VSL strings bow noise, I need guidance please

[Loudyman]

Originally Posted by sunburst79

I don't have a specific answers for you but Mike Thornton has a very in depth tutorial of RX2 on Groove3, well worth watching.

You may find some more tutorials on Izotopes site and YouTube may even Pro Tools Experts Blog

Hi Scott, I'll check this out
Thanks !

[Loudyman]

A simpler way would have been to have a bow noise control in Vienna Instrument Pro, like in Session String Pro of Kontakt for sure !
But I'm not a big fan of SSPro.

I'm trying to persist with VSL mainly for their articulations, especially those of Solo String I/II.

I think I will purchase them soon, as I cannot find any other libraries as comprehensive and I will use rx2 if something goes wrong with the violins.

Fingers crossed.

[John_Toolbox]

Are you playing chords with this instrument or stacking multiple instances of it?

Most sampled solo strings do have pretty noticeable bow noise, which gets very noticeable if you stack more than one sample from the same instrument. If you can get the noise reduction to work without taking away too much, that's good, but if you're not already doing this, I'd also recommend splitting your chords among completely different solo instruments, especially if they are from different libraries. Trying to stack several samples that were all recorded with the same mic/position in the same room will always multiply the amount of undesirable noise that was in the samples.

[Loudyman]

Originally Posted by John_Toolbox

Are you playing chords with this instrument or stacking multiple instances of it?

Most sampled solo strings do have pretty noticeable bow noise, which gets very noticeable if you stack more than one sample from the same instrument. If you can get the noise reduction to work without taking away too much, that's good, but if you're not already doing this, I'd also recommend splitting your chords among completely different solo instruments, especially if they are from different libraries. Trying to stack several samples that were all recorded with the same mic/position in the same room will always multiply the amount of undesirable noise that was in the samples.

Hi John,
I thought that strings in Epic Orchestra were supposed to be "solo", but someone over VSL's forum told me they were ensemble !?
Anyway, I tried them as monophonic instruments, and in theory ensemble strings should have less bow noise, which is not the case here.
In other words, if ensemble have this amount of noise, I can't imagine solo ones !!!!

As for RX2, I redid some tests on chords and melodies, I have noticed several things :
1) The best way to use RX2 is as standalone application because there's no limitation of time capture, unlike the plugin.

2) The best modules for this kind of work are Spectral Repair or Gain. I tried Denoise and Deconstruct without satisfying success.

3) This is time consuming !!!! and sometimes when notes of a melody are overlapping, it's hard to clean something without altering another one.
It's a "trial and error" process with more or less serious damages on surrounding frequencies.

[Meads]

Are you aware, there are two versions of RX2?
There's a standard, and an advanced version. Which version do you use?

The advanced version comes with an additional feature called "Spectral Repair multi-resolution processing", that might improve your outcome.

[Loudyman]

Originally Posted by Meads

Are you aware, there are two versions of RX2?
There's a standard, and an advanced version. Which version do you use?

The advanced version comes with an additional feature called "Spectral Repair multi-resolution processing", that might improve your outcome.

Yes, I'm using the Advanced Version demo.

[Loudyman]

I will ask something somewhat silly but,

Isn't it possible to get rid of a "noise" with 2 audio tracks ?
I mean, one track with the original audio and a second one with the unwanted noise phase reversed ?

I tried but I didn't manage to do it.

[Loudyman]

Originally Posted by Loudyman

I will ask something somewhat silly but,

Isn't it possible to get rid of a "noise" with 2 audio tracks ?
I mean, one track with the original audio and a second one with the unwanted noise phase reversed ?

I tried but I didn't manage to do it.

OK, I retried and I have an answer,
It's indeed possible to do it, the only downside is that the "noise" track needs to be captured precisely;
Then if I put an 1band EQ and reverse the phase, I can control the amount of noise with the gain of the EQ.
I don't know if it's a common practice but it seems to work;

Whatever the method, I'm wondering if it's worth the effort to work this way !
The time to capture or repair this noise will be endless, but in other hand, I know that I have solutions of last resort.

I would have liked an easier way to do it, somewhat more systematic....

[John_Toolbox]

Originally Posted by Loudyman

Hi John,
I thought that strings in Epic Orchestra were supposed to be "solo", but someone over VSL's forum told me they were ensemble !?
Anyway, I tried them as monophonic instruments, and in theory ensemble strings should have less bow noise, which is not the case here.
In other words, if ensemble have this amount of noise, I can't imagine solo ones !!!!

As for RX2, I redid some tests on chords and melodies, I have noticed several things :
1) The best way to use RX2 is as standalone application because there's no limitation of time capture, unlike the plugin.

2) The best modules for this kind of work are Spectral Repair or Gain. I tried Denoise and Deconstruct without satisfying success.

3) This is time consuming !!!! and sometimes when notes of a melody are overlapping, it's hard to clean something without altering another one.
It's a "trial and error" process with more or less serious damages on surrounding frequencies.

It's possible that epic orchestra's samples were created by stacking several solo instruments, or it's just the way they miked them. I'm not very familiar with vienna's libraries, but I have heard that most of their releases are based on the same original set of samples, and just re-edited, tuned, etc. for each release. Being that epic orchestra is essentially a freebie for buying ve pro, it's not exactly their flagship product.

[Loudyman]

Originally Posted by John_Toolbox

It's possible that epic orchestra's samples were created by stacking several solo instruments, or it's just the way they miked them. I'm not very familiar with vienna's libraries, but I have heard that most of their releases are based on the same original set of samples, and just re-edited, tuned, etc. for each release. Being that epic orchestra is essentially a freebie for buying ve pro, it's not exactly their flagship product.

Those included in KONTAKT 5 are less "harsh", but still noisy, and don't have a lot of articulations.
For the moment, with NI Komplete 8 Ultimate, I don't have a serious strings library at my disposal, neither Session String Pro nor VSL from the Kontakt Factory are satisfying.

Competition is not abundant aside from Adagio, Eastwest and LASS, to the best of my knowledge, which is scary !
For solo strings, it's even worse....