Introduction
If you own Spitfire Chamber Strings and often find you would like a 'bigger' sound, this transposition trick could be useful to you. This trick works by borrowing samples from a neighbouring note and tuning them up or down to the same pitch. By doing this rather than layering a sound on top of itself, you avoid phasing issues.
The Process
1) With Kontakt open, load up 3 instances of the same patch in SCS. For this example, I will be using the 1st Violins 'performance legato' patch.
Note: This will also work with 2 instances, try both and see which you prefer.
2) Next, make sure that all 3 of your instances are on the same MIDI channel.
3) In your 2nd instance, click on the spanner 
for "expert view" and then the 
dropdown and select layer +2 (transpose).
4) You'll notice that this will change a couple of things. The 'tune' dial in Kontakt as well as 'transpose' on the SCS interface.
5) In your 3rd instance, go to the same dropdown, but this time selecting layer -2 (transpose).
6) You're done! Your instances should now look like this:
Comments
5 comments
Very cool! Thank you Spitfire
You're welcome Ron!
Luke
Should be noted that this trick can also be used to create divisi sections. If you layer two violin 1 patches, you effectively get eight (2*4) players, which is exactly half of the 16 players in symphonic strings. Great for added realism in your string writing. You could also consider a single SCS patch as your divisi section, and your 2x layered patches as your full section if you want a slightly smaller sound.
On another note, these articles are a bit hidden on the site, so maybe it would be beneficial to share them on Facebook? Lots of great info to be gathered.
It's truly unfortunate that you can't do this accessibly. I can't figure out how to instantiate two instances of Ensemble Strings in Kontakt Stand Alone. So, no way to expand the range to E7.
Is it a good idea to use a sample start delay on the two duplicates to create a sense of an ensemble?
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