The Sound Board

http://auddict.com/use.html

The pitch:

Many of you have been requesting a string orchestra from us since we released huge products like Drums of the Deep and Master Brass, and we are extremely proud to finally bring you the UNITED STRINGS OF EUROPE, starting with the First Violins - now on 50% Off Opening Sale.

Auddict teamed up with the "United Strings of Europe", a London-based string orchestra, to create THE flagship string library.

This astounding library has what we believe to be the most realistic string legato sampled and programmed to this date, recorded at the world-famous "Cadogan Hall" in London. Thanks to the USE musicians' pristine and flawlessly crafted sound, we have captured the most delicate, to the most gargantuan of string sounds for this library, which blends superbly well in a mix due to the fantastic acoustic of this concert hall.

These are the perfect strings for your next score/track; you need look no further...

Sounds pretty good -



Comes with Auddict's usual abundance of mic positions, and some standard string library articulations.

From a first listen, the library seems to fill in some unexplored space in string libs. It's quite wet like the Spitfire libs, it's got heavy vibrato like CSS (actually even more), it's a small group but larger than Sable.

It looks like it will be around 350-400 dollars for the whole string section as long as you pick up all 5 sections during their respective sales.

I have Auddict's first library, the Octohorns, and have passed on everything since as I wasn't too impressed, but this lib might have me diving back in.

Sounds nice.

giving this a shot

NoamL wrote:(...) but this lib might have me diving back in.

I would advice against it, Noam, if I may. Very average and inconsistent library. While the sound is fairly decent (never great though), there are a couple of things which, to my mind, makes this very difficult to recommend:

● Only the regular sustains (and legato) respond to the mod wheel. Tremolo's, trills and harmonics don't. Rather disappointing. (They do respond to #CC11 though.)
● Plenty of very noisy samples, especially in the lower dynamics and the pizzicati. Also quite a few samples which I would never have allowed in, to begin with.
● The room's response in the sautillé samples (which, by themselves sound quite good, I have to say) is truncated very drastically. Incomprehensible, I find ...
● ... all the more so because no such drastic truncation has been applied to the pizzicati ...
● ... which means that, if you switch from a sautillé to a pizzicato, the spatial suggestion changes completely.
● Key-switching between articulations (while playing notes) often results in hanging notes, especially when switching from monophonic articulations (portamento and legato) to something else. And I say 'often', but it actually happens 'always' on my system.

Still, £50 isn't an awful lot of money — at worst, resulting in only a minor feeling of annoyance for having bought yet another mediocre product —, so don't let me stop you, or anyone else, from making the same mistake as I made a couple of hours ago.

If anyone's interested, I could make a few audio examples to illustrate some of the above.

_

I got hanging notes and noticed the same issue with the temolo not being cc1

But I feel like those things are patchable

I'll probably only use this to enforce other legato lines

Piet De Ridder wrote:

NoamL wrote:(...) but this lib might have me diving back in.

I would advice against it, Noam, if I may. Very average and inconsistent library. While the sound is fairly decent (never great though), there are a couple of things which, to my mind, makes this very difficult to recommend:

● Only the regular sustains (and legato) respond to the mod wheel. Tremolo's, trills and harmonics don't. Rather disappointing. (They do respond to #CC11 though.)
● Plenty of very noisy samples, especially in the lower dynamics and the pizzicati. Also quite a few samples which I would never have allowed in, to begin with.
● The room's response in the sautillé samples (which, by themselves sound quite good, I have to say) is truncated very drastically. Incomprehensible, I find ...
● ... all the more so because no such drastic truncation has been applied to the pizzicati ...
● ... which means that, if you switch from a sautillé to a pizzicato, the spatial suggestion changes completely.
● Key-switching between articulations (while playing notes) often results in hanging notes, especially when switching from monophonic articulations (portamento and legato) to something else. And I say 'often', but it actually happens 'always' on my system.

Still, £50 isn't an awful lot of money — at worst, resulting in only a minor feeling of annoyance for having bought yet another mediocre product —, so don't let me stop you, or anyone else, from making the same mistake as I made a couple of hours ago.

If anyone's interested, I could make a few audio examples to illustrate some of the above.

_

So "the most realistic string legato sampled and programmed to this date" might be a bit of an overreach?

Ashermusic wrote:

Piet De Ridder wrote:

NoamL wrote:(...) but this lib might have me diving back in.

