Arctic Strings: Kontakt

Like many FrozenPlain libraries, Arctic Strings features a strong link between visuals and sounds. Strings can have an incredibly emotive sound that swells and flows. I began to draw a link between this and the real life spectacle of the northern lights. I imagined the strings swell and move in time to the aurora, this idea inspired the graphical interface.

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. In fact, they tend to work very well together with real strings recordings. Their smooth and atmospheric nature leaves plenty of room for real string recordings on top to shine.

The second page of the Arctic Strings GUI is the FrozenPlain Effects engine. It features a whole rack of FX such as reverb, delay and distortion. These can be used for creative sound design, and turn these strings into something quite different.

Download Arctic Strings Manual (PDF)

Download Effects Engine Manual (PDF)

	Dynamics and Volume Control the dynamics and volume with the dynamics slider. This slider crossfades between different recordings of the strings: played softly, and played hard. This control is essential for creating swells and movement in your performances. As well as the crossfade this slider controls the volume to a certain extent, the intensity of the volume can be edited within the mod matrix.
	Automatic Harmony You can automatically harmonise your strings - turning a single keypress into a major triad chord for example. There are a variety of chord and interval presets to choose from. The harmony can be constrained to a key and scale to fit your music.
	Scripted Legato and Portamento The legato and portamento is completely customisable. The length of the transition is controlled by 2 sliders, one for legato and one for portamento. Long glissando slides can be created or short slurs. Using the mod matrix it's easy to set up these controls to dynamically change to your playing. The script will detect your playing speed, velocity and interval and can change the legato controls on the fly.
	Customise with the Mod Matrix The mod matrix is an incredibly powerful system that allows you to set up the instrument to play how you like. Arctic Strings will sound great out of the box and there are plenty of presets to choose from. However, if you are someone who likes to tweak then the mod matrix is easy and powerful to use. This is the place to set up keyswitches and CCs. It can also be used to dynamically change the legato to your playing. For example, set the legato transition to be faster when you play notes quickly.
	13 Effects - Filters, Sequencer, Reverb, Echo Arctic Strings comes with the powerful FrozenPlain Effects Engine. It features 13 effects built into an easy to use interface. These have the power to drastically change the sound and are a useful for sound design. Each effect has 5 presets and a selection of controls. In total there are: LP & HP filters, 2 band EQ, Atomise, Strums, Scatter, Sequencer/LFO, Arpeggiator, Distortion, Chorus, Phaser, Rotator, Tempo Synced Delay and Reverb.