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Strezov Sampling presents AFFLATUS Chapter 1 // 1.2 Update feat. 18GB of new sample content

Yep, we've read all your feedback regarding first chairs, scene d'amour cellos (aaaaand might be something else there, I just wouldn't help myself). Right now discussing how to do that with NI (encoding, etc.) and what the most painless solution for users would be. This month I finished an animation short and 120-minutes-of-music production and I thought I would have December off... but turns out we will have quite a few weeks of recording - Afflatus extra content, Storm Choir 3 (yes, this is coming and we'll rerecord the material, optimize and make it similar to our Next-Gen choir series) and another two cool projects that we're working on.

Hi, my name is George and I have a problem.

P.S.
Hopefully I'm still married around Christmas.
 
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Strezov said:
Yep, we've read all your feedback regarding first chairs, scene d'amour cellos (aaaaand might be something else there, I just wouldn't help myself). Right now discussing how to do that with NI (encoding, etc.) and what the most painful solution for users would be. This month I finished an animation short and 120-minutes-of-music production and I thought I would have December off... but turns out we will have quite a few weeks of recording - Afflatus extra content, Storm Choir 3 (yes, this is coming and we'll rerecord the material, optimize and make it similar to our Next-Gen choir series) and another two cool projects that we're working on.

Hi, my name is George and I have a problem.

P.S.
Hopefully I'm still married around Christmas.
Click to expand...
Come on George. You are the VST King. Give us our food. We need your libraries. So good. And congratulations for Afflatus. Fantastic release. Man.....such a sound !!!
I imagine the amount of work.......You deserve holidays.....NOW !!!:dancer::dancer::dancer:
 
sostenuto said:
Is the Crossgrade open only to 'Strings' Library owners ? I have Storm Choir, but only Crossgrades show for SC2.
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No it isn't. All choirs are included. If it somehow doesn't show up or you bought it from another retailer, please reach out to our support. They will help you out. :)
 
I like what I hear. If I were in the market for yet another string library, this would be a contender.
 
sostenuto said:
Is the Crossgrade open only to 'Strings' Library owners ? I have Storm Choir, but only Crossgrades show for SC2.
Click to expand...

As far as I read there is no crossgrade for Storm Choir owners - 1 or 2. Only from these libraries: Wotan Male Choir, Freyja Female Choir, Árva Children Choir, Rhodope 2 Ethnic Bulgarian Choir, Balkan Ethnic Orchestra, Cornucopia String Ensembles 2 and Macabre Solo Strings.
 
I just listened to all the demos. Apart from "Scene d'amour" by Jean-Gabriel Raynaud, which is a beautiful piece with generally very nice sounding strings (although the legato sounds unconnected and somewhat non-existant - don't know if this can be helped in programming), there's a worrying aspect to the sound that I would love to know is really there or if it is just a result of compression on the Soundcloud files.

E.g. in "Pictures of You" by Piotr Musial the violins sound pretty phasey and compressed in many instances. For example at 0:30 to 0:45. And again from 1:03 there is just this strangely compressed/phased sound to especially the higher notes. Is this caused by the recording process, the mixing process or the Soundcloud conversion?

I think it is very crucial to know if this is the composer's mixing being at fault, the original recordings/mixes or just the upload. So if you would be able to post just a part of it, maybe just the violins as a good mp3 alone, without any post-processing that could have screwed things up.

Same thing in "The Great Adventure" by Jean-Gabriel Raynaud. Listen e.g. from 0:45-1:00 and the string sound gets very messy and like it was compressed to hell, especially violas/cellos here.

Listening from 1:25, the choir and snare drums show the same artifacts so hopefully this is just Soundcloud over compressing things.

Hope someone from Strezov can clear this up.
 
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hi Simon, can't speak for the demo writers and their mixing process. We haven't added ANY compression on the samples, thenmixing is just level balance and panning. We try to avoid FX like the plague... no tuning, melodyne too - imo that ruins the "feel"...
 
Strezov said:
hi Simon, can't speak for the demo writers and their mixing process. We haven't added ANY compression on the samples, thenmixing is just level balance and panning. We try to avoid FX like the plague... no tuning, melodyne too - imo that ruins the "feel"...
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Hi. I didn't suspect you did, I am thinking either 1) The recording process caused this phasing/compression sound (hopefully not) or 2) The composer's mixing process did it (over/wrong use of various plugins) or 3) Soundcloud compression did it. I am leaning mostly to (3) because it happens with the choir/snares too.

Which is why it would be so great to get some raw mp3-files to listen to. Because if it really sounds like this out of the box... uhm... then something went really wrong in the recordings. And I have a hard time believeing that. Would it be possible to get some non-Soundcloud snippets somehow?
 
Dammit... these Roofchase Strings sound so connected! Superb shorts!


Overall so much great stuff in this library...

@ 6:12 - these shorts are very great too! Great sound out of the box.
@ 9:08 - Yes!! Thomas Bergersen will be buying! :P
@ 12:18 - wonderful silky violins! :inlove:
 
Simon Ravn said:
I just listened to all the demos. Apart from "Scene d'amour" by Jean-Gabriel Raynaud, which is a beautiful piece with generally very nice sounding strings (although the legato sounds unconnected and somewhat non-existant - don't know if this can be helped in programming), there's a worrying aspect to the sound that I would love to know is really there or if it is just a result of compression on the Soundcloud files.

