Trailer Strings shares the same mantra its portly, brassy cousin follows: LOUD, HUGE, AGGRESSIVE.
60-string ensemble: 18 violins, 16 violas, 14 cellos and 12 double basses recorded separately in the same concert hall as Trailer Brass. We've also incorporated our wide/centered seating arrangement to help achieve the same modern, oversized aesthetic we were going for.
What you get is a useful array of short and long articulations, but with a size and clarity that's specifically geared towards hugantic (hugh-jan-tik), over-the-top productions. As with the brass, we really pushed the players to give us everything they had with the triple-forte dynamic. After a series of unrelenting requests demanding "MORE!" volume, the players really sailed through with inspired, bow hair-snapping performances.
What you may not expect with this release is that the dynamic range is quite wide. In addition to the fortississimo dynamic, we went all the way down to piano. Feathery spiccatos, pillowy staccatos and smooth marcatos performed a la dolce. Tasty.
And the sustains? Six dynamics deep. The softest two performed sul tasto (over the fingerboard) to get that whispered, feathery tone.
We've also included our "Adventure" patch programming for all four sections, a cool asset for on-the-fly, pompous string lines. Seriously, load up the basses/cellos Adventure patches, set the basses an octave down, arm both tracks and get your pomposity on. See? You're smiling.
Also included in the basses and cellos are three cluster effects patches. "Snap and Grunt" provides an arsenal of atonal snap pizzicatos, spiccatos/staccato chugs and behind-the-bridge scrapes. "The Brooding" includes subtle, low-range aleatoric meanderings (good for: "alligator sneaking up on prey"). "Behind the Bridge!" is exactly that, tremelo'd (good for: "alligator eats prey").
Our favorite part? The "All Strings" patch, which includes all the respective articulations, spread out over the keyboard. Be prepared to waste a lot of time playing with this patch.
Happy composing!
Quick Guide:
To Silence button: Allows the assigned Dynamic CC (default is 1, the modwheel) to bring the softest dynamic all the way down to silence. With it off, the softest dynamic will play at its full volume with the modwheel all the way down.
Humanization button: For those who like to quantize, this is a useful feature to help stagger the attack and release times of your MIDI. There are three settings to cycle through: Tight (randomizes MIDI up to 15 milliseconds), Natural (up to 30 milliseconds) and Loose (up to 60 milliseconds). Due to the nature of this feature, expect a little latency during playback.
Microphone Positions: The "Mixed" position is actually a fully-balanced, "baked" mix of all the microphones used in the sessions. It was designed to address most musical applications and to offset the need to use both the Close and Far positions simultaneously.
If you wish to assign a mic to a specific Kontakt output, simply click the position name.
Spiccato/Staccato crossfade patch: You can switch between the spiccato and staccato articulation by way of velocity. Velocity 98 and below will trigger a spiccato while velocity 99 and above will trigger a longer staccato performance.
Sustains Full: This includes all six recorded dynamics. From sul tasto ppp to molto vibrato FFF.
Sustains Soft: This includes only the softest three recorded dynamics: sul tasto ppp to dolce p. This patch was designed to give you greater expressive control within softer musical contexts.
Adventure patch attack control: With all four sections, the Adventure patches include two attack variations. Velocity 98 and below will trigger a spiccato attack (good for shorter notes), while 99 and above will trigger a staccato attack (good for longer notes).
Breakout patch selection: We included keyswitch patches strictly as a means of easily auditioning/selecting articulations, not for realtime keyswitching in the middle of a phrase. We recommend selecting an articulation at the beginning of your track and loading additional instances of Trailer Strings for more articulations.
All Strings - Breakout Lite: In the event the fully-fledged All Strings patch proves to be too beastly, the LITE version excludes a dynamic from all the articulations and switches off the release triggers for the Sustains Full patch. This will help diminish the overall polyphony count.
Patches:
FX - Snap and Grunt
FX - Snap and Grunt
Sustains Soft
Sustains Soft
Features:
- Companion library to Trailer Brass.
- Recorded in a large concert hall.
- Four different sections: 18 Violins, 16 Violas, 14 Cellos, 12 Basses.
- Morph Stacking programming allows any note length to sound natural.
- Recorded in centered, wide seating arrangement across the stage.
- To Silence feature.
- Adjustable Humanization feature.
- Includes true FFF sampling.
- Sustains include true ppp sampling.
- Three microphone positions: Close, Room, Mixed.
- Includes All Strings patch.
- Recorded in 48khz / 24bit.
- 8.7 GB uncompressed (5.3 GB compressed NCW format).
- Compatible with Kontakt 5.5.1 or higher (requires full retail version of Kontakt).
- Receive watermarked product by Continuata Connect downloader.