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Sweeping strings - best app?
Hello, you lot. Yes you. And you.
I want to recreate those 60s sweeping strings, orchestral, Bond interlude style. Now I have most of the synths, widgets, experimental hoohahs - but I will happily buy something if necessary. Does Alchemy have any good strings in one of the sample packs? I've got a few of them but no strings of that ilk. I guess I could go with standard strings and layer them up with reverb but was just wondering if anything is already out there...
And why isn't there something like Edirol Orchestra on the iPad? Hmm? It almost makes me want to turn the PC on!
Comments
I don't know of one that does the sound you're after. Thumbjam plus a LPF plus reverb app is what I'd start with. I think the LPF has to come before the reverb but what do I know?
If you want to make the sound and you have a desktop app that'll do it, for heaven's sake, turn on the app.
So the obvious answers are:
Garageband
BS16i or Soundfont Pro with the Sonatina Soundfont
SampleTank with the Miroslav IAP.
I really can't see Alchemy doing this BTW, much as I love it.
Hmm, yeah, Garageband - but have they sorted that out as an Audiobus input yet? I deleted it a while back because I couldn't record the strings into Cubasis.
BS16i intrigues me, as does Soundfont Pro, but I need to watch some vids on these really. SampleTank irritates me but if this Miroslav pack/patch does the trick, it might be worth the irritation.
Thanks for the suggestions. Any more?
Actually after a little tinkering I would say Garageband is way too limited in what it lets you do.
BS16i is probably the way to go: the big advantage it has is being multi-timbral, so you can play several samples at the same time. So if you use the free Sonatina soundfont you can assign first violins to channel 1, seconds violins also to channel 1, violas, cellos, basses etc all to channel 1. Then when you play the keyboard or trigger MIDI all the patches you assigned to channel 1 will play at the same time.
Paul B created a link with the Sonatina orchestra soundfont here:
http://forum.audiob.us/discussion/comment/22105#Comment_22105
Give me a few minutes and I will upload an audio sample.
Music Studio has some nice new strings, derived from Sontina. Works in a/b input and output (at the same time, if needed). It's on sale at the moment. A bit chunky , but less so than Sampletank. I've got the Miro pack from Sampletank and it's a bit muddy. +1 for BS16 though
Hmm - so BS16i is better than Soundfont Pro? Amazingly I am new to soundfonts. Just watched Doug's vid of the latter and it seems I've been missing out - all those free sounds out there. So it looks like I'll be picking one up today. Which one that is depends on you guys...
BS 16 advantages are: it's multi-timbral, it's solid (not at all buggy),low CPU usage (not sure about SF pro, though in theory it should be), it works in IAA, smaller size is probably down to thesoundfonts that come with it. Soundfont pro is prettier and has a better u/i, update coming soon.
Here is a sample from BS16i with multiple samples playing at the same time (violins, cellos, violas and basses). There's also some convolution reverb added in Auria.
I think if you search Youtube there is a 2 year old video of Genome by Genome's dev. He uses all 16 channels (maybe not all at once!), as I recall, to drive BS16. This was obviously pre Audiobus, etc
http://www.whitenoiseaudio.com/2012/05/bs-16i-goes-great-with-genome/
@richardyot - that's it! Just what I want to achieve. Gotta be worth a few quid so I'll give that a go. I'm assuming it works in much the same way as Soundfont Pro, in terms of pulling more fonts in? I don't want to be messing about with iTunes file sharing...
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/bismark-bs-16i/id388149926?mt=8
Just for Seb's cash flow!
No need for itunes file sharing it's just download to goodreader, or whatever and "open in"
Goodreader works, but really the easiest way to manage any kind of file on the iPad is to use iFunbox: it's a free program that you install on your desktop and then you simply drag and drop files into the relevant app folders on your iPad, it's really simple and effective (and nowhere near as painful as using iTunes). It also lets you delete files, I use it for managing soundfonts, Auria IR and drumagog samples, Sunrizer presets etc...
