Joshua Bell Violin – Review

Music Software developer Embertone has brought another plug-in highlight in the direction of a classic instrument. The plug-in is called Joshua Bell Violin and, as the name suggests, embertone sampled the beautiful Violin instrument. In fact, it is a collaboration with the world-famous and contemporary musician Joshua Bell. In the first place it can be said that the cooperation really paid off. So let's start with the installation and the first impressions:

• Virtual Violin made for Kontakt 5 Player
• Performed by the legendary violinist
• The tone of a priceless Stradivarius
• 12+ true legato styles
• Flexible performance modes
• Advanced copy protection
• True Legato like you've never heard
• The Sound of a Virtuoso
• Intuitive Performance
• Natural + Modeled Vibrato
• Standard + Unique Articulations
• Pristine Sound
• 8.86 GB of disk space
• Max RAM footprint is 2.25GB (Samples not used can be purged)

The installation is simple and manageable. After downloading and unpacking the files, the registration and activation of the software is completed via registration tool Native Access from Native Instrument. Loading the software in KONTAKT takes some time. A fast SSD drive is highly recommended. The wait is worthwhile, considering what effort was spent on one single instrument.

The first impression is overwhelming. Dynamics, sound and articulations are breathtaking and immediately give you the impression how professional and qualitative the recordings were made. The interface of the GUI is simple, straightforward and contains the most important parameter settings. What is noticeable immediately after loading the software is the large amount of key switches and preset controls. Just in order to go through the keys witches takes its time. But Embertone has designed the instrument to feel simple and easy to get amazing authentic performances by simply playing the instrument in real time on the keyboard.
The sound is lively, the natural vibrato and the legato adapt to the speed when, for example, the notes are chained. A fast playing with zero latency increases the reality of the instrument.

The following features can be summarized:

• The Software includes the articulations legato, sustains, staccato, spiccato, tremolos, trills, harmonics, as well as an incredible set of ricochets, super-flautando sustains, tasto + ponticello sustains, and even true-legato harmonics (bows, slurs and portamento);
• It has the full sets of vibrato and non-vibrato performances which is recorded in the former Avatar Studios (New York) with award-winning engineer Richard King to lead the sessions. A scripted vibrato is integrated as well if you want to control vibrato yourself.
• Well done functions like Keyswitching, CC’s, Aftertouch, Velocity, Playing Speed, Pitch Bend, and more let you to personalize notes and make your composition unique.
• One another nice feature is the Humanization Control which allows you to switch tuning based on.
• The library features nearly 20,000 individual samples (over 8GB disk space is needed) and a staggering 12 true legato / transition styles.

With the world famous violinist Joshua Bell Embertone has created a unique instrument. More realism and articulation can hardly be achieved from the digital domain. Whoever plays the beautiful Stradivarius Violin on the keyboard will quickly realize the stunning sound quality, how carefully the samples where recorded and how much passion was brought into this library.

Embertone has delivered an excellent library that increases the benchmark for virtual solo instruments again. Joshua Bell Violin is characterized by its playability, programmability and, of course, its timbre. It is compatible with the FREE Kontakt Player 5.6.8 or the FULL Kontakt 5.4 or higher.

Joshua Bell Violin can be purchased and digitally downloaded from Embertone for $199.00 USD from here: Embertone | Joshua Bell Violin