Part 1: How to make a realistic staccato sound for Erhu, while maintain a beautiful oriental flavor.

Staccato are single and short notes in Erhu. The key for staccato is the different shapes of the attack period. When using Staccato, the first thing we shall avoid is repeat the same samples again and again, that will lead to a machine gun effects. Staccato can express different moods. But this also gives you the difficult in choosing the right one. We shall discuss it with several different situations

1. Choosing staccato based on note duration/speed.

In our Erhu Combo section, which is under Erhu Basic, we have sampled 4 different note duration or speed. They are 4th, 8th, half and whole notes which you can use key switch to active them. By doing so, you can achieve the maximum realistic.

2. Choosing staccato based on skills.

Under Erhu Tech, we have stress and stamp skills, stamp is a percussive skill while stress emphasizes the attack period of sound and is very similar to the Violin’s accent skill. Choosing the right skill based on the moods you need to express will result a great sounding Erhu piece.

3. Choosing staccato based on velocity

In string instruments, Velocity is not a big issue because its dynamic is very limited. So using different velocity in string instrument is more aimed at its timbre. Different velocity has different timbre, this also applies to Erhu. If you try lower velocity, you will find it sounds softer and may have more bow noise. This different timbre will give your piece more “live” feel.

4. Make it “Round Robin”

If you repeat the same sample again and again, it will surely sound dull. No “live” feel. So in order to make the Erhu play different sample each time, like round robin samples do. Here are the tips.

a. Avoid using the same velocity on the same note

b. If you need to play the same note with same velocity, try using key switch to switch different skills.

c. Edit Volume to enable the possibility to use velocity to switch samples

Tips on tweaking the sound
If you do not satisfy with the sounds achieved by above ways, there are also some ways which could tweak the finally sound.

1. Edit the attack period

In plugin version, you can tweak the attack time. In kontakt version, you can edit attack shape in modulation window. This gives the ability to shape the final sound.

2.Use CC#7 and CC#11 the control the volume of the sound

Crescendo and decrescendo is not so common or popular in staccato, but if you use them in mediate length of the staccato note, such as between 0.4 to 0.8 seconds, you can hear it works will. By doing so, you need to use CC#7 and CC#11 to make it work. Please you need to make a curve for the controller so it can sound good.

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