I'm looking for a good vst library for creating realistic 70s violin ensembles - any suggestions? the library should have some intelligent scripting which detects portamento, runs, riffs and such.
Any ideas?
The classic "70's" string sound is the Arp String Ensemble. It is featured in such songs as "Babe" by Styx.
This plugin (stringer) might do the trick: http://freemusicsoftware.org/category/free-vst/strings. There are also other plugins in that page you can try.
If you are looking for more realistic string sounds, and don't want to purchase an enormous sample library like Vienna, Synful Orchestra has some of the best (and most natural sounding) strings I've heard.
Have a look at Native Instruments Session Strings which is a sample based VSTi of a string ensemble, which has built in "articulations", including "scoops/falls" specifically targetted at creating 70s disco sounds. There is also Session Strings Pro which has a much larger sample library and a few extra features
Here are some free orchestral soundfonts. They might not be as good as VST's as far as quality goes, but they're free.
http://www.oui.com.br/n/download.php?list.2
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/printview.php?t=137348&start=0