Big Fish Audio – Emotional Viola

The most expressive and detailed virtual viola available

Emotional Viola is the third member of the Emotional Strings series by Harmonic Subtones. This long anticipated and logical addition to the cello and violin, represents a very comprehensive virtual instrument that is easy to play, and of course offers numerous possibilities for individual customization.

Not only does the Emotional Viola harmonize excellently with the cello and the violin, it is also highly valued as a solo instrument with its direct and unadulterated sound, its variety of essential to extraordinary articulations as well as true legato and rebowing.

Emotional Viola is the first choice if you are looking for the perfect instrument for film scoring, pop music, songwriting, classical or modern, avant-garde viola compositions!

Contextual Sampling

As with the other instruments from the Emotional series, the Munich-based developers decided to stay true to their concept of contextual sampling in which all samples are always recorded in a musical context to capture the natural bowing and expressiveness of real instrumentalists. In this approach, the recordings of a real vibrato play an important role, as they are always more inspiring and organic than adding an artificial vibrato.

Articulations, Patches & True Legato

Emotional Viola was created from well over 50 articulations and their variants. By means of an elaborate and intelligent script, countless articulations are wisely linked together, so that they follow the user’s style of playing.

The Emotional Viola Master Patch contains most of the recorded articulations, which logically interlock and provide an elegantly aligned sound, thanks to „True Legato“. Three different transition types have been captured in several sessions and simulate, among other things, realistic changes in bowing direction or passionate portamento while playing. The user simply controls the velocity – the tempo of the tone transitions automatically adapts to your DAW!

In addition to the Master Patch, the Emotional Viola also contains an Individuals Patch which is a set of key switch patches with different articulations of the same category such as sustains, shorts, trills and more. The Specials Patch offers some unusual articulations and effects and the Stackable Patch contains the main articulations with standardized key switching to match the stackable patches of Emotional Cello & Emotional Viola.

Selection of the included playing styles:

Spiccato, Rota Spicc, Pizzicato, Fliegender Aufstrich, Delicate Phrased, Delicate Sustain, Touch Sense Espressive, Espressivo Long, Progressive Vibrato Phrased, Progressive Vibrato Long, Expressive Brahms, Brahms Long, Arpeggio Shorts RR, Rota Vivid, Czardas Sfz, Sustain Vib XFDe, Sustain Non Vib XFDe, Kernig NV Shorts, Nordic Long, Nordic Variety, Fast Lines Late Vib, Fast Lines Swelling Vib, Tremolo XFDe, Trill HT, Trill WT, Flautando, Nordic, Morbid, Harmonics, Sulponticello XFDE, Sul C, Undulation Wait.

Ornament Key Switches

The Ornament Key Switches are another great feature. Unlike the articulation key switches, these are temporary and allow variations of the already selected articulation. By pressing one of the Ornament Key Switches, the current playing style can be faded into another articulation or variations can be generated. Last but not least, the Ornament MKS offer typical effects like glissando, flageolet and many more.

The Effects

In order to customize the sound of the viola according to your wishes, you can use effects specially designed for the instrument. These include a 3-band EQ, a switchable sordino and a timbre function. The latter contains 15 convolution-based presets from renowned and experienced sound engineers for easy and characteristic modulation of the basic sound.

For the use of the Viola as 1st chair viola in an orchestral environment, there are also timbre EQs which place the viola in its correct position in the orchestra room. The final touch is provided by the “Room” and “Reverb” modules, which use professionally recorded convolution reverb presets to reproduce the sound of real rooms and can also be adjusted separately.

You are the artist!

The interface of the Emotional Viola has some advanced features to make it easier for you to play the library. For example, “Poly Legato” recognizes whether you are playing a bound melody line or a chord, and “Legato Trimming” allows you to manually adjust the speed of legato and portamento transitions.

The Attack function allows you to add an additional start sample independent of the currently selected articulation in order to let short notes flow in during legato playing or to simulate harsh starting notes. Correct tuning is also taken care of: Using the “Micro Tuning Option”, the most popular tunings can be applied to the viola, and completely new tunings can be created.

The Recording

Like the cello and violin, the viola was recorded in the Mastermix Studio near Munich, in a wood-panelled room with high ceilings and the greatest possible distance from the wall. For the greatest possible flexibility of use, two Neumann microphones, type KM184 and U87, were used for close recording. In this way, the room was kept quite subtle, and you can then create your desired sound with your own effects. However, you can also use the integrated Convolution Reverb.

Product Requirements:

Kontakt Player 6.2.2 or newer required.
4.5 GB Disk space