The String Orchestra in Your Computer
Like a real symphonic string orchestra, HALion String Edition 2 features four instrument groups that come Solo as well as Ensemble programs: Violin, viola, cello and double-bass. All instruments were sampled in all the standard playing techniques and articulations to put an amazingly flexible and universally employable sound library at your fingertips.
The engineers who recorded and produced these samples invested a great deal of painstaking effort to achieve warm, expressive sounds detailed and precise enough to sweeten every production from R&B to classical arrangements. Courtesy of powerful features like the Sound Browser window, all the sounds featured in HALion String Edition 2 are easily handled.
Expression and Control Options
HALion String Edition 2 offers a range of functions that let you enrich your string arrangements with even greater authenticity and powers of expression. Alongside portamento and vibrato, you can choose from among the following options for expression:
- Bowing Control
When playing fast lines, no flesh-and-blood musician can keep the trajectory of the bow absolutely consistent, so of course every pass sounds ever so slightly different. Conventional spiccato programs in samplers normally feature just one sample or at best a very few samples per note and bow stroke. Even casual listeners are quick to hear that this sounds unnaturally regimented. But that’s one criticism the proud owners of HALion String Edition will never hear because it offers up to nine layers per bow stroke. And for an even better human feel, it features fascinating Alternating programs. Using special keys on the keyboard (Switch keys), you can switch among down-bow, up-bow and alternating bow strokes. This measure of control is unique to HALion String Edition.
- True String Release
Stringed instruments are not on/off switches; their sound lingers, open strings resonate, and the room reverberates. If they lack sustain and decay, listeners immediately hear that they are ersatz strings. HALion String Edition delivers true response using special String Release samples. These play when you release keys, thereby creating a realistic impression of resonating strings and room ambience. Best of all, this effect places the listener precisely in the position at which the instruments were recorded. And that gives you a sensation of depth and ambience no artificially generated reverb can match.
- Crescendo/Diminuendo
In contrast to percussive instruments such as drums, piano and guitar, where volume and intensity are determined exclusively by attack velocity, string instruments’ dynamic response may be controlled throughout the note’s duration. To realistically replicate this phenomenon, HALion String Edition 2 offers you the Crescendo Controller. And to enhance your powers of expression, it lets you vary the articulation on the fly while you are playing. The Crescendo Controller influences not only volume, but also the layer selection (pianissimo, piano...forte, fortissimo) in real time. The result is an utterly realistic crescendo and decrescendo (diminuendo), which you can control at will, say, using the modulation wheel.
Articulations
The strings featured in HALion String Edition 2 were sampled with painstaking attention to detail and captured in all standard playing techniques. And that’s why the Sound Library can offer such a rich mother lode of material for creating varied and astonishingly authentic strings arrangements in different articulations:
- Legato
Legato lines are smooth and connected, with no gaps between successive tones. Real legato means that all notes are played without alternating bow strokes. String sections frequently rely on a little deception to achieve this effect: Each musician changes the bow stroke at a different point in the line so that the sound of the other instruments masks the changeover. That’s the stuff string pads are made of. In HALion String Edition, you even create detaché (French for separate bows; staccato) lines with legato notes without having to detour to a separate articulation. Courtesy of special release samples and the immediate attack of legato notes, detaché notes sound utterly convincing.
- Spiccato
Spiccato is the mostly used technique for playing staccato notes. The bow touches the string very briefly, just long enough so that they resonate and produce that typical decay. Spiccato sounds cleaner than staccato (where the string is actually bowed) and is more universally applicable, from accompaniment to fast melody lines. Spiccato programs offer up to nine layers per bow stroke (meaning that the Alternate programs offer a whopping 18 layers). With so many layers, you’ll never have to contend with the dreaded machine gun effect frequently produced by simpler string samples. Another great advantage of so many layers is jaw-dropping authenticity in replicating stringed instruments’ dynamic range.
- Pizzicato
A pizzicato note or passage is played by a plucking the strings with a finger rather than bowing. The sound produced by this technique is quite distinct from the sound of bowed techniques; it’s actually closer to that of a guitar. HALion String Edition 2 offers you both loosely and tightly played variations.
- Tremolo
Tremolo is the rapid reiteration of tones produced by sawing the bow swiftly across the string. This creates a rather frenzied, noisy sound well-suited for conjuring a dramatic atmosphere. The notes in tremolo lines can be emphasized very effectively with accents, which is why you’ll find real accent samples for the tremolo programs in HALion String Edition 2.
- Trills
Trills (rapid alternation between two different tones) are produced by hammering on and pulling off a finger on the fret board. The Switch keys let you switch between whole tone and half-tone variants.
Q-Controls
The eight Q control knobs let you directly manipulate crucial sound parameters – simply grab and twist to tweak Attack, Release, Cutoff, Ambience Level, etc. The Q knobs were assigned individually to each program. Courtesy of the handy MIDI Learn function, they can be remote-controlled conveniently using any external MIDI controller.
Ambience
The room is decisive in shaping orchestral sounds. The orchestra sound that we are accustomed to is the product of location – the distance of the listener from the instrument - as well as the reflections in the room. When a violin is recorded directly, say using a transducer, the direct sound is inevitably gruff and brittle, with excessive bow noise. And that’s why the actual sound of the concert hall was also captured in HALion String Edition 2. As a result, your strings sounds are embedded in a real room for a natural sound unrivalled by any artificial reverb algorithm. What’s more, the new Real Ambience technology lets you determine room volume (Ambience Level) and perceived size (Ambience Time) as you see fit.
Performance
Of course, an instrument as technically and tonally sophisticated as HALion String Edition 2 has a healthy appetite for CPU, main memory and hard disk performance. For this reason, HALion String Edition 2 was endowed with numerous functions that help conserve system resources and improve overall performance.
- Disk Streaming
Disk streaming technology lets you play samples directly from the hard disk to lighten the load of your computer’s main memory. Ultra fast buffer times as speedy as 0.1 seconds ensure lowest memory loads and stable streaming performance.
- ECO Programs
In HALion String Edition 2 you’ll find economy-class versions of all the key featured programs. The standard programs are high-calorie fare with lashings of samples, layer and functions that take a big bite out of the RAM and processor pie. The lo-cal ECO programs are lite versions of these sound programs. ECO programs let you trade a slight reduction in dynamics and authenticity for a boost in system performance. That makes them great choices as composing tools, for background strings, and for running String Edition 2 on computers of older vintages.
- RAMSave™
When RAMSave™ is enabled, all loaded samples that are not used in the current song are automatically dumped from the main memory. This frees up RAM resources for other processes.
- Quality Knob
If you need more system performance, twist the Quality knob. It swaps a slight reduction in sound quality for a performance boost.