Good sampled mandolin sounds?

[Neil Gladd]

This is my first foray into this section of the cafe. I use Sibelius 3 for notating my compositions, and although I love it, it does not have a good mandolin sound. This is a problem, since MOST of my compositions involve a mandolin! I recently bought a Kurxweil PC1X keyboard to use with it, and even with the orchestral ROM has over 500 sounds, it has NO mandolin sound. I checked out another orchestral sound library, and it also had no mandolin sound. They all have endless variations on pianos and guitars, though.

SOMEONE needs to come up with a mandolin sound library, ideally with several sound options: American bowlback, Calace, Embergher, Vinaccia, Gibson A, Gibson F, Lyon and Healy and mandolin banjo. I can do without the electric mandolin library for the immediate future.

Is anything out there?

[Neil Gladd]

I never got any response to this, but I happened upon a couple of mandolin soundfonts today:

Kloo Mandolin - http://www.store.precisionsound.net/mandolininfo.php

Mandolin SoundFont - http://www.kcrt.net/other/mandolin_sf2e.html

In case anyone is interested...

[Phil Goodson]

Thanks ngladd.

You'd think some of our tekky guys would manufacture the ultimate Lloyd Loar sound font with plugin variations for '23, '24, Fern, or Flowerpot.
What are they thinkin'??

Next would be plugins for J74 strings vs TIs, and for tortoise shell vs Blue Chip picks.

Have a good day.

[steve V. johnson]

It's always a challenge to figure out when to move from inside the box to putting up a mic and tracking something live, or having a couple of players in to record bits that can be used in samplers.

Here are a couple of mainstream sample library companies:

http://www.ilio.com/index.shtml

I'm pretty sure that if you search the Ilio site there will be a number of libraries that
include some mandolin sounds.

Here's another:

http://www.eastwestsamples.com/

There are more. I used to find out about them via Keyboard Magazine, Electronic Musician Magazine and various online sampling forums. (Sorry, I don't go to those forums any more, so I can't refer you to them.)

My favorite use of samples was to use ethnic instruments that are very unusual in the U.S. I'd play stuff for friends and eventually someone would know someone who played that instrument, and I'd get a chance to learn about the instrument and maybe even get the player to record.

A fine sample library of the various mandolin family instruments and flavors would be really nice to have...

I hope this helps,

stv

Now I work pretty much exclusively with acoustic instruments, but not so long ago I worked with
composers who either began, or completed their work in computer-based workstations. Many, many times we found it easier to make a copy of a passage (audio + a chart), give it to a player and then when they'd become familiar with it, to have them come in and record the part. We also had some players come in and just record samples. This can be very efficient, in both time and money and the expression in the compositions.

[Amandalyn]

I think this relates- How can you add a better mandolin sound for programs like Tabledit ( which is used here for mando tabs). The midi sounds/tones that tabledit offer are not very "mandolin" sounding- I usually use the steel str. guitar sound for playing back mando tab, but would really like to have a more authenic sound for the mandolin, and I'm sure many here would agree. Are these midi tones in tabledit called Sound Fonts?

[Neil Gladd]

Now I work pretty much exclusively with acoustic instruments, but not so long ago I worked with composers who either began, or completed their work in computer-based workstations. Many, many times we found it easier to make a copy of a passage (audio + a chart), give it to a player and then when they'd become familiar with it, to have them come in and record the part. We also had some players come in and just record samples. This can be very efficient, in both time and money and the expression in the compositions.

Thanks for the responses. Just to clarify, ALL of my music is intended to be performed by live musicians on real acoustic mandolins. But while I'm still writing them, and until they have been performed, it would be nice to hear a better electronic playback...

[Gelsenbury]

Mandolin SoundFont - http://www.kcrt.net/other/mandolin_sf2e.html
In case anyone is interested...

I was just thinking about finding a nice soundfont with mandolin content for use with Rosegarden, and I stumbled across your thread. Unfortunately the site for which you provide the link no longer offers the download - under construction, apparently.

Does anyone use a mandolin soundfont and can make a recommendation?

[Jim Nollman]

I can offer comment about the exact opposite technology. Using any recording software, it's now easy to record a mandolin part, and then translate it directly into MIDI events. You can record an initial mandolin track. Then play along with that track, also on mandolin, convert the new track to MIDI, and let it be triggered by anything from a flute sampler, to a piano sampler, and many different software synthesizers. If composing is your thing, once the part is in MIDI, you can grab a note on the staff and pull it up or down to compose a harmony part, lengthen it to build a pad, or add new notes above or below to build chords.

To make the translation from audio to MIDI, you need software called Melodyne.

If you seek a great mandolin sample and you can't find even a bad one, I can tell you that the leader in the high end sampling field is Gary Garritan. I suggest you browse to his website, then write him an email explaining the lack. He's very approachable.