I've posted about the Bohemian Violin from Virharmonic here before. I really think it's a powerful instrument for use with notation programs, and they've made some improvements which make it even more Notion-friendly, so I thought I'd share some thoughts on this instrument again.



https://www.virharmonic.com/bohemian_violin

Virharmonic is a small studio in Prague specializing in highly crafted instruments that are described as "Virtual Performers". They are not Spitfire or VSL by any stretch, but they seem to be dedicated to doing the job right and they listen carefully to users. The developer, Ondrej Pochily, spent a fair amount of time listening to my input and my work with the instrument early on in the development of the first version (I was one of the early purchasers) and he let me know recently that based on the input I gave "We have tried to make it a bit more notation friendly by the more varied legatos as well as making sure that overlaps always cause one of the onbow legatos." This was in response to my comments that the instrument play nicely not only when played "live" from a keyboard, but also when triggered from Notion. Great that a developer is listening to their users and responding!

At €199, the instrument is not necessarily bargain-basement priced, but it does come in two versions, 48khz and 98khz, and there are a huge amount of samples to support the realism of the instrument. Download from the developer's servers was quick and easy, and installation was very simple.

The instrument is a VST and is loaded not in Kontakt, as one might expect, but in a UVIWorkstation player, which is provided free with purchase of the instrument. Have no fear, this player loads very quickly (although because of the large number of samples involved to create realism in the instrument, initial sample loads can take some time; loading from an SSD would definitely be recommended) and it plays with Notion very well. It's rock solid, and I've never had a freeze, glitch or lock-up with the UVIWorkstation player.

The magic begins when you hit play. The instrument is beautiful, clear and compelling, and can cut through pretty much any orchestral mix you might place it against. Even without tweaking note lengths or any external rules, the thing sounds damn good playing just about anything. It senses note timing and intervals, and seems to adjust itself in a very human fashion to the notation it encounters. There are three different playing modes, Improv, Czardas and Emotive, which will color the sound and, more importantly, the playing technique, to alter the mood of the piece. It's really like a human controlling the instrument.

So it's good out of the box on first play, but when you start to tweak a bit, overlapping some notes (the method for triggering legato playing), stretching others out, starting some a bit later, some a bit earlier, things really get cooking. Of course, Notion's newly improved (or re-improved, should I say) sequencer overlay is great for this subtle note-by-note adjustment. Each phrase can be crafted very carefully so that the instrument responds very differently from one repeated motif to the next, and you can get a pretty amazing emotion from the "Virtual Performer" that comes in the download. Add a simple custom ruleset to control playing technique (switching chord playing on, pizzicato, spicatto, etc.) and this instrument can really sing.

I don't get anything for writing this, but I wanted to share these thoughts and the excitement around this next-generation instrument. By the way, there is also a first-version cello available, which is also a great instrument, and there are plans to release an expansion of that, along with a viola.

Below is a file from the Notion Score Library that I played with as a means to explore the new version of the Bohemian Violin. See if you agree with me that the instrument truly earns its billing as part of Virharmonic's "Soul Capture" series.

Thanks for reading and listening, and let me know what you think!

Michael