How To Make Virtual Instruments Sound More Realistic

Short answer: Think like an instrumental player.

This is just a thought I had as I was tweaking a string part I’d written for a new piece.

Sampled, sequenced strings sound fake when they’re ‘perfect’. I’ve already written about introducing imperfection to humanise an instrumental part. In order to make an acoustic (or even electro-acoustic) part sound more human, you have to make it less ‘perfect’. Less precise.

Because human beings aren’t perfect. Even the best ones aren’t as precise as computers. In fact, I don’t think they want to be. When we talk about a perfect performance, we don’t mean that every single note was bang dead center precise tuning, that the tempo was precisely, exactly the same the whole way through, or the same between two different performances.

But also, I realised that the psychology of the different sections was as important to consider too.

The placement of instruments, the number of them, how exposed and on display they feel as they play to the audience… is worth considering.

As a violinist, you’re in amongst probably 20+ or so other violinists, and maybe 40 or so string players. Unless you’re the leader, you’re a follower! You’re one in a crowd that needs to move together, but because of this you won’t want to be the first to make that move. Violinists tend to be a little shyer at the beginning of entries than, say, an oboe soloist. And there is no way that every single string player in a section will move at the precise moment as any other violinist, so there’s a bit of ‘fudging’ on the crossover from one note to the next. Blurring. Orchestral string players are notoriously bad at counting rests too, especially groups of whole-bar rests, because they rarely get any (rests, that is 😉 )

So, to put this into practice:

• Give each section at least 2 or 3 track instruments, preferably different styles of playing/ensemble size/library.
• Fade in slightly with volume or expression automation at the beginning of entries. Doesn’t have to be much. Fade in different parts of the section at different rates. Even delay one or two by a fraction of a second.

Also violinists LOVE getting the tune. Second violins, who rarely get the melody and are quite bitter about this, will nonetheless love a bit of countermelody.

In practice: Bring out the melody big style. Volume up! Overlay a soloist patch and bring this up in the mix to get the feeling that the leader is really giving it some. Do the same for the seconds when they get their little moment of countermelody glory.

Viola players. Ah, what to say about these poor guys. They get the melody or anything of interest even less than the second violins. Bitter does not even begin to describe the depths of melancholy these chaps must feel.

In practice: You can let their musical entries be a bit more brutal, pushy even. They’ve got meaty instruments: even though lacking a little in warmth and nuance, they more than make up for it in bite and argumentativity.

Ah, cellists. They’ve got the loveliest instruments and they know it. They don’t need to work so hard either, as cellos are big and so loud with very little effort too. They’re pretty laid back too maybe because of these reasons.

So, in practice:  you can fudge the crossover of their notes even more, though like the violin section, the leader must be bang on – your soloist patch can reflect this.

And finally, the double basses. Bassists tend to be the most chilled out, in my experience. They didn’t pick their instruments to play melodies. No ego-tripping here. There are fewer of them and usually they’re just doubling the cellists at pitch or down the octave. Double basses are humungous instruments and require very little effort to make a whacking great sound.

In practice: Don’t worry about these chaps. Keep them down in the mix unless you’re going for some funky effect. For standard orchestral writing, they really don’t need a lot of extra work, especially if you’ve put into action all the above points for the other sections. There’s between one and four of them, so they’re slightly more exposed, so they have a tendency to be more precise.

So that’s just the strings.

I could go onto to the other orchestral sections but it would be more guesswork. I’ve played in orchestras as a violinist so have more of a view from the trenches on the string side.

As the most sizeable section of the orchestra, however, getting your strings sounding more realistic, more human, is way more than half the battle of creating an overall acoustically convincing sound, and worth a little bit of extra time and thought.