Strezov Afflatus Series

[NoamL]

[The Darris]

I'm honestly surprised that more people aren't chatting about this here. I was contacted by Strezov Sampling months ago about doing a review for this library. They sent me early access to the beta and I can honestly say, this library really does fill some holes when it comes to different types of legato styles that can manage polyphonic true legato and divisi whilst being performable from one patch without the use of external scripting.

I can't say too much since I'm under an NDA but Strezov Sampling is the only developer to have successfully created a polyphonic legato script that just works. CineSamples and Spitfire Audio (arguably the only ones with a good poly-legato script that I'm aware of) come off as a gimmick. You can't do smooth transitions with proper voice leading as well as counterpoint. CineSamples' version will steal transitions from other notes rendering any form of counterpoint out the door. Notes drop all the time too. Spitfire's version doesn't let you perform your parts because it's based on Velocity. You either need to play each part in separately, while additionally altering the velocities so that the script can tell the two voices apart or you need to know how to play two parts in two separate velocity ranges so that they don't cross the script's threshold for separating the transitions. It's not practical.

Afflatus doesn't need any special programming chops to perform. I am able to play 2 voice counterpart without issue. It can handle more but my chops are limited when it comes to performing counterpoint. It's not sluggish either. Nearly all of the legato patches are very responsive with a few exceptions because of the stylistic approach of the patches themselves but regardless, it just works without fuss. Cinematic Studio Strings comes to mind concerning legato patches that are sluggish to use. You need a massive amount of negative delay compensation if you want to work to a grid. Afflatus does not. You still need to add a bit of negative delay but more akin to what we are use to using on standard long articulations.

The divisi is wonderful too. It's not like LASS nor is it like Spitfire's Studio Strings. It's designed to allow you to perform with a full section and trigger a divisi split when playing two voiced parts where you want to maintain the proper player count. The difference between the two sizes is very noticeable which makes it worth while. This is a feature that can be turned on and off in a performance so you can control when the split happens. By that, I mean it doesn't automatically split the voices if you play more than one voice. So, for me, it's user friendly which means everything when trying to work on a deadline.

Anyway, here is the latest demo with a midi screencast to show it in action. Afflatus Chapter I MIDI Playthrough - Scene d'Amour by Jean-Gabriel Raynaud
The composer of this piece used only three patches from the library with only CC1 and CC11 automation happening. This shows the poly-legato really well but this patch doesn't feature divisi. I'm sure other videos will be shared demonstrating how that works. I will be sharing my review upon release for those interested as well. It will be more of a walk-through with a demonstration of the key features. So, if you have questions now and would like me to answer them in my review, please ask them. Most will probably be answered come release but I know that my videos don't always cover what people want to see/hear so I'm open to tailoring this review a bit.

Cheers,

C

[tack]

Cinematic Studio Strings comes to mind concerning legato patches that are sluggish to use. You need a massive amount of negative delay compensation if you want to work to a grid. Afflatus does not. You still need to add a bit of negative delay but more akin to what we are use to using on standard long articulations.

But at the slowest legato setting, CSS really provides those lush syrupy legatos that are hard to find elsewhere. It's hard to avoid delays when you're dealing with a lengthy legato transition. You can always opt to go with the faster transitions that don't incur much of a delay. (But I know you know this. )

I'm happy to see Strezov play in the more conventional orchestral space. I really think that, even with sampling, there is a lot of innovation yet to be tapped in terms of crafting compelling performances, and I have a feeling it's going to be one of these smaller players that will knock it out of the park. (Just look what Alex Wallbank did with CSS.)

Polyphonic legato with auto divisi that's actually usable sounds interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing the walkthrough videos on how that works.

[Guy Rowland]

Hey there Chris, that midi playthrough did sound really good - relinking here as the preview doesn't come up in your post for some reason:



The tone sounds pleasingly classic, a little more concert that filmic perhaps? I'm guessing the main reason why many haven't been discussing it is the first video really doesn't reveal too much. Will be keeping an eye on this one.

[NoamL]

Well, it's out, but at quite a high price: $740 intro, going to $900 on the 27th.

