Making strings more legato / smooth, less "keyboard-ish"

Hi everybody. It's my first post here. I finished David Nahmani's book recently and it was wonderful. I'm just disappointed there isn't a follow-up to continue learning!

I'm working on strings for the first time - I have two string plugins available to me. One is the Logic stock one and the other is the Spitfire Audio BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover.

I've skimmed through a few YouTube tutorials but feel a little bit lost. I can see that in order to make strings sound less like they were played on a keyboard, I'll need to explore MIDI automation regarding dynamics and I feel reasonably comfortable with that. But what I would like to do is to make notes flow smoothly into each other - the same way a string player would simply keep bowing and slide their fingers to a new note. Please could you advise me on how to achieve this? Unfortunately I am not using a keyboard with pitch shifting wheel, just the close-to-entry-level Yamaha digital piano.

Please could you give me any advice? Is my best option to use pitch bend in MIDI automation? And (long shot!) does anybody know why this doesn't work with the BBC Discover plugin?

Aside from the above, I'm also wondering whether there would be any other advantages to using the Logic plugin over the BBC Discover plugin (which sounds good but is limited in terms of options). From what I can see the BBC Discover plugin sounds immediately better than the Logic plugin.

Thank you all!

The Spitfire BBC SO plugin does sound immediately like an orchestra in a room, because they recorded groups of instruments at the same time. But only one group. Logic's "Strings" stock plugin has far more expressions and control, which can be made to sound more like the BBC strings by panning and adding reverb.

Regarding the finer movements between notes and the quick slides the musicians make between notes, I'm not sure either of these plugins will allow you to recreate that convincingly. You might get somewhere near if you select, in Logic Strings, the single instruments on the right side of the instrument selection panel and turn "Monophonic" on and then make sure "Legato Transitions" is marked on in the expandable area at the bottom of the plugin window. Still, though, you won't get the slides between notes, and trying to write those with pitch bends will be tough to sound real. But, if you're up for a challenge! Getting the most out of these sample sets will require you to automate CC for volume, and use the Articulation sets for the stock String plugin.

Finally, yes, I couldn't find any pitch bend range selection in the BBC SO plugin. Not sure why, interesting parameter choice.. Might just be a limit of the BBC SO plugin, quite possibly the other purchasable ranges do include this as an option.

The Spitfire BBC SO plugin does sound immediately like an orchestra in a room, because they recorded groups of instruments at the same time. But only one group. Logic's "Strings" stock plugin has far more expressions and control, which can be made to sound more like the BBC strings by panning and adding reverb.

 

Regarding the finer movements between notes and the quick slides the musicians make between notes, I'm not sure either of these plugins will allow you to recreate that convincingly. You might get somewhere near if you select, in Logic Strings, the single instruments on the right side of the instrument selection panel and turn "Monophonic" on and then make sure "Legato Transitions" is marked on in the expandable area at the bottom of the plugin window. Still, though, you won't get the slides between notes, and trying to write those with pitch bends will be tough to sound real. But, if you're up for a challenge! Getting the most out of these sample sets will require you to automate CC for volume, and use the Articulation sets for the stock String plugin.

 

Finally, yes, I couldn't find any pitch bend range selection in the BBC SO plugin. Not sure why, interesting parameter choice.. Might just be a limit of the BBC SO plugin, quite possibly the other purchasable ranges do include this as an option.

Thank you cinningbao. That is helpful to know. I'll go back and use the Logic plugin. After a little bit of research, it seems like a deliberate choice Spitfire Audio made. They felt it would compromise the quality of the sample sound.