Dynamic levels pp to ff can be smoothly cross-faded by mod wheel, the ensemble size can be zoomed from solo to 12 players, and two mic positions (close and room) can be chosen or blended. Want to know more about the intricate making of Zero-G's Luminoso? Producer Dan Graham has spoken to our UK Distributor Time+Space about creating it and how he aimed for making it sound more real than triggered samples could ever be...read the full inerview here !

Luminoso bridges the gap between premium string libraries which have excellent control, but can sound artificial on certain passages (such as runs, arpeggios, fast rhythms), and 'pre-recorded melodic phrases' libraries, which can sound dazzling on first listen but have little useful control and can grow tired quickly. Luminoso remains highly controllable, despite being made from pre-recorded phrases. This has been achieved by recording the same patterns across a wide pitch and dynamic range with many scale variations, by choosing patterns that blend in particularly well to a wide variety of musical styles, and then by allowing you to automatically sync to the tempo of your projects with a wide variety of chord, rhythm and scale types all controlled with key-switches.

Following on from the extremely popular Animato: String & Flute FX for Cinema , and Spiritoso: Live Cello Phrases titles, plus Perpetuo: Live Flute Phrases , the addition of Luminoso forms a quartet of titles dedicated to introducing more realism to sampled instruments. Performed by Martin and Kate Richardson, two world-class violinists from the Liverpool Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and recorded in Liverpool's famous Parr Street studios, Luminoso: Live Violin Phrases is a 15 GB collection of thousands of live recorded 6-bar looped phrases compressed down to 7 GB using Native Instruments Kontakt's lossless compression technology. Despite recording only two players, the instrument cleverly layers up to 6 different bars in real-time for the effective sound of a 12-piece string section, or if you wish, you can dial it down to the sound of a solo violin.

WHY IT WAS CREATED

Library producer and trailer music composer Dan Graham started out needing a tool that would add realism to his sampled scores on projects that didn't have a budget for live orchestra. In particular, fast runs, arpeggios and simple rhythms remain difficult to get totally convincing even with the best and most expensive collections, and so he set out to create something that could sit well in the mix, based on live phrases for realism, but flexible enough to blend in with any track. 2011's hit library 'Spiritoso: Live Cello Phrases' was the first stage of this plan. Now after a year in development Luminoso extends the principle to violins.





BENEFITS OF LIVE PHRASES

Because the vioinists played the actual patterns you hear, they sound real. They are built from generous 6 bar loops so that no two notes or consecutive bars sound exactly the same - there is natural variation. When you hear slight legato connections between notes it's because that's what he played, not a clever reconstruction of a legato interval using advanced scripting. And with fast rhythms, you are not hearing 5-way round robin performance repetition articulations; you are hearing 6 bars of completely different notes being hit in slightly different ways, flowing smoothly just as they were performed.



FLEXIBILITY

It may seem that triggering pre-recorded patterns may limit your control but there is in fact a surprising degree of flexibility. The tempo will fit your project. The same patterns were recorded at 3 dynamic levels, pp (soft) mf (medium loud) and ff (a bit hair raising), and by controlling this with your mod wheel (or by automating the mod wheel CC1 controller in your host sequencer) you can make the patterns constantly undulate, expressively following the crescendos and diminuendos of your compositions, and you can even use this mod wheel control to accent particular notes and therefore create syncopations and rhythmical emphasis tailored exactly to the needs of the music. As a case in point, with the 'Rhythms' patch you can automate the rhythm-type key switches (e.g. 8ths, 16ths, 8th triplets) in fine detail in your sequencer, and therefore build your own custom rhythm patterns, and finally add accents by automating the mod wheel dynamics.





THE HIDDEN POWER OF THE UNOBTRUSIVE

Whereas some of the patterns might start to sound too recognizable if overused, others are very neutral, for example simply going up and down from root to fifth, or straight rhythms played on one note - that is to say, patterns which will blend unobtrusively within a more complex piece of music, whilst imparting the elusive quality of realism, expressiveness, humanity and live playing which is still missing from other expensive, beautiful, premium orchestral libraries. You may find these 'Up Down' and 'Rhythms' instruments to be the ones you keep going back to.





6 x ROUND ROBIN

These instruments have a 6 x round-robin effect created by randomizing the start point of the 6 bar loops, which greatly helps realism by avoiding machine-gun effects.





REQUIREMENTS

Native Instruments Kontakt version 4.2.4 or above needed. Kontakt's Time Machine 2 algorithm requires it to run entirely in memory. It is recommended therefore that you use this in a 64bit environment with over 4 GB RAM.

Format supported: Kontakt 4 Instruments