How do I get my strings to sound more realistic?!

[CharlesLorenMusic]

Hey friends, I got a return recently saying my strings were too MIDI sounding, or too "stiff". The listing was for an instrumental cue, just piano accompanied by some strings. If you're curious to hear it, the song is called "Clouds" on my TAXI profile.

First off I am a Pro Tools user, yet am open to advice from any DAW users. I usually use the Xpand library when using strings. I am almost certain that most of the string instruments in Xpand are samples of real string instruments, yet I could be wrong. Some of them may be MIDI made, it is hard to say because there are so many string choices in Xpand.

My go to string-mixing method is to select the strings that fit the mood best, then add one of my WAVES plug-ins (specifically the JJP string/keys plug-in in most cases, which is a combination of EQ, compression, gain etc), then I'll add a Lexicon concert hall reverb, or hall reverb, or sometimes even chamber. I'll tweak the knobs of each plug in to make it sound as good as possible without destroying the string sound too much.

Still, my strings don't sound "real" enough.. and I'm wondering if any of you fellow musicians deal with this problem and have any good advice for me.

It should also be noted that I do not play any string instruments, nor do I have a lot of friends that can.. so actually recording strings is out of the question for now.

Thanks,
- Charles Loren

[Casey H]

Matt Hirt did a whole Taxi TV on this subject.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/65530803

Casey

[lesmac]

Wasn't there a guy who played trumpet and developed some software also on TAXI TV talking about articulations, note attack and varying velocities etc.

[Len911]

Charles, I had to google Xpand. It seems the "string" presets are mostly pads with 4 velocity layers max. There's really not much you can do with that, very limited. A pad is like a preset instrument template, you can't individually score the violins or violas or cellos or double basses, they are preconfigured.

If you want go beyond string pads, you have to get a string library that has solo and tutti instruments with an assortment of articulations. The velocity layers are usually controlled by cc11 or mod wheel, and have many velocity layers to switch in and out of. Not as static as pads.

There are some fine strings (pads) libraries out there if you mainly just do pop and don't want to or need to get into the programming of strings.

[Paulie]

Check out this short video by Nick Murray (he will be at the Rally next week).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce989ZsUWuA

[andygabrys]

Hey friends, I got a return recently saying my strings were too MIDI sounding, or too "stiff". The listing was for an instrumental cue, just piano accompanied by some strings. If you're curious to hear it, the song is called "Clouds" on my TAXI profile.

MIDI has been used to describe things that sound like "bad MIDI sequences" or as I heard ML describe on a video with Ronan Chris Murphy today "using a Yamaha DX7 to try and do string and horn parts". As many have pointed out before in these forums, its just a communication protocol - it doesn't actually have "sound" but its been used to describe things that don't sound very natural or real.

In most cases these MIDI sounds were actually recordings of the instruments, but if they are not comprehensively sampled with different articulations and dynamic levels as Len911 pointed out the results are not very awe-inspiring and take tremendous skill to be able to get them to sound "real" - and part of that is knowing how to write good parts for the strings to play.

In your piece the strings sound like a "pad" rather than string parts, but part of that is the writing. Strings usually have independent parts that together make up chords, but usually don't play in chord voicings like a keyboard player would hammer down. As Len mentioned, you need some samples which at least allow different full sections, some solo instruments, and perhaps some chamber or divisi size groups - it also helps if they were sampled at a number of different velocity levels (5 or more wold be great, although you will find a lot of legato articulations that use dynamic crossfading between these samples to fill in the blanks - so you don't need a string package that has 64 different velocity levels on a sustain note - you ride CC1 or CC11 to "play" in that part. You can spend a couple hundred up to thousands on one of these setups

First off I am a Pro Tools user, yet am open to advice from any DAW users. I usually use the Xpand library when using strings. I am almost certain that most of the string instruments in Xpand are samples of real string instruments, yet I could be wrong. Some of them may be MIDI made, it is hard to say because there are so many string choices in Xpand.

most of these Xpand patches are "strings" - not violins,or violas, or cello, or Cbasses - but strings. The whole deal at once. And they have one velocity level to my ear. You can ride CC11 or CC7 to try and get some dynamic change out of them.

My go to string-mixing method is to select the strings that fit the mood best, then add one of my WAVES plug-ins (specifically the JJP string/keys plug-in in most cases, which is a combination of EQ, compression, gain etc), then I'll add a Lexicon concert hall reverb, or hall reverb, or sometimes even chamber. I'll tweak the knobs of each plug in to make it sound as good as possible without destroying the string sound too much.

Lots of people use lots of sauce, but its mostly reverb.

Still, my strings don't sound "real" enough.. and I'm wondering if any of you fellow musicians deal with this problem and have any good advice for me.

You might consider doing some study on string writing - maybe the Writing for Strings package from http://www.alexanderpublishing.com

and do some study on MIDI orchestration and programming. One video package that I got a lot out of was https://www.macprovideo.com/tutorial/or ... ng-realism - Peter uses Logic but the techniques are applicable to any DAW.

There are lots of free videos on youtube as well.

Then do some research on what packages might be applicable to the kind of writing you want to do. There are many. There are advantages and disadvantages to many of them.

Hope that Helps.

[robbspencer]

Thanks for posting the link paulie, that's was a nice video

[CharlesLorenMusic]

This has all been very helpful, I'll be checking out all of these videos tonight. Especially thanks to Andy for the detailed response!

[andygabrys]

Check out this short video by Nick Murray (he will be at the Rally next week).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce989ZsUWuA

nice one Paulie - thx.

[andygabrys]

This has all been very helpful, I'll be checking out all of these videos tonight. Especially thanks to Andy for the detailed response!

you are welcome.

you can check many videos that detail comparisons of various string packages like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO2FE7GileA