> "My Kawai stage piano has about forty different instrumental sounds, all produced from samples of real instruments. Apart from the string sounds: I believe it creates those by tormenting cats on Xanax."
I don't quite know why but the author is really correct on synth strings. I've got a few friends who are fantastic semi pro strings players and the expressionism of their instruments are phenomenal -- I've sung with them a lot and played orchestrally as well. Synth strings inevitably sound like synth strings. I'm sure there's a realistic sampler somewhere on the planet but I've never come remotely close to discovering one that is any good ...
Synth strings sound like the original "string synthesizers" like the Solina String Ensemble (famously present in Jarre's Oxygene, albeit played on somewhat different instrument, and through a phaser). They tend to be scratchy, nasally, thin, etc.
I don't quite know why but the author is really correct on synth strings. I've got a few friends who are fantastic semi pro strings players and the expressionism of their instruments are phenomenal -- I've sung with them a lot and played orchestrally as well. Synth strings inevitably sound like synth strings. I'm sure there's a realistic sampler somewhere on the planet but I've never come remotely close to discovering one that is any good ...