Description
String sounds from the dusty past • Unique single-dial “Vintage” control for simple but powerful timewarping • Combined acoustic string section and electric string synth for a wide sound palette • Vintage “Icon” reverb to add gloss and shimmer • Clean, soaring strings or crusty, erratic warbles… you choose!
Vintage Strings is also available as part of a bundle deal with its sister instrument, Vintage Choirs. Visit the Hot Deals Page to grab this neat saving.
Strings have a unique ability to bring warmth and richness to music: there’s something about dozens of individual players melding into one sweeping soundscape that just seems to lift the hearts of the listeners. Of course, not every rock star is in the position to hire the London Philharmonic to score their album; hence the rise of the string synth – which replaces dozens of individual players with dozens of detuned oscillators to approximate the same richness of result. String synths are one of our favourite musical machines – and Vintage Strings is a homage to them.
At its core, Vintage Strings has both acoustic real-world string samples and electric string synth oscillators. You blend the two to your own taste using the Levels controls in the centre of the panel. You’ve also got a fully-functional LFO, control over tube saturation, and a gentle low-pass filter to adjust the tone of your hybrid string section. So far so good.
Where things get more interesting, though, is with the two signature controls: Complexity and Vintage. Complexity dials in further electronic string components, adding two levels of Jupiter 6 supersaw to the initial Logan String Melody II waves for a thicker, warmer sound (which you can take still further by detuning it a little).
Vintage, meanwhile, is an unmissable chunky knob in its own little area, and cranking this changes the whole character of the instrument – from clean and clear through to dusty, crusty and erratic, taking in all manner of battered instability along the way. With Vintage at its minimum, you can use the other controls to sculpt a superb modern string section combining acoustic realism with synth expanse – or stick to one or the other for more precise sounds. But with Vintage at anywhere past the 12 o’clock position, the sound becomes unstable; the clean acoustic string samples are blended with, and then replaced by, vintage tape-based string recordings – while the electronic strings become uneven and compressed and start to lose both high- and low-frequency elements. With Vintage all the way clockwise, the sound is dustily aged and full of crusty oxide, with background crackle and hiss breaking through. It’s pretty awesome.
To put the icing on the cake, we have the Icon Reverb – convolved from our Lexicon PCM70. This adds a wonderful smooth period-appropriate classiness to your string sections, letting them breathe.
Vintage Strings is ideal for dialling up a suitably aged string sound to complement a particular era of music – great if you want strings in the background of your Motown track, for example – or for creating entirely unique string-synth patches which don’t mimic existing instruments but nevertheless sound authentically historic. (If you want to get strings that sound like a Chamberlin, Mellotron or Optigan, but have greater playability or a more defined sound, this may be for you.) Above all it’s intended to be inspiring and easy to use: you can twist a few dials and get something cool, or just hit the Glitch randomisation button and see what the machine throws your way. And all without having to even lift a conductor’s baton 🙂
JAMES (verified owner) –
Wonderfully complex atmosphere machine! I love the samples and all the tweaking options. The glitch button is always a source of delight but this is like getting a new Mellotron with each press of the button. The Lexicon reverb adds even more to the party. I wish this option was available in other libraries. Easily GUI accessible reverb adds so much to RR’s creative and complex sound sources.
The Professor –
We agree, and are adding the Icon Reverb to pretty much all our new instruments because it sounds so good. Not sure if or when we’d be able to get round to retrofitting it to older machines, but definitely expect to see more of it in the future 🙂
aqaraza (verified owner) –
Vintage Strings has a surprisingly wide range when you put it through its paces. Even more so than Choirs, Vintage Strings conjures up a complex weather system of sonic possibilities, the harmonics between the sampled string chords allowing for a surprising and organic depth. On its own, this instrument could carry delicate passages in the midst of a complex piece. Layered with other instruments, Vintage Strings promises to bring an undefinable but richly harmonic variability. The GLITCH button is as useful and crucial as in any other RR instrument endowed with it. If anything I would give Strings a slight edge over Choirs, but both are tremendous and go wonderfully together.
Lee (verified owner) –
Great addition to the RR library. Simple interface but a lot of control. Hitting the glitch button works wonders.
Poesque (verified owner) –
I am strung out on retro. Give me more!
bladesguy (verified owner) –
First off, I can’t say enough about how much I love Rhythmic Robot! They embrace creativity, customer service & conscientiousness. Now about Vintage Strings… Instant ideas flowing from this very useful instrument. I had not messed with it 5 mins b4 getting a really cool snapshot. Vintage Strings is dripping with vintage mojo, yet I think useful in many contexts. Thanks Professor & Mongo!
michael.topic (verified owner) –
For me, this is a real time saver. I like to blend the sound of string machines or synthetic string pads with sampled strings. It gives the strings a nice sheen and transient, when bowing. Much of the music I make has a 70s or 80s feel to it, so this string sound set is ideal. It saves me opening up several tracks and putting different string-like instruments on them, playing in unison or in octaves. I like how the Vintage knob gives just enough movement to the samples to keep them sonically interesting. The Lexicon reverb impulse responses are very nice on strings too. The best features (in my opinion) are that it saves having to replicate all of this with separate instruments and plug ins and the overall impression of the finished sounds is beautifully redolent of an earlier era. Just the ticket.