You can get a wide range of sounds with the controls in the interface. However, it can be distracting to have to familiarize yourself with a new interface while writing music.

This is why the NKI presets have been made for you.

These are copies of the main NKI which have been tweaked to take the most advantage of the wide range of sounds you can get out of Shadow Strings.

The NKI presets are organized into 2 main folders: Basic and Designed.

-   The 66 Basic presets are useful if you want a more natural, unprocessed sound. You can add your own delays\reverbs\eq’s to the chain after Kontakt.

-   The 50 Designed presets were made to demonstrate how far the samples could be pushed using the built-in effects and controls.

Tip: Any sound in the library can be loaded from any of the NKI’s. Try loading a Designed preset, then changing to a different sound from the Patch Panel!

The other sounds in each nki have been left at various settings. Who knows what sounds you might find this way.

The following will explain the controls for each patch and give some background on the recording techniques used.

Pads

Sustains

Neither of these two articulations use vibrato. This gives the sustains a colder, more ominous sound. All the interest is generated by subtly changing the bow’s speed, pressure, and placement over time. The subs are pitched-down versions of the samples. The subs on their own do not sound great, but layered underneath, they add a nice heft to the pad.

Articulations:

Gentle: Random frequent bow changes create a gently undulating texture.
Harsh: Slow, steady bowing creates tension and suspense.

Controls

Cello 1: Made in 2018 by a maker in Minnesota. It has a refined sound. Panned centrally.
Cello 2: Made in China sometime in the 2000’s. It has a rich warm sound. It is tuned down a half step for all the recordings, to warm the sound up even more. Panned slightly left.
Cello 3: Made in Louisville, Kentucky in 1954. It has a rustic quality to it, which has been brought out even more by tuning it down a whole step. Panned slightly right.

WHISPER: Layers in the ponticello layers recorded from each of the three cellos. You can fade this layer in and out while holding notes to make your own swells.

Tremolo

Rather than layering in separate samples, the sub is made using a sine wave whose volume is modulated by a slow LFO.

Controls

Use the TONE knob to crossfade between 3 dynamic layers:

1. Airy, over the fingerboard.
2. Healthy, halfway between fingerboard and bridge.
3. Spidery, close to the bridge.

Swells

Layering 3 cellos together, the swells have an ensemble feel. The 3 cellos were recorded separately, overdubbing while listening to each other. This way of recording led to a rather tentative playing style which adds up to a unique ensemble sound.

The sub uses a key-tracked peaking filter to boost the fundamental frequency of the samples.

2 Bar Swells (120 BPM): A steely playing style creates tension and suspense. No Vibrato.

4 Bar Swells (120 BPM): A languorous playing style with no vibrato.

Whisper

This articulation is a swell created by sliding the stick of the bow across the strings. This technique creates an indistinct tone, as if the cello is whispering. The sub uses a key-tracked bandpass filter to boost the fundamental frequency of the samples, pitched down an octave.

Loops

The loops are multi-sampled and consist of repeated notes, bowed, and plucked rhythmically. Some repetitions are quite soft and weak sounding. Other repetitions might stick out unexpectedly. This style of playing lends itself especially well to delay and reverb. Once you turn up delay, the soft and loud repetitions start becoming layered together, making a fascinating blend of sound.

The performances are not meant to be consistent across keys. Each key will sound different. If you play multiple keys at once, you can hear the dynamics of each sample changing independently. The idea is that by holding one or two keys, you could create an improvisatory sounding texture which stays fresh and interesting for quite some time.

The goal while recording was to explore all the different timbres that happen while repeating notes at all different dynamics. When you hit or bow a string that is already ringing, a lot of happy accidents happen. Sometimes you get a harsh, buzzing sound. Other times perhaps you graze the string more softly than you meant to, but it ends up sounding good in context. There are all kinds of sounds which you probably would not think to use alone, but which sound interesting in the context of a loop.

All the loops will be automatically time-stretched to fit to your project’s BP.

NB Piano Loops -The last 2 articulations of the Percussive Quarters and Percussive Eighths Loops are not cellos but pianos! When you strum the strings of a piano you get a very edgy, twangy sound, slightly reminiscent of a hammered dulcimer. It’s the perfect sound for this type of library, so it was included even though it is a bit of an outlier since everything else is cello.

