Cinematic Studio Solo Strings
Two competitively priced string libraries, one of ensemble players and the other of solo players have more than their attractive price going for them.
Cinematic Studio turn their sampling expertise towards a quartet of solo strings. Cinematic Studio continue to grow their series of Kontakt sample libraries with what is very much the sister to their acclaimed Cinematic Studio Strings (henceforth referred to as CSS — reviewed in SOS October 2016). Cinematic Studio Solo Strings (CSSS) comprises Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola and Cello; unlike CSS, there is.
by Per Lichtman, July 2018
CSSS のSolo Violin 1, Solo Violin 2, Viola, Cello によって、作曲家は自身の音楽に新しい表現を与えることができます。世界最高レベルのレコーディング・スタジオで最高級の楽器の収録に120時間以上も費やし、それぞれの楽器の魅力と個性を細部まで捉えるために、マイクを独自の手法で組み合わせました。その結果、完璧なソロ・ストリングス音源でもありつつも、「CINEMATIC STUDIO STRINGS」を完璧. Beautifully detailed, intimate and expressive solo strings. With Cinematic Studio Solo Strings, we've taken the simplicity, workflow and authentic sound of the Studio Series and applied it to solo violins, viola and cello to create an incredibly realistic solo strings sample library, for Kontakt and Kontakt Player. Cinematic Solo Strings is an invaluable addition to your orchestral template. PRESENTING CINEMATIC STUDIO SOLO STRINGS Cinematic Studio Solo Strings is the latest instalment in the Cinematic Studio Series, bringing you solo violins 1 and 2, viola and cello to add a tantalising new dimension to your musical creations. Dec 31, 2018 The legato engine is a bit more complex and has a bit of a learning curve but is capable of amazing realism. CSS is the first in a full-orchestra series in which all the sections will all blend perfectly together. So far we have released the accompanying piano library (CSP) and Cinematic Studio Solo Strings. Oct 14, 2017 Cinematic Studio Strings is a Kontakt 5 Player library, so a full version of Kontakt 5 is not required. It was recorded on the same scoring stage in Sydney as CSS, and again, even without reverb, the sound. The new Cinematic Studio Series will provide a comprehensive, consistent and realistic full set of orchestral libraries. We're proud to announce the immediate availability of the first four libraries in this groundbreaking collection: strings, solo strings, brass and piano.
Cinematic Studio Strings and Cinematic Studio Solo Strings ($399 USD and $299 USD respectively at CinematicStudioSeries.com) are two new libraries from the makers of Cinematic Strings (which I reviewed for SoundBytes in 2014). They feature a different sound and recording style but aim to build upon the speed and ease of use that were such a big selling point for their earlier libraries. At the same time, they also aim to drastically expand the flexibility and articulations and flexibility of the library. Do they succeed? Read on to find out.
Compared to Cinematic Strings
First of all, the sound is really good – as in much better than I had any reason to expect. While there are still similar mic positions (close, main, room, or full mix blend of the other three vs. close, stage, room, or full mix blend of the other three in the earlier Cinematic Strings library), the change of venue (from concert hall to Trackdown, an Australian scoring stage) and performers has definitely made a difference. I’d say there’s a big change in sound from Cinematic Strings, with a rounder, fuller, more even, consistent and blended sound (with less high end and yet at times less boomy). When it comes to recordings, there’s always an element of personal taste as to a recording aesthetic, so if you’re mainly looking for “sparkly” or “light” then you might be drawn to the high frequencies in Cinematic Strings as opposed to Cinematic Studio Strings. On the other hand, if you found Cinematic Strings too reverberant, edgy or uneven, then you’ll definitely want to listen to Cinematic Studio Strings. Note that Cinematic Studio Strings uses a very slightly smaller ensemble than Cinematic Strings.
1st Violins: 10 players (vs. 12 in Cinematic Strings).
2nd Violins: 7 players (vs. 8 in Cinematic Strings).
Violas: 7 players (same as Cinematic Strings).
Cellos: 6 players (vs. 7 in Cinematic Strings).
Basses: 5 players (vs. 6 in Cinematic Strings).
Since Cinematic Studio Solo Strings is the first product of its kind from the developer, there’s not the same reference point to compare it to, but I’d say the aesthetic is rather similar, and it definitely blends well with Cinematic Studio Strings.
