> may partly be due to the lack of transients

It's possible. There's all kinds of issue with the theremin on the attack of the notes that drives me a little batty.

I used to play around with digital tracking quite a bit, and one technique I developed that improved the sound considerably was to start note playback at some random offset near the beginning of the sample. It made the attacks sound more complicated and "human" even without playing around with the timing of any of the notes. If I had a second sample from somewhere else on the same instrument, I'd also sometimes substitute it on the same note as the first sample, just to provide some variety in the tone during the sustain.

One other idea, bouncing off of your group performance focus, is to focus on folk or ancient music ensemble type music. The nature of the virtuoso performances in those kinds of milieus is very different and maybe less technical than in more classical venues.

I remember taking an interest in Celtic fiddle music and attending some jam nights at some area pubs. It was pretty fascinating, everybody just sort of brought whatever instrument they played and if they could add to the song just sort of did what their instrument did. At any one time there might be a guy with a kazoo, some fiddle players, a couple flutists, autoharp, hurdy gurdy, guitar, saxaphone, etc. I'd imagine some electric instrument (so long as they didn't overpower the group) would blend in well enough. It was pretty intoxicating and the random collection of instruments almost always sounded fantastic.

The best example I can think of for how it sounded was something like La Bottine Souriante, a group which basically brings a complete random collection of instruments on stage and plays the hell out of them following elements of a traditional Quebec style of folk music (but at a high level) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYza0wxs7Ic

A smaller ensemble might be Väsen, who feature a Nyckelharpa in their music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78hGmYwnNHg

With ancient music, the techniques are less well developed when you play in the original style, even on something like a violin. The bowing is greatly simplified, you may not even be playing with vibrato. Complex hand positions are reduced, playing on open strings (no fingers) is okay. As a musical target it's appealing for electronic instruments and seems to tolerate the transition better than more modern music.

And it turns out it sometimes sounds amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi5-WRgA5GI

In fact here's a fantastic example on an EVI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd1gKm6QyDw

Sometime after Bach a lot of modern performance technique was invented, and eventually you end up with Paganini, who's music is unplayable on any electronic instrument I've ever seen. But he's doing crazy things like left hand pizzicatos in the middle of a bowing section and alternating between the wood and the hair of the bow while playing harmonics and all sorts of madness. But even just Paganini Caprice No. 24 pretty much exercises just about 95% of anything you can do on a violin. (3:50 in the video I've linked below will explode just about anybody's mind the first time they see it and realize what's going on).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPcnGrie__M&list=PLB084C0DA1...