The Sound Board

A new developer has entered the fray with their first instrument. Promo material below:
"Expressive Violin is a virtual instrument for the free Kontakt Player sampler, focused on ultra realistic, emotional and expressive melodic true legatos.

It's the first installment of a series of expressive instruments.

It brings melodies alive by integrating two types of legato intervals lengths (Short and Long) in a convenient switching playing experience, either by using Velocity or CC.

Each legato interval length has a unique expressive performance imprinted to it, based on vibrato and dynamic changes, which makes it more appropriate for a specific note length within a melody.

With two legato lengths you get two different types of expression: the energy and vibrance of the short intervals, and the contrast and passion of long intervals. It’s amazing the sense of authenticity you get when you exchange between the two in the context of a melody.

Additionally, to expand the musicality of the product, the samples were recorded within a musical context, which improved intonation and expression dramatically.

We really hope you enjoy using Expressive Violin as we enjoyed making it.


Teaser DAW video:



Audio demos:







We'll be posting more demos and information here.

Pease feel free to ask any questions, We'll be glad to reply them over here

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For more information, and to buy Expressive Violin please visit our website:

https://www.kunstaudio.com


For very detailed information about Expressive Violin please visit our online user manual."

User manual

Are you involved with this, Linos?

I gotta be honest - I loved the blurb but was a little disappointed with the end result, both tonally and in performance. It was odd that the demo piece is so rigid, which doesn't help. The improvisation is similarly so.

don't hear legato...

Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Jul 23, 2022 5:19 am Are you involved with this, Linos?

No, I have no affiliation whatsoever with Kunst Audio. Just thought I'd drop it here, as it's always nice to see new developers emerge.

To be honest, I don't like what I hear in the demos. I don't like the sound of the violin, don't like the one-dimensionality of the arc on every note (dynamics and vibrato). There are other minor problems with the transitions and the timbre (listen at 0:18, and again at 0:21 in the teaser demo solo, for example) here and there.

The presentation on the website is quite elaborate and professional. For the text, that is. The music examples on the other hand, they have something half-baked about them for me. In the teaser, the violin just presents a string of notes of the same length, dynamics, and expression. One-dimensional is indeed the term that comes to mind. Curious for an instrument that is called Expressive Violin. The second piece doesn't really show that the library can play other notelength either.

If you listen to the teaser demo solo, there is almost no difference in intensity between the beginning and the climax of the piece after 30 seconds. The jump to the higher octave tries to mask it a litte. But the octave is really the only thing that changes. No intensity in the playing. So it sounds flat to me, instead of exciting and expressive.
Also, the other instruments in the full mockup are a little crudely programmed, if you pardon me saying so.

It's a library I am definitely not going to buy. It's too limited in what it does, in scope and quality both in my opinion. Still, as a first product it shows potential, and I wish the company all the best to grow and evolve.

Every violin demo I hear makes me love Bohemian a little more.

since you brought it up...

The tone of the Bohemian Violin is nice enough, but that can be said about several libraries. So the lure must be their "virtual player" or something else about how one uses it. No?

I am certainly not suggesting it isn't worth every penny, but I am curious about what makes it so.

If that makes any sense at all...

Another Bohemian user here. It is the first solo Violin I go too. it's not the player (though the new one is greatly improved) it is how it fits into a track. The new ensemble features make this even better than it was before. It may not be perfect for everything but I have nothing even close to as usable for how I compose and I have a lot of stagnant solo vi's on my HD.

wst3 wrote: ↑Jul 23, 2022 9:12 am The tone of the Bohemian Violin is nice enough, but that can be said about several libraries. So the lure must be their "virtual player" or something else about how one uses it. No?

I am certainly not suggesting it isn't worth every penny, but I am curious about what makes it so.

If that makes any sense at all...

Bohemian is still the only VI string instrument that, to my ears, sounds alive, and that's because of their AI-like algorithm that selects from about a billion articulations on-the-fly, with arcs and legatos all built-in. No ugly transitions between notes, no crossfading between dynamics.

I'm happy to trade precise control for something that sounds genuinely performed, which is closer to the real world of working with a real musician. We don't force the musician to respond to our directed minutiae, they use their skill to preform the dots and broad direction and that's their interpretation. AFAIK to this day only the Bohemian series attempts to work like this. Oh yeah, and the tone IS lovely.

Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Jul 23, 2022 11:42 am
I'm happy to trade precise control for something that sounds genuinely performed, which is closer to the real world of working with a real musician.

Word.