Emotional Violin

by Harmonic Subtones
Kontakt Instrument

Quickstart
MANUAL 1.0.0

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 Epilogue

HARMONIC SUBTONES or:

THE UNUSUAL ASPECTS OF A USUAL SUSPECT

While we were looking at the harmonic highs and the subtonical lows of sample libraries in our daily
work-life as composers, we realized that there aren´t any solostrings available that were inspiring,
easy to play and eventually convincing - even after an immense amount of deep forensic
programming. After tweaking plenty other commercial library patches to our personal liking, we
thought: „why not record solostrings ourselves?“

That was the spark that led to our first sample library, the highly aclaimed EMOTIONAL CELLO.

After so many positive reviews we couldn’ wait to start our next journey, the EMOTIONAL VIOLIN.
Unfortunately we had to learn the hard way: the Violin is a different beast.

To push the boundaries even further and improve what we´ve learned so far from the EMOTIONAL
CELLO we had to rewrite the Kontakt script from scratch and recorded at least three times as many
samples as we did for the EMOTIONAL CELLO. We also didn’t change our concept, to capture the
emotional expression of the player by recording everything in a musical context. We recorded the
violin in a romantic setting with delicate vibrato and a full-bodied sound and also in a more modern
context with an intimate sound, with less vibrato and lower dynamics.

Now after hundreds of hours of recording, editing, revision and optimizing we present you a very
comprehensive virtual instrument, that can be played with ease - out of the box - and also be
tweaked when digging deeper into its features. It can cover a variety of musical styles and a broad
range of musical settings and tempos.

And most important it has that unique, one-of-a-kind, harmonic-subtones-attitude.

Be inspired!

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 The library structure:
The Emotional Violin Library consists of 3 true legato masterpatches with 25 articulation keyswitches and 18 ornament
- articulations. The masterpatches cover the main range of articulations. The complete library covers more than 50
different articulations and variations.

Masterpatches:

Emotional Violin a romantic tone and vibrato,

legato speed is automatically adjusted to playing speed

Intimate Violin a more intimate tone, less vibrato, softer dynamics

legato speed is automatically adjusted to playing speed

Emotional Violin Manual Legato Speed

a romantic tone and vibrato,

legato speed can be manually adjusted

Individuals:

Beside the masterpatches we also offer the „Individuals“ patches.

These are keyswitch patches with different articulations from the same category

like Sustains, Shorts, Trills ....

While the masterpatches are the workhorses, giving you instant access to almost every playing style that you might
expect from a violin performance, single patches offer a more straight forward approach which lets you select specific
articulations at a time.

These patches don´t offer legato articulations. Some of these articulations are part of the masterpatches, but there is also
many additional articulations to discover.

Tip: If you disable an articulation from the masterpatch the unused samples will also be purged from your RAM.



Specials:

The „Specials“ - patches contain unusual articulations and effects.

Among them a room-tone patch with the noise floor generated by the player sitting in the room.

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 The Main GUI Page - A Quickstart:

The masterpatches contain the main articulations combined in one patch.

TIP: Every control on the GUI can be assigned to a specific Midi CC via midi-learn.

Choose an 

articulation by
pressing the 
 Choose an ornament -
assigned keyswitch articulation by 

or by clicking on holding the assigned
the name keyswitch while 

playing a note.

Click to assign
your custom
keyswitch key via
MIDI - learn

Click to assign
your custom
keyswitch key via
MIDI - learn

Unload/load 

articulations and Displays the
purge/unpurge currently used
the respective articulation and
samples Unload/load 

legato style
articulations and
purge/unpurge
the respective
samples

Set your velocity splitpoint

value for bowchange 
 Set your desired
Set your velocity Volume & Crossfade dynamic range
legato above the actual control with CC1.
splitpoint value for shown number
portamento below
the actual shown
number

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 The FX Page:

Room ON / OFF
switch
Sordino Timbre
ON/OFF

Select a room type

and control the
Choose your intensity
prefered timbre

Timbre ON / OFF
Reverb ON / OFF
switch
switch

Equalizer ON/OFF
switch

Select reverb type

and control the
intensity

15 available timbres:
 9 available room types: 5 available reverb types:

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 Add additional attack to a non legato layer. 



