Ambient Strings for Falcon / MachFive 3

Ambient Strings by Simon Stockhausen (patchpool) focusses on atmospheric sounds and textures derived from string instruments like cello, violin (electric and acoustic), electric and acoustic guitars, psaltery (ebowed, plucked and bowed) and oud. The patches combine textural sounds, multisampled acoustic instruments and more exotic instrument articulations with electronic textures all derived from the dry instrument samples to create wonderful, ethereal, dark and mysterious sound worlds. Expressive multisampled instruments, temposynced instrument sequences and morphable soloistic phrases are also included in this library.

16 patches patches/instruments have scripted interfaces for extended sound manipulation, a snapshot system especially developed for this library allows the user to save and recall 5 snapshots, or recall the 5 snapshots programmed into the patches by default. So on top of the 75 patches this library ships with another 64 snapshot variations.

All non-scripted patches have the Modwheel and the 8 Macros assigned in the info tab, quite a few also use Aftertouch. Many patches integrate the wealth of MachFive's sound generators and combine them with granular and normal sampling. In many patches temposynced modulators are used to animate the amplitudes and filters of the involved samples and sound generators, often keyswitchable sound combinations or different articulations are available within one patch. All patches which have several different sounds split across the keyboard (often over a range of six octaves or more) use key-colouring in MachFive's keyboard which makes it easier to navigate through the various split sounds.

All acoustic instrument-samples in this library are recorded in a dry studio environment with top notch Neumann microphones in L-C-R at 48 kHz/24-bit. All microphone signals are phase-aligned which enhances the stereo field and the transparency of the recorded samples.

The Snapshot system:
The snapshot system especially developed for this library allows the user to save and recall 5 snapshots, or recall the 5 snapshots hard-coded into the patches by clicking on the "Reset" buttons at the bottom of the snapshot interface. To access the snapshots just click on the "Snapshots" button at the top right of the interface.

You can view/download the PDF for this library with more details, the licence agreement, and the patchlist including descrtptions and playing tips here.

Scripting by Iain Morland.

Content:

• 3.35 GB of original samples (wavs/stereo/48 kHz/24-bit), 6 impulse responses, 4 single cycles - a small fraction of samples was borrowed from other patchpool libraries.
• 75 patches (including 3 low CPU variations) plus 64 snapshot variations inside the scripted patches, combining all synthesis forms available in MachFive 3.

Sampled Instruments:

• Cello.
• Violin (acoustic and electric).
• Acoustic Guitar (classical - nylon / western - steel).
• Electric Guitar (amped and DI-box).
• Psaltery.

Instrument categories:

• Acoustic Guitar (7).
• Cello (20 + 2 low CPU variations).
• Electric Guitar (7).
• Electronic Scapes (8).
• Hybrid Strings (10).
• Psaltery (11).
• Violin (10 + 1 low CPU variation).

More specs:

• 3.35 GB of samples (wavs/stereo/48 kHz/24-bit).
• 75 patches (including 3 low CPU variations) plus 64 snapshot variations inside the scripted patches, combining all synthesis forms available in MachFive.
• Delivery: download - RAR-archive in 4 parts for better download handling.
• Price (paypal): € 59 EUR.

Please note: this library requires the full version of MachFive 3 (version 3.2 and higher), it will not work with the UVI workstation.

All demos were produced entirely with MachFive 3 using only patches from Ambient Strings, no post-processing was applied apart from a limiter on the outputs and some volume automation, if several instances of MachFive were used in a track.

Videos for Ambient Strings can be found in {See video at top of page}.