Dear Customer,

Thank you for choosing Venice Modern Strings.

This manual will explain how to install and use our library.
Additional information is available on our website.

Enjoy,

Fluffy Audio Team

CONTENTS
• 1 - INSTALLATION 3
»» PULSE 3
»» FOLDERS 4
• 2 - THE INTERFACE 6
»» KONTAKT INSTRUMENT SETTINGS 6
»» INSTRUMENT SETTINGS 6
»» ARTICULATIONS PANEL 7
»» ADVANCED PANEL 8
* Legato and Polyphonic Legato 8
* Long Arcs and Short Arcs 8
* Pizzicato 9
* Staccato and Staccatissimo 9
* Sustained Articulations 10
»» MICROPHONES, DYNAMICS, VIBRATO AND REVERB PANEL 11
• 3 - TIPS 12
»» LEGATO ARTICULATIONS 12
»» REBOWING 12
»» SUSTAIN PEDAL 12
»» POLYPHONIC LEGATO 12
• CREDITS 13

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1 - INSTALLATION
PULSE
Please visit Pulse website at this link:
http://www.pulsedownloader.com
Download and install. This is the Pulse interface:

Go to “Library” and click on “+ Add a Product”

Then insert the serial key of Venice Modern Strings. You can find it in the e-mail you received when ordering the
product. Then select your destination folder.

PLEASE NOTE: The installation procedure requireas 55 GB free on your main drive for the download and another
55 GB for the install directory folder.

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 FOLDERS

The main directory should then appear as follows:

In the “Instruments” folder there are the five main .nki patches (one for each section of the String Orchestra) and
three folders that include other versions of the instruments (see below).

[folder] Ensembles
[folder] Individual Articulations
[folder] Instruments
[folder] Low Memory
[folder] Samples
Cellos.nki
Venice Modern Strings.nkc
Doublebasses.nki
Venice Modern Strings.nkr
Violas.nki
Violins I.nki
Violins II.nki

In the “Individual Articulations” folder there are patches for each articulation included in the library.
These should load quicker than the main patches and are best suited for composers who prefer to use one track
per articulation and avoid using keyswitches altogether. The individual articulations only contain the samples
needed to play those specific articulations and loading other articulations with the Morph Engine will not function
correctly.

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In the “Low Memory” folder there are different versions of the main patches; “Fast Legato” and “Smooth Legato”.
They may save up to 1GB of RAM by disabling all the tightness controls and the ability to change the legato spe-
ed. For this reason there are Fast Legato and Smooth Legato options.

Finally, the “Ensembles” folder contains individual articulations for a custom instrument that combines the Dou-
blebasses, the Cellos, the Violas and Violins I samples into a single unique .nki instrument. This is very useful for
sketching, for example using the Polyphonic Legato.

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2 - THE INTERFACE
This is the main page of one of the intrumen-
ts. Note: some settings may be unavailable
on Individual Articulations, Ensembles and
Low Memory patches.

KONTAKT INSTRUMENT SETTINGS

At the top of this screen there is the instrument name and the other Kontakt Instrument settings.

INSTRUMENT SETTINGS
Just below on the right there is a gear icon. Click on it to open the instrument settings.

Here you can change the CC mapping for Dynamic, Vibrato and AB Morph controls.
The engine accuracy option is set to “MED” by default. Set it to “LOW” if the library is demanding too much CPU
power.
Lastly, you can choose to activate the CC11 to control Expression (which is essentially an additional CC control for
volume).

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 ARTICULATIONS PANEL

Select an articulation by clicking on it.

You can unload an articulation by clicking

on the dark brown rectangle on its left.

You can set a keyswitch for an articulation by clicking the right. Then press a MIDI note outside the range of the
instrument to set the new keyswitch.

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 ADVANCED PANEL

Note: some settings may be unavailable on Individual Articulations, Ensembles and Low Memory patches. Open
the advanced panel by clicking on the “ADVANCED” label. Each articulation has its own
set of controls:

• Legato and Polyphonic Legato

»» “STACCATO OVERLAY”: You can overlay a staccato articulation on top of the first note of the legato to
have a marcato-like attack or to have a snappier legato when playing runs;

»» “LEGATO SPEED”: Controls the speed of the legato, bowchange and rebowing transitions. Faster
speeds can result in a slightly less authentic legato sound. This does not work with the Low Memory
patches and in the Ensembles;

»» “LEGATO TYPE CONTROL”: Determines which kind of control triggers the available legato transitions.
Regardless of the control used, portamento is triggered at low values (below 10 of Velocity or CC
Value), legatos in the center and bowchange legatos at very high values (above 110 of Velocity or CC
Value).

• Long Arcs and Short Arcs

“TIME-MACHINE”: allows stretching of the samples to create longer or shorter bow strokes.
Tip: if enabled, you may assign the “Slow/Fast” slider to any MIDI CC, by right clicking on it and moving a CC con-
trol.

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• Pizzicato
Here you can change the velocity curve, moving the three arrows as in the figure below.

• Staccato and Staccatissimo

Contains the “VELOCITY CONTROL” and “TIME-MACHINE” options as seen before, as well as the “ATTACK TIGHT-
NESS” which can be used to create a snappier attack (only works in the Main patches and the Individual Articula-
tions).

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• Sustained Articulations
In Sustain, Flautando, Sul Tasto, Tremolo, Tremolo Sul Ponticello, Harmonics, Scratch and Air articulations there is
the “MORPH CONTROL”, the morph matrix makes it possible to crossfade between two long articulations. The A/B
fader controls the morphing between these two articulations.

