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

The ensemble playing styles:

"Barbaric"
"Christmas"
"Contemporary"
"Ensemble Shorts"
"Heroine"
"Le Sacre"
"Lush"
"Minimalist" (featured in demo 2)
"Pop"
"Psychatto"
"Quartet Sfz"
"Red Army"
"Roof Chase"
"Shark Strings" :emoji_swimmer:
"The Mouse"
"Undercover"
"Vintage" (featured in demo 1?)
 
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It kinda doesn't. Sampled instruments do not act like real ones. When I have a 6 horns patch and play a chord, it doesn't sound like 18 players are playing.

I have to disagree. There's a big difference in the sound of an ensemble multiplied versus actually divided.
 
If the other styles are as convincing as the first two demos, it's a compelling notion to be able to dial in a style. Very curious to see what's actually happening here.
 
Good catch, but that's just the ensembles, not the individual sections we recorded. Demo 1 doesn't feature the Vintage Strings and there is way more content in the library than this list might suggest.
Even More intrigued........What is this library??? One for me of course!!!!!!
 
I'll just make a little copy paste of the latest post I made in another topic about this library, since I thought it was the main thread about Afflatus and it seems i was wrong.. Sorry I don't know if this kind of copy-paste are allowed or not on the forum..

Since I had the occasion to play with the library a lot (I made the teaser music and the first midi walkthrough cues), I had to say a few words about it.

The library is in my opinion really good, designed to write efficiently and easily, without wasting too much time working on little details everywhere to make it sound good (the polyphonic legatos with automatic divisi are really simple to use)

Some patches you haven't really heard yet (there is more content than you expect) really blow my mind and fill the gaps the other libraries have. I actually think the library has been designed first to fill all these gaps instead of competing with other libraries , then in a second time they sampled the regular articulations we find pretty much in every string library.
 
Still without 'full' top tier Strings lib …. (many useful bits and pieces).
Afflatus announcement, and comments here, have me excited that this could be it. :speechless:
 
I have to disagree. There's a big difference in the sound of an ensemble multiplied versus actually divided.
But there's also a big difference between 2 or 6 horns or 12 horns sampled as section. Do you have Cinebrass? Play a chord with the 6 horns patch and one tone with the 12 horns patch. Actually no matter how many keys you press, the 6 horns patch won't never sound like 12 horns, so this theory of "3 notes of 12 violions = 36 violions playing" is nonsensical.

Of course divisi will sound different, but you are not producing sound of +- 40 violins while playing chords, it doesn't work like that.
 
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But there's also a big difference between 2 or 6 horns or 12 horns sampled as section. Do you have Cinebrass? Play a chord with the 6 horns patch and one tone with the 12 horns patch. Actually no matter how many notes you press, the 6 horns patch won't never sound like 12 horns, so this theory of "3 notes of 12 violions = 36 violions playing" is nonsensical.

Of course divisi will sound different, but you are not producing sound of +- 40 violins while playing chords, it doesn't work like that.


I agree completely. The Mathematics of acoustics and sampling are not linear like that. It is a very complex thing actually. So the theory of "3 notes of 12 violins = 36 violins playing" is nonsensical, because it just does not sound like that. The sampling world is a different realm to the live acoustic world, and ultimately the ears are the best judge when making stacking decisions. If it sounds good, that is what matters.
 
But there's also a big difference between 2 or 6 horns or 12 horns sampled as section. Do you have Cinebrass? Play a chord with the 6 horns patch and one tone with the 12 horns patch. Actually no matter how many keys you press, the 6 horns patch won't never sound like 12 horns, so this theory of "3 notes of 12 violions = 36 violions playing" is nonsensical.

Of course divisi will sound different, but you are not producing sound of +- 40 violins while playing chords, it doesn't work like that.

I agree with you there, that's why crossfading works in practice. But a chord played with a 12 horns patch sounds less natural than a chord played with two. Is that basically what you're saying and I'm just misunderstanding?
 
I agree completely. The Mathematics of acoustics and sampling are not linear like that. It is a very complex thing actually. So the theory of "3 notes of 12 violins = 36 violins playing" is nonsensical, because it just does not sound like that. The sampling world is a different realm to the live acoustic world, and ultimately the ears are the best judge when making stacking decisions. If it sounds good, that is what matters.
Yes, that's why the approach taken with this library is to emulate the concept of a thicker section splitting which will then create a slightly thinner sound because the you are now using sampled from a smaller section. The one aspect, at least that I've found while reviewing this library, is that the volume balance of divisi to full is 2:1 so you can play two notes of the divisi line and get the same volume when playing one note of the full section. Now, anything past that and the complexities that you are describing here come into play. As I've said a few times already, the approach here is about keeping it simple and user friendly. This isn't Orchestral Strings Simulator 2018. You need to still use some common sense when writing with this library but because they kept things simple, it's far easier to create something that sounds great without much work.

