Ben Osterhouse Ripple Cello v1.2.0 KONTAKT

On string instruments, there’s a kind of energy and life you can put into the sound as you travel between two notes, especially if you play them in a single bow stroke. You can lean into the first note expressively, and then let the second note fold into the release of the first note so that they sound like one gesture. If these notes were recorded separately, then stitched together later, it wouldn’t have the same nuance.

It’s gratifying to play these two-note slurs across different dynamics. To capture this feeling, the samples are all recorded as swells. At the beginning of the swell, the second note can be played so lightly that the pitch is hardly perceptible. It’s like a ghost note. Then, as the sound grows, the slurs naturally change and adapt to keep it fresh.

Like many other Osterhouse Sounds libraries, these are not standard string articulations. It’s a specific playing style which happens to work well when mapped to a piano keyboard. The hope is that this particular style of playing inspires you to explore new ways of using strings in your music, either in sample libraries, or when working with session musicians.