As an aside I tried making a similar string sample with SampleTank, but since it's not multi-timbral I recorded some MIDI in Cubasis and then recorded each sample onto a different track. Had to give up though, way too much crackling with SampleTank, it's impossible to get a clean take.
The Squidfont orchestral soundfont is also a good source for string sounds.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m9z60niozv8opbo/squidfont_orchestral.sf2
Here's a demo of the legato violins over a legato double bass pedal played in bs-16i.
What are some of the ways are you guys using bs-16 multi timbral?
I rarely use MIDI sequencing, so I don't tend to play more than 2 sounds at once in bs-16i.
Thanks, everyone. Just grabbed BS using the link so our AB friends can save up for their office hot tub, so now the matter of Goodreader. I see it is three quid. I already use Dropbox - will this suffice? Or something that doesn't cost three quid...
While iFunbox is a good solution, I am close to housebound and spend a lot of time in bed. My PC is out in my office, and sometimes I just can't get to it, so I do really need an all in one setup.
@paulb - just listening to Orch Vamp. Nice work! Love this guy's miserablist comment:
periurban - Great composition, but the orchestral sounds are really quite lacking in authenticity or interest.
Blimey.
@mgmg4871 said:
Actually you can play multi-timbral right from the native BS16i keyboard: just assign multiple instruments to the same channel - that's how I recorded that strings example, there were seven patches from Sonatina all assigned to channel 1 and they are all triggered simultaneously when I play the keyboard.
I use Goodreader, and love it for stacks of reasons, and I'm positive you will too, I made a video a while back showing exactly how to get your soundfonts into BS without haveing to leave the comfort of your iPad, similar to Soundfont Pro..one thing to note..
I've heard lots of good things about Goodreader and it apparently does a whole heap of other useful things as well, but if all you're looking to do is import these soundfonts to bs-16i and you already have the Dropbox app, then you can do it with that.
Click the link in your browser, select Add to my Dropbox and login, etc.
Once done, use the Dropbox app to download and 'Open In' bs-16i.
I managed to get Sampletank to work, by recording via IAA instead of Audiobus. This is the Miroslav IAP (again with convolution reverb in Auria):
The workflow from Sampletank is much more cumbersome though, since it's not multi-timbral I had to create some MIDI in Cubasis and record each instrument separately. I took advantage of this by recording the basses an Octave down though, which does give a fuller sound, but it would be easy to do the same trick in BS16i as well.
In my opinion the samples in Sonatina are better, it's not so obvious when so many instruments are played together and reverb is added, but on the individual samples it's pretty glaring.
Thanks for all this, everyone. Very helpful. I have now got the Sonatina soundfont installed via Dropbox, but what I am not getting is how you assign more than two at once - one per keyboard, right? What am I not seeing here? I may be called out as a dunce here...
Ah..........! Understood. Parts and channels. Works a treat. I've stepped up a couple of rungs here. The new Air is coping wonderfully and I now have beautiful strings. That's not a bad day's work :-) Cheers, all.
Thanks guys.
@richardyot
Actually, Sampletank IS multitibral (4-part multitimbral, to be precise).
Didn't know that - thanks for the info!
Any idea how to set it up so it plays four samples at once?
Set each of the 4 instrument pads in ST to receive on different MIDI channels by tapping on the corner of each pad. Set channels on MIDI sending device accordingly. Set instruments on each ST pad.
@yowza Does sampletank work with both IAA and audiobus when used multitimbrally?
This is BS16i multi timbral in two octaves, with added reverb and delay in Auria.
One thing I haven't managed to do though is to record the MIDI from BS16i into Cubasis, it won't record sliding notes at all. So for these I've had to use the Cubasis keyboard instead.
Yeah, what yowza said. I think IK need to work on the interface or messaging re: how to enable that, because it seems to be unintuitive to many people.