Announcing: Stradivari Violin

Tap into the authentic sound of a treasured instrument from the world’s most renowned violin maker. Built in 1727 by Antonio Stradivari, the ‘Vesuvius’ violin embodies the Italian master luthier’s unparalleled skill. STRADIVARI VIOLIN captures the sound of this historical instrument in painstaking detail, as played by master musicians in the rich acoustic environment of Auditorium Giovanni Arvedi, Cremona. Chromatically sampled notes, phase-aligned velocity crossfades, performance-captured vibrato, a wealth of articulations, and mixable mic positions enable you to produce highly expressive, realistic solo strings with a unique timbre famous for 300 years.

Iconic Solo Strings

• Access the sound of the incomparable Stradivari “Vesuvius”, sampled in fine detail in Cremona, Italy
• Harness the violin’s full range to craft expressive parts with 20 articulations, captured in multiple mic positions
• Play highly realistic, expressive phrases with phase-aligned velocity crossfades and performance-captured vibrato

More info: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/cinematic/stradivari-violin/

 

I'm new to NI. I own Komplete 12 Collector's Edition. Do new libraries get included in an update to 12 or do they usually get included in the next release (Komplete 13 CE)?

 

Hi Mircury! New releases don't get added to existing bundles, but might end up in a future bundle

 

This looks and sounds wonderful. Personally, I'll hang on until the next Komplete release but this will be a real incentive to upgrade.

Now ... make it easy for us and don't just get NKS working, make expression maps and accompanying videos for all the DAW's and Notation programs. Don't view this as an end product - see it as part of a chain.

 

Hello from Canada.
I am a Canadian Independent Country Music recording artist.
I am very interested in the Stradivari violin software. I just wanted to ask if you think it will be usable for recording Nashville style country music? (Google George Strait, Alan Jackson songs to listen to examples).

Thank you!

 

Stradivari is more classical music oriented, rather than country fiddle style...

 

Maybe this fiddle preset will work for you:

https://www.boldersounds.com/index.php?main_page=product_music_info&cPath=3_18&products_id=136

Be sure to listen to the second audio example also.

 

When I first load NI Stradivari violin, I can play legato. In less than a minute, I can only play short notes!
Reading the manual shows that the switching between long and short is controlled by velocity.
The threshold point is currently set to 85.
I recorded some notes in my sequencer and set half to a velocity of 25 and half to 127.
All notes are played short!

I tried changing the threshold, first to 1, then to 120.
Same result - all notes are played short.

The Virtuoso mode is a great feature, promising to all quick access to the 20 articulations included with Stradivari Violins without having to progam individual articulations.

So I'd like to get it working asap!~

Any ideas?

 

I can't say enough good things about this library. Bought it on day 1 and have just been loving it!

 

-- So the answer is that pitch bend must be set to zero to play legato when in some modes. Neither I nor the NI tech helping me could find this in the manual. I had to write e-instruments tech to get the answer.

In the end I had to return Stradivari, since no one could show a way to have realtime MIDI control of more than 8 of the ~20 articulations!

 

Since there are only 8 available articulation slots, you would load the instrument twice and juggle MIDI channels.

 

I too loved it on the first day.
Then I realized the instr4ument is crippled by its GUI, which allows realtime MIDI control of more than 8 of the ~20 articulations!
Did you ever find a way around this? No one at NI or e-instruments could show a demo where this is done.

 

How do you recommend juggling MIDI channels while playing the tune in the right hand and hitting keyswitches to change articulations with the left?

While the Stradivari demo of a different VI shows non-realtime adding of articulations with ~a dozen instances of single-articulaiton NI instances, this has the following defects:

1. it's not realtime,
2. it depends on having a DAW that allows multiple channels on a single MIDI track (DP for one does not)
3. even when compared with the normal process of adding nonreal-time articulations, it has the extra step of adding a MIDI channel bit of info before each articulation.

My question is - how can one access all the articulations with realtime MIDI keyswitches?

 

I would set the keyswitches in the second instrrument to different keys (so that they don't overlap with keyswitches from the first instrument), and then write a multiscript that takes that keyswitch range into account and changes the playable range notes MIDI channel depending on which keyswitch you pressed.

 

So writing a script in another program (NI) is needed, and being able to record multiple MIDI channels on a single MIDI track is needed?
Do you have any examples of such a script?
Or can you say which part of the Kontakt manual you are referring to?

Such a script would not get around how to use realtime MIDI control of all articulation using Digital Performer, which doesn't allow multiple MIDI channels on a single track.
Would you split the melody into 3 MIDI channels? (I say three because 3 instances of 8 articulations each are needed to get all ~20 articulation.)

 

No need for external program, Kontakt has its own scripting language. The script would need to be written, I have a rough idea how it should be, but cannot commit to it at the moment.

And actually it can all be done over a single MIDI channel since the multiscript would be doing the MIDI channel routing after you press a particular keyswitch.

 

Another method would be by using Kontakt's instrument bank feature, you can load multiple instruments inside it then change between them by sending Program Change messages.

Here's an example multiscript that would set MIDI notes 25 to 32 (C#-1 to G#-1) to send program change 0 (first slot in instrument bank), MIDI notes 33 to 40 (A-1 to D1) to send program change 1, and MIDI notes 41 to 48 (D#1 to C2) to send program change 2. Works over MIDI channel 1 only.

Code:

on midi_in
   if ($MIDI_COMMAND = $MIDI_COMMAND_NOTE_ON and $MIDI_CHANNEL = 0)
       if (in_range($MIDI_BYTE_1, 25, 32))
           set_midi($MIDI_CHANNEL, $MIDI_COMMAND_PROGRAM_CHANGE, 0, 0)
       end if

       if (in_range($MIDI_BYTE_1, 33, 40))
           set_midi($MIDI_CHANNEL, $MIDI_COMMAND_PROGRAM_CHANGE, 1, 0)
       end if

       if (in_range($MIDI_BYTE_1, 41, 48))
           set_midi($MIDI_CHANNEL, $MIDI_COMMAND_PROGRAM_CHANGE, 2, 0)
       end if
   end if
end on

 

Sorry I was unclear - I meant NI as the program external to Stradivari.
Also unclear is how the script would handle the need for each nki to be on a different channel, to avoid three notes sounding for every note played on the MIDI keyboard, and yet be recordable on a single MIDI track. Banks also can have each instrument set to a different MIDI channel, but it is unclear how a script would get around the same problem.

I'd be grateful if you - or anyone here - could find time to show how this script would be written. Not seeing it, I would have to say I've no first-hand knowledge of whether it works for DP users.

 

Just read my previous post, there's a better way. No need for MIDI channels (even though, I do remember Digital Performer supports multiple MIDI channels just fine within a MIDI item).

Tried it, it works. Obviously you need to set keyswitches in each of the 3 loaded Stradivari instruments differently for this, but that's all. There's no need to change MIDI channels in any loaded instrument anywhere.