Miracles happen. UPS managed to get a package to my door despite the fact that the shipping label had been torn completely off. And inside that package was a string library for GigaStudio that managed to make grumpy old me giggle like a little girl.

Ever since Giga-technology redefined sampling, symphonic libraries have themselves transformed. They’re huge now, getting bigger every day. Sonic Implants Symphonic Strings weighs in at a hefty twenty CDs, packed with the most used articulations, bowings, and effects used in symphonic music.

The mastermind behind the Sonic Implants product line is Jennifer Hruska, perhaps best known to industry folks as one of the dynamo sound designers behind some of Kurzweil's most praised products. After a nine-year stint there, Jennifer founded her own company; and after rolling a couple of other family-run businesses together, the combined effort emerged as the present Sonic Network--the parent company of Sonic Implants. Until recently, Sonic Implants was probably best known for its reasonably priced and top notch Soundfonts. Expanding both titles and formats, Sonic Implants is rapidly branching into the pro-sampler market, as well as licensing sounds and technology to the corporate and manufacturing sector.

The CDs are cleverly displayed in a retro-LP box like the classic orchestral volumes of vinyl days (just saying this makes me feel a little classic myself). Voluminous size is only part of the charm. The players are some of Boston's finest, and the recordings are top notch (the engineers, Antonio Oliart and John Bono, are highly pedigreed in orchestral recording circles) It was recorded at Sonic Temple Studios in Roslindale, Massachusetts, a nice woody meeting hall turned soundstage. The recording gear was all top shelf. B & K, Shoeps, and Neumann mics coupled with Benchmark preamps deliver a slick and polished sound. The room is heard to nice effect while still maintaining an intimate and transparent sound across all the dynamic ranges.

I spoke to Jennifer about the recording techniques used. She pointed out that one interesting aspect of the process was recording sections in their relative orchestral placement, with a fixed conductor-perspective array and overhead spot mics. "We even set up chairs to help define spacing, and draped blankets over them to emulate warm bodies between the source and the room mics," Jennifer explained. "We wanted to give an impression of the space, but with enough intimacy to be useful in a variety of contexts." The subsequent mix process delivered up a pre-panned image of each section, which faithfully reproduces the section's footprint (and "presence print") in the overall orchestral plot.

"This was the most challenging session I've ever run," Jennifer added. "We were spending a lot of money on players, gear, engineers, and the facility itself, and we had to be sure we were getting what we needed. We'd bring the previous sessions' rough mixes back into the studio daily, to make sure we were getting a good relationship between the sections. "

"One funny thing we learned was to schedule the loud stuff after lunch. The players would go out every day and eat a big lunch, and when we'd get started up afterwards, we were hearing lots of stomachs rumbling."

The things they don't teach you in school, eh?

So How Does it Sound?

Jennifer recommended loading up the various Ensemble presets first, to get my hands wrapped around the sounds. This was good advice. Much like the various "strings" patches on your favorite multitimbral hardware synth, these are full range compilations of the full string section, designed to get you playing and knocking out ideas quickly. Unlike the strings patches on your favorite dino-synth, these are impressive. I loaded up the pizzicato ensemble first, and was greeted with a very spacious and full-bodied multisample across the board, topped by a super-aggressive fingerboard "snap." The dynamic range is extreme...from a barely audible plink to a fingerboard snap that probably left a mark, but very controllable while playing. So far so good.

Next I tried out the legato ensemble, and here again, I got a very playable and controllable full-range string section. Nothing generic about this sound--I could easily pick out the individual players in the soundfield, thanks to the compact section sizes. There's a nice balance struck here--just enough players to get a full section sound, but no so many that the resulting samples become too chorusy and diffuse.

During my maiden voyage, I was struck over and over by the combination of spaciousness and intimacy. Again, a nice balance struck. Tutti orchestra passages fill out into a nice soundstage, while thinner and gentler passages will recede into a more compact image. Even at fortissimo levels, there’s a good transparency to the sound. Other instruments can break through it and claim their own space.

Playing the ensemble presets is interesting on many levels. It’s nice to hear the image of a chord break out across the soundstage, so that even in the rough-out stages of composition you’re hearing a fair approximation of your end result. Of course, the downside of this is that a given melodic thread can unintentionally jump from section to section as you cross the “breaks.” As a springboard for knocking out very quick sketches, they’re very good and have enough depth in some applications to stand as completed work.

