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New from Strezov Sampling: Afflatus Chapter - Part one: Strings

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You can rule that one out. Demos and walkthrough videos soon to come.
Phew
 
I should admit something here. Strezov Sampling sent me early access to their beta of Afflatus a few weeks back. I can't give details aside from what George mentioned in his video. They sent me an NFR in return for my review which at this point, will be more of a walk through and talking about how this library has changed my workflow (more to come soon). What I can say is...

Polyphonic Legato - This is not a gimmick. Most companies that promote this feature haven't really perfected the concept of being able to play polyphonic lines with the ability to write counterpoint in one pass without issue. They have already demonstrated they can do with with their previous choir libraries (re; Arva & Freyja). This library surpasses what is available outside of Strezov's programming, at least from my perspective. You can simply perform your parts in live without trouble or extra midi programming. It just works and I love it.

Auto-Divisi - Yes. Again, this isn't a gimmick. This isn't a new concept and those of you familiar with LASS understand what this means. However, Strezov has made it far more user friendly and like the polyphonic legato, it just works. You can truly hear the difference in the size of the sections when utilizing this feature so listen carefully when Strezov releases their walk through.

Again, I can't go into details of the content but what George has said in his announcement is very true. There isn't anything like this on the market. It's less about creating a workhorse string library like Cinematic Studio Strings and more about the characteristic of the string performances themselves. Afflatus covers a wide range of styles that are, quite frankly, missing in all of the major string libraries on the market. I honestly can't wait to cover this on my channel and share more. Once the walk-through video or videos are released, I will share some more user thoughts. Keep an eye on their social media and youtube channel for more information.

Cheers,

C
 
By divisi, I hope they mean LASS-style actual separate sections and not that when you play a chord it simply splits it amongst Vln I - II Vla Vc DB. Anyway the sound in that trailer is absolutely fantastic!
 
Still confused...so it's NOT phrase based...so it's based off performances like Performance Samples? Is this a completely user playable library, or are we stuck with "certain" phrases and passages? Still very unclear here..Hate when a company is so vague about what it is exactly that they are selling.
 
I should admit something here. Strezov Sampling sent me early access to their beta of Afflatus a few weeks back. I can't give details aside from what George mentioned in his video. They sent me an NFR in return for my review which at this point, will be more of a walk through and talking about how this library has changed my workflow (more to come soon). What I can say is...

Polyphonic Legato - This is not a gimmick. Most companies that promote this feature haven't really perfected the concept of being able to play polyphonic lines with the ability to write counterpoint in one pass without issue. They have already demonstrated they can do with with their previous choir libraries (re; Arva & Freyja). This library surpasses what is available outside of Strezov's programming, at least from my perspective. You can simply perform your parts in live without trouble or extra midi programming. It just works and I love it.

Auto-Divisi - Yes. Again, this isn't a gimmick. This isn't a new concept and those of you familiar with LASS understand what this means. However, Strezov has made it far more user friendly and like the polyphonic legato, it just works. You can truly hear the difference in the size of the sections when utilizing this feature so listen carefully when Strezov releases their walk through.

Again, I can't go into details of the content but what George has said in his announcement is very true. There isn't anything like this on the market. It's less about creating a workhorse string library like Cinematic Studio Strings and more about the characteristic of the string performances themselves. Afflatus covers a wide range of styles that are, quite frankly, missing in all of the major string libraries on the market. I honestly can't wait to cover this on my channel and share more. Once the walk-through video or videos are released, I will share some more user thoughts. Keep an eye on their social media and youtube channel for more information.

Cheers,

C

...shit
 
Still confused...so it's NOT phrase based...so it's based off performances like Performance Samples? Is this a completely user playable library, or are we stuck with "certain" phrases and passages? Still very unclear here..Hate when a company is so vague about what it is exactly that they are selling.

