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Arctic Strings: Mirage

$35.00

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 (a VST/AU plugin that is included for free). 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. Furthermore, you can shape the sound to fit your track by using Mirage’s features, such as attack, release, reverb, and tuning.

Included are 42 presets featuring both realistic ways of using strings, as well as diverse sound design. This product is the dead-simple solution for adding warm, delicate, atmospheric tones to your track; either by itself or alongside other string libraries.

If you are a Kontakt user, you might consider the Kontakt version of this product.

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 ambiance 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 Mirage, 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 Mirage's features: synth plucks, distorted leads and drifting detunes.

See and hear Arctic Strings: Mirage in action

Powered by Mirage

A free VST/AU control-hub for FrozenPlain sounds

Mirage is a sample-based-synthesis VST/AU plugin for Windows and Mac that comes free with any powered-by-Mirage product. It’s the control hub for FrozenPlain’s new sounds, offering a powerful set of parameters and effects for rapid, flexible sound design, no matter what the sound source is.

Once it’s opened up in your DAW, you’ll see all of your powered-by-Mirage products ready to click on and use instantly. There’s no subscription or log-in procedure, just instant access to the sounds and presets.

Three independent sound layers can be layered together

Mirage libraries are loaded from a side panel

9 effects can be used to shape the sound

Presets can be quickly loaded and saved

Download PDF User Manual

Designed for sound layering

Mirage allows for up to three different sounds to be controlled separately and layered together. The layers in Mirage have the following controls unique to them: pitch, volume and pan, filter, volume envelope, LFO, EQ, sample loop settings and MIDI settings. These controls facilitate an incredible amount of manipulation over the original sound source.

Designed to be played

Mirage enables you to turn samples into fully playable patches. The volume at both the layer level and the master level can be controlled with MIDI velocity. Sustain pedal (MIDI CC 64) is also fully supported, enabling you to hold notes using a foot pedal.

On top of that, any parameter in Mirage can be controlled by knobs or sliders on your physical MIDI controller. This is done by simply right-clicking the parameter, selecting ‘MIDI learn’ and then moving your controller. And of course, Mirage can also be automated by your DAW.

Minimum friction from your mind to your DAW

Mirage is designed to not get in your way. It is fast to load up and is CPU efficient. It has a vector-based GUI that can be resized so that it will work on any size screen. The controls are laid out intuitively, and a full description of what each control does can be viewed by hovering the mouse over it for a moment. Mirage also comes with a PDF user manual with all of the nitty-gritty details covered.

Useful Randomisation

For spontaneous inspiration, Mirage features controls for useful randomisation. The first randomisation feature is a multi-mode button that loads a random preset. It can be set to work in one of three ways. Firstly, it can load any random preset at all – even of different libraries. Secondly, it can load a random preset that is of the same library that you currently have loaded. Or thirdly, it can load a random preset in the current preset folder (the folder might contain all bass presets for example).

The next randomisation feature is two buttons that load a random instrument for one or all of the 3 layers. This is excellent for quickly trialling a new sound source but keeping Mirage’s other parameters unchanged.

Use presets or create your own sounds

Mirage helps you with finding the right sound quickly. In a recent free update, Mirage received a built-in preset browser. This is a panel that can be opened up via a button at the top of the interface. All the presets are arranged in a clear list which can be navigated with the arrows keys on your keyboard as well as your mouse.

A rack of built-in Effects

Built-in effects such as distortion, bit-crush, chorus and stereo widener can be used to enhance the sound with extra harmonics or extra simulated width. The compressor can be used to control dynamics or add punch, and the filter can be used to isolate just the frequencies you need.

Mirage also has reverb and delay effects for real space simulation. These are great for sound design too. One of the reverb effects is a convolution reverb; this is typically used to add a real-sounding reverberation to the signal by using a sample of a real space (AKA an impulse response). Mirage features both realistic impulse responses and abstract ones for creative sound design.

Access to free updates

By purchasing this product, or any powered-by-Mirage product, you gain access to updates with new features and improvements. These will almost always be completely free. We will ensure these updates never break backwards compatibility. This means as the capability of Mirage expands, your old DAW projects or presets will still work just like they used to.

If you already have Mirage, you can visit this page to download the latest version. It’s worth noting that Mirage has no use unless you have a Mirage library; in the current version, these can only be made with our internal tools.

Already own Arctic Strings for Kontakt?

Learn more

What’s changed?

This product was initially created for Kontakt and now a Mirage version has been created too. This new version of Arctic Strings is a reinterpretation of the old samples, it is not an upgrade. Primarily, it allows us to offer these strings to people who don’t have Kontakt.

Here are the notable differences between this new version compared to the Kontakt version:

  • It does not have the scripted legato or portamento.
  • It does not have the mod matrix.
  • It does not have the northern lights themed GUI.
  • It does not have the built-in chord harmoniser.
  • It has 42 new presets exploring both realism and sound design.
  • It is part of Mirage – an engine that will receive free new features and updates.
  • It is available as a VST/AU instead of requiring Kontakt.
Free for owners of the Kontakt version

If you’ve already bought Arctic Strings (Kontakt) on frozenplain.com, you can get this Mirage version for free. Log into your account and visit this page. The price will automatically be discounted to $0.

‘Crossgrade’ to the Kontakt version at a later date

Furthermore, if you buy this Mirage version (and don’t own the Kontakt version), you will be able to get the Kontakt version by just paying the difference in price ($14). When logged in, this discount will be automatically visible on the Arctic Strings: Kontakt page.

Instant Download

Arctic Strings is distributed as a digital download only. It should only take a matter of minutes before you can start using it in your production. FrozenPlain has a streamlined checkout system, you only need to put in essential information. For the first product you buy here, you will be prompted to set a password in order to create an account. All products you buy on this site are added to your account and the latest versions can be re-downloaded at any time.

You can pay for Arctic Strings with a credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Apple Pay. The payment process is handled by our online reseller Paddle.com. Once payment has been completed successfully you will be able to download Arctic Strings instantly.

Requirements

Arctic Strings is designed to be as accessible as possible to producers, composers, musicians, and sound designers. You probably already have what you need if you are producing audio on a reasonably modern computer. There is one exception – Arctic Strings is not available in the AAX plugin format yet, and so will not run in Pro Tools. Here are the specific requirements:

  • Windows: a computer running Windows 7 or higher. Mirage is available as a 32-bit and a 64-bit plugin. However, the installer needs a 64-bit machine. Virtually all Windows machines are 64-bit.
  • Mac: macOS 10.12 or higher. Both Intel chips and M1 chips are supported (universal binary).
  • A host that can play either a VST2 plugin or an AudioUnit v2 (AU) plugin. Examples of such hosts are Cubase, Ableton Live, Studio One, Reaper, Reason, FL Studio, Logic X, Garage Band, and many more. Logic 9 or older does not support AudioUnit v2 and so this product will not work in it.

What's Included

  • 42 presets, saved as separate mirage-strings files
  • Mirage sample-based synthesis engine included
  • Arctic Strings Mirage library (closed format mdata file)
  • ~250MB file download

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