Review: Lyrical Violin Phrases by Sonuscore

Super expressive Lyrical Phrases and a Legato Solo Violin, user friendly and easy to use!

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Review: Lyrical Violin Phrases by Sonuscore

Lyrical Violin Phrases is a small library by Sonuscore which offers a great variety of super-expressive Violin Phrases in different styles and keys. The library also has a very natural sounding and fluid legato violin instrument that provides the same, rich sound of the pre-recorded phrases, just in case you couldn’t find the melodic line you were after!

Lyrical Violin Phrases sells for $99.00 from Sonuscore

Thoughts

Lyrical Violin Phrases, developed by Sonuscore, is a 1.83 GB library which aims to be the perfect companion for the composers in need of original melodic lines to give life and movement to their compositions. The library is very user friendly and straight to the point, it consists of two instruments: a set of Violin phrases and a legato solo Violin.

The GUI is very simple and clear: for the “Lyrical Violin Phrases” instrument you have a well-assorted list of phrases, divided by scale and mood at the very center of the main tab. At the top you can see the waveform with a cursor to understand which phrase is being played and at the bottom you can move to the second (and last) tab: the FX page. The instrument sounds incredibly good straight out of the box, it has a rich sound, enhanced by a plethora of reverb IRs which add a fantastic depth to the phrases, expertly played by Veer Csongor and Sebastian Caspar. The spotlight is rightfully taken by their outstanding vibrato, as well as the expressiveness and emotion that the two players managed to infuse in this instrument. A good part of the naturalness of this library comes from the perfect timing at which these phrases are played, hence the decision of the developer of not automatically syncing the speed of the phrases to the DAW but rather giving the opportunity of tweaking the speed of a phrase (+ or – 150%) with a simple knob at the center of the GUI.

The variety of phrases will probably please even the most demanding composer but it is worth mentioning that they all tend to be ethnic, minor-ish or have a hint of sadness. As you can see from the list, you still have major and lydian phrases but do not expect them to be joyful and quirky: LYRICAL is the key word here!

There is a total of 310 different phrases, grouped in 19 sets depending on their “theme”. Being very lyrical and expressive, there is a common recurring theme of adventure, tales and heroes which really reminded me of the kind of music I would expect to hear in a “Lord of the Rings” inspired soundtrack or even something like the recent video game “God of War”.
The 19 sets can be loaded or unloaded from the list so you can save some memory but, even if you enable all of them at once, it’s really easy to navigate between phrases and themes, accessing them all at once with the clever keyboard setup.
At the very bottom of the keyboard you have an octave to key switch the key signature you are in and, in case you have more than one set of phrases loaded, you will have the highest playable octave to move between the different sets. In between you will have three octaves of phrases which are super easy to connect. Generally speaking, the first low octave comprehends starting phrases, the mid octave has phrases that continue the journey started in the first one and the third subsequent octave has the ending phrases. In case you need shorter lines to close your phrasing you have the “A” and “B” notes of these 3 octaves (in green) which quickly end your violin extravaganza.

Moving to the FX page you can quickly and easily tweak your sound to your taste with few knobs. You have an EQ (low, low-mid, high-mid, high) a delay with time, feedback, send and, last but not least, the very important reverb with IR, pre-delay and send. The only control which is on by default is the reverb, very wet but very satisfying to add a fantastic depth to the sound.

The second instrument is a very useful and perfectly coherent legato violin. Even if it is not advertised as the “main” attraction of this library I found that it is as useful and a joy to play as its “Phrases” counterpart. The legato script works like a bliss and the vibrato makes it almost as expressive as the full phrases. For the “Solo Legato Violin” instrument you will have access to only one tab: the FX page (which is just the same as the FX page for the phrases). The sound quality of the legato violin is at the same level of the full phrases and it will take seconds to make your own melodic lines in case you do not find what you need in the pre-recorded 310 provided. The only real downside of the entire library is that it has not been deeply sampled hence, controlling the modwheel, will not sound incredibly natural and realistic (crossfading between actual dynamics) but will rather be more like adjusting a volume fader.

Facts

Sonuscore Lyrical Violin Phrases installs at less than 1.9 GB, requires the FULL version of Native Instruments Kontakt 5, the Kontakt Player is NOT supported.

Sonuscore Lyrical Violin Phrases offers a great variety of lyrical, emotional and very expressive violin phrases. With more than 310 phrases and an intuitive interface is the perfect, straightforward library if you need a good soloist library with pre-recorded phrases. The great deal is that you will also find that an equally good sounding and expressive (totally playable) soloist legato violin is included in the library! Not a comprehensive solo violin library but definitely perfect if you are looking for a library that also keeps the disk space under control and it’s easy and fast to use.

Lyrical Violin Phrases sells for $99.00 from Sonuscore

Demos of Lyrical Violin Phrases by Sonuscore

Videos of Lyrical Violin Phrases by Sonuscore

Contributor Andrea Federici reviews Lyrical Violin Phrases by Sonuscore
“Super expressive Lyrical Phrases and a Legato Solo Violin, user friendly and easy to use!”