MOTM

Les Mizzell writes:
>>Oh, I play violin by the way....<<

Ah ha! Now I understand why you seem more intested in a synthesized cello since 
you can just play a real violin if that's the sound you need.

>>Where bowing really comes into play is repeated notes. You can obviously
repeat the same note alternating up/down strokes. This sounds different than
repeating a note during a single bow stroke by slowing/stopping the bow.
It's almost a single vs. multiple trigger thing, but not quite.<<

The up/down strokes will be applicable in how I want to handle a more legato 
playing style.  Just as you imply, one doesn't want a completely new note 
attack but something that is shaped or slurred differently to sound more 
natural.  Just as on the Yamaha VL series you don't need to blow a new note 
into the BC-3 everytime you play one on the keyboard.

>>Looking through some of the Garritan String samples I have here, there's
many that are set up with the keyboard split, with down strokes on one side
and up strokes on the other. Individually they sound pretty much the same,
but playing a legato passage certainly sounds more authentic when you
carefully work out the "bowing" on the keyboard the same as a real player
would do.<<

In my case, I'm going to have to sense legato vs staccato touch and adjust for 
that. But that will only work monophonically.

>>When played on a
keyboard, each note in a run is pretty much a discrete event. When real
players do it, there's a certain amount a "smearing" going on that makes
string runs sound the way they do. About the only way to get close to that
is to overdub a number of times to build up each section, using at least 4
or 5 tracks for 1st violin, another number for 2nd...and so forth.<<

That's kind of what I did in the orchestral scale run in the MP3. I'm 
concentrating on getting a solo instrument sound, so the only way to get a full 
orchestra is to do just what you say anyway.

>>but you can't simply call up a string patch and plonk down a series of chords 
and expect it to sound anything like the real thing, regardless of how great 
the samples/programming being used is. You have to be really conscious of the 
phrasing and dynamics of every single voice and where it's leading to even 
begin to approximate a good string section.<<

That's one of the reasons for my quest. To do for strings what Yamaha did for 
brass and woodwinds. However, there will always have to be some compromises 
made.

>>Good luck! Keep posting sound samples as you work on this. I'm sure I'm not
the only one interested in how it all turns out.<<

I'll do that. My strings are split into two projects. One is for me to write a 
string synthesizer using the synth techniques I used to synthesize that single 
violin tone. The other is to come up with a accurate filterbank patch to 
process my current synths to sound more realistic. If the first one doesn't 
come to reality, I'll still have the second less accurate one.

-Elhardt