I had somewhat of a revelation over the last couple days regarding realistic strings and Notion.

I've been working over a period of 4 years or so to try to perfect my recordings of string libraries using Notion. I've posted many samples of my work here, but there is one aspect of my recordings that has always bothered me after listening to my favorite commercial recordings of real string orchestras and comparing them to my own work.

I've always felt that my recordings were too soft in the piano sections and too loud in the forte parts. I would struggle to hear the soft passages and then find myself reaching for the volume when the loud passages came booming through. I tried for some time to fix this with compression, I've tried using mastering software, but none of the solutions have really made me happy.

The basic velocity map from Notion is set up so that pppp=0, and ffff=127, and this, I now believe, is really the root of my dissatisfaction with my recordings. I finally realized that the nature of a large (or even medium) string ensemble is that the greatest dynamic variation is in the pp to ff range. From pppp to pp is a pretty subtle range and from ff to ffff is also pretty subtle. In other words, it's tougher for a larger ensemble to vary their volume at the higher and lower ends of the dynamic spectrum.

Now you may or may not agree with this, but hear me out...

Based on these assumptions I decided to do some experimentation with a standby library, Kirk Hunter Concert Series 3 Strings, and the velocity map in the ruleset that I use to control it. I graphed a basic linear chart illustrating my assumptions above to identify the velocities for each dynamic in the Velocity Map in the ruleset, and got this:



This basic adjustment has resulted in this recording, which is not compressed or adjusted for volume in any way (there's some solo string work in this piece, Gustav Holst's Nocturne from his Moorside Suite, so the strings take a while to get going. I think one of the finest parts is about 5:49, and the end of the piece is very nice as well):



Let me know what you think about this, or your thoughts on the recording. I will next try this ruleset with varied music styles, as well as adjusting the ruleset for some of my other libraries to reflect this thinking, and post the results as I go.

Thanks for listening as always!