Sound Example: How to get good string sounds

How to get good string sounds	Date: 2002-04-04	Author: IntrospectiveJourneys	Viewed 3182 times
Ok, first let me get this out of the way... I used a couple of presets (modified). Sorry about this one thing. I took the "string" preset of the Gen 6 and modified it to my liking (CPU - 50, release - shorter). Next I attached it to 3 J-Flangers, all set to different values (it doesn't matter a whole lot what values, but the depth and the feedback are two things to watch out for.) The reason I set them all to different values is because I didn't want the flanging sound to be so pronounced as it is when you just use one flanger (try muting them, you'll see.) Then I routed all 3 of the J-Flangers into a Funkyverb using a modified Cathedral preset. The result? A very professional sounding string section. I think I've gotten better results when I'm using a different Gen 6 for every note, but you can forgo that if you should so desire.
Attached File: strings.zip


Readers Comments:	add comment

Sounds good... If I just could get gen6 to accept note of commands... It would make stuff so much easyer. I wouldn't want to whine about this but this thing makes it almost impossible to me to work with some gens. I even find the TB-303 way easier though it would be hell for pads. Oh well I just have to work with some other gens then. 2002-04-05 by Elektroj?nis

Very nice ! Elektroj?nis - volume reduction (to 01) isn't exactly 'note off' but a kind of work arround. 2002-04-05 by thokede

Yes... Volume reduction to zero works sometimes but not with strings when you should get the Release section of the ADSR (or whatever) envelope after the note of. Anyway, maybe I shouldn't bother and just use Infector or something else when I need those noteoffs. I rarely need strings anyway. 2002-04-05 by Elektroj?nis

I did tweak the preset so that it works well with the standard 126 bpm (actually I have that on a song that I'm working on, and discovered this trick in the process.) The note off issue is problematic, I agree. But if you are really in need of something, you could either temporarily shorten the release, or just use an entirely different machine (save your setup to a preset and copy to the new machine.) 2002-04-06 by IntrospectiveJourneys

I could ofcourse tweak the sustain length parameter and find the right value for all of the notes but in my case that would be pain because i use a lot of different length notes. Sometimes I have different length notes going on at the same time so I definitely would need several gens for that. I don't know if my tweakking and comlexities all worth it because many things on the background dont need that much attention. In one of my songs calledSiperia I have this kinda stringy sound totally in the background and it is taking the most of the cpu. Not a lot but more than anything else on that song. One very important thing I learned from your example. The voicings. When using chords you don't need to use all the notes of the chord from the same octave (or worse all the notes of the chord from several octaves). Using just one note of the chord per octave you get better and more airy sound that has more space in it and it doesn't fill the mix that much etc. If I'm using voicings like that in my songs in the future you know where I learned it from. :-) 2002-04-06 by Elektroj?nis

In the demo file, I tried setting the reverb 'Dry' sound to off. This produced a rather different, but still very beautiful string sound. 0000-00-00 by TJK