XBScPfn.jpg


what we can see:
  • multisampled (notes, not phrases)
  • 3 mic positions: Close, Decca, Hall
  • on board reverb
  • looks like a Metropolis Ark style pre-orchestrated "High" and "Low" (+ "Mid"?) ensembles, not V1/V2/Va/Vc/Cb
  • instruments are based on "playing styles," this one is called "Psychatto" (Psycho + spiccato?)
  • menus on the right look like: "Legato" "Overlap" "Releases" "Divisi"
  • About 32 musicians in the video (possibly 8/8/6/6/4 ?), that would make it a "studio strings" category library like CSS, Berlin, Spitfire Studio Strings.
now entering the magical Realm of Speculation:
  • 230 MB for one instrument with no keyswitch / articulation menu in sight on the GUI. IMO that strongly suggests the same sampling approach as the Musical Sampling (Adventure Strings / Adventure Brass) series.
  • true divisi (actually recording fractions of the ensemble, like LASS) doesn't seem super likely with these RAM dimensions. Scripted divisi seems more likely
  • note that the 230 MB has to account for 3 mics, because you can't load a single full mix (like the full mix in CSS or the stereo mixes in Mural, etc).
 
Last edited:
I should admit something here. Strezov Sampling sent me early access to their beta of Afflatus a few weeks back. I can't give details aside from what George mentioned in his video. They sent me an NFR in return for my review which at this point, will be more of a walk through and talking about how this library has changed my workflow (more to come soon). What I can say is...

Polyphonic Legato - This is not a gimmick. Most companies that promote this feature haven't really perfected the concept of being able to play polyphonic lines with the ability to write counterpoint in one pass without issue. They have already demonstrated they can do with with their previous choir libraries (re; Arva & Freyja). This library surpasses what is available outside of Strezov's programming, at least from my perspective. You can simply perform your parts in live without trouble or extra midi programming. It just works and I love it.

Auto-Divisi - Yes. Again, this isn't a gimmick. This isn't a new concept and those of you familiar with LASS understand what this means. However, Strezov has made it far more user friendly and like the polyphonic legato, it just works. You can truly hear the difference in the size of the sections when utilizing this feature so listen carefully when Strezov releases their walk through.

Again, I can't go into details of the content but what George has said in his announcement is very true. There isn't anything like this on the market. It's less about creating a workhorse string library like Cinematic Studio Strings and more about the characteristic of the string performances themselves. Afflatus covers a wide range of styles that are, quite frankly, missing in all of the major string libraries on the market. I honestly can't wait to cover this on my channel and share more. Once the walk-through video or videos are released, I will share some more user thoughts. Keep an eye on their social media and youtube channel for more information.

Cheers,

C
Damn it Chris!

Damn it George!!


you said it buddy.
 
By divisi, I hope they mean LASS-style actual separate sections and not that when you play a chord it simply splits it amongst Vln I - II Vla Vc DB. Anyway the sound in that trailer is absolutely fantastic!
All I will say is that it's not like LASS and it's not exactly like what you think here. It's practical, from a performance and orchestration perspective. Strezov really tried to go for a simple versus super complex divisi setup. Like I said, it just works. I don't know how George will approach the walk through videos but I hope he does a nice dry example of using the divisi feature to demonstrate how effective it is. I think you will all like it a lot.

-C
 
Still confused...so it's NOT phrase based...so it's based off performances like Performance Samples? Is this a completely user playable library, or are we stuck with "certain" phrases and passages? Still very unclear here..Hate when a company is so vague about what it is exactly that they are selling.
Oh Man.....poly leg and divisi !!!!!! Waiting for the walkthrough !!!!
 
Still confused...so it's NOT phrase based...so it's based off performances like Performance Samples? Is this a completely user playable library, or are we stuck with "certain" phrases and passages? Still very unclear here..Hate when a company is so vague about what it is exactly that they are selling.
why don't you just wait until they sell it ;)?
 
I wouldn't pay too much attention to the "performances, not samples" part, it's probably just marketing talk. Also notice how George said that they've always done this with all their libraries, and AFAIK none of them are phrase based but mostly good old traditional multi-sampled instruments.
Anyway, this sounds fantastic and I'm looking forward to hear more! :)
 
I wouldn't pay too much attention to the "performances, not samples" part, it's probably just marketing talk. Also notice how George said that they've always done this with all their libraries, and AFAIK none of them are phrase based but mostly good old traditional multi-sampled instruments.
Anyway, this sounds fantastic and I'm looking forward to hear more! :)
It's not marketing talk, it makes a difference in details like attack & dynamics consistency and bow pressure, when musicians are in the flow they're more likely to play uniformly. The devil's in the details!
 
