Meet Cinematique Instruments' Viola Da Gamba, Virtual Baroque Strings

The Viola da Gamba is an old orchestra string instrument with 6 nylon sides and a range from C2 to C5. Its sound is rough and coarse - a wonderful addition to classical strings. Here's what the developers say about it.

"Our goal to digitally recreate the Viola Da Gamba and give it another modern expression was a success. Our Viola Da Gamba has become an amazingly independent instrument with its own unique character and a very organically rough sound. It is a great alternative to conventional orchestral string instruments."

What Is It?

The viola da gamba is a historical instrument from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. It belongs to the family of string instruments and was mainly built and used in Italy, France, Germany and England. Today the viola da gamba is mainly used in "early music", which is gaining more and more attention.

It has 6 strings tuned in the typical baroque tuning of 415Hz. All strings are nylon strings. Due to this special mixture of strings the viola da gamba has its own character, which clearly differs from violin and cello. Especially because of the nylon strings the Viola da Gamba has its own unmistakable rough sound.

THIS IS WHAT YOU GET

• An exciting mix of microphones - the velvety sound of the Schoeps mics, Neumann U87 as well as Coles 4038 ribbon
• Six articulations - beside arco, pizzicato, staccato, and spiccato, there are also unconventional articulations like arco-fragile, textures and xylo-mallet-hits
• An extensive number of round robins - up to 16 with up to four dynamic layers
• The ability to play a different amount of instruments - all articualtions can be played either as solo viola da gamba or as an ensemble trio with trio with 3 instruments
• Additional fx - delay, chorus, amped and drive
• Nine reverb types - beside several different sizes you get special types such as infinite and deep valley