Cadenza Violin: heartbreaking, emotional solo violin virtual instrument
The Cadenza Violin from SoundMagic attempts to capture the genuine tone and emotion of a solo violin by combining an elegantly sampled instrument with acoustic modelling.
Cadenza Violin
A “cadenza” in music usually an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played by soloists, commonly in a “free” rhythmic style, and often allowing virtuosic display. It’s that idea of virtuoso that SoundMagic is trying to capture in the Cadenza Violin.
A vintage handmade Italian violin was painstakingly sampled at Platinum Sound in New York City using top-end gear like U47 and M49 Neumann vintage microphones. They began with straight sounds and then faded into vibrato sustain, changing depth and speed, altering tremolo and all sorts of playing techniques and multiple articulations. This was then combined with their expanded Modeling Legato Technology which produces smoother transitions between notes in realtime than a sampled legato. The expansion of this technology now includes vibrato, tremolo, glide and glissando. Replacing sampled versions with modelled transitions greatly reduces the footprint of the instrument and the strain on memory and CPU.
In performance they use key switching to seamlessly move between articulations allowing for an entire performance in a single take using a single instrument. They’ve implemented a comprehensive envelope and dynamics system and offer a high-quality reverb and parametric EQ.
The sound is certainly emotive but it’s the modelled transitions and key switching that really bring the instrument alive in the hands of a talented keyboard player.
Cadenza Violin is available as a 32bit or 64bit VST and AU plugin on Windows and MacOS. It’s on a special of $99.
More information
- SoundMagic website.
Video
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2 responses to “Cadenza Violin: heartbreaking, emotional solo violin virtual instrument”
Yuck. None of the examples in the video sounded real. All, expect the last one, sounded like a Mellotron. I can’t tell if it’s the app or the performance but there’s no way that would be convincing as a lead/solo instrument.
Just noticed this at a bargain for $10. Fab price, but listening to the demo’s of V2 it’s disappointing, and $10 seems steep compared to free offerings out there, Maybe buried in the mix as an extra bit of color it would be ok, but not as a lead instrument. With violins, you need to go to a much deeper level of sampling (forget modelling), and pay decent bucks – Vienna or Spitfire are decent examples, IMO. Both companies have impressive free offerings too.