Upon enabling the automation, the AB Slider no longer has any effect.
Instead, the automation will dynamically crossfade the two selected articulations.
First, please select the shape of the automation:
»» “sine” smoothly oscillates between the articulations at the rate specified. It is useful to create beauti-
ful, slowly-evolving textures;
»» “linear” goes from articulation A to B in the time specified by the rate parameter. For example, combi-
ning the Air articulation to the Flautando creates a very subtle and delicate articulation;
»» “random” creates a glimmery oscillation between the two selected articulations.

The Phase button controls the way the voices are synced, when playing a chord for example.
In SYNC mode all the voices follow the selected shape in unison.
In RANDOM mode each voice starts at a different phase, leading to unpredictable (but, potentially more intere-
sting) results.
For example: if SYNC is selected and the shape is SINE ,each voice will always start from the A articulation. In
RANDOM mode, however, it will start from a random point and direction between A and B.

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 MICROPHONES, DYNAMICS, VIBRATO AND REVERB PANEL

To the right of and immediately above the Dynamics slider there is another slider (see below). This controls the
dynamic curve. This control was introduced to ease the process of porting an existing piece written with another
library to Venice Modern Strings. As every library has a different dynamic curve, this control can prove useful. It is
also useful to be able to push or lower the dynamic intensity of a part without the need to alter the recorded MIDI
data at all.

Click on a Microphone name to load/unload it.

Quick note about the microphone positions:
»» Spot: this mic position is differently placed for each of the sections of the orchestra. It has a very wide
stereo image that you may reduce to “focus” the sound in the desired direction;
»» Close: this mic position is the most natural one, placed just in front of the conductor’s seat. It has a
good directionality that can be potentially enhanced slightly using the width and pan controls;
»» Mid: in conjunction with the Spot mics it can be used to give an intimate-sounding sense of space;
»» Far: combined with the Spot or, better, the Close mics, this is a great substitute for an artificial reverb,
to create a warm and smooth sound.

Finally, you can enable/disable and control the amount of the Reverb.

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3 - TIPS

A few tips for working with Venice Modern Strings

Legato Articulations

The legato is performed with the typical gesture of overlapping melodic voices in order to produce a pleasing
transition between them. Usually, a slight anticipation is needed, since the transition requires time. This may
be neglegible, especially when the smooth/fast slider in the legato setting is fully to the right. Nevertheless, the
Portamento always requires slightly more anticipation, since the portamento transition is, by definition, a slow,
slurred transition between two notes.

Rebowing

To perform a rebowing, simply release and quickly re-play the same note. Venice Modern Strings features alterna-
ted up and down rebowings.

Sustain Pedal

The library supports the use of a sustain pedal. When the pedal is pressed a note will still play until released. If
playing a Legato articulation, the previous note will transition to the new one. If the same note is played while the
sustain pedal is pressed, this will trigger a rebowing.

Polyphonic Legato

The polyphonic legato in Venice Modern Strings borrows from many concepts first introduced in Dominus Choir.
The idea is to make performing overlapping-note legato with polyphonic material less challenging. To correctly
play a polyphonic legato part, leave a small gap between the voices that you wish to connect. The new voices will
naturally transition from the previously released voices.
In conjunction with the sustain pedal, the polyphonic legato is a great alternative to the sustain for smooth chor-
dal writing. If you wish to have independent dynamic control on a specific group of voices, we suggest transferring
certain parts to another track. Polyphonic Legato works effectively with Ensembles and can be a great choice for
quickly sketching parts.

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CREDITS
FluffyAudio is composed by Paolo Ingraito, Olmo Chittò,
Simone Mor, Matteo Melchiori, Gabriela Llerena.

Additional editing by Flavio Cangialosi.

First of all, we would like to thank all our customers for

believing in us through these years and for helping us to
make Venice Modern Strings possible.
Thank you.

We also wish to thank Mario Lanaro for his endless

endurance through many hard days of sampling,
for his incredible energy and the positivity which made
Dominus and Venice Modern Strings a reality. He deserves
a lot of praise and you can find out about more of his work
here:
https://mariolanaro.it/
Thanks to Matteo Marzaro for helping us achieve this
project.
We also want to thank all the musicians whose beautiful performances were captured in this library:

VIOLINS I and II VIOLAS CELLOS DOUBLEBASSES

Matteo Marzaro Alessandro Pandolfi Giordano Pegoraro Michele Maulucci
Glauco Bertagnin Marco Nason Leonardo Sapere Nicola Ziliani
David Mazzacan Luca Cacciatori Giovanni Costantini Luca Pianta
Giorgio Baldan Francesco Lovato Matteo Bassan
Alberto Ambrosini Stefano Lagatta Andrea Marcolini
Giulio Zanovello
Monica Cordaz
Erica Fassetta

We would also like to thank all our friends and collaborators who helped us in this year-long project: in particular
Flavio Cangialosi, a promising sample developer and incredible multi-instrumentalist, for his insights and our pas-
sionate chats about music and sound. Sofia Bolognesi for her lovely art (check here for more:
https://www.artstation.com/sofiabolognesi). Stephen Hogan for his perfect voice, his friendship and his ama-
zing talent as a complete artist (check this crazy video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFMtUtMY6RI).
Thanks also to Riccardo Barba for his beautiful music. Thanks to Georges Cartenian for proofreading the manual.

A special thank you to our friend Ignacio Nuñez for his lovely music. Thanks to Antongiulio Frulio, David Garcia
Diaz, Ian Dorsch, Piet de Ridder, Mike Marino, Hagai Davidoff, Blake Ewing, Roger Subirana, Ingo Wegener, James
Clark, Magnus Chirgwin, Peter Croissant.

And finally, thanks to you, the reader, for believing in our instruments and for creating awe-inspiring music with
them.

Sincerely,

Paolo, Olmo, Simone, Matteo and Gabriela.

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