E.g. in "Pictures of You" by Piotr Musial the violins sound pretty phasey and compressed in many instances. For example at 0:30 to 0:45. And again from 1:03 there is just this strangely compressed/phased sound to especially the higher notes. Is this caused by the recording process, the mixing process or the Soundcloud conversion?

I think it is very crucial to know if this is the composer's mixing being at fault, the original recordings/mixes or just the upload. So if you would be able to post just a part of it, maybe just the violins as a good mp3 alone, without any post-processing that could have screwed things up.

Same thing in "The Great Adventure" by Jean-Gabriel Raynaud. Listen e.g. from 0:45-1:00 and the string sound gets very messy and like it was compressed to hell, especially violas/cellos here.

Listening from 1:25, the choir and snare drums show the same artifacts so hopefully this is just Soundcloud over compressing things.

Hope someone from Strezov can clear this up.
Click to expand...

Hey Simon, regarding the mix process on Scene d'Amour and The Great Adventure I can probably answer at some levels.

On Scene d'Amour, it's undressed, meaning there is no EQ, no reverb apart the built-in one, and no panning made in Cubase ( I just panned the close mics directly in the patches), so it's basically out of the box. Also no mastering on it.

On The Great Adventure : there is no panning except the close mics (and some french horns with panning because one specific library Iuse for the brass has been recorded centred), some little eq but not a lot, just one reverb per section, and a little (not loud) compression per section. Then the mastering that added more compression on the final file. I have to say that in my opinion Soundcloud damaged a bit the mix on this one, but maybe I did something wrong too.

On the part you mentioned (00:45 to 1:00), I used the lush strings patches + a soft layering of the Scene d'Amour patches to have a sound a bit more "old" (on the timings I had for the video teaser "a romantic kiss scene" was mentionned here, so I wanted a more golden age sound) Maybe this layering could be the explaination too. Or it could be my mastering since I'm not an expert at this level :)

Here is the file I sent to Strezov Sampling, so you can hear it without the Soundcloud compression : https://www.dropbox.com/s/ninz4lhl59oy6aq/JGR_TheGreatAdventure.wav?dl=0

Let me know if you want more informations. :)
 
modiel said:
Hey Simon, regarding the mix process on Scene d'Amour and The Great Adventure I can probably answer at some levels.

Here is the file I sent to Strezov Sampling, so you can hear it without the Soundcloud compression : https://www.dropbox.com/s/ninz4lhl59oy6aq/JGR_TheGreatAdventure.wav?dl=0

Let me know if you want more informations. :)
Click to expand...

Thank you for your thorough answer, very much appreciated! I will take a listen to your dropbox file later today/tomorrow - hopefully that will clear things up! Thanks again!
 
Simon Ravn said:
I just listened to all the demos. Apart from "Scene d'amour" by Jean-Gabriel Raynaud, which is a beautiful piece with generally very nice sounding strings (although the legato sounds unconnected and somewhat non-existant - don't know if this can be helped in programming), there's a worrying aspect to the sound that I would love to know is really there or if it is just a result of compression on the Soundcloud files.

E.g. in "Pictures of You" by Piotr Musial the violins sound pretty phasey and compressed in many instances. For example at 0:30 to 0:45. And again from 1:03 there is just this strangely compressed/phased sound to especially the higher notes. Is this caused by the recording process, the mixing process or the Soundcloud conversion?

I think it is very crucial to know if this is the composer's mixing being at fault, the original recordings/mixes or just the upload. So if you would be able to post just a part of it, maybe just the violins as a good mp3 alone, without any post-processing that could have screwed things up.

Same thing in "The Great Adventure" by Jean-Gabriel Raynaud. Listen e.g. from 0:45-1:00 and the string sound gets very messy and like it was compressed to hell, especially violas/cellos here.

Listening from 1:25, the choir and snare drums show the same artifacts so hopefully this is just Soundcloud over compressing things.

Hope someone from Strezov can clear this up.
Click to expand...
Hmm... can't in any way hear what you're hearing.
I think the strings in "Pictures of You" sound great. Nothing that sounds like phasing or over-compression to me...

Maybe you indeed hear the soundcloud compression (they compress to 128 kbps - best quality for mp3 is 320 kbps!) and I (and others) already got used to it.
 
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DarkestShadow said:
Hmm... can't in any way hear what you're hearing.
I think the strings in "Pictures of You" sound great. Nothing that sounds like phasing or over-compression to me...

Maybe you indeed hear the soundcloud compression (they compress to 128 kbps - best quality for mp3 is 320 kbps!) and I (and others) already got used to it.
Click to expand...


Right. If it is indeed 128kbps (constant) that should explain it. Thankfully I have not gotten used to it so I can hear how crappy it sounds.
 
@StrezovSampling
I have a question: Which basses patch would I use if I was to do a composition/arrangement with the Minimalist Strings and need more low end. The Lush Basses are too strong and upfront, and don't seem like a good match? As I hear you are making plans and decisions on what to add in the future to Afflatus, I wanted to ask if there a possibility of adding Minimalist Basses in the future? I think it would be really nice. These strings are so deep and cinematic, and I really miss the matching soft Basses to add the low end. The library is really impressive, and deserving of the term Boutique. I am very close to taking the plunge, after realizing there is a Loyalty discount added because of my previous purchases. I think that is a really nice thing. Thanks for all the hard work you and the team obviously put into it. The more I listen to the demos the more I am impressed. #nextgen
 
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