The number of articulations has scaled up significantly. Here’s a quick comparison.
Longs in Cinematic Strings: Sustains (low or high position, with or without vibrato, with or without interval sampled legato, with or without a staccato overlay), Marcato, Trills (whole and half tone) and tremolo.
Longs in Cinematic Studio Strings and Studio Solo Strings: Sustains (with or without vibrato, four different kinds of interval sampled fingered legato for vibrato including three legato speeds, one kind of sampled bow change legato for non-vibrato, one kind of interval sampled portamento), Marcato, Marcato, Trills (whole and half tone), tremolo and harmonics.
Shorts in Cinematic Strings: Staccato, staccatissimo (derived from the staccato samples), pizzicato, snap pizzicato and run mode.
Shorts in Cinematic Studio Strings and Studio Solo Strings: spiccato, staccatissimo, staccato, sforzando, col legno, pizzicato and snap pizzicato. (The role of the “run mod” can now be filled by either the marcato or fast legato articulations).
There are lots of new ones, but I want to give a special mention to the harmonics and col legno articulations. They represent totally new colors for the developer (ones I missed when coming to Cinematic Strings from other libraries) and they are quite welcome.
Ease of Use
As you can see just by looking at the respective articulations, there were some big changes. This means that it also takes just a little bit longer to check out everything that Cinematic Studio Strings and Studio Solo Strings have to offer compared to Cinematic Strings – but there are a few things that can make the transition shorter. For starters, it’s worth understanding that the classic legato mode is mainly for times where you want a more distant sound, slower or less prominent sound to the legato transitions. The newer transitions are more flexible, up-front and clearly defined and you’ll likely get better results with them unless you are deliberately trying to make the orchestra sound a little further away or less defined – both of which are sometimes called for. As such, I’d recommend loading the main patches by default while you’re learning the program and only exploring the classic legato patches once you’re already familiar. This will make it easier to put together connected legato parts, especially since the fast legato triggered at high velocities is really one of the best I’ve encountered!
For the number of articulations on offer, I would say that Cinematic Studio Strings and Cinematic Studio Solo Strings are overall the easiest and quickest libraries to work with that I’ve encountered so far while also offering some interesting alternatives for different workflows. For instance, articulation switching can be performed entirely using MIDI CC 58 (or the CC of your choosing) instead of keyswitches. However, it is not possible to control the dynamics of the short notes using a MIDI CC – they are locked to keyboard velocity, which is my one gripe.
Once you’ve gotten up to speed with the library, you’ll likely find that you can work even more quickly than with Cinematic Strings – especially given that with the new improved legato, you’ll likely spend less time tweaking parts.
The Sound
With the initial sonic comparison out of the way, let’s look more closely at the sound on its own. The vibrato definitely is on the heavier more romantic side when present and the non-vibrato options are robust (though they exclude marcato). Between the recording approach and the vibrato, you’ll find that the library sound surprisingly lush for its size.
If I were to sum up the sound of Cinematic Studio Strings and Cinematic Studio Solo Strings in one phrase, it would be: round, organic and pleasingly melodic. The sound is noticeably much drier than Cinematic Strings (or even Orchestral Tools Berlin Strings, for that matter) but also certainly much wetter than drier libraries like EastWest Hollywood Strings or Light & Sound Chamber Strings. This is true even when you rely entirely on the close microphones: the aforementioned libraries will sound brighter, more up-front with a wider stereo field. As a consequence, Cinematic Studio Strings and Cinematic Studio Strings Solo (which I’ll sometimes abbreviate as CSS and CSSS for the rest of the review) are very easy to blend, difficult to make sound strident or unpleasing and quite easy to mix with – even for beginners.
The Longs
While the stars of the show are the various options regarding the main sustains, which are deeply sampled both in terms of the core articulation (with four dynamic layers in both vibrato and non-vibrato) as well as the various interval legato transitions, the new and improved marcato is also very flexible and is now well suited to runs, either with or without the spiccato overlay (though they can also be handled by the fast legato, as I often prefer) and with or without sampled monophonic legato intervals. And that’s before we even get into the completely brand new articulation: harmonics.
