about strings

[djallalnamri]

Salam Hello Bonjour everybody
i know my poor english won't let me explain things clearly ... but it is about strings'sound that cometimes seems to vibrate ... this happens only with strings - i most times use hollywood strings soundfont - any idea ???
thanks in advance ...

[musikbear]

In guitar instruments you have a quality called tremolo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKVeVvy5mbk
That is a celebrated guitar style, and it is quite difficult to emulate -perhaps especially in lmms because its a variation in pitch.. is that what you are thinking about? -and do you want to MAKE this or do you want to REMOVE this effect?

[djallalnamri]

In guitar instruments you have a quality called tremolo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKVeVvy5mbk
That is a celebrated guitar style, and it is quite difficult to emulate -perhaps especially in lmms because its a variation in pitch.. is that what you are thinking about? -and do you want to MAKE this or do you want to REMOVE this effect?

hello and thanks for feedback ... in fact i would like to remove what seems to be an artifact according to these definitions :
Artifact (error), undesired alteration in data, introduced by a technique and/or technology
Compression artifact, when the data compression of an image, audio, or video is too complex, resulting in a loss of clarity
Digital artifact, any undesired alteration in data introduced during its digital processing

for instance when i use violin or viola soundfonts ... i notice that vibration'speed increases with pitch ...
of course i do not consider it as an extreme nuisance ... it is just that i would like to get rid of it ... if possible ...
thanks in advance

[musikbear]

get rid of it ... if possible ...

that depends :p
You need to find the feature in the vst or preset that is under control of a LFO. If it is a tremolo feature, it will be the pitch that is controlled by a LFO-envelope, but also cutoff ao resonance in an envelope, could be the source of vibrato
So what you need to do is to understand how the LFOs works and what they controll. Often a keyword here is send, but if you can find the LFO section*, then you should be able to disable all LFO, and you end up with a blane uniform oscilation in a specific Hz value. I doubt that will sound good, because it is actually the work with the LFOs that creates natual instrument quality, but see if you get the sound you want, with disabled LFOs

* ...Buuut heres the culpit -in soundfonts, you do not have access to the LFOs -infact, the LFO quality is 'baked in' the actual sample - so soundfont-wise, no luck

[djallalnamri]

get rid of it ... if possible ...

that depends :p
You need to find the feature in the vst or preset that is under control of a LFO. If it is a tremolo feature, it will be the pitch that is controlled by a LFO-envelope, but also cutoff ao resonance in an envelope, could be the source of vibrato
So what you need to do is to understand how the LFOs works and what they controll. Often a keyword here is send, but if you can find the LFO section*, then you should be able to disable all LFO, and you end up with a blane uniform oscilation in a specific Hz value. I doubt that will sound good, because it is actually the work with the LFOs that creates natual instrument quality, but see if you get the sound you want, with disabled LFOs

* ...Buuut heres the culpit -in soundfonts, you do not have access to the LFOs -infact, the LFO quality is 'baked in' the actual sample - so soundfont-wise, no luck

btw ... i have noticed that strings sound OK in the pianoroll editor ... the artifact occures only in the song editor ... when strings are mixed with other instruments ...

[Sti-Jay]

I have always thought the original sound which was used in the sf2 had vibrate sound at the end. That would explain why it vibrates faster when it is a higher note... Maybe it is not so

[sketchman3]

I'm just came to correct some misinformation that has been given.

Tremolo = modulation of VOLUME/The rise and fall of volume you might hear in surf rock, and also the intro to Green Day's "Blvd of Broken Dreams". It has a similar effect to side-chaining in techno and trance and stuff.

Vibrato = modulation of PITCH/This is the sound that would be accomplished by bending a guitar or violin string back and forth. Also, Tarzan's call employs a form of vibrato.

With guitars, the term "tremolo arm" was misapplied to the "whammy bar", because it gives the illusion of tremolo when done rapidly. The correct term should be "vibrato arm", but yet the error persists, and it confuses a lot of people.

To me it sounds like your problem could be one of three things:
1) The frequencies emitted by the string soundfont are clashing with those of your other instruments. You may want to add a mixer effect and adjust the eq

2) The strings are a little bit off key. If you take two strings set to the same pitch and play them together, it sounds fine. However, if you adjust one of those strings ever so slightly a warbling pulsing sound will arise, as the frequencies of the two strings are going out of phase with each other and canceling each other out. The speed of the warbling effect varies depending on how close the frequencies are to each other. Guitarists do this sometimes to add tension to a note. Makes you go "unnnghhh" and scrunch up your face, lol.

3) The fact that the speed of the vibrato increases as the note gets higher says to me that perhaps the source audio samples used in the sf2 were recorded with the violinist performing vibrato manually. The way a sampling sequencer works is that, a single sound is recorded at one note, and in order to get higher or lower notes, the sample rate must be adjusted. So higher notes play through the wave form faster, and lower notes travel slower. A way you can test this is by hitting the highest note and see how long it takes the vibrato to kick in, and then hit a really low note to see how long it takes. If it is as I think, the only way you could solve this is by editing the samples in the sf2 and cutting out the part of the sound where it starts to vibrate.

Hope that helps.

[djallalnamri]

thanks for all replies and feedbacks
as i may have mentionned it before ... strings sound is ok in the piano roll ... i mean when it is not mixed with other instruments'sound
i also have tried to use a funky guitar soundfont ... this time ... problem is sound'sspeed increases with higher pitch while it slows down with lower pitch ... so that it turns out to be an unusable soundfont (lol !!! )

[sketchman3]

Do you think you could post an audio clip of this phenomenon?