Looking for a good place to find strings for music software

[Kyanbu The Legend]

So I recently download Pyscle a few weeks back and was wondering, do you guys know any good safe places where I can find some Orchestral Strings/Machines?

I'm also looking for Jazz style Strings/Machines as well.

[Nikose Tyris]

This sounds like a job for Fenris, our resident expert on all things involving musical talent. I know some guitar sites, but nothing like what you're asking for.

[A Zarkin' Frood]

What do you mean? Like a soundfont with good strings? Or a VST instrument?
For free you're very unlikely to find anything good. Personally I use Fluid Soundfont. It can be used with some midi sequencers and there's a plugin called sfz player that can be used with most mixing programs and allows to use soundfonts. This is what the viola sample of fluid sounds like. It also has various other strings as well as an ensemble.

That's the one free thing with half decent strings in it. I used the strings for a couple of songs (Like the one I linked).

Unfortunately, for the really good stuff you'll have to pay since good samples aren't easy to record and... well, sample. If you google for free VST instruments you can find plugins that should work with Psycle (whatever it is, assuming it's either a sequencer or mixing station with VST support, because that's standard). But since I already did the search months ago I can tell you you'll only find very obviously synthesized sounding plugins. Unless something new has appeared since then. mda Piano is probably the best I could find but it's, as the name implies, a piano, not strings.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Okay thank you for the help guys.

[Fenris]

what the fuck is pyscle

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Originally Posted by Fenris

what the fuck is pyscle

And that right there confirms that what I'm using isn't very good/well known.

http://psycle.pastnotecut.org/portal.php

Psycle Modular Music Creation Studio

this page will give you all you need to know about PSYCLE (past, present and future) and PSYCLEDELICS
you can also have a look at the boards and the docs page
or you can connect to IRC : on EFnet - channel : #psycle


1- overview
2- features/specifications
3- a bit of history
4- next generation
5- opensource status
6- site and community
7- people involved


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1- OVERVIEW

PSYCLE is a Music Creation Studio, using a tracker interface.
It can be used to make any type of music, using either its native plugins (synths and effects), VST2 plugins (synths and effects), internal sampler and effects and .wav files through the sampler.

you can see some screenshots on the docs page

Notes are entered in patterns, where lots of different commands (plugins related or general) can be used to change any plugin (native or VST, synths and effects) parameters at any time.
The patterns are then organized in the sequencer.
This sequence is the song and can be saved in .psy format, but also to .wav (this allows to compress the song in .mp3 or .ogg formats for example)
PSYCLE is free and opensource.
It's coded by a team named PSYCLEDELICS (see "people involved" section for complete credits).
If you want to help PSYCLE's development in any way, just contact us.

Third Party native plugins can also be coded and used in PSYCLE.

If you want to code your own plugins, please do so. But remember that things must be kept organized, and that unity in the development process is the best guarantee for PSYCLE's future and for users to get the best out of it. So, if you want to either code plugins or change PSYCLE's code, contact us and see how things can be done.

More info on PSYCLE's opensource status and coding organization in the "opensource status" section.


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2- FEATURES/SPECIFICATIONS

Here some facts about Psycle:

- 32 Tracks Pattern Editor (this limitation will be removed in the future)
- Stereo Sampler unit, that supports high quality
stereo .wav files and .iff samples as well (more formats will eventually come)
- 8 internal Plugins (Sampler & Effects)
- more than 35 Native Plugins (Generators & Effects)
- VST + VSTi Host (still limited but most plugins will work fine)
- Internal .wav output
- .fxb loading for VST's
- Midi-In Support
- Configurable Keyboard Layout
- themes and skins support
- much more...

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3- A BIT OF HISTORY

PSYCLE's development started in May 2000.
Designed by Arguru as a "Buzz clone", it was first focused on machines : each pattern was linked to a machine, and the patterns were then organized in the sequencer.

After several alpha versions and some weeks, Arguru decided to change PSYCLE into a more classical tracker, only keeping the machine view from the Buzz obvious affiliation. Each song position defined in the sequencer was then linked to one pattern used to enter notes and data for all machines at the same time, just like it remained for all 1.x following releases.

While version 1.0 was close, some important features were added (ex : twk command and .wav rendering)but PSYCLE was still an unfinished program, already usable, but lacking ergonomy and power (ex: no mouse support, few parameters commands, unfinished plugins, weak VST support etc...), along with a lack of real unity and logic in its use, mainly due to its empiric coding and design changes.

Arguru stopped developing PSYCLE during summer 2000, after only some months, to start a brand new project from the ground up (FastFucker, which later had its name changed to Traxvox), and decided release its sources and made PSYCLE opensource at the beginning of September 2000.

PSYCLE remained several weeks without a coder.
Being an unfinished program, lacking clear orientations in its design and code, its future was really unsure.
But its opensource status (the only music compusing program with available sources) and its real potential (mixing the classical tracker approach, along with VST support, native plugins, and its use of machines interconnexion "ala" Buzz), were attractive enough to hope that PSYCLE's development was not stopped for long.

