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Well I believe I have worked the bugs out of the String Section. This pack includes 857 samples in the forms of a complete String Section, Solo Violin, Violin Section, Viola Section, Cello Section, Solo Contrabass and Harp. There are 23 nki patches. The basic nki for each instrument or section uses R.D.Villwock aka Big Bob's WIPs scripts for fake round robin on the longs and legato. The Modwheel nki does modwheel crossfading thanks to Nils Liberg's script. The Ensemble nki lets you crank up to 7 time more instruments, though it is set at 3 and too many might sound a bit odd. Jay Bacal wrote the Ensemble script.
As a rule of thumb the instruments have two velocity layers and are sampled about every third note. The shorts usually have two round robins. The articulations include Arco Vibrato, Tremolo, Spiccato, Pizzicato and single layer Arco Vibrato Loud and Soft.
What makes this release unique compared to the first Kontakt version are the modwheel xfades, the ensembles and the three arp and chord scripts using the full string section.
When you first kick up the An Orchestra - Strings nki it should be in Chord mode in Spiccato and have the Major Chord ready to go. If you play in most of the blue notes you will get a major chord for every note. You can change the chord type by pressing on the Yellow keys. The C that is Green is the Major that is already in use. The C# is Minor, D is Augmented etc.. on up to the B that is the Dominate 9th. You will see the Chord type on the GUI beside the word Chord.
You will also see the words Arp OFF next to Arpeggiator. To start an arp press one of the Dark Blue keys and Arp 1, 2 or 3 will start. Press and hold a Light Blue key to get the sounds coming. If you chose Arp 1 it might take a little bit as that is the riser type arp and it builds volume over time. You can speed this up with the Mod Wheel. Going down speeds things while going up slows them down. Well unless you go to the very top when it sounds like a woodpecker on speed. Whatever Chord you last pressed the Arp will play through the notes over and over until you release the key. If you press a new Chord it won't take effect until you press another light blue key (or the same one).
All the way on the right side are the Articulations on the Red Keys, Arco Vibrato, Spicato, Tremollo, Pizzicato, Arco Vibrato Loud and Arco Vibrato Soft. The short tend to sound better on fast Arps and the long sound better on slow Arps (use the modwheel). Oh the timing is synched to your DAW to 40 beats a minute in your DAW will be a bit slower than 400 BPM. It makes more sense if you play around with it. The display will tell you the Articulation, Chord and Arp in use. Use the Mod Wheel to change the speed of the Arps.
But what if you don't like the Arp settings? Go change them. You can change the number of steps and clicking on the white bars changes the velocity so play around it is fun. Also try Note Order I used Up which is standard up you can choose Down, Zig-Zags or even Random and many more. When you get ones you like Save As... under some name or other and it should save your Arps.
The Chord Progression.nki is similar but it has the I, ii, iii, IV, V, iv & vii chords in the Major scales. Again you can go for chords or arps. This might be an interesting songwriting tool.
The Arps 4 Hold scripts doesn't use chords instead each note you press is remembered and played by the arp until you press that note again. It can remember at least 24 notes, maybe more. So you can create your own melodies or long risers or such (but a note can't repeat).
Feedback is appreciated.
This uses Sam Gossner's great VSCO2 samples, my script from Matt McKay and a bit of advice from Evil Dragon. Note the name VSCO 2 is used to give attribution to the sampling project from which these samples were taken. It doesn't imply any form of endorsement.
Samples are Creative Commons 0 : Sam Gossner. This means you don't have to thank him but he is a great guy so you might anyway. Also he sells a Pro Version that I bought (and I'm notoriously cheap) that has lots more notes, velocity layers, mics and stuff then are here including 90+ instruments with lots of solo orchestral instruments and awesome weird instruments like ancient flutes and an ophicleide which is legal in all 50 states.
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