THE MAKING OF SINPHONICA MAESTOSA STRINGS
FROM PERFORMANCE TO SCULPTED SOUND
An orchestra isn’t sampled. It’s performed.
Before the microphones. Before the software. Before the first sample was edited, there was a question:
What should a modern orchestral instrument feel like?
For Sinphonica, the answer began in Italy.
Not simply because Italy is our home, but because Italy has spent centuries turning craftsmanship into expression — through music, instrument making, opera, cinema, architecture and art.
We wanted to approach the virtual orchestra with that same philosophy.
Not as a collection of samples.
As an instrument shaped from real performances.
And so we started where every great orchestra starts: With musicians.
60 MUSICIANS. ONE ORCHESTRA.
The first chapter of Sinphonica is MAESTOSA Strings, built around a 60-piece symphonic string ensemble carefully assembled from outstanding players from some of Italy’s most prestigious orchestras.
The objective wasn’t simply to gather exceptional musicians in a room.
It was to make them perform as an orchestra.
To capture the interaction between players and sections. The subtle variations that happen naturally inside an ensemble. The way the character of the orchestra changes as sixty musicians move together from the most delicate passages to full symphonic intensity.
These are qualities that cannot be created afterwards.
They have to happen in the room.
THE RIGHT PLACE TO CAPTURE IT
That room was Officine Meccaniche in Milan.
We chose it not simply as a recording studio, but as an essential part of the sound.
Its combination of detail, dimension and musical character allowed us to preserve the immediacy of the players while capturing the natural sense of space around the complete ensemble.
Microphones were positioned throughout the room, from intimate perspectives close to the musicians to the wider image heard from the conductor’s position. Every perspective captured a different relationship between player, orchestra and space. The room wasn’t something we wanted to remove from the recordings. It was part of the instrument we wanted to build.
CAPTURING A PERFORMANCE
The sessions went far beyond recording notes at different dynamics.
We wanted to capture what makes strings expressive: the beginning of a bow stroke, the transition between notes, the tension of a crescendo, the subtle variations between players and the movement that happens inside a sustained sound.
We also encouraged the orchestra to move beyond conventional playing — exploring unusual gestures, textures and performances that became part of MAESTOSA’s more cinematic side.
Because we weren’t simply recording notes. We were capturing the raw material of expression.
FROM PERFORMANCE TO INSTRUMENT
When the sessions ended, another kind of craftsmanship began.
Thousands of performances were listened to, selected, edited, balanced and carefully assembled into a single coherent instrument.
The challenge was to preserve all the humanity and complexity of those performances while making the experience of playing them feel completely natural.
Technology plays an enormous role in Sinphonica, but its purpose is ultimately to disappear.
The complexity stays underneath. The orchestra stays in front.
MADE IN ITALY
For centuries, Italian craftsmen and artists have taken physical materials and shaped them into something capable of extraordinary expression. Wood becomes an instrument. Marble becomes movement.
With Sinphonica, the materials are musicians, performances, acoustics, microphones and technology.
But the ambition remains much the same:
Preserve what is real. Refine every detail. Put expression in the hands of the artist.
MAESTOSA Strings is the first expression of that philosophy.
Performed by exceptional Italian musicians.
Recorded in Milan.
Crafted into an instrument at IK.
And placed in the hands of the composer to give it its final form.