There's an amazing amount of content here and it's definitely worth the price, I think it probably will suffer from the fact that people own so many competing products already however.

[givemenoughrope]

I'm not sure if I've listened to all the walkthroughs...sort of skimmed...but the shorts and avant shorts sound like something I haven't heard in sampleland, right? How much for just those?

[Luciano Storti]

Not available in modules. Pity, would have been nice to complement with just the bits that are needed.

[Scoredog]

At 499 I would have been in (even 599 probably in), but with so many good libraries already sitting on my HD and often not being used I'm probably passing for now. I like the concept of different strings for different purposes but that in the end after users were confused was not a feature that lasted with 8dio who were the first to embrace the concept.

[Piet De Ridder]

Wasn't convinced by the first demos — a certain thin, Kontakt-y sound which bothered me a bit — but have since heard enough to justify some re-organization of my sample HD's and pressing the purchase button.
(The clincher, for me, is the fact that none of the ensembles appear to have that stringpaddy, carpety, Omnispherish stringsound which nearly all other big libraries suffer from and which I'm completely allergic to. Texture-wise, these Afflati seem to be quite special.)
Big download though and a wealth of content to go through, so it's gonna be a while before I will feel ready to say something about this library.

_

[Guy Rowland]

Well... could this be the one string library to rule them all?!

I'm only now catching up on the walkthroughs, still some to go. Quite a staggering range, eh? Full size orchestral, chamber, minimalist, vintage - they cover most libraries basic sonic ground. Divisi sounds very impressive, LASS's great selling point still. You even have some other instruments creeping in for some ProjectSAM combos. Yes a high price, but for the ground covered, it seems more than fair.

Will be avidly waiting for your thoughts Piet. I've never got on with Polyphonic legato before, so particularly keen to hear how this plays along with your usual forensic ear on all other matters.

Thought it might be handy to get all the walkthroughs in one place here:

Sections



Experimental and Pads



Ensembles



One more observation - 64gb of drive space seems amazingly good for 3 mic positions of this lot.

EDIT - and one more bonus thought - what would be in volume 2? The main stuff missing from this that jumps to mind are some more legato options - portamento, fast / run, bow change etc. Which across all sonic territory I guess comes to quite a lot.

[Piet De Ridder]

Early impressions: I would reorganize, rename and reprogram quite a few things in Afflatus, but if this isn’t a truly remarkable treasure chest of very useful stringsounds, covering an unprecedented expressive range, I don’t know what is. (While familiarizing yourself with what you’ve just purchased, you soon realize that the words ‘Afflatus’ and ‘expensive’ should *never* be used in the same sentence, unless you throw the word ‘not’ in there as well. This library, in other words, is very friendly priced. (Somewhat regrettably for the developer perhaps, that’s an insight that only comes to those who have bought it.)

But like I said: in my opinion, it could do with a few changes — some on the surface, some under the hood. For example, its already considerable value would increase much further still if the developer would give the user a few more options to tweak the contents as well as offer more control over how the samples respond to midi-input. All my misgivings thus far have to do with that aspect of Afflatus. Beyond that, I’m calling this a very satisfying purchase.

More later.

_

[Guy Rowland]

Very encouraging early thoughts Piet, very much looking forward to the More.

I'm kind of at the point where I'm pretty sure this will be the next string library I buy... the main question is when. Since my need isn't pressing, should I wait for however long til there is a sale? Or I wonder if they will ever divide the library? Its the vintage that is the most appealing for me, that's the furthest from any of my current options.

[Lawrence]

I'm a sentimental sap, so I like the Scene d'Amour patches very much.

I think you're right about Volume 2, Guy-also, first chairs?

[Guy Rowland]

Yes and wow - at the bottom of the product page:

Additional content (Scene d' Amour Celli and First Chairs) available Q1 2019 as a free update for all registered users.

[Muziksculp]

This sounds like a very interesting, and quite a flexible and diverse strings library from Strezov Sampling, but... I'm more interested in purchasing LASS 3 as soon as it is released (hopefully) this year.