It's not marketing talk, it makes a difference in details like attack & dynamics consistency and bow pressure, when musicians are in the flow they're more likely to play uniformly. The devil's in the details!
If we're talking about extracting samples from an actual performance like Performance Samples and Musical Sampling do, yes of course. But we don't know if that's what he's talking about, and the fact that he said they've always done this, makes me doubt that he does. I think he just means that their musicians always put their soul and an actual 'performance' in each note, but that's something that every developer claims.
But it is totally pointless to discuss this at the moment as long as we don't know anything more. As I said I'm just very excited and hope to hear more very soon.
 
XBScPfn.jpg


what we can see:
  • multisampled (notes, not phrases)
  • 3 mic positions: Close, Decca, Hall
  • on board reverb
  • looks like a Metropolis Ark style pre-orchestrated "High" and "Low" (+ "Mid"?) ensembles, not V1/V2/Va/Vc/Cb
  • instruments are based on "playing styles," this one is called "Psychatto" (Psycho + spiccato?)
  • menus on the right look like: "Legato" "Overlap" "Releases" "Divisi"
  • About 32 musicians in the video (possibly 8/8/6/6/4 ?), that would make it a "studio strings" category library like CSS, Berlin, Spitfire Studio Strings.
now entering the magical Realm of Speculation:
  • 230 MB for one instrument with no keyswitch / articulation menu in sight on the GUI. IMO that strongly suggests the same sampling approach as the Musical Sampling (Adventure Strings / Adventure Brass) series.
  • true divisi (actually recording fractions of the ensemble, like LASS) doesn't seem super likely with these RAM dimensions. Scripted divisi seems more likely
  • note that the 230 MB has to account for 3 mics, because you can't load a single full mix (like the full mix in CSS or the stereo mixes in Mural, etc).

That's the quality detective work I've signed up for! :emoji_mag_right:
 
Interesting! Hope there'll be demos and walktroughs soon. If the sound and playability is good (hard to judge from the teaser, although some moments sound quite nice), this could be a very cool release!
 
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I should admit something here. Strezov Sampling sent me early access to their beta of Afflatus a few weeks back. I can't give details aside from what George mentioned in his video. They sent me an NFR in return for my review which at this point, will be more of a walk through and talking about how this library has changed my workflow (more to come soon). What I can say is...

Polyphonic Legato - This is not a gimmick. Most companies that promote this feature haven't really perfected the concept of being able to play polyphonic lines with the ability to write counterpoint in one pass without issue. They have already demonstrated they can do with with their previous choir libraries (re; Arva & Freyja). This library surpasses what is available outside of Strezov's programming, at least from my perspective. You can simply perform your parts in live without trouble or extra midi programming. It just works and I love it.

Auto-Divisi - Yes. Again, this isn't a gimmick. This isn't a new concept and those of you familiar with LASS understand what this means. However, Strezov has made it far more user friendly and like the polyphonic legato, it just works. You can truly hear the difference in the size of the sections when utilizing this feature so listen carefully when Strezov releases their walk through.

Again, I can't go into details of the content but what George has said in his announcement is very true. There isn't anything like this on the market. It's less about creating a workhorse string library like Cinematic Studio Strings and more about the characteristic of the string performances themselves. Afflatus covers a wide range of styles that are, quite frankly, missing in all of the major string libraries on the market. I honestly can't wait to cover this on my channel and share more. Once the walk-through video or videos are released, I will share some more user thoughts. Keep an eye on their social media and youtube channel for more information.

Cheers,

C


Thanks for the sneak peek into what on the surface sounds good. The divisi and poly legato features for sure are appealing. Can you tell us how the 'legato' sounds - particularly BEFORE the apex of the sample. While it gives many grief about CSS's offset issues - I personally think it is its strength - in what is achieved in the final performance. Hope like heck all these samples are not 'cut-off' to make it easy to perform (ok if most of your mockups are to be performed by live sessions - but the reality is just the opposite for me.)

Very encouraging upcoming release.
 
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