Like the transient beauty of Sakura (Japanese for Cherry Blossom), the sound of stringed instruments blossoms and fades. Image-Line brings you ‘Sakura’, the string physical modelling instrument, to express the delicacy and beauty of stringed sounds.

Virtual modelling in Sakura follows a 5 stage hanami-process. :


Contact - An impulse, the mechanical contact with the string, is first generated then shaped to simulate plucks, picks, scrapes, hammers, taps or humble fingers.


Vibration - Sakura’s dual string model then gives the operator control over a wide range of parameters such as damping, tension, positioning and string properties.


String interaction – The dual strings are then mixed, panned and enveloped to simulate interactions.

Resonance - The string/s vibration then interacts with an 8-resonator ‘body simulator’ to create the size, material and shape of the instrument

Acoustics - Virtual acoustic space is then simulated with chorus, delay and reverberation effects.