Samplemodeling has announced that The Viola, the first instrument of the Solo Strings series, developed on the new SWAM Engine S by Stefano Lucato & Emanuele Parravicini, can now be purchased and downloaded from SM website.
Virtually all the elements contributing to the sound of the real instrument have been introduced in this virtual viola. Bow speed, pressure, direction and distance from the bridge are under player's control. One can also control resonance of the played string, that of the open strings, amount of rosin and bow noise, sharpness of the attack, bow lift (on the string vs. off the string) on both attack and release, position on the fingerboard, and many other parameters. Each parameter can be assigned to any MIDI CC, allowing real time control.
Three bow gesture modes are available:
- Expression, where a balanced combination of bow speed, pressure and position is controlled by CC11 as in all previous instruments.
- Bipolar, similar to Expression, but reversing bow direction when CC 11 crosses the value 64.
- Bowing, where the speed of the bow becomes proportional to the speed of the controller.
This latter mode is supplied mainly to cope with particular controllers, mimicking the movements of a real bow.
Con sordino, natural and artificial harmonics, manual or automatic (tempo or time synchronous) tremolo, pizzicato and col legno modes are also available. A number of keyswitches allow quick selection of the preferred mode.
Additional parameters available to advanced users include nonlinear mapping of expression, attack envelope, activation of various bow change modes, legato vs. portamento mode, vibrato rate, tremolo mode and speed, tuning of the individual strings, microtuning, etc.
Each Viola includes several "instruments" with a different timbre which can be loaded via the main GUI.
Price: 129 EUR (+ VAT if applicable). All Samplemodeling customers are entitled to a time-limited 10% discount. Please note that this offer expires on January 31st, 2016.