I would advice against it, Noam, if I may. Very average and inconsistent library. While the sound is fairly decent (never great though), there are a couple of things which, to my mind, makes this very difficult to recommend:

● Only the regular sustains (and legato) respond to the mod wheel. Tremolo's, trills and harmonics don't. Rather disappointing. (They do respond to #CC11 though.)
● Plenty of very noisy samples, especially in the lower dynamics and the pizzicati. Also quite a few samples which I would never have allowed in, to begin with.
● The room's response in the sautillé samples (which, by themselves sound quite good, I have to say) is truncated very drastically. Incomprehensible, I find ...
● ... all the more so because no such drastic truncation has been applied to the pizzicati ...
● ... which means that, if you switch from a sautillé to a pizzicato, the spatial suggestion changes completely.
● Key-switching between articulations (while playing notes) often results in hanging notes, especially when switching from monophonic articulations (portamento and legato) to something else. And I say 'often', but it actually happens 'always' on my system.

Still, £50 isn't an awful lot of money — at worst, resulting in only a minor feeling of annoyance for having bought yet another mediocre product —, so don't let me stop you, or anyone else, from making the same mistake as I made a couple of hours ago.

If anyone's interested, I could make a few audio examples to illustrate some of the above.

_

So "the most realistic string legato sampled and programmed to this date" might be a bit of an overreach?

Just a touch

But still usable for 99$ of the potential client base

KyleJudkins wrote:

Ashermusic wrote: So "the most realistic string legato sampled and programmed to this date" might be a bit of an overreach?

Just a touch

But still usable for 99$ of the potential client base

I'm sure but I don't buy something just because it is cheap, and I have lots of strings libraries. If one comes out that truly does match that description, then maybe I will consider it.

Ashermusic wrote:

KyleJudkins wrote:

Ashermusic wrote: So "the most realistic string legato sampled and programmed to this date" might be a bit of an overreach?

Just a touch

But still usable for 99$ of the potential client base

I'm sure but I don't buy something just because it is cheap, and I have lots of strings libraries. If one comes out that truly does match that description, then maybe I will consider it.

I meant a %, my apologies... I don't consider this library cheap... full price might still be 500-600$ with the intro price it still cost me 65$ just for violin...

That said, another string library that people will use for reinforcing weak points, I'm sure.. no spiccato samples is what's most painful to me... but I'll see what I can do with it /shrug

well the spicatto I can sort of create by playing it with the tremolo patch... but I'm just not into this library...

that said, i'll be happy to toss the portamento's in with LASS LS/legato patches if I have a big sweeping violin melody

Still a bit tempted by this one, certainly not by the legato or pizz (which I have covered completely in CSS and Mural, I reckon - and calling those audibly bumpy, soupy, 8dio-esque portamentos the Best Ever is immediately silly) but by those feathery short notes. Anyone want to do a demo of fast runs, arpeggios etc? Thanks!

PS - I'm glad people speak more freely about their purchases on TSB than VIC

I'll post a few audio examples later today.

_

Am I the only one who is not too keen on the sound in the first place? I was very interested when I read small string sections recorded at Cadogan Hall. Unfortunately that interest decreased quickly upon hearing the video demo. Not a desireable sound quality to my ears, and the timbre sounds a bit cardboardey to me. Somehow dull and sharp at the same time, without silky mids. Personally I would much rather go with Light and Sound Chamber Strings, or then go all in directly with Spitfire Chamber Strings (which is perhaps not entirely comparable in terms of scope and cost, so not a fair comparison). But that may just be personal preference.

hope that helps I'm going to try to put a demo to shoot at them, I need to up my composer game - I feel like a jerk, but I'm sure I can be deceptive enough by writing with that saut patch

also, the tremolo doesn't appear to be tempo synced

/shoots self in foot

lol I'm sure you could use time machine - but yeah.

noalm, you could separate this pretty easily though - just set a keyswitch, then never press a keyswitch on that patch, or start every phrase with it - or in my case, I can set a midi notch filter or something to intercept keystrokes... then simply purge all.. shouldn't load any other articulations per patch that way.

I modified a really old composition for this library and sent it to them... wish me luck

https://www.dropbox.com/s/03ecq9n6vo5w4 ... 1.mp3?dl=0

for those curious.

