Slow "attack" times on strings?

EricFoote

I just got the BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover and I've been playing around with it, and I'm noticing that when I use the "long" articulation on any of the string sounds (particularly the violins), it takes a fraction of a beat for the notes to get up to full volume. It sounds fine for longer notes, but for any faster sections the notes are basically inaudible. I tried using the "short" articulation but it doesn't sound quite the way I want it to, because I don't want the notes to be staccato. Is there any way to fix this? I already tried cranking up the velocity, and it still seems to happen even if the velocity is all the way at 100%

Doc Bob

The delay you describe of up to a quarter note is not normal IMHO. The delay I experience in Reaper is more like 25 to 50 msec. So perhaps there is a DAW problem as you suggest. You can download a trial copy of Reaper and see if it is an improvement. Or others using PreSonus can chime in here,

TomCox

Another thing you can try, is to find a Core or Pro template, to get approximated legato strings techniques in Discover. I did that before I updated to Pro, with a Core Reaper template. It works pretty well. There is a buried tech note about it somewhere on the forums/support.

Found it. Here is the link to the support article:

https://spitfireaudio.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010334698

superkons

That is how real players perform on strings, they do not achieve a full volume instantaneously, unless playing marcato, which gives a much sharper attack. One thing you could do is layering both shorts and long together, alternatively set a pre-delay in your MIDI track to a value that results in the strings sounding like they have a stronger attack

Doc Bob

Another method is to set the track playback delay to a negative number, e.g -25 msec. Every DAW has it, called different things and put in various controls, so you’ll have to look at the DAW manual or forum. In REAPER it is under the “routing” button, “media playback offset”

Doc Bob

EricFoote

I guess maybe I wasn't clear what I was trying to do-- really all I want is to be able to write string parts that aren't just whole notes and half notes and have them still be audible. And also not to have a noticeable "gap" between notes. Because it's not just a few milliseconds, it's more like an eighth-note or even quarter-note long delay before a note gets up to full volume.

This might be a PreSonus issue (that's the DAW I'm using) and not necessarily a library issue, because I have the same thing happen when I use PreSonus' built-in string sounds.