Mats Höjlund started working on PSYCLE at the end of September 2000.
The first obvious positive point was that this kept PSYCLE alive.
Then, Mats main objective was to clear things up and clean PSYCLE's code.
So, his work on 1.1 to 1.5 releases consisted mainly on internal recoding and design consolidation, while some new features were added.
Along with that, Mats aimed clearly at the development of a new PSYCLE (named PSYCLE 2), which design's main point was the sequencer, and its ability to play several patterns at the same time.

While PSYCLE had still only one coder at this time, more people were interested in its development, or were using it as their main music creation tool.

After several months as PSYCLE's coder, Mats had to stop, leaving a stronger program and a growing community around it.

[JAZ] has been PSYCLE's main developer since then, helped by several other coders who generally work on precise parts of the program.
During this long period (more than 1 year 1/2) the team improved PSYCLE in every aspects, from the interface to numerous key features, always keeping in mind to get the best usuability possible.
Most of the code has been totally rewritten.

PSYCLE was attracting more and more users, but also new plugin coders : from ported Buzz machines to brand new native synths and effects, PSYCLE now proposes more than 30 internal and native plugins (effects and synths) and an improved VST host.

Although plans for a second generation of PSYCLE were never left down during this time, the team focused on usuability and power of the existing version.
But once PSYCLE was improved enough to consider it as one of the most powerful trackers around, [JAZ] started to work on the design of PSYCLE2.

Plans changed several times but the main point was to build an original solution to make music, getting the bost of both tracker and midi worlds, in a highly modular structure.
Majick started to code the project but unfortunatly had to stop soon.

Since then, [JAZ] and the development team have still been improving PSYCLE, and new brilliant native plugins were coded (mainly by Druttis and Pooplog). Concerning the program itself, a lot has been done recently by [JAZ] and Pooplog : PSYCLE is now mature and can compete with commercial software on many points.

But there are still great improvements planned. Next major steps will be : Multipattern sequence, mutisample instrument sampler and new fileformat.

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4- NEXT GENERATION

more on this soon

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5 - OPENSOURCE STATUS

PSYCLE is OpenSource. This Means: Everyone who thinks that he's the right person/alien for coding on PSYCLE can contact the Team of developers and ask/tell what he can do for Psycle.

Source Page is set at SourceForge site following this link: http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/psycle

Arguru Licensed Psycle 1.0 sources as "Public Domain". This means that the sources of Psycle can be used in whatever form you want.

This licensing applies ONLY to his sources, which day by day are less and less.

The current team preffers to enforce that psycle sources remain Free to everyone, which means everyone can see and modify the source, but If he does it, he cannot distribute them in a closed way.

He might, on the other hand, distrubute them as his own work, specifying that it is A DERIVED WORK FROM PSYCLE

Also, the team would appreciate that any work done over Psycle sources, are mixed back with the current sources, which would mean that Psycle grows instead of being divided.

There are open Forums and Bug trackers in SourceForge site and in Psycledelics site where you can contact us.

If you need to contact specifically the developers, write an e-mail to [JAZ] for that matter.

You are allowed to develop psycle Machines without any restriction There's no SDK ready, but you can download Psycle plugins' sourcecode from SourceForge Site (link above)



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6- SITE AND COMMUNITY

PSYCLEDELICS site has been existing since the very first alpha versions of PSYCLE.

The main goal of this site was first to provide support and promotion to PSYCLE by giving web space for any PSYCLE related topics.

Now the PSYCLEDELICS site pretends to be PSYCLE users home by providing resources, message board, archives (songs, contacts, plugins and presets)

A new version of the site is in construction.

PSYCLE also has a strong and lively community on IRC : join #psycle on EFnet


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[A Zarkin' Frood]

Psycle, just from the description, doesn't seem very bad. Maybe I'll check it out when I'm back home. If it has a decent sequencer I can control with my keyboard (both the computer one and the musical one, I can't stand dragging notes with my mouse) that would be swell. I could finally ditch TuxGuitar which has been abandoned by its devs anyway.

On the other hand, it doesn't seem like psycle can do anything more than REAPER, which is what I'm using now. Its focus is more on mixing and editing, though. So it has a shitty sequencer and none of those I want are compatible with it. So I have to sequence all my shit in a separate program I already mentioned.

Originally Posted by Nikose Tyris

This sounds like a job for Fenris, our resident expert on all things involving musical talent. I know some guitar sites, but nothing like what you're asking for.

Don't believe a word about music out of Fenris' mouth, he can read notes. That's a bad thing.

[PyrosNine]

Heh, Pyros still just uses Pxtone. Psycle sounds cool though.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

I think I may have found the VSTs/strings I was looking for.

dskmusic.com

I downloaded a few just now, gonna try them out in psycle to hear how they sound.