String sounds lend themselves well to being synthesised on the NM; to be honest there are few synths that can't do a reasonable impression. This is where I use what I call "Imitative synthesis"; recreating a traditional or natural sound or even another synth. (the NM is probably the best so far at the latter I have used..)

You have already noticed two techniques that are commonly used: Pulse width modulation,and the use of a Mod.delay, in your case Chorus. (Any Modulation delay, such as the NM posseses, are used.Slow Flanging and subtle Pitch de-tuning,either of Oscillators or via a Pitch shifter can be effective depending on the required sound...)

String instruments are generally rich in harmonics and contain a lot of "movement" in the sound which is why the human ear can listen to them for long periods without tiring. (It might also be to do with the harmonic ratios of the strings themselves as well. Help me out if I'm wrong here, guys...)

So a good starting point is to use Square(pulse) or Saw Oscillators as the foundation of a string patch as these have the sort of harmonic content we need. Enclosed is a VERY simple example of a 2 Osc string patch(!) Hmmmm. Very early 80's Roland? Obviously not very exciting... But play around with the Fine tuning of the oscillators and the filter cutoff. One can still get some depth even with something this simple.

Next example uses PWM to achive a similar effect. Here I'm using an LFO to create the "chorus" effect. Also notice how Square Waves have a more "hollow" timbre, so I have to tweak it a bit more so it still has string-like qualities rather than brass or reed instruments... To do this I have used more filter resonance to make the sound thinner.

Again,try adjusting

1. Fine tune
2. Pulse width Mod amount
3. LFO speed.

You can actually get this very full sounding already...

"Better Str" combines the above ideas,and uses two LFO's at varying frequencies to simulate vibrato and tuning drift. Using the inverted Control mix out allows me to modulate two different destinations from one LFO relative to each other. The filter cuttoff is also slightly modulated to make the timbre less static.Lfo modulation here is also usefull....The Keytracking is also offset so the sound is "darker" in the lower octaves..(try playing the sound over a 3 or 4 octave range ..)

I can have a go at expanding these ideas, if anyone finds this useful. I will leave the "Advanced" stuff to Roland, Wout, Rob et al...! ;)

Oh, BTW, as he has cropped up several times recently on the list, I would say check out Isao Tomitas' "The planets" and "Kosmos" albums for some good examples of synthesised strings...

NB: the enclosed patches are deliberately simple.....I can't cover all angles in one e-mail and I don't know all the angles either!