Cremona Quartet – A Collection Of Four Revered Stringed Instruments

e-instruments, the company known for popular Kontakt based instruments such as Session Horns, Session Strings, and Session Keys, is expanding the history-making Stradivari Violin Kontakt instrument with their new Cremona Quartet. 

The Quartet features four solo instruments; Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello. The instruments were created by meticulously recording a Stradivari Violin, Guarneri Violin, Amati Viola and Stradivari Cello.

When the Museo del Violino (the guardians of the Stradivari collection) wanted to find a way to capture and preserve the tone and playability of their priceless collection of instruments they turned to e-instruments. The team at e-instruments is known for approaching the creation of modern digital instruments with the same craftsmanship and attention to detail as the luthiers who first created these world-famous violins.

The collaboration has been a perfect fit with the painstaking process garnering the attention of the worldwide press when the recording took place in January 2019. Pristine sampling and innovative technologies mean the unparalleled recreation of four historic instruments that have to be played to be believed. 

Features At A Glance

• Four Solo Instruments; Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello
• Smart fingerboard positioning
• Multi-channel, stereo phase-aligned dynamic layers
• Mix between close, mid and far mic positions
• Additional room noise control
• Performance-captured vibrato emulates human vibrato technique
• 20 Professionally played articulations
• Including up to 3 legato transitions per articulation
• Virtuoso articulation combines multiple playing techniques without the need for key switching
• Native Instruments NKS compatible 

STRADIVARI VIOLIN – ‘VESUVIUS’ 

Born around 1644, household name Antonio Stradivari is the most famous luthier in the history of violin making. His innovations in proportion and shape set trends that continue to influence the craft today. His ‘Vesuvius’ violin, the leader of our CREMONA QUARTET, was built in 1727 towards the end of the master craftsman’s golden period.

STRADIVARI CELLO – ‘STAUFFER’ 

Though best known for violin making, Stradivari also made other stringed instruments. His ‘Stauffer’ cello, built in 1700, is listed as an Italian national treasure. Completing the quartet with luscious deep tones, it adds weight to the overall sound of the ensemble.

GUARNERI VIOLIN – ‘PRINCE DORIA’ –  

Stradivari may be the world’s most famous violin maker, but many of the world’s most prominent players and composers consider Guarneri del Gesù to be the best. The second violin in the quartet is his ‘Prince Doria’, built-in 1734.

AMATI VIOLA – ‘STAUFFER’ 

A pioneering luthier, Andrea Amati is widely regarded as the inventor of the violin as we know it. His son Gerolamo continued this tradition in the family workshop in Cremona, and built the quartet’s oldest instrument, the ‘Stauffer’ viola, in 1614.

The collection was recorded in the heart of Cremona, the birthplace of Stradivari and the very auditorium designed to hear them at their best, the Auditorium Giovanno Arvedi. The meticulous recreation of these iconic instruments makes playing the collection a reality, in more ways than one. Not only does the high-quality sample content preserve the sound of these revered instruments for future generations, but also packs the mastery of this historic collection into a set of powerful instruments for modern composers.

The project brought new technical challenges to the e-instruments team who wanted to ensure that this recreation would be free of compromise both in terms of sound and playability. The collection features new technologies such as;

Multi-channel, Stereo phase alignment – Every single note of each instrument has been painstakingly sampled at different dynamics and phase-aligned in stereo across multiple microphones. This ensures that all dynamic transitions are free from any phasing artefacts and dynamic changes over long legato transitions, from the softest pianissimo to the most forceful fortissimo, are indistinguishable from that of the real thing.

Performance Captured Vibrato – The e-instruments innovation of performance captured vibrato takes the recording of a professional player’s vibrato technique, then reapplies the behaviour of the vibrato parameters to the sample, allowing you to automate or control in real-time, resulting in full and realistic control for an expressive and natural sound.

About e-instruments

Based in Hamburg, Germany, e-instruments creates innovative, easy-to-use virtual instruments allowing musicians to focus on what’s most important – the music. Other products include the highly successful Session Horns (Pro), Session Strings (Pro) and Session Keys instruments.

The company’s mission is to combine acoustic accuracy, outstanding sound quality, and an intuitive user interface in developing virtual instruments for all musicians and genres; capturing the clarity, warmth, and soul of real instruments for real musicians.

Pricing and Availability

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Cremona Quartet is available from Oct, 1st 2020. Price 399€ / $399 Full Version or 199 € / $199 Upgrade from Stradivari Violin.

Cory’s Library Spotlight – Session Strings Pro 2 by e-instruments

SESSION STRINGS PRO 2 includes 26 articulations, including legato, portamento, and glissando as well as multiple crescendi, trills, scoops, falls, and glissandi. Add realistic, nuanced expression to your string arrangement by drawing from a vast array of playing articulations.

Session Strings Pro 2 Features

• Mid-sized contemporary strings
• Two separate seating positions: Modern and Traditional
• Up to 8 Violins, 6 Violas, 4 Celli, 4 Basses
• Ensemble and individual instrument groups patches
• Smart Chord to create fully orchestrated string chords from single keys or pads
• Smart Voice split to allocate chord notes automatically to the correct instrument group
• Phrase Animator with 180 flexible string arrangements
• Fully editable Rhythm Animator with 264 patterns
• Mixer page to set volumes, effects and processing of individual instrument groups
• Color master effect with 51 unique convolution based multi effects
• Native Instruments NKS compatible
• Size: 38 GB / 49 GB (lossless sample compression)
• 24 bit, 44.1 kHz
• Kontakt instrument – requires free Kontakt 5 Player or Kontakt 5 Version 5.8.0 or higher
• System Requirements:
  • Windows 7, 8 or 10 (latest Service Pack, 32/64-bit) Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2, 6 GB RAM
  • Mac OS X 10.11, 10.12 or 10.13 (latest update), i5, 6 GB RAM
  • An Internet connection and a graphics card that supports OpenGL 2.1 or higher are required to download and activate this product. Once installed and activated, the product can be used offline.

FOG BANK DRONES FREE Lockdown Sounds

Stephen Gallagher is a composer and music editor. Stephen works in film, television and other media and is based at Park Road Post Production in Wellington, New Zealand. His credits include Lord of the Rings, District 9, King Kong and many others. 

Availability

During the current COVID-19 lockdown, Stephen decided to make some simple libraries and give them away for FREE as his gift to the music creation community. e-instruments offered to share them with the world on his behalf.