Venice: An Age-Old Fairy Tale in Strings

If Venice were a violin, the canals would be its strings, gondolas would be its player and the sea its luthier.

Everything about Venice resembles an age-old fairy tale, or, as observed by Gerolamo Bardi, more than four centuries ago in his “About the Notable Things of Venice”; an impossible-possibility, a grandiose wonder, standing so far from the norm that it even can’t be considered a human creation but instead has to be placed unswervingly in the realm of God.

Along with Brescia and Cremona, Venice has given rise to some of the most renowned master luthiers, setting the benchmark for perfection in violin craftsmanship and sound. With this in mind, we decided to sample an Orchestra from Venice and its surrounding areas in the city of Crema, aiming to achieve a modern sound whilst maintaining these same traditions and aspirations for perfection.

When FluffyAudio started we could only dream about sampling an Orchestra. At that time the idea seemed inconceivable, something of dreams, at least as hard and improbable as building a city on the sea. Well that day has now arrived, and, despite some scepticism, sooner than we could have ever imagined.
Matteo Marzaro, Glauco Bertagnin, Leonardo Sapere, Alessandro Pandolfi and Michele Maulucci are just some of the tremendous musicians we have had the honor to work with.

The Orchestra is their family and Venice their theater. They have learnt to breath together, and together with music they form the soul, flesh and blood of one of the most incredible organisms that humankind has ever envisioned and achieved: The Orchestra.

It is known that Venice was built on unstable ground. These foundations are its curse, slowly being eroded by the sea.
Yet, at the very same time, this is what gives Venice its glory and decadent splendor; by allowing the sea to play its part in the great score of Venice.

Venice Modern Strings is a sampled string orchestra for Kontakt 5 which features 8 first violins6 second violins5 violas5 cellos and 3 doublebasses.

The library features three kinds of legato: portamentofingered legato and bow change legato. These can be triggered either by velocity, by MIDI CC or by Pitchwheel. Moreover there’s a control for the amount of vibrato.

There’s a polyphonic legato engine, mainly derived by Dominus, Staccato and Staccatissimo articulations, Short and Long Arcs and a small selection of sustain articulations. Every articulation has a set of advanced controls: you can change the parameters to have a more agile legato, dynamically stretch the Arcs to adapt them into your piece or control the velocity curve for articulations like Pizzicato, Staccato and Staccatissimo.

All the long articulations may be modulated by the morph engine: this allows to create custom articulations by dynamically modulating two different string techniques, in many different ways.

The library also includes single articulation patchesensembles and low memory footprint patches.

Articulations List

Violins I
Legato*
Polyphonic Legato*
Sustain
Staccato
Long Arc
Short Arc
Pizzicato
Flautando
Sul Tasto
Tremolo
Staccatissimo
Tremolo Sul Ponticello
Harmonics
Scratch
Air

Violins II
Legato*
Polyphonic Legato*
Sustain
Staccato
Long Arc
Short Arc
Pizzicato
Flautando
Sul Tasto
Tremolo
Staccatissimo
Tremolo Sul Ponticello
Harmonics
Scratch
Air

Violas
Legato*
Polyphonic Legato*
Sustain
Staccato
Long Arc
Short Arc
Pizzicato
Flautando
Sul Tasto
Tremolo
Staccatissimo
Tremolo Sul Ponticello
Harmonics
Scratch
Air

Cellos
Legato*
Polyphonic Legato*
Sustain
Staccato
Long Arc
Short Arc
Pizzicato
Flautando
Sul Tasto
Tremolo
Staccatissimo
Tremolo Sul Ponticello
Harmonics
Scratch
Air

Doublebasses
Legato*
Polyphonic Legato*
Sustain
Staccato
Long Arc
Short Arc
Pizzicato
Flautando
Sul Tasto
Tremolo
Staccatissimo
Tremolo Sul Ponticello
Harmonics
Scratch
Air

Ensembles
Legato*
Polyphonic Legato*
Sustain
Staccato
Long Arc
Short Arc
Pizzicato
Flautando
Sul Tasto
Tremolo
Staccatissimo
Tremolo Sul Ponticello
Harmonics
Scratch
Air

* with Portamento, Legato and Bowchange legato
Optional Low Memory footprint patches available
Morph Engine for all sustained articulations

Listen to Venice Modern Strings

Simone Mor – Demotion
00:00
-1:32
  • 1
    Simone Mor – Demotion
    1:32
Antongiulio Frulio – Streets of Venice
00:00
-2:10
  • 1
    Antongiulio Frulio – Streets of Venice
    2:10
Gustav Mahler – Adagietto from the 5th Symphony
00:00
-4:33
  • 1
    Gustav Mahler – Adagietto from the 5th Symphony
    4:33
Riccardo Barba – Shoshin
00:00
-3:10
  • 1
    Riccardo Barba – Shoshin
    3:10
Blake Ewing – The Light Within
00:00
-2:13
  • 1
    Blake Ewing – The Light Within
    2:13
Paolo Ingraito – The word of Midori
00:00
-1:05
  • 1
    Paolo Ingraito – The word of Midori
    1:05
Ignacio Nunez – Gondolas
00:00
-2:19
  • 1
    Ignacio Nunez – Gondolas
    2:19
Simone Mor – Circus Tanz
00:00
-1:20
  • 1
    Simone Mor – Circus Tanz
    1:20
Simone Mor – Pacifica
00:00
-1:48
  • 1
    Simone Mor – Pacifica
    1:48
Ignacio Nunez – Paths
00:00
-2:03
  • 1
    Ignacio Nunez – Paths
    2:03
Magnus Chirgwin – Lovecraft’s Lighthouse
00:00
-3:18
  • 1
    Magnus Chirgwin – Lovecraft’s Lighthouse
    3:18
Mike Marino – La Serenissima
00:00
-2:02
  • 1
    Mike Marino – La Serenissima
    2:02

Featured Instruments

Library Features:

  • Complete String Orchestra (8, 6, 5, 5, 3)
  • 4 Stereo Mic Positions
  • 114000+ Samples
  • 55 GB installed (compressed in NCW format)
  • 24 bit / 48 kHz stereo
  • Easy to use GUI
  • 3 True Legato Techniques: Portamento, Legato and Bow-Change Legato

  • Polyphonic Legato
  • Ensembles, Individual Patches and Low Memory Patches
  • Morph Controls for custom creation of evolving sustained patches
  • No need to manually download the library thanks to Pulse software (manual links available anyway)
  • Sleepless nights of editing and scripting

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