The Sound Board

It’s a good time for free. Laura, I beat you to it!

Part of the Augmented Series, Augmented STRINGS Intro is a streamlined version of an innovative instrument that combines rich sampled strings with state-of-the-art synthesis, giving modern producers immediate access to a comprehensive range of authentic, abstract, and evocative string sounds.

https://www.arturia.com/products/softwa ... o/overview

Thank you Guy!
Sounds great.
/A

I downloaded and installed this today - quick and totally painless.

As a product it feels like the kind of thing Heavyocity and a number of others have been doing, creating a hybrid real / synthetic instrument. The main difference here, of course, is that it is free, though only for a couple of weeks - it also sounds like a full-fat version is coming. The instrument doesn't appear in Analog Lab, so this new range looks highly unlikely to ever be part of their V Collection. Maybe brass, winds and percussion will follow?

This is very nicely executed - it's not a $400 sampled strings library and its not meant to be. There's a good variety among and within the 50 presets - the 7 controls do the usual effects, modulations and filtering you get with basic-control products that make a lot of effective changes, and I think there's some granular stuff going on here and there too. I haven't been able to figure out exactly what the modwheel does - it goes through a number of variations across its travel a bit like the central morph wheel, but it's not the same as that (no clues in the manual either). In general things tend towards the cinematic, but I mean that in a broad sense - there's the expected ethereal washes and pulses, but also much more organic and modern-sounding edgier fare. Cello Harmonics is a good example of the latter which feels like an instant classic.

The most important negative thing to point out is the CPU usage is extremely high. On my Win10 machine in standalone, the GPU usage is over 20% at idle, perhaps a function of artistic wallpaper that subtly moves with the sound which makes you wonder if you're high. The good news - that can be disabled in settings, but the problem doesn't entirely go away - strangely it idles higher when not played in that mode. The CPU can get very high as well, hitting 30% in use. If all that remains unaddressed it might well limit its usefulness, if opening the damn thing brings a project to its knees I might very well look for other alternatives. Which would be a shame, this is an excellent product otherwise.