[Guy Rowland]

Apart from vague mentions that LASS 3 will happen at some stage, has there been any more info? Audiobro are wonderful but can keep us waiting for many years. I find myself hoping they use the same stage as LASS and no more mic positions, but more tonal / playing style variety would be top of my list.

[SirKen]

Apart from vague mentions that LASS 3 will happen at some stage, has there been any more info? Audiobro are wonderful but can keep us waiting for many years. I find myself hoping they use the same stage as LASS and no more mic positions, but more tonal / playing style variety would be top of my list.

Good point. Don't forget the orchestral library ProjectSAM was recently teasing about.

https://twitter.com/ProjectSAM_Libs/sta ... 5709615104

[tack]

Chris has his walkthrough up:

Edit: removed the video link. Looks like Chris has shuttered his channel due to YouTube trolls.

[Thorsten Meyer]

[Piet De Ridder]

The two video reviews/overviews/walkthroughs that have appeared thus far — Chris’s and Cory’s — are both a bit too awe-struck and reverential, I find. As if Afflatus is manna from String Library Heaven. A flawless game-changer. Which, in my opinion, is far from the case.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I think Afflatus is certainly a great and versatile collection of strings samples, but sadly, locked in uncontrollable patches and limited greatly, in my opinion anyway, by the all-too-overbearing ‘vision’ of its developer.

Moreover, it’s got a peculiar sound which, I’m sure, won’t please all tastes. If, for example, you’re looking for a glossy ‘expensive’ Hollywood-ish stringssound (as they cook it up in a.o. Los Angeles and London), Afflatus — despite being clearly score-oriented in its design (to my mind, annoyingly so) — contains very little to get excited about.
The sound of Afflatus is, to my ears, more the sound of a 70’s or 80’s continental European film orchestra. Noticeably thinner and cheaper sounding than the full, rich, high-end, widescreen L.A./London-sound we’ve come to associate with the contemporary silver screen. It’s the sonic equivalent of the difference between VHS and Blueray. Afflatus, to my ears, is positioned more in the VHS area of that comparison. (In that respect, Afflatus reminds me of many of Sonokinetic’s libraries that also have a slightly dated, not-quite-top-of-the-game, European sound.)

(That somewhat backwards-looking philosphy behind Afflatus is also apparent in the movies its patches reference. It’s nearly all stuff from several decades ago.)

Now, I happen to rather like this quaint, retro-ish sound, so Afflatus’ sonic stamp doesn’t bother me at all, but I do think it’s worth pointing out that it is what it is, to prevent disappointment among those who consider a purchase.

What *does* bother me though, and rather a lot, is the near complete absence of any options to mould the contents of this library to one’s own musical preferences and control its behaviour.
To give just one example: many of the spicc/short patches are programmed in such a way that they have a very narrow dynamic range. (For those who own Afflatus: try, say, the Violins II Spicc patch to hear what I mean.) I suppose the developer must have had good reasons for doing it this way, but for the life of me, I can’t even guess what those reasons might have been, and I find it terribly frustrating. And even more frustrating is the fact that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. There’s no parameter to control the dynamic response, and the patch is locked. And nearly all of the short articulation patches don’t even respond to #11 either, which means that the only control you have over them is ‘volume’. Not quite what you hope to find in a 2018 sample library, I’d say. Especially when the number of velocity layers in many of these patches rarely exceeds 2 (unless my ears deceive me).

Suppose I want to modulate the attack via velocity? Can’t do it. Suppose I want to control the decay of the tenuto’s? Can’t do it. Suppose I want to lower the sustain in the longs, to obtain a more portato-like articulation? Sorry, no can do. Suppose I want to change the level of the half-sections in the combined patches? No. Or suppose I want to write a line for the Chamber Violins spicc without the rest of the ensemble interfering? Again … not possible. And, sadly, there are just way too many of these questions that have been popping up in my head to which the answer is invariably: no, that’s not an option.

