How much can you change a basic sound with processing?

C

Chrisulrich

Member
Dear Anyone.

Depending on the answer to this, might be a follow-up question but for now - hear(!) goes!

I'm just hoping this doesn't sound too vague, because I'm trying to wrap my head around all of this mixing stuff. OK, if you've got - say - a real bunch of 23 real violinists in your back pocket, you prob. wouldn't need to alter the sound at all because it would be perfect from the get-go. But if you've just got the sound from a downloaded VST - I KNOW you're going to ask which one and I'll give you the list of ones I've tried if you want but I'm just keeping it hypothetical, so pretend you've got a VST called Bog Standard Violins - how much better than bog standard would you expect to be able to make it sound, using all the plug-ins at your disposal?

I ask, because I've spent the last 2 freaking days solid trying to mix a piece of piano and strings and trying to get it to sound like Kevin Kern, or any of the other piano'n'synth string guys all over YouTube. I've had tortured cats, neighing horses, gnats with well-tuned wings, fingernails on blackboards, strangled sopranos, all the above coming out of just about everything I've tried - what I've NOT achieved is anything LIKE the string sounds I've heard from 15 year olds with cracked copies of Fruity Loops on YouTube.

So I'm finally admitting failure - I can write piano and strings, I just can't mix the mutha - ah - dear, sweet pieces because I can't make the strings sound anything other than a bad joke. I'm not that much better with the piano, but in my hands the strings are awesomely bad. And I don't know if it's the plugins or the Muggins! I'm suspecting the latter, but it could be a bit of both.

So assuming the writer of this post doesn't have the resources to go and buy L.A. Scoring Strings in the morning - which VST/Soundfont/Anything would you advise me to download/buy (up to about £100 or very near that amount) to do Piano and Strings with and what with EQ etc., would you do to the output to make it sound at least vaguely as good as 150-listener youtube stuff? Right now, I'd settle for that. (If you assume from this I know as much about mixing as I do about flying like Superman, you'd be about right!)

Yours frustratedly

Chris
 
Hey Chris, it might be a good idea to post a clip of your piece in the MP3 clinic for more specific feedback but I'll give you some general comments. A huge part of what will make a string VST sound real would be in the playing. As simple as it sounds, if you don't play the strings the way a real string section plays, its gonna sound like a dude playing a VST through a midi keyboard. So if you get your playing chops up, you'll have so much more control as to how the strings sound. Those 15 year olds may use cracked VSTs but they probably practice even more.

That being said, on the technical side if you played it like a string section and it still doesn't sound how you want, I think some string VSTs may be a bit hyped in the upper high end. So maybe low passing at 17 or 18k would help. I don't recommend this unless its really needed though. For my string VST it helps a tad but its not a rule of thumb. Hope this helped a little!
 
what musicgeek says ^^^

There are three parts to getting credible string sounds.

The first part is having a reasonable VSTi to work with.

The second part is understanding how string parts are structured.

The third part is being able to replicate string playing mechanics with a keyboard.
 
Something else you might try is getting the intonation correct. Find a good sounding sample (a song that someone else did a good job on) of one of your VSTs and look at the midi and see how someone else made it sound good. Experiment with the techniques they used until you get beyond neighing horses...It's probably more about how you use the samples than how you mangle them afterwards. :)
I've found that just using the samples directly never sounds good. I have to automate faders, use several different types (pizzicato, full, light vibrato, etc), align tones with EQ, etc. to get things to sound good: sometimes down to the individual notes...just like a real performance.
 
I've found that layering multiple tracks for strings sounds better than doing it 'all at one time'. I'll do 3 or 4 one- or two-note parts at a time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top