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Hi,

My question is pretty simple.
How does one go about adding strings into his track?
I absolutely love piano and violin strings in my tracks but the violin seems pretty hard to do considering I have no musical background whatsoever.
Anyone got some great tips on how to add some lovely melodic strings that feed the emotion in your track?

Cubicle wrote:Anyone got some great tips on how to add some lovely melodic strings that feed the emotion in your track?

Cubicle wrote:I have no musical background whatsoever.

.... sorry mate for being a dick, but no. Study music.

When you have a more polyphonic instrument, you can make good use of chord structures and layering different keys on different octaves.

If that doesn't make any sense then yeah... Study some music theory .

I don't have any knowledge on chord progressions, but if I did I'd try to help.

Wastepost

do some crate diggin'
flip some string samples
Grope in the dark for accompaniment lines on some instrument you like.

Are you in need of string sounds? or Chord Progression ideas?

they want "tips on how to add some lovely melodic strings that feed the emotion in your track"

without any musical background to support the tips i'd normally discuss.... so,

flip that "poignant string melody" sample and crank the emotional feedback knob.

I'm in need of Chord Progression ideas basically, just to add that touch of emotion, preferably mellow but I seem to to have hit a brick wall.

If you means sounds then they are some already preset sounds within reason that are strings that you can tweak to your liking. Good thing to do would be add reverb accordingly and to taste and also add a choir with the strings, gives a more epic feel.

Also if you mean musically how to intergrate strings into your track then play simple faily long chords around the middle to higher tier notes. Unless you want WAR type shit then play the strings LOW LOW.

Thats the best I can advise with what you asked for, more detail would be helpful though man in what you mean.

Hope this helps

Perfecture wrote:If you means sounds then they are some already preset sounds within reason that are strings that you can tweak to your liking. Good thing to do would be add reverb accordingly and to taste and also add a choir with the strings, gives a more epic feel.

Also if you mean musically how to intergrate strings into your track then play simple faily long chords around the middle to higher tier notes. Unless you want WAR type shit then play the strings LOW LOW.

Thats the best I can advise with what you asked for, more detail would be helpful though man in what you mean.

Hope this helps

Cheers mate, basically what you said was what I kind of needed!

I find once you have a strings patch up and you start playing you will find it fairly easy to come up with ideas. Also if the strings are going to be in the background to add atmosphere then the melody does not need to be complex at all. But if the strings are the focal point of the tune then melody will be more key. Also if you can't thing of chords out right, then play a sequence of a single note melodies you like, then once you have lets say a standard 4 note melody pattern, build it into chords built around the root notes of the note progression

Yeah, making a simple monophonic melody first, then adding notes to form chords around it is definitely the simplest way. If you're struggling in terms of music theory then this might help you in determining what notes work. An easy, full sounding chord can usually be just 3 notes, as long as they're the right ones.
http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/piano/

But this sure as hell isn't a "things will sound good" guide. Do you know anything at all about the circle of fifths or keys?

www.reasonfreaks.com Theres fantastic strings on this site and its free

Johnst wrote:Yeah, making a simple monophonic melody first, then adding notes to form chords around it is definitely the simplest way. If you're struggling in terms of music theory then this might help you in determining what notes work. An easy, full sounding chord can usually be just 3 notes, as long as they're the right ones.
http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/piano/

But this sure as hell isn't a "things will sound good" guide. Do you know anything at all about the circle of fifths or keys?

Still completely in the learning process of it all.
Thanks for the advice!

Thought i'd revive this as its relevent but my question is slighty different...

How do you make your reason string samples sound less like samples and more like they been ripped from a big orchestra? Or if this is impossible how do you get the best out of them?

I had a few ideas about velocity , panning, reverb and layering but I wondered what else I could do make them sound warmer and more realistic?

what i do when i want to play notes that make sense is do one note at a time. then build each chord by doing the 2nd note of the chord after i have the progression of the first.

to find similar notes that go together play keyboard or wahtever along to your favorite songs. just press buttons. thats all it is.

Anjin wrote: Thought i'd revive this as its relevent but my question is slighty different...

How do you make your reason string samples sound less like samples and more like they been ripped from a big orchestra? Or if this is impossible how do you get the best out of them?

I had a few ideas about velocity , panning, reverb and layering but I wondered what else I could do make them sound warmer and more realistic?

well... this might turn out awkwardly for both of us, but i think i achieved that a bit in the song in my sig.

if that's kind of what your looking for let me know.

otherwise you can suck it. it's hard...

EDIT: i did exactly the three things that you said. also, it's all from the reason orkester refill.

play chords and simple chord progressions slowly so stretch it out to take up a lot of bars.

Thanks for your help.

Johnst thats basically what i'm after! I like it.... you can put your chuppa chupps back in your pants

Anjin wrote:Johnst thats basically what i'm after! I like it.... you can put your chuppa chupps back in your pants

sweet... well, if you spend a lot of time on it, you can get them to sound much better than mine. i was sort of lazy and didn't put too much time into it, but stereo imagers helped a lot on the higher sounds like the violins, different types of reverb on the different instruments worked wonders, and panning made things sound a lot more natural. maybe you should also try layering the same instrument with the same notes and have different reverbs on them that make them sound either closer or farther from each other to give the effect of different rows of instruments as well, since typically in an orchestra there are some violinists very close and some farther towards the back of the stage.

mate its like you looked inside my brain or something really helpful i gonna experiment in that direction thanks!