Arctic Strings
Smooth sustained strings
Designed for creating lush, ethereal backdrops and chords: Arctic Strings is a sustained strings instrument that’s housed in our powerful sample-based-synth engine, Mirage. The whole string section was recorded playing long sustained notes both softly and loudly; we turned this into a single, uncomplicated virtual instrument with controllable dynamics. This product is the dead-simple solution for adding warm, delicate, atmospheric, backdrops to your track; either by itself or alongside other string libraries.
Create moving string chords
Arctic Strings has a beautiful shimmering tone with ethereal high strings and powerful basses; perfect for playing chords and harmonies. Create swells of intensity and emotion using the dynamics knob, which blends the sound between real recordings of the strings playing softly, and playing loudly. As well as this, this instrument’s sound fits excellently with both synths and real instrumentation. This means Arctic Strings works well in anything from emotional cinematic scores to background elements in an electronic track.
The samples are wide and lush stereo recordings from a medium-sized string ensemble recorded in a church. It is not a deep-sampled and technical concert hall type library, instead, this library excels at strings for ambience and atmosphere. They are incredibly easy to use and fill that gap between detailed realism and smooth, rich pads.
A single easy-to-use articulation
The string section very commonly plays large chords or is used to add additional texture to other more prominent instruments. This is where Arctic Strings excels: the entire realistic-sounding string section is available at your fingertips – from basses to violins. The attack and release can be controlled like a synth, and you can even set the instrument to play monophonically, allowing for a legato-like playing style.42 presets
With the engine, you can take the sound beyond the realms of realism and create organic-synth instruments. You'll find examples of this in the 42 included presets. These are arranged into 3 categories: Realistic, Realistic Processed and Sound Design. In the Realistic folder you'll find patches for emulating real strings: wide chords, monophonic and octave harmony patches. The Realistic Processed folder explores the boundary between realistic and synthetic. Including washed-out string reverb instruments and filtered string sounds. The final category, Sound Design, contains synth-like presets that make full use of the engine's features: synth plucks, distorted leads and drifting detune.
Videos
3 independent layers for blending
Mirage libraries are loaded from a side panel
Effects Rack of 10 effects
Presets are easily browsed and loaded
Powered by Floe or Mirage
Arctic Strings runs inside your choice of two free sample library platforms: Floe (our new beta platform) or Mirage (our established platform).
Mirage’s capabilities include:
- 3-layer architecture: blend multiple sounds
- ADSR envelopes, filters, LFOs
- Rack of effects: reverb, delay, chorus, phaser, more
- CPU-efficient
- Preset browser
Floe is our successor to Mirage. It's still in beta. It offers all of Mirage's capabilities plus:
- VST3 and CLAP plugin formats (in addition to AU)
- One-click library installation
- Combine sounds from different libraries
- Enhanced browsing with tags and filters
- Increased voice count (256 vs 32)
- Open-source and actively developed
Both platforms are completely free with no login, hassle, or license keys required. No additional paid software needed — purchasing Arctic Strings and installing your chosen engine is all that's required.
Crossgrade from Arctic Strings: Kontakt
If you purchased/redeemed Arctic Strings: Kontakt before 11/28/2024, you can get 50% off this product. See our Crossgrades page for how to do this.
The Mirage version of Arctic Strings makes the string samples accessible to users without Kontakt. While it omits certain features (scripted legato/portamento, mod matrix, chord harmonizer, and themed GUI), it adds 42 new presets for more sound design applications: it leans into being a creative sound-design tool more than trying for realism like the Kontakt version was. Being part of the Mirage platform means it will receive ongoing free updates and improvements.
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