François : Gothic String Textures

Nine years ago, I had the chance to receive an old broken violin. It belonged to François, my wife’s great grand-father, and was bought at least a hundred years ago. The instrument was a mess : the finger board was broken, the lower bout was opened, glue had failed in many places and parts were missing. I planned to try to fix it myself, read a lot about violin making and watched many videos, but I just couldn’t find the time and courage to actually start the work… Until this year. One day, I finally felt it was long overdue and jump right in. I cleaned, I glued, I filed and, after a while, François’ violin was making sound again.

Then, I decided to turn that old, broken, forgotten instrument into a library. Being a bad violin player (that’s a euphemism), I knew I shouldn’t expect to make something perfect. So I leaned into that : I made on purpose an imperfect sample library. I wanted something that is played a bit wrong, something a bit out of tune, with quirks and ugly things. I wanted something textural, that i can put under my incredibly well played and recorded commercial libraries, just to add a touch of life, a dash of grit and dirt.

In the end, I settle for 9 presets, one for each years the violin spend in my studio, waiting to be fixed. Each preset is made from its own set of samples. Each preset is flawed and bear some inconsistencies. Each preset was made with passion and care.

I truly hope you’ll enjoy making François’ violin sing again as much as I do.

William

PS : The lovely illustration was made by https://www.instagram.com/luciehgdessine/