The Sound Board

Orchestral Tools have announced the imminent release of the Pēteris Vasks Chamber Strings, a "fully-detailed chamber ensemble, plus First Chairs, with a unique character and color. Like the music that inspired them -- composer Pēteris Vasks’ "Voices" --, these strings organically fuse dissonance and beauty to inspire you and your compositions".

Going by the demos, this sounds like a special library indeed. (Strange though that the short articulations, which are listed as present among the available articulations, appear to be rather neglected in the demos, focusing, as nearly all of them seem to do, on slow moving musical ideas.)

Anyway, stunning sound, almost luminescent detail, and a full ensemble presence which sounds very well balanced and entirely convincing rather than being a mount of stacked samples which is what you usually get with sampled strings.

The library isn't available yet, but you can pre-order it for €399. The full price will be €549.

Here's a live performance of "Voices", the work that inspired the library:



And this is the obligatory "Making Of":



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Here are the demos:



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It seems to me that the big bends are the star here. Am I wrong?

The first of two walkthroughs is ready. (The second one will cover the First Chairs).



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These mic positions sound super inspiring! For shure getting this. A real nice space. The whole thing impressively sounds like a real recording rather then a library.

Here are the first chairs:

It's a bit weird that the solo bass has no tremolo articulation right?

Consistency out of the window again.
But the rest sounds great.

The first chairs hit a certain sweet spot perfectly if one is okay with the idea of having several single dynamic layer p to ppp legato patches. As limiting as it may sound, it really plays nice out of the box.

So, if I wanted to test the waters a little bit which first chairs should I go for (I allow myself to test-buy max 3). The legatos sound great and I always appreciate instruments that have just a single dynamic layer. What I am still not really “feeling” is the sound of the room (well, church). The library sounds rather wet to me and -I don’t know- treble heavy?

I was thinking First Violins, Viola and Cello leader. Although in some user demos I seemed to slightly prefer tbe Second Violins leader, who seems to play with a slightly less pronounced vibrato? This may all be just me imagining things. So any help appreciated.

Update: the adjective I was looking for is ICY. The overall sonic character sounds icy to me. I’ve never really gelled with Tundra and SA’s Cinematic Frozen Strings either. I guess I’m fonder of a slightly warmer sound.