My wife doesn't particularly care for the sound of a piano, but during a party with too much drinking we discovered when someone else played my DP using the string voice she loved it. I proceeded to play pieces she has never liked, which she now loves if I play with the string voice.

I have Truepianos. Are there software programs that have similar functionality only with other voices, like strings? Or is a sound module like a Motif Rack ES the easiest way to accomplish this? I don't want to do anything sophisticated like compose or arrange music, I just want to be able to have a variety of voices to select, perhaps combining them in a way similar to the "dual" voice feature of my P90.

Synthogy Ivory does have a "synth layer" option which allows you to incorporate either a pad-type layer or a string layer on top of your piano. It's somewhat limited in that it only has 5 pad styles but the "Anastring" layer is really not that bad. If your wife likes the string sound she probably would also enjoy the sound of the pads, as well.

If you are looking at the hardware option I thing the Motif rack would be a good choice. I play a Motif XS8 and I like the strings a lot. The Roland Fantom-XR or the SonicCell would also be possibilities since they are expandable the SRX expansion boards. There are some good string SRX boards available if you really want to go all out with the strings.

IK Multimedia also has both Miroslav Philharmonic and SampleTank 2. They come in light and full versions. I believe SampleTank uses voice from Miroslav.

There are other samples available as well.

You will probably want to load a full string section with these or with GPO. Otherwise you will only hear the string sounds in the normal range of the specific instrument you are playing.

Rich

I own Miroslav Philharmonic and agree it is a good choice if you are looking for a broader range of sounds.

I forgot to mention in my previous post that Galaxy II pianos also have a similar pad option like the one I mentioned with Ivory. I own the download versions of the Galaxy II Steinway and Vienna Grand. They have a 'Pad Option' with 5 different presets that sound nice with the piano.

Either one of these is much less expensive than Ivory and both are very good pianos.

Download versions of Galaxy II pianos

Sinc Truepianos also works as a VST intrument, you can load any vst host such as vsthost or Cantabile and send the keyboard input to both TruePianos and a string VST.

Googling "free strings vst" gives you plenty of options for these, along with the suggestions above.

The Motif rack mount unit will have all of Yamaha's best sounds on it but the price is about $1,800, Roland has a competing "Fantom" rack mount box and if you have a Mac then it comes with some string software instruments that you might just like, try those before spending any money.

If you need to buy good software string sounds then there are enough options that it will take some effort to evaluate them

This should get you started.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/search.php?s=software+string&go=Search
I'd call or email the place above. They have sales people who actually use the stuff they sell and don't just work on the phones. I've been able to ask advice on the "sound" of one product over the other and they can help.

Without knowing it would be hard to know it you's want "orchestral string" or "chamber strings" or "solo strings" But maybe you's be happy with a full orchestra sample library that has strings and woodwind and all. That's the trouble there are 100 to choose from

The target market for this is people with small or home recording studios who are music producers needing to add backing sounds to their recordings. So look at the outlets who sell to this group.

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions, I'm off to think about all this and get smarter.