A Common Question

What do you do if you want your string ensemble to sound closer, more direct, maybe crispier? You raise the close-mic faders, which features the section leaders more prominently in your mix. But that pulls unwanted focus toward fewer instruments. You actually want the entire ensemble to be closer, without losing its breadth and depth. So you try layering differently recorded sample libraries, but their performances don’t match, and it’s nearly impossible to create a cohesive result. Wouldn’t it be great to have wet and dry, large and smaller recorded ensembles available in the same player, with recordings of two separate string sections performing in perfect sync?

Two Ensembles, One Limitless Experience

Enter Synchron Duality Strings, a brand-new Collection that comprises two string ensembles that were sampled at once, playing in separate rooms at Synchron Stage Vienna. While the larger ensemble played in the famous main hall, Stage A, the smaller ensemble was recorded in the relatively dry Stage B. Both ensembles performed together, with the conductor on the podium in Stage A also directing the ensemble in Stage B via video monitors.

And that’s where the magic happens! With the musicians’ ability to hear each other from different rooms, all musical aspects of every performance are perfectly in sync, such as volume, timbre, vibrato, note length, and phrasing, for every articulation. Thanks to Synchron Stage Vienna’s unique size, flexibility, and technical capabilities in combination with the wealth of experience from countless sampling and film music recordings, Synchron Duality Strings is truly a unique virtual instrument.

Create your own blend

While the mic setup in Stage A delivers the broad, sought-after string ensemble sound featured in countless movies and TV series, the smaller ensemble in Stage B was recorded with two different sets of microphones, offering bright and dark sounding variants. This unique approach gave Synchron Stage Vienna’s chief engineer, Bernd Mazagg, the ability to create mixer presets with unprecedented flexibility and creative options. It also enables you to customize your own string sound organically and effortlessly within the Synchron Player.

Beyond the wholly different ambiences of the two spaces, the ensembles themselves provide useful contrast. Where the larger ensemble has a fuller, more symphonic sound, the smaller ensemble provides a transparent and clear tonality that adds a certain polish when blended with the larger group. Both ensembles feature Vienna’s best musicians from the renowned Synchron Stage Orchestra and performing at the highest levels of musicality.

Extensive articulations, easily accessible

Articulations include a wide variety of short notes, long notes, various legato variations (normal, agile, slurred, portamento), espressivo, with various attacks and note releases, plus pizzicato, col legno, tremolo variants, fast repetitions, trills, harmonics, glissandos, legato and détaché runs, and much more. In addition to the Synchron Player’s usual articulation switching capabilities, there’s now a new category of preconfigured patches that allows you to switch articulations using key velocity, e.g., between spiccato and staccato, between different attacks of détachés and long notes, between up and down movements of glissandos and runs, etc.

This extensive collection delivers the best of both worlds – a large ambient string ensemble, and a dry chamber-sized ensemble, with 100% matching performances. Regardless of how you use them, in combination or separately, Synchron Duality Strings delivers a magnificent sound with unprecedented flexibility and countless expressive possibilities, from intimate intensity to passionate power, and everything in between.

Multiple Microphone Positions

To capture the spectacular ambience of Stage A and the signals in the dryer sounding Stage B, our engineers employed separate phase-coherent microphone configurations that were recorded simultaneously to provide a broad range of room options. All sections were recorded separately at their designated positions.

The Dark and Bright microphone signals consist of a mix of two pairs of microphones, respectively:

• Dark Mics: Royer SF24 + Sennheiser MKH 8040
• Bright Mics: Neumann M149 + Ehrlund EHR-M

The additional Ribbon L/R microphones that come with the Full Library add an extra warm, low-mid layer to the transparency of the Decca Tree for an even lusher string sound.

The main surround microphone settings may also be used instead of the main stereo room mics in order to achieve a wider and more ambient mix. Blending surround signals with the other microphone signals creates a denser, more lush overall sound, even in stereo applications.

Room Mix Presets feature an excellent mix-down to stereo from the Decca tree and surround mic positions for a CPU and RAM-saving sound that’s perfectly balanced right out-of-the-box. A host of Mixer Presets is available in the categories of “Decca Tree Multi-Mic”, “Surround to Stereo Downmix”, and “Surround”.

Standard & Full Library

The Standard Library and Full Library of Synchron Duality Strings (regular) both include the same articulations. The difference lies in the number of provided microphone positions.

Notation Program Integration

You’ll find Expression Maps for Cubase and Dorico as well as Soundsets for Sibelius under "Additionals" in your Vienna Assistant.