Vir2's Violence - has anyone used this?

I'm considering buying Vir2's Violence (a violin extended technique library) and am wondering if any of you have used it and whether your experience with it is satisfactory. Also, if you have any compositions in which you've used it, I'd love to hear them! I realize you can hear samples of it on line (at the Big Fish audio site), but those audio samples seem very processed / elaborately arranged, and I'd like get a better idea of what the actual samples sound like.

Thanks!

 

Violence is all about processed samples - it is not your "normal violin library". They literally massacred violin samples there, so "processing" and "effects" are the keywords of the day.

 

Well, I'm very interested in all the scrapes, squeezing, plucks, etc. ... that's the reason I'd buy the library. But in the music samples on the site, I"m not hearing as much of those interesting acoustic sounds... it's all more big reverberant sounds or electronic percussive sounds that sound like they could be anything -- not necessarily something that comes from a violin. That's why I wish I could hear a little more of the actual sounds in the library before I buy it.

 

But those ARE the actual sounds of the library... I doubt they'd wanna do raw demos of non-processed samples. They'd probably do it by now if they indended to.

 

Well, okay. I'm probably going to get the library anyway, even with my reservations -- it just seems so cool. I'm hoping that the processed sounds will still sound vaguely violin-like. Still, I'm all ears if anyone who has used the library wants to pipe in here. Thanks.

 

You also might wanna check Zero-G Animato, the link is in my signature. That library has various violin and cello scrapes, screeches and undulations - both processed and unprocessed.

 

Oooh, that's tempting, too! Thanks for pointing that out to me. It looks like both libraries could be nicely complementary since once seems to focus on orchestral sounds and the other on solo violin.

 

i bought violence.

first off it sounds really nice. and there is a bunch of good stuff on it. but....

it's not quite what i was hoping for. and i think you would be hoping for as well. there is too much processing on it for me. too many spacey pads. too much synthy sounding stuff. i would have preferred more straight on physical manipulation of the violin itself. the processing is my part.

there is some good, straight acoustic material though, especially in the percussion section. but not as much as i would have liked. still for some taste a very nice set.

 

Thanks, goofypriest. I almost bought it this week since it was on sale briefly at Big Fish Audio, but resisted since I'm saving my pennies for some other stuff. But it's good to hear your assessment of the product. Hmmmm... I think it may be moving further down the list of stuff I want to buy.

 

hey tune,

i'm curious about what else you're looking at. something along the same lines as violence?

have you found any good libraries of 'tortured' instruments?

 

Well, I was saving my pennies for Omnisphere, which I got about a week ago. My expectations for that instrument were quite different -- I was looking for something cutting edge which would fill a variety of needs. What surprised me was how many mangled acoustic sounds there are in Omnisphere... scrapes, bows, plucks, etc. It was quite a pleasant surprise to discover those. I may not need to get Violence after all.

 

Don't waste your money on violence. It's not very good. I do a ton of TV scoring and so far I've only used one of the presets, one time.

Omnisphere is much much much better for tweaked sounds.

 

i think it's a bit unfair to compare violence with omnisphere. they are really very different things. omnisphere is 5x the price for starters.

violence didn't meet my expectations but it's still a nice set which i have been enjoying. i wouldn't call it a waste of money at all.

 

Well, I for one wasn't intending to compare Omnisphere to Violence... It just happens that Omnisphere was higher up on my priority list than Violence. I'm glad Violence is out in the marketplace. But since I shelled out quite a bit of $ to get Omnisphere, I may wait a while until I look at Violence.