Mario, I got the book through my local library's lending system a while back. It's got some good stuff in it, but I was a bit disappointed by how sparse it was. For example, the chapter Writing and Sequencing for the String Orchestra is a mere 17 pages long. That's barely enough room to mention the various techniques, to say nothing of covering them in much depth.

That said, I think the main way to learn these things is to listen to lots of examples, so you can understand how the articulations and phrasings work in context.

Zero, working with sound libraries in the DAW seems to be the necessary evil. Some time back, I picked up a music notation program called Notion. (Actually, I picked up a bargain bin version of Protoge, and upgraded). It's claim to fame was that it had a custom library that would render articulations based on notation. But I found all the sounds to be very lackluster. One of the reasons for getting the Miroslav library was to see if that would work better with Notion, but no dice there, either.

So a big bonus for a library is to use keys to toggle articulations, instead of having to load different articulations into different MIDI channels. That's the route most libraries seem to be taking these days.


At this point, I'm mainly looking for a good solo violin. I should have included these libraries for completeness:

  • Gypsy Virtual Instrument $400 (requires iLok)
  • Quantum Leap Solo Violin $100 (requires iLok)
Interestingly, these two libraries are both produced by the Nick Phoenix, and they've got radically different sounds. The Gypsy includes a number of other instruments, but it's the solo violin that really stands out. It's got a wide, dramatic vibrato and is very up-front. It's not particularly good at rapid articulations, but that's not something that I'd do much.

Solo Violin is more refined and classical, with more precise articulations. The samples are only about 2 seconds long, and when you sustain them, they audibly switch bow direction. (I hadn't noticed this in the demo until someone pointed it out). The main problem it has is a sort of "fuzzy" synthetic sound - it's a bit further back from the mike, and doesn't have the same bite as Gypsy.

Gypsy is out of my price range, and I'm on the fence about Solo Violin. It works very well for lyrical melodies, but it's a bit more sedate and distant than what I had in mind... But other than that, it seems to be quite good...

I guess I need to work harder at learning the violin (slow going!), or make friends with a violin/viola player.