The Sound Board

I've waxed poetic about trying to capture "The Sound of Philadelphia" strings. A lot of that sound had to do with some very clever string writing, but the studio and the players made large contributions as well.

At the moment I've used Kirk Hunter's Pop/Rock Strings, and that about as good as I could get.

Now 8Dio has released a Soundpaint library called (appropriately enough) Disco Strings. The tone is as close as anyone will get to TSOP, because the room really did play a large part. And it is close enough for me, I think.

Yeah, just when I thought it was safe to read my email again...

Two questions please - does anyone here use SoundPaint? I tried it when it was released and I was not impressed. Back then I don't remember any libraries that were not made for Kontakt as well as SoundPaint. Now there are.

And of course does anyone have Disco Strings, and if so what is your impression?

Thanks.

Believe it or not, Logic Pro has good Disco Strings, with multiple articulations in an Articulation set.

Ashermusic wrote: ↑Jul 26, 2024 1:17 pm Believe it or not, Logic Pro has good Disco Strings, with multiple articulations in an Articulation set.

I believe it... all I have to do is rationalize getting a suitable Mac

There was discussion about this over at that other place:
https://vi-control.net/community/thread ... gs.151712/

People there seemed to love the sound, although there is some of the usual 8dio sloppiness and bugs, mostly with legatos. Seems like it might be worth it overall, though, and there's now an update, although it's not clear how much got fixed.

One thing to know - I think it's only violins. (No violas or cellos.)

Not to go off topic, but Bill, you'll remember when I was first talking about doing a strings library, you suggested recording it here at my own studio, instead of a larger space, because rooms my size were closer to what they used for things like TSOP. At the time, I thought there wouldn't be much market for smaller room strings like that, but it looks like I might have been wrong, because there was a lot of interest in that 8dio Disco Strings thread.

I've been thinking about doing another strings library, but recording it here this time, since it's obviously cheaper, plus it would be sooooo much less stressful not having to do consecutive 12-hour lockouts. (12 hour blocks is the only way a place United makes financial sense.)

My question is ... the name. I would have thought having "Disco" in the title would make it seem too limiting, whereas a name like "Studio Strings" sounds more versatile. But ... "Disco" is so much more of an exciting name. And everybody knows (or should know) that sound of disco strings is the same as the sound of countless non-disco strings that weren't recorded in enormous rooms.

Then again, 8dio has changed the name of this to "Disco Studio Strings", so maybe they weren't selling like they hoped and they concluded "Disco" wasn't as catchy by itself.

Logic calls it’s one’s Studio Strings, Big Fella.

“Slightly Out of Tune Real Sounding Etta James/AlGreen Small Group Strings”

You could shorten into something snappy sounding like
SOUTRSEJAG SGS

FWIW - my goto strings library for this is NI's Session Studio Strings Pro 2, which is something of an overlooked gem. It has a solid small section / small space sound, good legatos with port and - gasp - gliss options, lots of specialist disco type artics and is well programmed in general. There are frustrations - only 9 articulation slots is mad, and you are forced to choose between velocity (2 artics only) or keyswitching which is plain dumb - there's no way to have legato, port and gliss mapped to one key, still less have anything else on the other keys. However by default the pitch wheel is mapped to falls and scoops which is quite fun - that wheel is often overlooked.

Hitsville Strings...
Strings of the Seventies/Sixties
Smash Hit Strings...if they come out bad you can lose the H......someone will get it.

I can add more in time.

Lawrence wrote: ↑Jul 26, 2024 10:35 pm “Slightly Out of Tune Real Sounding Etta James/AlGreen Small Group Strings”

You could shorten into something snappy sounding like
SOUTRSEJAG SGS

Could it be magic Strings / It could be magic Strings
Summer Strings
Sunlight bliss strings
54 Studio Strings
The Room Strings
Wizzard Strings
Feel the love Strings
Boogie Strings
The Charts Strings
Don’t stop till you get the Strings
Discoball strings
The Ball strings
Discobust strings