Venice Modern Strings

“Essendo dunque Venetia una impossibilità, viene anche ad essere posta nell’impossibile, essendo fondata nel mare;
per ch’ella in questa cosa è fuor dall’ordine di tutte l’altre Città”

“Therefore, being the impossibility that it is, Venice comes to be known as the impossible, being founded on the sea;
thus, it is this which makes it out of the ordinary when compared to all other cities”

1587, Gerolamo de Bardi, “Delle Cose Notabili che sono nella città Venezia”

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 violins, 6 second violins, 5 violas, 5 cellos and 3 doublebasses.

The library features three kinds of legato: portamento, fingered 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 patches, ensembles 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