KONTAKT | Update ONLY - 547 MB | FULL - 8,77 GBJoshua Bell ViolinWe set out to create a new standard in virtual solo strings, offering plenty of inspiration without sacrificing flexibility... and with the unmistakable, iconic sound of internationally acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell.
Joshua Bell Violin offers a huge variety of standard articulations like sustains, pizzicatos, staccatos, spiccatos, etc, along with a number of sample sets you’re not likely to find anywhere else. We captured an incredible legato set of beautifully haunting harmonics, as well as “super-flautando”, a special technique Joshua Bell can harness from his 300+ year-old violin, and much more.
While this VI is incredibly powerful, featuring almost 20,000 individual samples, it’s designed to be simple to use. Play it straight out of the box and it will inspire and surprise you! This virtual violin utilizes intelligent and predictive programming using a diverse array of musical tendencies and rule sets. Complete with 12 distinct legato transition types, you can perform the Joshua Bell violin authentically across a range of tempos, dynamics, and styles, capturing the nuances of a true performance!
From the Performance view, step into the shoes of Joshua Bell with total control over every aspect of his ‘Gibson ex-Huberman’ Stradivarius violin. The Joshua Bell Violin was developed and performed in close collaboration with Joshua Bell himself, with careful attention to the design and user experience with a 3-page core layout: Character, Intuition, and Control.
In addition to all of the modeling engines going on under-the-hood, access an extensive library of real performances by Joshua Bell on his infamous violin – intuitively sorted via an articulation browser.
Explore a palette of sound colors by selecting from custom convolution impulse responses crafted in collaboration with IR guru Ernest Cholakis, allowing you to change the tone of the violin, and place it in different environments.
We spent a lot of time analyzing Joshua Bell’s performances to develop complex scripted behaviors that model his subtle performance “tendencies”. These tendencies react based on performance input in such ways as emulating the effect of pitch becoming less accurate while playing fast, to triggering realistic triple-stops, for achieving a layer of realism normally impossible with sampled instruments.
Take full control over how you interact with the Joshua Bell Violin. Select from common pre-configurations that conform to your own setup, tweak them to your liking, or configure your own from the ground up.
In typical Embertone fashion, we went down the rabbit hole. Introducing the Control Editor – offering a deep way to interact with the performance engine at its core for creating extremely customized control configurations.
The Control Editor enables you to map any trigger—including but not limited to MIDI CC, Keyswitches, or even Performance Speed—to any element of the Joshua Bell Violin. This opens things up for some creative and unexpected results, offering you unprecedented control over your musical expressions.
Fine-Tune Your Setup
Purge samples, adjust performance options, or compensate for transition delay. There’s always room for tweaking things, and this one’s no exception – every feature in Joshua Bell Violin is configurable.
True Legato Samples
We recorded transitions to-and-from each note for three Legato styles. When you play connected lines, you hear real transition performances – without crossfading into sustain samples.
Modeling-Assisted Vibrato
Joshua Bell Violin uses real vibrato samples – but to allow for real-time control, the engine introduces our modeled vibrato engine when you trigger non-vibrato samples. This gives you independent control over vibrato intensity and speed when you need it.
Modeling-Assisted Dynamics
We sampled real recordings at multiple dynamic levels as the “meat-and-potatoes” of the instrument, but in order to allow for real-time Dynamics control without crossfade layering – the engine uses a hybrid combo of synthesis and sampling.
Adaptive Crossfading
By analyzing sample volume data, the instrument actively makes small adjustments to match note volume between sample crossfade transitions – making legato smoother and allowing you to transition between various articulations at any moment.
Adaptive Legato
Most of our instruments wield our innovative Adaptive Legato feature, which adjusts legato transition speed in response to your performance – offering responsive performative action like never before.
Portamento Speed Control
Expanding on our Adaptive Legato feature, you can control the length of Portamento Legato transitions in real-time or as a static setting, as of the v1.1 update.
Beyond-Octave Legato
Unlike any other sampled instrument you are likely to play, Joshua Bell Violin contains real legato transitions beyond intervals of one octave – otherwise traditionally limited to transitions within one octave.
Unique Articulations
True Harmonic Legato, Emotional Rebows, and “Superflaut” – just a few of the special articulations included that represent the characteristic sound of Joshua Bell.
It's Joshua Bell, 'nuff said!
Joshua Bell spent hours meticulously sampling his priceless violin with us—a true fan-boy moment! The result is our most ambitious project yet: a powerful tool for composers that also captures a vital piece of musical history. We’re incredibly proud to share it with you.
- Articulation selection now persists across project/patch saves
- Fixed the 'Joshua Bell Violin (Legacy)' patch to properly load in Kontakt 5.4.1
- Fixed the Control Preset backup files to reflect the new feature configurations in v1.1.0
- Fixed missing library information and graphics
- Added missing NKS preview file
- Corrected some Info Pane descriptions
- Minor tweaks and cleanup
KNOWN ISSUES
- Modifier buttons sometimes don't display in Kontakt version 6 when scrolling the Control Preset Editor.
NEW FEATURES
- Portamento Speed Control: Change the speed of Portamento samples in real-time based on user-selected control input via the Control Preset editor. See Settings page for new controls.
- Legato Accent: New Control element for playing accented legatos.
- Portamento Override: New Intuition automation for automatically triggering Portamento samples during slower playing.
- Rebow Control Element: You can now configure how to trigger instant re-bows during a held sustain, in the Control Preset Editor.
- Mono Mic mode: New option in the Settings page for switching between stereo/mono mics.
UPDATES
- Improved "Pitch Instability" Intuition engine.