The glassy, quiet harmonic sustains start an octave above the lowest note in the instruments range, mapped by the way in which they are fingered as opposed to by the sounding pitch. They are small and delicate in sound, owing in part to the size of the ensembles (as a string ensemble sounds its smallest when playing harmonics). They are offered for every patch in CSS and CSSS, except for the basses. This makes it the only articulation that’s not completely consistent between all sections, but in fairness to the developer, bass harmonics are less frequently employed than in other sections. That still doesn’t mean we don’t want them, of course. 😀 Like the other longs, harmonic sustains can be played in polyphonic or monophonic legato mode – though don’t expect sampled interval legato in this case. Unless you’re fairly proficient in what strings each harmonic would likely be played on, I’d advise sticking to monophonic legato mode for more realistic limitations. Fingering multiple harmonics concurrently is … not trivial. So limit yourself to one at a time, unless you have a string player consultant on hand or have equivalent knowledge yourself.
A quick note about the sustains in CSSS, specifically: they have a lot of vibrato (when played with vibrato), and a pleasant difference in vibrato color from player to player at the same as they maintain sufficient consistency to make it easy to go from player to player without adjustment. The non-vibrato articulations also sound good (and are great for use in western European period pieces from, say, the pre-baroque era, for instance) as do the harmonics.
The Short Notes
Cinematic Studio Solo Strings Manual
I’ll go into much deeper detail about the short notes in comparison to other libraries when I get to the section titled The Competition, but here’s the important overview. Let’s start with the articulations in Cinematic Studio Strings. Both the bowed and unbowed shorts are among the best on the market in regards to the chosen aesthetic, making them both highly musical, very agile, easy to blend or use without reverb, and extremely well suited to well-defined rapid passages that can get lost in reverb tail for libraries recorded in more reverberant environments. These are some of my favorite shorts that I have ever reviewed and I found both the sampling of the dynamic layers and the number of round-robins to be among the top libraries as well. A particular standout is the bowed sforzando articulation which provides a short, dramatic accent with round-robin that allows it to be used consecutively in a way that’s uncommon. The sforzando sounds great and these might be the best sforzando recordings I’ve heard in a library to date and features at least three dynamic layers that I could hear.
Regarding the solo strings, though they omit the solo bass, the four string instruments have short notes sampled similarly to the full ensembles, with all the same articulations (and similar amounts of velocity layers and round-robins). The sforzando articulation here has at least four dynamic layers that I could hear! This is a big contrast to the solo strings from CineSamples, but more on that later in The Competition section.
In both libraries the short articulations have their dynamics locked to velocity. The specific short articulation is chosen through a combination of velocity sensitive keyswitch and modwheel. This sounds a little more complicated than it actually is. For bowed keyswitches, you’d press the F-0 keyswitch and depending on the velocity you used, you’d pick one of four articulations (spiccato, staccatissimo, staccato or sforzando). After that, you could switch between any of the four using the dynamics CC (which is CC1, the mod wheel, by default). It’s the same thing for unbowed shorts (pizzicato, snap pizzicato and col legno).
(Edit: An important note regarding shorts is the timing. The manual specifies that the short notes in the library are delayed by 60 ms, to allow the full attack to play as naturally as possible. As a result, when integrating Cinematic Studio Strings with other libraries you’ll either have to compensate your playing or move the notes/audio 60 ms earlier to compensate. A third alternative is to use a compensation plug-in (like the Time Adjustment plug-in in Reaper) with a value of -60 ms to compensate the tracks.)
Room for Improvement
Cinematic Studio Strings Free Download
There are two main things I would love to see added to Cinematic Studio Strings and Cinematic Studio Strings Solo in an update. The first is the option to make keyswitches stop responding to velocity. The second is adding the option to control the dynamics for shorts with the same MIDI CC as the longs.
In regards to keyswitch velocity, there’s no denying the utility that the current approach provides: being able to target standard vs. advanced legato mode with a given velocity makes it possible to quickly access more options than having to open the GUI anytime you want to switch. However, it simply does not work well with the way I prefer to play. I normally want the option to turn off velocity sensitivity for my keyswitches so I’m only focused on the dynamics of the notes that are actually sounding. If I’m delicately playing through a quiet staccato passage and want to switch to slow legato speed, my normal way of playing that keyswitch would be piano. But due to velocity sensitivity on the keyswitch, I would have to play the keyswitch fortissimo, then immediately switch back to piano performance with my right hand.