Articulations:

Bowed Quarters, Eighths & Sixteenths: The various speeds allow for the bow to interact with the strings in some unique ways and create varied timbres such as percussive, airy, bounced and even chordal sounding at higher speeds.

Percussive Quarters, Eighths, Triplets & Sixteenths: Within these patches you can find a variety of plucked, picked and chiff articulations in regular notes, octaves and harmonics.

FX

Bends

For a sample library, you usually want the samples to stay in tune. The bends are a sample library’s way to play in the cracks and have fun with expressive intonation. While these articulations might not fit everywhere, you can use the S.START slider to change the timing of bends. And they are great for spooky effects.

Articulations:

Scoops and Leers: These bends never comfortably reach the half-step above or below. To make the subs for the blue slider, basic synth waveshapes were pitched and enveloped to fit with the played samples. Normale bends have a saw wave, Harmonics bends have a sine wave, and Ponticello bends have a square wave. These waveforms were chosen based on how similar they sound to the samples.

Fall (Slow and Fast): A whispered fade in, then a foreboding descent into the depths. There are two dynamics which are mapped to separate octaves on the keyboard. A sine wave sub is used for the softer dynamic, and a low-passed saw wave is used for the louder dynamic.

Droop: Mournfully sighing, like an owl perhaps. It almost makes it down the half-step... Fingered harmonics create a light, wispy sound, full of air. The sub does not use a synth waveform --instead it consists of processed versions of the samples.

Droop Reversed: All the above bends could be reversed, and it is mildly entertaining --perhaps something worth trying after you’ve rendered samples out of Shadow Strings. Droop is particularly useful when it’s reversed, so it is included as its own articulation.

Risers

There are 2 second, 8 second, and 12 second long risers, each as separate articulations. Different variations are mapped across the keyboard so they can be layered together easily. It didn’t make sense for the Risers to have a sub, so instead the blue and yellow sliders are used as a “chopper” effect. The blue slider adjusts the amount, and the yellow slider adjusts the speed.

There are 3 groups of 4 notes. The first group is normale, the second group is tremolo, and the third group is ponticello. The notes in each group play different pitched risers. The lowest string of the cello was tuned down an octave to make the lowest pitched riser even lower.

Hits

There is just one Hits articulation, and it contains a collection of layered sounds, mapped across the keyboard in 3 groups. The first group has the shortest sounds, the last group has the longest sounds. The middle group is somewhere in-between. These sounds were created by exploring what kinds of strange sounds could be made with a cello, then finding ways these sounds could fit together with each other. Then they were sorted by intensity so they could be mapped to different velocities.

A handful of the samples from the sound design session worked particularly well when pitched way down. The sub layers in these boom-y samples.

Reverses

Samples of varying lengths are mapped across the keyboard. These samples can be useful as transitions, or to add more texture to impacts. This way it’s easy to mash keys on your keyboard, exploring and layering sounds. There is a set of 5 un-pitched whisking sounds which are duplicated onto every octave of black keys.

A handful of the samples from the sound design session worked particularly well when pitched way down. The sub layers in these boom-y samples.

Arps

Arps are tempo-synced arpeggios which use a mysterious pattern of minor thirds and half-steps, played in short fragments. Because the pattern is so vague harmonically, the arps can fit into many different keys. Play them over any chord progression, and they will often create enigmatic harmonies you wouldn’t otherwise think of. The subs consist of the samples, pitched down an octave.

The arps use two techniques:

Harmonics: This articulation uses a technique called fingered harmonics, which is where you hold down the string with one finger, then lightly touch that string farther up to get a high, whistling tone. With fingered harmonics you can only change notes by moving your whole hand. As a result, there is a little bit of portamento between every note. Fingered harmonics are difficult to play fast and accurately. To make them doable they were recorded playing quarter notes, and in shorter fragments than Ponticello.

Ponticello: The ponticello arps were recorded in eighth notes.

For each of these two techniques, there are two ways to play them:

Fragments: Mapped across the keyboard. Low velocities trigger a descending fragment. High velocities trigger an ascending fragment.

Arcs: Mapped to just a couple keys. Arcs consist of fragments edited together outside of Kontakt to make a big arc going over the entire range of the cello.