I have recently tried to make a realistic violin inside of Vital, but right now it sounds more of a trumpet then a violin. Does anybody have a realistic violin preset, or is it impossible to recreate the bowing and the way the string conically rotates instead of going up and down?
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making it “absolutely” realistic is imho kind of impossible, but I believe you can get somehow close, if it sounds like a trumpet imho the most likely mistake is in the filter/filter env settings.
I think one of the best ways to get there is by combining a classic subtractive approach with some Karplus-Strong synthesis, which is, on the side of your saw wave adding some noise filtered by a tuned comb.
I could also recommend, in approaching a sound like this a couple of videos I made some time ago (those are actually about a strings ensemble, but a lot of that applies in similar ways) https://youtu.be/HLqIElVEoio
Or, if you’re into the hardcore nerdy approach, the article on the topic from Gordon Reid in SOS in the Synth Secrets series, I could link it, but if you’re nerdy enough to understand it, you surely can use google effectively.
Okay thanks this is really helpful! Maybe I can share a preset soon if I am able to get a satisfactory violin sound on this thread
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That’s a lot of advice that went way over my head. Will do some googling!
Don’t worry - platipo’s knowledge on synthesis is above most of our heads! 
Watch his videos on Vital to learn some next-level techniques!
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Total newb here-just decided to go outside of presets. Never realised quite how much there is to synthesis, and how many things are involved trying to recreate a sound!!. Being a bit frustrated with the free LABS thing, (which is great actually, but it’s a cello section, rather than solo instrument). I’m going to try to do a cello preset using a ESW wavetable. As platipo says it’ll not be exact. There’s a lot to think about. How hard is it bowed? Is there is vibrato? How fast/wide is it. Also what the hell is a comb filter!
A comb filter is one of the basic building blocks of physical modeling synthesis https://youtu.be/YlKbQkkxbeU
I think it will be critical in such a patch to map your midi controls properly, I’d map the velocity to control the envelopes attack, so that hard notes sound staccato while softer ones don’t. at the same time I’d map the aftertouch on a vibrato amount, aka, the amount of LFO modulation on global pitch, the LFO needs to be set in seconds. I often like to set the vibrato so that pressure changes the vibrato speed as well, not terribly realistic for a violin or a cello, but definitely quite expressive. for the dynamics you’ll need another control, even just the MW, with which to control the brightness and the loudness of the whole sound…
This is how I’d do it. Imho there’s little need to use a wavetable, those instruments are very well reproduced by a simple sawtooth, the main issue will be with the formant structure, which you can probably try to replicate with an external EQ, as making it precisely the way you want with a formant filter in the FX section could prove quite challenging http://musicweb.ucsd.edu/~trsmyth/timbre175/Musical_Instrument_Formants.html#:~:text=The%20violin%20has%20many%20more,are%20strong%20and%20perceptually%20important.
Thanks for the reply and help. I downloaded some of your patches-the vital and expressive ones are great!. So I’ve had a look at the string examples and have used some of the settings. (I’d actually already thought of using the aftertouch for vibrato.) I used the wavetable as it a very convincingly grinding bow sound. The problem was that this is great for a attack, but to keep this sound moving involved looping back across the wavetable and getting the loop right so you couldn’t hear a join is a bit tricky, plus the mod wheel seems stuck on table sweep, don’t know if that’s vital or my midi controller. I even thought of the editing the wavetable.
Anyway this is all beyond me as I’m very, very much a beginner(as in this is my 2nd week doing this properly, after getting cheap and free synths hoping the presets would give me the sounds I was looking for!). So I’ll have a go with the Saw, and maybe come back to the wavetable once I’ve watched more Youtube vids, read more Gordon Reid and obsess about it a bit more!
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