The issue with keyswitches also extends to the way I edit MIDI. For example, I often re-check a given passage with different legato speeds by using Select All in my editor and dragging the velocities up and down through the slow, medium and fast ranges. Because of the velocity sensitivity of the keyswitches, I had to individually select the keyswitches as a group and make sure to keep them in the Advanced range. Doing this once isn’t a big deal but when you start to deal with it dozens of times a day, it gets a little cumbersome.
Additionally, there are things you can find in other libraries that you won’t find here. I’m not putting them at the front of this section because I think that weighing the pros and cons of both complexity and price, CSS and CSSS hit a sweet spot, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention some of the main ones. For starters, there are the alternate bowing positions that are missing (sul tasto and sul ponticello), which can be found in products from VSL, Spitfire Audio and Orchestral Tools. Next, there’s the question of why the bow-change legato is only offered when vibrato is turned down? It seemed an odd choice. Neither of these omissions diminishes the value of what’s offered here (and it’s a lot of articulations, to be sure) I’m just noticing the absence of certain things I found in other products. With that said, let’s look at the competition.
The Competition: Big Picture
There are lots of string libraries on the market so one of the most obvious questions is how do Cinematic Studio Strings and Cinematic Studio Solo Strings compare to the competition. First of all, whether you’re looking for an all-rounder (there are quite a few articulations on offer, even if there are competing products that offer more), or you’re picking a library based on ease of use, it’s fair to say that CSS and CSSS are two of the best on the market, even before factoring in their competitive price point. The legato programming is also among the best of any library with especially smooth and easy to blend sustains while still offering surprising flexibility. With that out of the way, let’s look at the sound in regards to other offerings. I would suggest checking out the sonic aesthetic of the library before going too deep into features. On the acoustic side the Trackdown Scoring Stage used for the recordings in CSS and CSSS strikes a really nice balance – much wetter and larger than VSL’s Silent Soundstage (used for their pre-Synchron libraries, excluding organ), EastWest’s Hollywood Series, or Light & Sound Chamber Strings and even 8Dio Adagio/Adagietto/Agitato/Anthology series (which is surprisingly bright and up-front despite being recorded in a church). At the same time it’s much drier and less reverberant than even the Teldex Hall used in the Orchestral Tools Berlin Series and far, far less reverberant than AIR Lyndhurst (used for most Spitfire Audio orchestral libraries). If you want either a noticeably drier or noticeably more reverberant hall, I’d look at one of those other libraries. But if you’re looking for that right in-the-middle size for the recording space, the closest comparison would be the MGM Scoring Stage that CineSamples uses for the CineSymphony series – including CineStrings CORE and CineStrings Solo. For that reason (and the fact that both libraries have some especially well recorded short notes) let’s get really in-depth in comparing the respective offerings!
The Competition: CineStrings CORE vs. Cinematic Studio Strings
Let’s start with the ensemble libraries – we’ll compare CSS to CineStrings CORE 1.3.1. First of all, each library has a particular edge in regards to GUI. CineSamples supports controlling any articulation’s dynamics by MIDI CC and makes it easier to switch between different control schemes (velocity vs. MIDI CC, optionally with sustain pedal), while CSS locks the dynamics on the shorts to keyboard velocity. CineStrings CORE also caters better to users that want to use one patch per articulation or one articulation per track by offering separated patches for most articulations in addition to the ones that combine several. Conversely, CSS makes it possible to combine almost every articulation in a single patch (except you’ll want one extra patch if you like using both the classic legato and newer legato types) while CineStrings CORE outright requires using multiple patches to get the harmonics, pizzicato, snap pizzicato and col legno articulations. When it comes to legato, CSS also has a big edge, being much better at executing fast legato passage in particular (especially when using fast legato accessed at higher velocities in the newer patches) and also offering more legato options in general. With their respective approaches to the GUI and organization out of the way, let’s get to their sounds.
Note that CineStrings CORE uses significantly more players per section than CSS (something you’ll especially notice in the 1st violins and basses) and has a generally brighter sound than CSS. CSS has a sweeter and rounder sound than CineStrings CORE when it comes to the more tender side of things while CineStrings can tackle the loudest dynamics with greater aggressiveness than CSS. CineStrings CORE has the strings panned wider across the stereofield while CSS offers a deeper soundstage. Also, in their respective default mixes, CineStrings sounds much more up-front.