That last question, the one about the Chamber Violins spicc’s, brings me to another serious problem, and that is the strong ensemble-oriented concept of Afflatus. While this has a number of advantages and conveniences, there’s one major problem and that is that you’re stuck with how the 4 sections of the string orchestra are spread out over the ensemble. Wouldn’t be a problem if all of the ensemble articulations were also available for the individual sections, but they aren’t. So if you want to play, say, a cello part with the ‘Contemporary Strings’, everytime you venture into basses or violas territory, these two sections will join in as well, no matter whether that is what you want or not. And again: there’s nothing you can do about this.
Especially for those who take their orchestration technique seriously and want to adhere to the established principles of orchestration in their writing, these ‘hard-wired’ ensembles will quicky prove something of a disappointment.

Despite all of the above though, Afflatus is, in my view, a success. It does contain several ‘golden patches’ — things which you’ll look for in vain in other string libraries — and I do remain of the opinion that it is very much worth its considerable price. But … you *really* have to like the way it sounds. If you’re even in the smallest doubt about that, I would cautiously suggest to look elsewhere.


_

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks for the overview, Piet. I'm really looking at Afflatus to provide different timbres from what I have - with ProjectSam and Cinesamples in particular I feel I have the contemporary Hollywood sound ok. The editing niggles I can see will bother you much more than I, I rarely edit the defaults in a library unless its (very occasionally) to open up the room ambience in something like Symphobia. That said, listening to Cory's video I'm wondering if these differences are always quite as pronounced as I'd hoped. Find myself wishing for the glory days of TrySound.

I'm currently thinking that the library still very much has my interest, but I think its not something I'll be rushing to buy.

[The Darris]

Chris has his walkthrough up:

Edit: removed the video link. Looks like Chris has shuttered his channel due to YouTube trolls.

That's putting it lightly. I wasn't dealing with trolls but rather receiving violent threats against myself, and my family. I can deal with trolls by ignoring them but there are certain lines that were crossed that basically spoiled any joy I had in trying to produce content that others found useful. I mean, I never started this venture as a means to make money. Sure, I monetized my channel as a means to recoup something for my time spent on this but a whopping average of $12 a month is hardly worth wading through threats and managing comments geared towards sexually assaulting my wife. Managing my channel after posting a new video felt like I was losing a battle with cancer. Surgery was needed and I hope it goes into remission. That's all I will say on this topic as I don't wish to derail it into a discussion on internet ethics.

Afflatus. I loved it. It filled a lot of holes in my template that saves me more time on deadlines and has resulted in a few clients being incredibly pleased with my deliveries. Had I not received the NFR, I would have bought it and I would have already recouped my expenses on it. I agree with Piet about it needing some extra functionality, especially on dynamic shaping in the shorts. I found that in comparison to many other libraries, the spiccato articulation in the individual sections have a weight to them that lacks some lower dynamic range. Talking with George Strezov, he has a laundry list of updates he's planning to do free of charge for registered users. This is a big deal considering he's already added Solo strings or "first chairs" to the list, Scene D'Amour Celli and some other content. I quite liked a number of the experimental patches that I think they could implement into a more traditional/contemporary string sound such as the Middle East Strings patch. The lower register triggers a short articulation in the lower velocity range while the higher velocities trigger a short trill. It's a great performance feature that I've wanted included and have asked for in many other libraries like Cinematic Studio Strings. Based on my discussion with Strezov Sampling prior to release. The experimental patches mostly comprised the ideas from users of their other libraries, hence why there is a more ethnic leaning style to those patches. All in all, I'm incredibly happy with this library. There is a lot to love and not much to hate from my perspective. Your mileage may vary though.

Cheers,

Chris

[NoamL]

Chris has his walkthrough up:

Edit: removed the video link. Looks like Chris has shuttered his channel due to YouTube trolls.

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks very much for post Chris, and wretched to hear your YT experience. Is there a way to not show posts for existing videos? I know you can set them up at the outset to disable the functionality. Its all yet another depressing example of the open sewer that is social media. (no need to reply to this of course, just sharing a couple of thoughts)

This is definitely a release to keep an eye out on, great that George is taking on board feedback.

[Ashermusic]

I think George is a great developer and I generally like his libraries, and this sounds good to me, but I think considering the price, it does perhaps raise an issue, a discussion which I will start in another topic.