e-instruments - the company known for popular Kontakt instruments Session Horns, Session Strings, and Session Keys - is making history with the release of Stradivari Violin, in partnership with Native Instruments.

The Stradivari is an historical masterpiece created in c.1727 by the legendary Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari - and is considered to be a typical example of his work in the late 1720s. The instrument now stands in the Museo del Violino after its last owner — violinist and composer Remo Lauricella — expressed his will to return the violin to its place of origin, in the town of Cremona, Italy.

The team at e-instruments is known for approaching the creation of modern digital instruments with the same craftsmanship and attention to detail as the luthiers who first created these world-famous violins. So when the Museo del Violino (the guardians of the Stradivari collection) wanted to find a way to capture and preserve the tone and playability of their priceless collection of instruments they turned to e-instruments. The collaboration has been a perfect fit with the painstaking process garnering the attention of the worldwide press when the recording took place in January 2019.

The Stradivari Violin was recorded in the heart of Cremona, the birthplace of Stradivari and the very auditorium designed to hear its sound, the Auditorium Giovanno Arvedi. The meticulous recreation of this iconic instrument makes playing the sound of Stradivari a reality, in more ways than one. Not only does the high-quality sample content preserve the sound of this one-of-a-kind instrument for future generations, but also packs the mastery of this historic violin into a powerful instrument for modern composers.

The Stradivari Violin features new technologies such as; Multi-channel, Stereo phase alignment and every single note has been painstakingly sampled at different dynamics and phase-aligned in stereo across multiple microphones. This ensures that all dynamic transitions are free from any phasing artefacts and dynamic changes over long legato transitions, from the softest pianissimo to the most forceful fortissimo, are indistinguishable from that of a real violin.

Performance Captured Vibrato - the e-instruments innovation of performance captured vibrato - takes the recording of a professional violinist's vibrato technique, then reapplies the behaviour of the vibrato parameters to the sample, allowing you to automate or control in real-time, resulting in full and realistic control for an expressive and natural sound.

Pristine sampling and innovative technologies mean the unparalleled recreation of an historic instrument that has to be played to be believed.

Stradivari Violin - Summary

• Size: 23.5 GB / 39 GB (Lossless Sample Compression)

• 24 bit, 48 kHz

• Requires free Kontakt 6 Player or Kontakt version 6.2.2