Mason
Active Member
I am out, too. That Price is crazy.
It's not exactly crazy when you think about:
Berlin Strings: €840.- + expansions for €918 = €1758
Spitfire Symphonic Strings: €799
I am out, too. That Price is crazy.
I think the problem is that even if Afflatus has a lot of content, it doesn't have the different articulations that Berlin Strings, Spitfire, etc, has. Because of that it's more of an addon library than a bread and butter library. I think there is a lot of nice sounds but also a lot of patches I would not use. And some of the patches cover same kind of ground. With a cheaper price, I would buy it and use it side by side with my other string libraries, but with this price...not possible. And if you look at Berlin Strings articulation list, you can't really compare them...It's not exactly crazy when you think about:
Berlin Strings: €840.- + expansions for €918 = €1758
Spitfire Symphonic Strings: €799
It all depens. I think Hans Zimmer Strings are way overpriced as well. If you take the name out of it, it leaves you a decent library with limited articulations and usability. Both have great sound, no arguing there. But compared to the competition, I think they are overpriced.Hans Zimmer Strings is roughly 640 Euros (excluding VAT). The pricing for Afflatus is not in any way out of this world or unheard of. It's very reasonable if you ask me.
Sample libraries are only worth what people will pay for them. The majority of comments thus far seem to be echoing the same thing: Afflatus is too expensive. I'm not sure If I've ever read a thread on here that developed such a significant influx of trending comments upon the release of a new library (HZ strings maybe?), especially a string library.It's not exactly crazy when you think about:
Berlin Strings: €840.- + expansions for €918 = €1758
Spitfire Symphonic Strings: €799
Sample libraries are only worth what people will pay for them. The majority of comments thus far seem to be echoing the same thing: Afflatus is too expensive. I'm not sure If I've ever read a thread on here that developed such a significant influx of trending comments upon the release of a new library (HZ strings maybe?), especially a string library.
Regardless, Afflatus is a beautiful sounding library, and probably will be worth the price for some.
I think the problem is that even if Afflatus has a lot of content, it doesn't have the different articulations that Berlin Strings, Spitfire, etc, has. Because of that it's more of an addon library than a bread and butter library. I think there is a lot of nice sounds but also a lot of patches I would not use. And some of the patches cover same kind of ground. With a cheaper price, I would buy it and use it side by side with my other string libraries, but with this price...not possible. And if you look at Berlin Strings articulation list, you can't really compare them...
-Hannes
No, I think there's a communication/branding problem here.
As an example, just looking at the main library someone might think "well didn't they record col legnos?" they did, it's just called "Barbaric Strings" in the Ensembles folder. They even recorded col legnos in octaves and col legnos in unison with spiccatos.
This library actually has more variations of short-note articulations than either Spitfire Symphonic Strings or Cinematic Studio Strings. It has about eight from what I can see. It's just that they're spread across different folders and instrument playing style names.
Now you could argue that the library is less cohesive than e.g. CSS because the different short note articulations are all recorded with varying sizes of ensembles. But I think they are quite cohesive, it all sounds like the same musicians in the same space, and the ensemble size is part of achieving the playing style. For example for light, brushed short strings you probably want a smaller ensemble, so the "Heroine" Strings are recorded with a 22 piece ensemble. For big epic tenutos and marcatos there's the "Red Army" 50 piece string ensemble.
No argument from me about the price, it's still quite high, but I think people are still under-rating what they get for the price.
That's what I also love about the library. The horror aspects are just awesome.This.
It looks like this library does a lot of things that other libraries don't, or don't do very well, too. I love the focus on capturing different styles/genres rather than trying to make an all-encompassing library. Really fills in a lot of blanks instead of being "another string library".
Generally speaking I definitely don't think the price is crazy either, but it would be crazy for me to spend that kind of money on it. I just wouldn't be able to justify it.I’m not considering this library myself much because of the price and because I have so many string libraries. But I’m not saying it’s crazy or unreasonable.
I think they already did, because this is "Chapter 1" (unless the other Chapters will be different orchestra sections). I know what you mean though. I would loved to have seen different sections of this library for sale.I agree that this library is worth the price, but they should provide "steps" up to the full library. That's how I worked up to LASS Full, three hundred bucks at a time. Much easier to justify to myself despite not being any better at all mathematically or logically
All that I really miss from Afflatus in this regard is a patch for very fast string lines, and that doesn't seem to be part of the design.
Portamemto is missing. Quite essential, especially when using the vintage patches (ala Henry Mancini) and Scene d' Amour, etc.