The state will be preserved when switching to a
different articulation. Adjust the volume of the attack notes

Choose a

micro-tuning
Preset

Set micro-
Legato speed tuning
automation 

amount in %
ON/OFF
Poly legato
ON/OFF

Monophonic
when turned off Define your
own micro-

tuning

Choose
portamento speed

left: slow 
 Set your pitchbend
right: fast range from 

microtuning to 

wholetone step
Set legato speed, when
„Auto Mode“ is off

Control the
portamento volume

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Detailed Information:
Masterpatches:
THE EMOTIONAL Violin / Intimate Violin

The masterpatch contains the main articulations combined in one patch.

These articulations can be selected with keyswitches or by clicking on
their articulation names.

There are two types of articulations :

1.Shorts ( from G#-1 to B-0)

2. True legato (C0 – G#1)

Unload / Load articulations by clicking the „On“ the button beside the 

keyswitch key and name.

Customize the keyswitch key by clicking on the assigned note name. A

„Learn“ sign will appear and as soon as you press the desired key it will be
applied. If a key is already in use, the previous asignment will be deleted.

The Load/Unload and MIDI-Learn functions work the same way for the 

Ornament - MKS keyswitches.

The Ornament - MKS:

The ornament keyswitches are momentary keyswitches (MKS) that trigger

a new articulation as long as the keyswitch is kept pressed.


Possible uses for momentary keyswitches:

- blending into another articulation (like Trills, Tremolos....)

- leading to different endings ( like soft end, crescendo end....)
- rebowing a sustain
- crossfade to vibrato
- crossfade to effects (rise, fall, harmonic short......)

There are two ways to use it:

1.) When pressing a MKS-key after you have played a note in the 

instrument range, it will crossfade to another articulation. When releasing
the MKS, it will crossfade back to the original articulation 



2.) Press the MKS before you play a note in the instrument range. It starts
with the MKS-articulation and crossfades to the main articulation when
being released. (e.g. start with tremolo sfz-MKs and crossfade to a normal
sustain)

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The Legato Mode:

In legato mode the script will automatically detect if you play legato or not. It chooses starting notes 

(originally played non legato) when playing non legato.

It chooses legato transition notes and innerphrase sustains when playing legato.
All legato notes of the KSW C0-G#1 are connected with transition notes.

The legato articulations have 3 different legato transition types :

1. Bowchange legato: Two notes were played legato by changing the bow direction while moving from
the first note to the second.
2. Finger legato: Two notes were played legato by putting on / or releasing one finger on the fretboard
while moving from the first note to the second.
3. Portamento: Two notes were played legato by sliding the finger up or down from the first note to the
second.

The different legato styles are controlled through velocity when playing legato:

High velocity triggers bowchange legato

Middle velocity triggers finger legato

Low velocity triggers portamento

The trigger switch point can be set with the faders in the transition velocity window on the bottom left and right
side of the user interface:

Play portamento Play bowchange legato

Play finger legato between... below ... (e.g. 93)
below ... (e.g. 18)

Portamento Velocity : sets the highest velocity value of the portamento range fom 0 – your choice.
(The lowest velocity value for the finger legato range is defined by this choice.)

Bowchange Velocity: sets the lowest velocity value of the bow change range from your choice to 127.
(The highest velocity value for the finger legato range is defined by this choice.)

Tip:
you can deactivate any legato transition type by changing the velocity ranges in these two windows:

- Portamento only: move the Portamento Velocity slider to 127

- Finger Legato (F.L.) only: set Portamento Velocity to 0 and Bow change Velocity to 127
- Bow Change Legato only: move the bow change velocity slider to 0

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Legato Speed: (legato transition speed)
On the Expert Page of the GUI you can control the transition speed.

This section controls the bow

change legato and finger legato

This section controls the portamento

speed

Set the portamento transition volume

with this knob.

There are two options:

- legato trimming: this affects the bow change speed - and finger legato

- Portamento trimming: this affects portamento only

Moving the slider to the left the legato speed gets slower

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 Legato Trimming also offers additional options:

Manual:
the legato speed is determined
only by the manual setting of
the speed slider.

Auto Mode: the script will 


adapt to your playing speed. 

When playing faster the legato
will automatically get faster.

There is an option to switch between polyphonic legato and monophonic legato.

In polyphonic legato the script detects polyphonic playing (with more than one voice) and will intelligently use
the most logical voiceleading within. It requires very accurate legato playing for the script to detect what is
chordal playing and what is single note playing.
You can turn polyphonic legato OFF. Only one note is played at a time. It´s the best solution for melody lines

Poly legato
ON/OFF

Monophonic
when turned
off

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The articulation status monitor shows the current articulation. It will also show which legato transition is
used while playing. This control is for monitoring purpose only.