I tested the divisi of this library by mocking up the first few pages of And Birds Are Still by Takashi Yoshimatsu. As you can see, the 1st Violins are split into 4 parts with a lot of doubled notes. This library can create this sound very easily but..but..you can't really get the nuances of that many parts split out due to note stacking. So, I wouldn't recommend going past 2-3 split notes because you will start to hit the synth sound we've all discovered when playing a violin section like an Organ (Although, this library does hold up better than most when played this way which says a lot). Despite that, this library can easily go from playing a full section at 5 voices (v1, v2, vla, vlc, cb) and split out to 9 voices very easily without losing a realistic balance. But, divisi writing is something you have to learn. It's not just simply splitting sections for the sake of it. It's the most useful in certain circumstances that comes with practice and listening to other composers who've done it well.

We've seen how it works in Afflatus now. CC64 (Sustain Pedal) triggers the divisi section of the patch you are playing and this can be programmed to another CC if you'd like. So, performing with it is simple. Even if you don't understand how to effectively use divisi sections in your compositions, at least you can do one thing very easily. Go from playing a full section to a half sized section all within one patch with one simple push of a sustain pedal. The differences between the two are very noticeable and it can honestly add a lot of depth to a lead line when used properly. If anything, you have two sizes of sections with the same functionality to write with so the depth of this library is already pretty vast when you think of sonic characteristics of that alone.

I hope that sheds a bit of light on the practical applications of the divisi feature in this library.

Cheers,

Chris
 
how is it with swirling string lines, runs, fast paced stress parts, unorthodox string writing melodic lines, so I speak of some real bogus writing where live strings shine and most samples just are meh... Any chance some demos cover this? Also bigger intervallic melody lines, hornerish like arrpegiating figures with bigger intervalls and faster tempo? Just curious..Thats something what I would like to see covered..
 
Good catch, but that's just the ensembles, not the individual sections we recorded. Demo 1 doesn't feature the Vintage Strings and there is way more content in the library than this list might suggest.
Holy four-letter-word Batman!!

Ok. Now I’m really, REALLY interested to see this released. And if the rest of the orchestra sounds as good, oh my goodness. I’m wondering will this be Strings, Woods, Brass only? Maybe Perc? Maybe choir?! Not expecting an answer George, just rhetorical questions.
 
how is it with swirling string lines, runs, fast paced stress parts, unorthodox string writing melodic lines, so I speak of some real bogus writing where live strings shine and most samples just are meh... Any chance some demos cover this? Also bigger intervallic melody lines, hornerish like arrpegiating figures with bigger intervalls and faster tempo? Just curious..Thats something what I would like to see covered..

Love to be proven wrong of course but from the vids/demos heard to date - it might struggle with most of this. Hence, the many libraries owned - BUT - loved to be shut down and proven wrong (with what might be a hasty evaluation.)
 
how is it with swirling string lines, runs, fast paced stress parts, unorthodox string writing melodic lines, so I speak of some real bogus writing where live strings shine and most samples just are meh... Any chance some demos cover this? Also bigger intervallic melody lines, hornerish like arrpegiating figures with bigger intervalls and faster tempo? Just curious..Thats something what I would like to see covered..
If you look at the names of the ensemble patches that NoamL posted, there might be something for fast lines at least.

"Barbaric"
"Christmas"
"Contemporary"
"Ensemble Shorts"
"Heroine"
"Le Sacre"
"Lush"
"Minimalist" (featured in demo 2)
"Pop"
"Psychatto"
"Quartet Sfz"
"Red Army"
"Roof Chase"
"Shark Strings" :emoji_swimmer:
"The Mouse"
"Undercover"
"Vintage" (featured in demo 1?)

-Hannes
 
I am so, so, so close to diving into this library full-tilt.

From the demos and walkthroughs, I think it sounds outstanding, with a really gorgeous tone, and the programming is on point; I actually think the legatos here are pretty fine. For me, they're somewhere between CSS and Hollywood Strings, Hollywood being my second favorite strings library after CSS. I guess I'm just spoiled by how good the legato in CSS is (delay notwithstanding), so this library has a lot to live up to, but from the "Snowfall" demo, it seems to be doing really well in that regard!

I'll have to hear how the other sections/styles/playing style patches(?) perform before I can really put my finger on it, but so far, I'm really loving what I'm hearing, and I can't wait to hear more. I absolutely love that this library has less vibrato than CSS, as that's one of the things I usually go to Hollywood Strings for whenever I want a break from CSS.

Now, right now, I'm watching this release very closely, but there's one thing that would get me to instantly decide to buy the library: good string runs. Namely, runs that you can program in the notes yourself in the MIDI region. This is the main reason I keep Hollywood Strings around; the 1st Violins and Celli Repetitions Runs patch are absolutely the best virtual strings runs that I have, and if this library can come close to, match, or surpass that level, then it's an instant buy.

I guess we'll see! Can't wait to hear and see more either way!

-Adam/Tines
 
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