The Sound Board

Just received an email from VST BUZZ about the "AVIRAM ARABIC STRINGS".
I watched the walkthroughs but would still like to know if anyone has any experience with this lib. It's definitely Far Eastern, including glisses, ports, slides and other Far Eastern telltales.
For $29 I'm really tempted, as I do ocassionally go into these places musically. However I've burned myself once to often now so really would like to know how this plays.
Thanks!
Stay Safe
g.c.

I checked a few YouTube videos and based on those, I don’t think I would buy this. Unless the price is really, really, really low.

Don’t know why, but all the oriental strings libraries I know of — and these Avirams seem to be no exception — appear to be chaotic and confusingly organised collections of inconsistent sounding patches recorded with widely-differently-sized groups (making the joining up of the various articulations a near undoable affair). Some articulations are played by the entire string section, others seem to be using only three or four players, and if there’s a musical logic to that approach, I certainly don’t know what it is. Then there’s the inevitable grab bag of runs, slides, phrases and riffs to wade through, and, also typical, the whole thing usually sounds as if recorded with very mediocre gear.

These libraries also seem to specialise in articulations that were arrived at by cutting up phrases, resulting in bowings that either start or end (or both) completely unconvincingly. And it's not uncommon either for one sample to have to cover range of 3 or even 4 keys, which only adds to the gritty, strained and synthetic sound that these libraries often have.

Pity, really. I wouldn’t say no to a fine library of oriental strings, but thus far I’ve only come across products that answer to the above description.

That’s said, a collection like these Avirams undoubtedly contains some very useful material if you have to emulate Middle Eastern strings-performances. And since it is quite impossible to create that characteristic timbre and those performances with regular string libraries, I guess that, if the price feels right, you might wanna bite.

But do watch these videos first:






_

Thanks Piet. Still thinking on this. The price with "audio plugin" IS $39.
I look of these kinds of things in terms of harvesting samples in Kontakt to build individual "nki's.
I run in Cubase, thus have the Expression Map function with Kontakt Banks to gather several of these pieces together as a "custom" instrument in until a good version comes along.
Stay Safe out there!
Thanks again!
g.c.