- Short (Ricochet, Spic, Stac, Pizz) control elements now have "Quick Release" and "Instant" trigger options in the Control Preset editor.
- "Instant" control behavior modifier option added to "Rebow" and "Rebow Emo" Control Preset elements.
- Improved "Quick Release" control trigger options.
- Vibrato slider now reflects "Vib Variance" Intuition automation movement.
- Some graphics updated to improve visibility against darker backgrounds.
- Included "attention" button on Intuition page for extra clarification.
- Improved Control Preset triggering within certain articulation "groups" for better expected Control results.
- Improved Sul Pont releases.
- Increased default instrument volume to 0db.
- Added Limiter to protect against loud peaking in certain situations.
- Reduced Harsh Release volume by -2db.
BUG FIXES
- Fixed Legato Volume Awareness engine (this ensures smooth crossfading between samples) from breaking upon loading Snapshots.
- Fixed bad timings and greatly improved consistency of Portamento sample playback.
- Fixed various bad samples.
- Fixed Reverb preset buttons from not working.
- Fixed a graphical bug that caused label bg's to display incorrectly.
- "Poly" button setting now persists across Control Preset changes.
- Fixed "Contour/Cresc/Decresc" Instant trigger behavior.
- Multi-stops now correctly trigger all notes of a given chord as Vib or NonVib depending on the "Vib/NonVib Variance" Intuition.
* "Update ONLY" includes both updates and compatible with any version of the library.
Grammy® winner Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated winning violinists of his era, and his restless curiosity, passion, and multi-faceted musical interests are unparalleled in the world of classical music. With more than 40 CDS recorded of classical repertoire as well as soundtracks including the Oscar® winning score for The Red Violin, Bell has been embraced by wide television audiences with appearances ranging from The Tonight Show, Tavis Smiley, Charlie Rose, to CBS Sunday Morning and Sesame Street. He was one of the first classical artists to have a music video on VH1 and he was the subject of a BBC Omnibus documentary.
Bell has appeared in publications ranging from The Strad and Gramophone to Time, The New York Times, People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, GQ, Vogue and Reader’s Digest among many. Bell performs on the world’s most precious stages from Carnegie Hall 33 times to the Hollywood Bowl with his 1713 Huberman Stradivarius violin and his late 18th century French bow by François Tourte.
Now owned by Joshua Bell, the 1713 ‘Huberman’ Stradivari violin has a thrilling history. Formerly known as the ‘Gibson’ Strad, the violin was twice stolen from the Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman and for nearly 50 years remained undiscovered in plain sight, disguised by its thief – a café violinist named Julian Altman who made a deathbed confession to his wife.
After Altman’s death, his wife had the violin authenticated and reported to the proper authorities. The fiddle was then sold to Norbert Brainin, an acclaimed English violinist, who later decided to sell the violin to a dealer who had an investor eyeing it for a museum piece. Then Joshua stepped in, showing great empathy for its rightful owner, Bronislaw Huberman, who had passed away in 1947, and for the instrument which he felt must be played.
In Bell’s words, “The idea of the violin resting silently in a vault made me ill. This was an instrument meant to be played, not just admired.” He purchased the violin for nearly $4 million, selling his own $2 million 1732 Tom Taylor Strad in the process. The rest is history, and Joshua uses the instrument exclusively to this day!
Power Station at BerkleeNYC (formerly Avatar Studios) is a world-renowned recording studio located in the heart of Manhattan. Known for its exceptional acoustics and state-of-the-art equipment, the studio has been a premier destination for artists across all genres. With a rich history of iconic recordings and a commitment to excellence, Power Station at BerkleeNYC offers a unique blend of vintage charm and modern innovation, making it the perfect environment for creativity and collaboration.
The Joshua Bell Violin recording sessions were expertly engineered by Grammy award-winning recording engineer Richard King, whose extensive experience includes recording for world-renowned artists such as Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo Ma, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, among others.
- Play the 'Gibson ex-Huberman' Strad of 1713
- Performances by Joshua Bell himself
- Sampled in 'True Legato' fashion
- Adaptive Legato
- Volume Awareness Legato
- Realtime Adaptive Crossfading
- Custom Convolution Impulse Responses
- Advanced Intuition Engine
- Control Presets & Control Preset Editor
- Sampled & Modeled Vibrato controls
- Attacks: 4 Styles, 4 Dynamics, 2–4 RR
- Legato Slur: 2 Speeds, 3 Dynamics, Vib & NonVib
- Legato Bow: 2 Speeds, 3 Dynamics, Vib & NonVib
- Legato Porta: Vib & NonVib
- Legato Rebow: 2 Speeds, 3 Dynamics, Vib & NonVib
- Legato Emo Rebow: 3 Dynamics, Vib & NonVib
- Legato Harmonics: Bow, Slur, Porta, Sus
- Sustains Vib: 4 Styles, 4 Dynamics, 2–4 RR
- Sustains NonVib: 4 Styles, 4 Dynamics, 2–4 RR
- Contour Sustains: 3 Styles, 2 Lengths
- Tremolo: 3 Styles, 2 Dynamics
- Trill: 2 Types, 2 Styles, 2 Dynamics
- Staccato: 3 Dynamics, 8 RR
- Spiccato: 3 Dynamics, 8 RR
- Ricochet: 2 Types, 2–8 RR
- Pizzicato: 4 Dynamics (inc. Bartok), 4 RR
- Releases: 3 Styles, 4 Dynamics
Specs
- 8.86 GB Installed
- 48kHz / 24-bit / Stereo (Recorded 96/24)
- 20,000+ Samples
- Mac & Windows Compatible
- Legacy patch included
Requires Native Instruments Kontakt Player or Kontakt FULL v5.6.8 and higher!
