When it comes to the best Eminent 310 strings plugin, there really isn't one, even after this many years, besides the fact that numerous plugins claim it.
Why?
Because most of them are sample based, and while those give you authenticity for single notes, for chords sample-based string synths ruin the whole string synth chorus effect. Because each note adds chorus, the overall effect is too much chorus.
Now... most people won't even know that or notice. But it ruins authenticity, if you value and perceive it.
Synthesized (non-sample) string synths that attempt to specifically emulate the Eminent 310 strings are also numerous in number, but after trying all of them, I can name two of the best ones:
1. Interruptor Nightflight ( http://www.interruptor.ch/vst_overview.shtml )
2. AlienMachine's Eminent-V 310 Strings MkII Reaktor Ensemble ( https://www.native-instruments.com/en/r ... show/4923/ )
Both of these get around the chorus stacking problem when you play chords, but they have their own problems.
Nightflight needs quite a bit of adjustment to get a better chorus effect (i.e different chorus settings) than what its presets state are the Eminent strings. After months of fiddling, I got the right chorus settings and the right settings for the various types of Eminent strings (which one can get on the organ itself). But it has another problem: keyboard filter tracking.
AlienMachine's Eminent-V has good chorus settings but suffers in exactly the same place where Nightflight and all other synthesized recreations of the Eminent 310 strings suffer from (so far, 2024): keyboard filter tracking.
What do I mean by keyboard filter tracking?
The Eminent 310 doesn't exactly use standard synthesizer keyboard filter tracking, but it does have a similar effect on all its keys. In that as you go down the keyboard, toward lower notes, the notes get successively warmer/duller. I.e. the high frequency content of the spectrum is filtered out intelligently, but not in a linear/boring fashion. It was done in a way that still retains the liveliness of the sound across the spectrum. This shows that every note of the Eminent has its own filter and that is the reason why its strings sound so warm, natural, and far more versatile than the usual string synthesizer which sounds unrefined, overbearing and two-dimensional. This is all the more heard when one plays many notes, chords and melodies together.
The Eminent inspires a very different vibe compared to standard string synths. It shows that the builders of the organ were aware of how real acoustic strings sound to our ears, and that they did what was necessary to bring that to the organ, which is why the strings on the Eminent sound "natural", because our ears/brains expect the lower notes to be duller and not as full of high frequency content - that brightness breaks the effect, it makes the timbre sound artificial, as if there is something wrong.
Eminent sold the technology to ARP and ARP released the Solina String Ensemble, and if you compare them you can hear right away that ARP's implementation of the very same chorus tech is exactly the same, but that it is missing the note filtering, creating strings which sound far cruder, too thick, too bright, and not as beautiful. Having less uses than the strings from the Eminent organ.
Because of this (samples and imperfectly made softsynths), to this day there aren't any perfectly emulated Eminent 310 strings, because no one has actually gone ahead and emulated the organ in full, despite the fact that there are a zillion Hammond emulations.![:P]( "Razz")
Why?
Because most of them are sample based, and while those give you authenticity for single notes, for chords sample-based string synths ruin the whole string synth chorus effect. Because each note adds chorus, the overall effect is too much chorus.
Now... most people won't even know that or notice. But it ruins authenticity, if you value and perceive it.
Synthesized (non-sample) string synths that attempt to specifically emulate the Eminent 310 strings are also numerous in number, but after trying all of them, I can name two of the best ones:
1. Interruptor Nightflight ( http://www.interruptor.ch/vst_overview.shtml )
2. AlienMachine's Eminent-V 310 Strings MkII Reaktor Ensemble ( https://www.native-instruments.com/en/r ... show/4923/ )
Both of these get around the chorus stacking problem when you play chords, but they have their own problems.
Nightflight needs quite a bit of adjustment to get a better chorus effect (i.e different chorus settings) than what its presets state are the Eminent strings. After months of fiddling, I got the right chorus settings and the right settings for the various types of Eminent strings (which one can get on the organ itself). But it has another problem: keyboard filter tracking.
AlienMachine's Eminent-V has good chorus settings but suffers in exactly the same place where Nightflight and all other synthesized recreations of the Eminent 310 strings suffer from (so far, 2024): keyboard filter tracking.
What do I mean by keyboard filter tracking?
The Eminent 310 doesn't exactly use standard synthesizer keyboard filter tracking, but it does have a similar effect on all its keys. In that as you go down the keyboard, toward lower notes, the notes get successively warmer/duller. I.e. the high frequency content of the spectrum is filtered out intelligently, but not in a linear/boring fashion. It was done in a way that still retains the liveliness of the sound across the spectrum. This shows that every note of the Eminent has its own filter and that is the reason why its strings sound so warm, natural, and far more versatile than the usual string synthesizer which sounds unrefined, overbearing and two-dimensional. This is all the more heard when one plays many notes, chords and melodies together.
The Eminent inspires a very different vibe compared to standard string synths. It shows that the builders of the organ were aware of how real acoustic strings sound to our ears, and that they did what was necessary to bring that to the organ, which is why the strings on the Eminent sound "natural", because our ears/brains expect the lower notes to be duller and not as full of high frequency content - that brightness breaks the effect, it makes the timbre sound artificial, as if there is something wrong.
Eminent sold the technology to ARP and ARP released the Solina String Ensemble, and if you compare them you can hear right away that ARP's implementation of the very same chorus tech is exactly the same, but that it is missing the note filtering, creating strings which sound far cruder, too thick, too bright, and not as beautiful. Having less uses than the strings from the Eminent organ.
Because of this (samples and imperfectly made softsynths), to this day there aren't any perfectly emulated Eminent 310 strings, because no one has actually gone ahead and emulated the organ in full, despite the fact that there are a zillion Hammond emulations.
Statistics: Posted by HunterKiller — Wed Dec 11, 2024 4:59 pm