The aesthetic of the sustains is dramatically different for each library, with more vibrato in CSS than in CineStrings CORE. Both feature ample dynamic layers in the sustains (five for CineStrings CORE and four for CSS). The sustains sound more emotional and lush in CSS and possibly a bit more natural. In CineStrings CORE, the extra high frequencies mean that the sustains will cut through a mix more (which can be helpful in a crowded mix or for action cues) but you’ll struggle when wanting a softer, smoother sound.
The shorts in each library differ: CSS has spiccato, staccatissimo, staccato and sforzando; CineStrings CORE has spiccato, staccato, marcato and sforzando). A quick note is that while CSS has a marcato articulation, it’s a sustain articulation, unlike the short in CineStrings CORE. Before we go too deeply into the shorts, it’s worth noting that both libraries do a great job of sampling the dynamics for these bowed short articulations, and you can expect at least three dynamic layers by default (sometimes up to five). When quoting dynamic layers, I’ll be giving exact numbers for CineStrings CORE, they will be estimates done by ear for CSS since that information is neither provided in manual nor available using instrument edit mode in Kontakt. With that out of the way, let’s look at the articulations themselves!
The spiccati in both CSS and CineStrings CORE are excellent, with the size of the recording space used in each case being really well suited fast passages with this short articulation – more so than most other libraries I really like (except maybe SoniVox Strings/Orchestral Companion Strings). The spiccati in these two libraries ring out and breathe more than in EastWest Hollywood Strings, Light & Sound Chamber Strings 2, or 8Dio’s Adagio series while still speaking more quickly than in Orchestral Tools Berlin Strings, let alone the huge reverb tails in Spitfire Audio’s AIR Lyndhurst libraries. So in regards to these two pleasing colors, is one better than the other? No, they are just different. The CSS spiccati are a little shorter and the CineStrings CORE ones ring out through the space a bit more, for a more radiant sound. Either way, these are some of the best spiccati on the market.
Regarding staccatissimo, CSS has them (and they are on par with the spiccati) and CineStrings CORE does not. With the staccatos, again, the CSS articulation is just a little bit shorter and more accented while the longer CineStrings CORE articulation rings out a bit more. The marcato short in CineStrings CORE is nonetheless noticeably longer the staccato, much less accented (making it quite usable for melodic material) and it sounds great – with no direct equivalent in CSS. While the sforzando in CineStrings CORE sounds like a more accented marcato (growing more accented as you rise up through the three dynamic layers) and works well in that capacity, unlike the other CineStrings CORE bowed shorts it does not feature round-robin. The sforzando in CSS also sounds like it features at least three dynamic layers but it also features round-robin and is much shorter, more accented and more dramatic. The CSS sforzando really is short enough to use for (relatively) quick repetitions, something that the CineString CORE one really isn’t suited for. I give the edge to CSS for offering an articulation that both sounds great and is just a little bit different from what you’ll find in many other libraries. Both libraries are great choices for bowed shorts and offer something a little different, making CSS one of the best you can find on the market. So what about the non-bowed shorts?
This is where the difference in the ensemble sizes between CineStrings CORE and CSS really starts to become evident. Let’s start with both the the Bartók/snap pizzicato: before we get into the sound, it’s worth noting that CSS is rather unusual in that it sampled at least two dynamic layers for the articulation (both a piano and a fortissmo) whereas most libraries usually just sample the a single sample layer (including CineStrings CORE). As for the sound, the smaller ensemble in CSS makes for a tighter, more controlled sound (that in keeping with the aesthetic of the library is also a bit rounder) while CineStrings CORE sounds dramatically larger, grander, with a brighter and more pronounced attack that projects more. It’s a very big and audible difference, with both sounding good. Given the nature of the performance requirements of snap pizzicato, you’ll want to give the performers a short pause after each note for realistic writing – so the advantage that CSS normally has regarding shorter notes for faster passages in comparison to CineStrings CORE is moot, unless you deliberately are aiming for an unrealistic sound.