Lest you worry too much about the built in panning, the sections respond fairly well to a couple of techniques. The purest approach I found was flipping the channels on the resulting track, which exactly reverses the image. You can easily do this within GigaStudio's DSP station channel strips, since each channel of the stereo sample has its own independent panner. You can also constrict or nudge the image by experimenting with other fader positions. In general, the images hold up well no matter where you place them, although the ideal use of this library seems to be using the built-in image or its mirror. I didn't find this to be a restriction at all, and in fact, I have yet to alter the panning except to experiment with it for this article. I'm not so hung up on my own special formula, I guess. It sounds good to me just where it is.

One thing to note--if you want to dry up the sound just a bit (although it's not overly wet), you can work in mono, favoring the channel where the section is imaged on the soundstage. It will sound drier than its opposite channel. Alternately, using only the “wetter” side of the stereo signal as a panned mono representation would give you, in essence, a more distant-sounding mono image of a given section. These “mono tricks” can really help you blend disparate libraries together, so it’s always worth trying.

It's the Playability

Playability at the keyboard is this library's strong suit, and here you will note the design ethic that Hruska pursued at Kurzweil is very much alive at Sonic Implants.

"You have to be able to sit and actually play," Jennifer said. "Our goal throughout the process was to focus on creating instruments more than just samples. A busy composer needs to be able to sit down and knock out a part that works, right from the keyboard."

I like the section sizes. For lack of a better analogy, a smaller section feels a bit quicker on its feet. While there is plenty of controller-driven expression available, the emphasis is clearly focused on getting the maximum expression from the keyboard itself. For instance, the legato bowings become progressively more aggressive as you dig into the keys, such that you can often execute a quick passage without invoking another bowing. There’s some nice behavioral design in the layers themselves. In ways, this becomes a different take on the Miroslav mantra of “no dead notes.” Here, the concept is a little more smoothly implemented, thanks to fewer bandwidth constraints.

Every individual sample is a little klangfarbenmelodie unto itself. There’s the typical caveat that a given note might wander from your intention of the moment, but here’s another little nod to Jennifer’s design experience. They don’t wander often. The motion is definitely there, but subtly enough to give you some control. I have no idea if Jennifer has ever read Philip Farkas’s “The Art of Musicianship,” but the samples tend towards those same principles. Pianissimo and piano-force keyboard velocities are hushed and static throughout the choir. The mezzo piano becomes a bit insistent, the mezzo forte the same. Not too exaggerated, but taking you somewhere. As you move into the forte and fortissimo the attacks become more aggressive and the vibrato and general tonality begin to roughen up. The top level in most instruments has a ferocious attack, and a full, blocky sustain.

In general, I found myself improvising a lot at the keyboard and polishing less than I’d expect. I'd just jam away on the ensemble patches, then separate the parts out by section. Or not...the ensembles are pretty well crafted, and for a down and dirty part, you might well be done in one pass. But whatever the methodology, the behavioral programming itself is very smart and musically vetted. Maybe another way to say this is that the tactile sensibilities seem to have been high on the list of design goals. Whatever the design intent, the result is a set of instruments that feels good and behaves predictably under your hands. And if you are a player with good hands and ears, you’ll be able to take a part most of the way there directly from the keyboard.

Tweakers, don’t freak. When you're through roughing out, the super-packed single instruments will let you get into the details. The aforementioned controller-driven crossfades, bowing-switches, layers, etc., are there and waiting. Planned updates will roll out new features. The first, according to fellow Kurzweil alumnus turned Implant-er, David Fox, may well be out when this article hits the airwaves. “We’re adding open tone functionality to all existing presets in the Symphonic String Collection. Utilizing a dimension switch, these open string tones can be easily activated on the fly during a performance or sequence. This update will be done via GigaSampler/Studio articulation files”

Conclusions

All in all, this is a gorgeous sounding and easy-to-use string library with a lot of depth and soul. One thing I particularly like about it is its ability to be very small and intimate, yet hold vast amounts of power in reserve. A set of recordings like this is priceless, so one certainly cannot argue with the value. It’s easy to forget that old Kurzweil expander modules of days gone by cost three times this much, and compared to this...well, sucked. Everyone I’ve met at Sonic Implants has been smart, friendly, open, and helpful. Sonic Implants Symphonic String Collection is an investment grade sample library that sounds fantastic, and is as easy on the hands as on the ears. That’s no small feat.