Four more audio examples. No processing on any of these examples, everything you hear comes straight out of Kontakt. The only thing I did, was turn the reverb down, so as to better be able hear what the naked samples sound like. (Besides, the reverb in this library is just the standard Kontakt reverb anyway, i.o.w. it’s not Kontakt's convolution reverb with IR’s from Cadogan Hall.)

(1) Pizzicati and sautillés.
(2) Portamento patch. (Everytime you hear the noise, the modwheel’s down, and when the wheel goes up, the noise disappears behind the higher dynamic stringsound.)
(3) Expressivo Legato patch.
(4) Staccatos (at medium velocities).

_

page turning, and I hope chair creaking..

but man, it sounds like little rats running around hahaha rat problems during recording gives it way more character.

I'm not completely opposed to some ambience slipping in, if it's RR'd enough to not feel like it's part of the sample

Piet De Ridder wrote:Four more audio examples. No processing on any of these examples, everything you hear comes straight out of Kontakt. The only thing I did, was turn the reverb down, so as to better be able hear what the naked samples sound like. (Besides, the reverb in this library is just the standard Kontakt reverb anyway, i.o.w. it’s not Kontakt's convolution reverb with IR’s from Cadogan Hall.)

(1) Pizzicati and sautillés.
(2) Portamento patch. (Everytime you hear the noise, the modwheel’s down, and when the wheel goes up, the noise disappears behind the higher dynamic stringsound.)
(3) Expressivo Legato patch.
(4) Staccatos (at medium velocities).

_

Whoa, that first example is breathtaking in its carelessness! I'm appalled by the sautillé in particular: that seems virtually unuseable. Maybe with some reverb tail you could at least cover it, but out of the box, already fixing problems...

Kyle - while the strings are far from doing it justice, I really did enjoy the piece, well done.

Luciano Storti wrote: Whoa, that first example is breathtaking in its carelessness! I'm appalled by the sautillé in particular: that seems virtually unuseable. Maybe with some reverb tail you could at least cover it, but out of the box, already fixing problems...

Kyle - while the strings are far from doing it justice, I really did enjoy the piece, well done.

As far as the library goes: I'm just not into it... that's why I dug up a composition I wrote when I was 17

I didn't do an insane amount to my original piece, but if they like it and what to use it: cool. I'll have my name on something more "official" if they don't like it:cool. ill return the piece back to 2005 where it belongs - but I feel like writing a piece to demo a library is kind of backwards if you're not really interested in the library...

all I did for my mixing was simply "time difference pan" each track 20-35% to the left or right, and throw NLS on. on the master bus I EQ'd some of the "air" noise out, and through it through Kramer tape master on the clean and open preset...

all in all it took me 2 hours to modify my old piece for that demo, but it only took 45 minutes and a sheet of paper for my crazy 17 yr old self to make haha was a last minute piece for my AP theory final... was my 2nd year getting into music and my instructor pulled me aside and reminded me not to make anything too weird, and just make a traditional piece for the sake of other kids having to grade it

so I'm like totally. then I had to rush it, but I worked nights at arby's - so the night before I just figured I'd try to piece something together on my break out in the car, so when I got home I just had to slam it into finale and print it was nice, I got to sleep by midnight and got an A.

still got dirty looks from my teacher, as all 3 of the kids who had to peer grade my paper(you had to notate chords via roman numerals) had to ask him what "these" were(augmented 6th chords) one of the kids was on the right track though... he picked up on it being the V7 of the N - he just didn't know what to call it, nor why it sounded good haha

atleast auddict is planning on updating it, for things like cc1 -> trem/trils/ect. and noaml might get his wish with the legato volume knob...

still hate the noise at softer volumes... its like they put a compressor on the source, so low dynamics cranks room ambience

Piet De Ridder wrote:(4) Staccatos (at medium velocities).

_

Holy crap.

you see there are only 2 velocity layers...I have not checked out how that is supposed to work.
That reminds me of Chris Stone's concept...he only used one layer but created velocities through eq and other trickery.

Certainly some noise.

The soutillés are obviously supposed to play fast repetitions only. But then a spiccato patch is really missing as the staccatos are more or less detachés.

That's a pass for me, I still really like the musicians and the hall but the sampling approach isn't good enough. Thanks for the demos, gents. Musicians helping musicians!

At least you are only out $65. Dinner and a movie I'm out a good bit more than that for having bought Berlin Brass