For the normal pizzicato, the situation is similar to the snap pizzicato with a few key differences. For starters, the CSS articulation (with a bouncy sound with more energy in the center of the stereo field than the CineString CORE articulation) makes you feel like the strings were tightened immediately prior to recording the articulation, which has the edge for especially quick pizzicato passages. For this articulation, that edge is actually a realistically playable one (unlike the snap pizzicato). Again, it’s worth noting how much larger, brighter and looser the CineStrings CORE sound is. In addition, the number of dynamic layers (at least 4 for CSS vs. 2 for CSC CORE) tilts noticeably in favor of CSS in regards to varying the dynamics. Each sound is good but they are also dramatically different from each other.
For the col legno shorts, while both libraries feature round-robins, CineStrings CORE sampled a single dynamic layer (seemingly forte/fortissimo, given the constraints of the articulation) while CSS sampled at least three dynamic layers (with great care from pianissimo up to a mezzo-forte/forte) making col legno crescendos noticeably more convincing – albeit with less bite at the top. CSS makes a greater effort to depict the accurate dynamic relationship between the col legno articulation and the others (that is to say, it’s much quieter) and this is especially noticeable given the smaller ensemble size. You can keep it that way for realism or you can always bring up the volume of the part when using col legno to make it more audible. CineStrings CORE doesn’t make this effort to preserve the realistic dynamic relationship so you’ll find the col legno similarly loud to other articulations. Once again, the CineStrings CORE articulation sounds larger, brighter and projects a lot more than the CSS one, but the CSS one has notably more depth in the quieter dynamics. Overall, if you want epic for non-bowed strings, go with CineStrings CORE on this one, if you want intimate go with CSS.
The Competition: CineStrings SOLO vs. Cinematic Studio Strings Solo
First of all, it’s worth pointing out just how different these two products are. While selling for a similar price and acting as compliments to their respective larger ensemble libraries, the differences between the products are huge. For starters CineStrings SOLO sampled five solo string instruments (1st violin, 2nd violin, viola, cello, bass) while CSSS sampled four (1st violin, 2nd violin, viola and cello – but no bass). Second, the sampling in CSSS is similar to CSS in regards to depth (though differences include having only three dynamic layers for the sustains in CSSS, compared to the four in CSS) while CineStrings SOLO is a different beast altogether.
CineStrings SOLO has a single dynamic layer for each sustain type (standard and espressivo) and for marcato, apparently to prevent crossfading artifacts. There are multiple dynamic layers on staccato, spiccato and pizzicato. There are a handful of articulations that are only available for some of the instruments: short spiccato (violin 1, violin 2 and viola), Bartok/snap pizzicato (violin 2, viola, bass) and tremolo (violin 1, violin 2 and viola). Noticeably absent are col legno and harmonics, both of which are offered in CineStrings CORE.
The sustains in CSSS have much more vibrato than in CineStrings SOLO and there’s more consistency in performance from soloist to soloist. In CineStrings SOLO there’s such a difference in the sustains between violin 1 and violin 2 that they might as well be labeled different articulations.
Honestly, the amount of vibrato you want in your project pretty much determines which of these two libraries you’ll want. If you want a very conservative amount of vibrato, or if you want to go more in the Americana direction – or if you plan to rely primarily on non-vibrato, the CineStrings SOLO can be a vibrant and good option. For overwhelming majority of other projects, I would say that the vibrato in Cinematic Studio Solo Strings makes it a better fit – and that’s before factoring in all the extra articulations, etc.
Are They Right For You?
Cinematic Studio Strings and Cinematic Studio Solo Strings are a versatile, easy-to-use team that benefit greatly from the smooth timbre of their recordings. They work extremely well together and can use the same MIDI data when being layered to positive results. They also work quite well independently, with CSSS being surprisingly effective for string quartets in a way I hadn’t expected. They lend themselves very well to a wide range of material and have a shorter learning curve than many of their competitors. I keep finding excuses to load it up as opposed to some of my other string libraries just because it’s both so easy to work with and so easy to mix with. The shorts are great, the vibrato is sweet, and the legato is really good, too. Turbotax business 2018 torrent. There are libraries that are drier or wetter, bigger or smaller, and there are other libraries with even more articulations, but Cinematic Studio Strings and Cinematic Studio Solo Strings strike a wonderful balance in each category. The fact that they do so at a competitive price makes the deal even sweeter.
