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

Listening back to the ensemble video it's a beautiful library but I have to agree that this is something I can't afford as well so I'm out too. Not saying it's not worth it, just I can't afford it in one go.

I own pretty much all the other Strezov libraries, all their choirs, Balkan Ethnic Orchestra, etc and my crossgrade discount with intro price offer is still 675.00 USD.

I'm thinking that's the lowest it will ever be, something I would never be able to justify, but man, hats off to some superb sounding strings!
 
It's not exactly crazy when you think about:
Berlin Strings: €840.- + expansions for €918 = €1758
Spitfire Symphonic Strings: €799
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
 
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.
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.

-Hannes
 
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'd love for things to be cheaper, but these things cost A LOT to develop. The Spitfire Studio Strings are cheaper but don't offer such a multitude of genre-inspired styles of legato, shorts etc. Hans Zimmer Strings has one legato and one type of normal short. All of this considered, I think it's very reasonable pricing.
 
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’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 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. What doesn't make sense to do is record col legnos divisi and separately for each string section, so they didn't do that, so it looks like col legno is "missing" from the main library even though it's not. ;)

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.

I think this library will work fine for anyone as a bread & butter starting strings library. I look at the articulation list in CSS and I see it all matched in Afflatus. Slow legato, check. Medium legato, portamento, pizzicato, several lengths of short notes, harmonics, tremolo, trills, all check. 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.
 
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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.

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".
 
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".
That's what I also love about the library. The horror aspects are just awesome.
 
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
 
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.
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 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
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.
 
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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.
 
Hm, the price is going so more the the premium pricing section here for me and while I have no complain about the price I feel the library is just for me too specific and doesn´t cover things which I find at that price reasonable to have also articulation wise. I like the sound of the library but just for my personal taste the whole concept seems to me too specific aimed to specific writing instead of using it in order to handle it like classic concept string library (eg. thinking of Berlin Strings, or Spitfire symphonic strings). I had a few question regarding in how agile the library is and listening to all the demos so far tells me: you have to stick to certain styles and ways for what the library is designed for though that is cool it is just personally for me also a bit limiting at the same time. I remembered that I asked if the library can also do faster stuff and I got no answer in the other thread whatsoever.
 
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My guess is eventually like 8dio did who also took a stylistic approach to strings is an add-on for fast strings will probably be added at some point. 8dio's initial strings could not handle fast lines but Agitato answered that.
 
I can't complain much about the price. Part of me is happy we're seeing more "premium" products coming into the field that will end up being more exclusive to the professional crowd. I think this thing covers a lot of ground for specific sounds that other libraries haven't.

I'm still debating. It's going to be this or Ark 4 for me this year but Ark hasn't been confirmed at this point and they just released a huge library.
 
I think the issue here is that most of us contributing to this thread already own a fairly comprehensive collection of string libraries, and so the pricing of this new library becomes problematic for many when they look down the left hand side of their copy of Kontakt and see how many string libraries they already own, and consider what they can achieve with what they already have.

Has anyone noticed how a certain other company has been offering a range of low priced 'specialist' string libraries in the £ 200-300 price range - and at that cost these libraries start to become an impulse purchase. At the current price, even the introductory price, this new library is a more of a carefully considered purchase.

Is it worth the money ? Well that's for everyone to judge for themselves, but I'm sure that a tremendous amount of skill and care went into its creation, and at the end fo the day, the market will decide.

But it sure does sound very nice indeed.
 
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