Status of the articulation

that is currently playing or
the legato-type that is
used

The XFade knob works as instrument volume control. In case of articulations that contain different dynamic
layers it also works as crossfade control.
With the Dynamic Range Knob you can adjust the amount of volume - increase for the instrument.

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The Attack Mode Area:
The attack mode area allows you to add an additional attack with multiple round robins.

With this volume control you can adjust the

attack note volume

With the Attack feature you can add an individual attack articulation
to every sustained articulation when played non-legato. Attack will
automatically be set to “Attack Off” if you switch to a “short”
articulation.

There are different attack types available:

The attack type chosen will be stored for the specific articulation. It
can be defined for each legato articulation.

This feature layers attack samples on sustains articulations. By default, it is set to „attack mode on“, featuring
special treatment for the attack of the following sustains to avoid phasing. Disabeling the attack mode in such
cases might cause strange behaviour.

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The FX Page

The Sordino Impulse Response:

The sordino impulse is an EQ snapshot that simulates a sordino
effect.

The Timbre Impulse Response :

The timbre impulse response is like a mastering EQ snapshot but

can also contain room information.

Timbre impulse can be turned off for the pure sound.

Although it is possible to use Timbre Impulse together with the

Sordino Impulse, it is not recommended.

It can change the overall sound drastically.

The following timbres are available:

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 The Room FX:


Different room impulse responses are available

These rooms can be selected with the type drop down menu. 

With Send you can adjust the room amount to your liking.

The Reverb FX:

You can choose between a variety of reverb impulse responses.

Presets can be selected via the type menu. With Send you can
adjust the amount of the effect to your liking.

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Microtuning

In the micro-tuning section you can adjust detuning amount for

each note of the scale by moving the bars up and downwards.

Micro-tuning is a fixed setting, and cannot be changed 


while playing. Therefore we offer the intonation control via
pitchbend, which works in realtime.

Tip:

If you use stronger detunings you can set an offset via the
amount knob. If you assign a controller to the amount knob you
can change the extent of the microtuning within a phrase from
note to note.

Intonation control via pitchbend

Pitch Bend Sensitivity:

you can define the range of the pitch wheel with this slider.
Setting the slider to its highest value is offering a whole tone
pitchbend.

Tip:

The idea is to use the pitch wheel for micro-tuning and intonation purposes. Therefore the range of the
pitchbend is limited to a maximum of a whole-step. When the slider is set to the middle or lower you have subtle
distinctions for the intonation via pitchbend.

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 List of „Individuals“ Patches
02 INDIVIDUALS

Violin Sustain Standard contains 11 different sustain articulations

contains 8 different special sustain articulations:

Violin Sustain Special
Flautando, Morbid, Harmonics, Sulponticello, Sul G,
Undulating

contain 13 different short articulations

Violin Shorts Paganini Shorts, Spiccato Fast, Short & Long,

Marcato, Ricochet, Rota Spiccato, 8th & Quarter
Notes, Dramatic Marcato, Dramatic 8th.

contain 5 differnt pizzicato articulations:

Violin Pizzicato
Normal Pizz, Snap, Paganini Pizz, Hammer On, Ancient
Ethnic Pizz

contains 6 different tremolo articulations:

Violin Tremolos
Tremolo, Tremolo cresc. Tremolo sfz, Tremolo Sulponti,
Tremolo Sulponti Cresc, Tremolo Sulponti sfz

contains 12 different articulations:

Violin Trills
Trills Major & Minor: Long, Accelerando, Hook Trills
Long, Medium, Short & „Prall-Triller“

contains 12 different espressivo articulations:

Violin Soft Padding Expressivos
Progressive vibratos, Dynamics,Swells etc.

Contains prerecorded Major, Minor, Dominant7 &

Violin Double Stopped Chords VSW Diminished Chords in Non vibrato & vibrato via
Velocityswitch

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 List of „Special“ Patches
03 SPECIALS

Violin Morbid a very fragile sustain

Violin Ancient Ethnic Pizz a dirty pizzicato

Violin Indiarabic VSW from normal to a bending note by velocity switch

Violin Harmonic Glissando FX Flageolet Glissando

Very long sustains, that changes its colour and tone

Violin Undulation Wait!
constantely

all kind of rhythmic sounds: knocking, beating,

Violin Percussives scratching, with and without bow, Piazolla scratch,
chops,

the original noisefloor of the studio with the player

ROOM Tone With Human Being
inside

Thank you for using Emotional Violin and enjoy!

The Harmonic Subtones Team

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