Augmented Strings Upgrade 70% off

[Fleer]

1 hour ago, abacab said:

Now I might just spring $49 for the Piano V upgrade, and skip V Collection 9 entirely! I'm basically happy with the CS-80 and Prophets in VC8, and not really interested in the SQ.

They are out of their minds if they think I will drop $300 just to upgrade from 8 to 9. ?

True dat. But check out those new separate Prophets. You’ll get hooked. 

[abacab]

45 minutes ago, Fleer said:

True dat. But check out those new separate Prophets. You’ll get hooked. 

Yeah, I hear ya! But I have u-he Repro 1/5, and that's where I head for classic Prophet sounds.

[Fleer]

39 minutes ago, abacab said:

Yeah, I hear ya! But I have u-he Repro 1/5, and that's where I head for classic Prophet sounds.

Best of the best, I’m afraid. No need for Arturia’s Prophet V in that case. But I dare you to try the VS. 

[abacab]

5 minutes ago, Fleer said:

Best of the best, I’m afraid. No need for Arturia’s Prophet V in that case. But I dare you to try the VS. 

Once again, I hear ya! But my intro to synths began in the mid-80's with a digital synth, followed by a series of digital romplers.

I should have bought that analog Roland Juno that I demoed in the music store, before I bought that digital synth, with MIDI and patch memory. So having been down the digital trail, I'm just trying to recover my lost analog opportunities at this point in my life...

Cheers!

[Fleer]

Still sad I sold my Alpha Juno tho. 

[dubdisciple]

On 7/13/2022 at 3:32 PM, Reid Rosefelt said:

This is a little off topic, but I've never used Arturia synths much.  I enjoy messing around with them, but they never made their way into my finished music. The V Collection appeals to nostalgia for the old days in me.  As do so many products they sell to old fogies like me.

But Pigments!  It's quickly becoming my favorite synth after Omnisphere. I love the presets and I love how easy it is to program.  Pigments is all about the music of 2022.  I've been experimenting wiht EDM and it is very inspiring.   You can put a preset on, pull up a beat and away you go.

 

 

You would be surprised how many younger artists use Arturia.  Hip-Hop and UK Drill artists love it. Also great for modern R&B and Lo-fi. Any genre that has the need for creating retro sounding samples they are better than most.   Omnisphere is still king in the genres I named, but Arturia has a respectable showing.   Not trying to sell you on them, but it might be worth a look. 

I too use Pigments more than the others.  It just works 

[dubdisciple]

Hard to resist at this price.  I can't justify upgrading from 8 to 9 to get a few more synths I will barely use, but the strings seem aimed at guys like me who love lush strings but don't make enough orchestral stuff to justify a dedicated string library

[Reid Rosefelt]

7 hours ago, dubdisciple said:

You would be surprised how many younger artists use Arturia.  Hip-Hop and UK Drill artists love it. Also great for modern R&B and Lo-fi. Any genre that has the need for creating retro sounding samples they are better than most.   Omnisphere is still king in the genres I named, but Arturia has a respectable showing.   Not trying to sell you on them, but it might be worth a look. 

I too use Pigments more than the others.  It just works 

Ha! But you use Pigments more too!

[PavlovsCat]

Hey all, I have Intro and still haven't decided and can use the advice of those who have the full version of Augmented Strings. I would especially appreciate the insights of anyone who upgraded from Intro -- are the additional presets in the full version worth it? 

[Fleer]

25 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Hey all, I have Intro and still haven't decided and can use the advice of those who have the full version of Augmented Strings. I would especially appreciate the insights of anyone who upgraded from Intro -- are the additional presets in the full version worth it? 

Sorry to say, PC,, but IMO they are. Although I particularly appreciate the Advanced tab, allowing for ADSR tweaking (especially the attack portion of string samples). 

[PavlovsCat]

14 minutes ago, Fleer said:

Sorry to say, PC,, but IMO they are. Although I particularly appreciate the Advanced tab, allowing for ADSR tweaking (especially the attack portion of string samples). 

Thanks,  Fleer. I've been cutting back my purchases,  even wondering if I should stop spending,  but this is pretty low cost and everything I've ever picked up from Aurturia has been top notch.  I'm in love with strings and Intro is nice, I just wasn't sure there was that much more that would work for me in the full version. That said, while I mostly rely on organic string samples for string parts, I love sound design libraries like the ones Cinematique Samples makes, so I suppose these are not far from that realm. 

[Fleer]

Or Heavyocity’s Novo. Or even Output’s Analog Strings. And definitely UVI’s Augmented Orchestra. All pretty pretty good. 

[dubdisciple]

51 minutes ago, Fleer said:

Sorry to say, PC,, but IMO they are. Although I particularly appreciate the Advanced tab, allowing for ADSR tweaking (especially the attack portion of string samples). 

I'm surprised how little info is out regarding differences aside from presets.  I was looking for a way to adjust ADSR in the Intro version and was hoping full version had just that.

[dubdisciple]

2 hours ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

Ha! But you use Pigments more too!

Touché, but I do use the others, just not as much. A workhorse main synth is just bound to get more work than niche synths.  It would be kinda weird to use a Mellotron daily?

[abacab]

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

I would especially appreciate the insights of anyone who upgraded from Intro -- are the additional presets in the full version worth it? 

I didn't upgrade Augmented Strings for the presets. I was actually a bit frustrated with them in Intro, because I couldn't see how they are constructed, or what sounds were used "under the hood".

So the "Advanced" page is what sold me on Augmented Strings! I always like to be able to see the components of a layered sound, and how it is constructed. So that I can optionally take a preset apart and use alternate sound sources in it, or modify them if I wish.

I felt the same way about the original v1 Kontakt Play Series instruments such as "Analog Dreams" or "Ethereal Earth" that were simple A/B layers, with morphing and a pretty graphic interface. But at least NI has since upgraded the Play Series to v2.0, which added advanced parameter pages.

[abacab]

12 minutes ago, dubdisciple said:

I'm surprised how little info is out regarding differences aside from presets.  I was looking for a way to adjust ADSR in the Intro version and was hoping full version had just that.

Augmented Strings has ADSR, plus modulation, arpeggiator, effects, and macros...

Edited July 16, 2022 by abacab

[abacab]

And if you are wondering how "CPU hungry" Augmented Strings is...

Running it standalone:

See the little 8% in the lower right corner of the image above? This is the usage of this preset just idling. But it is just using one core of a 6-core i5 running at 4.35GHz. If I play a 3-note triad, then the attack jumps the CPU usage to about 25-30% of that single core. The notes sustaining use about 16%, then release goes back to 8%.

YMMV.

[dubdisciple]

17 minutes ago, abacab said:

And if you are wondering how "CPU hungry" Augmented Strings is...

Running it standalone:

See the little 8% in the lower right corner of the image above? This is the usage of this preset just idling. But it is just using one core of a 6-core i5 running at 4.35GHz. If I play a 3-note triad, then the attack jumps the CPU usage to about 25-30% of that single core. The notes sustaining use about 16%, then release goes back to 8%.

YMMV.

I expect such an instrument to be a memory hog. I tend to freeze these types of tracks early on. 

[User 905133]

2 hours ago, dubdisciple said:

I'm surprised how little info is out regarding differences aside from presets.  I was looking for a way to adjust ADSR in the Intro version and was hoping full version had just that.

Just an FYI, although the demo mode of the full version has limitations, I was able to play with the parameters with the Advanced panel.  That helped me decide that it was worth contacting support about the deal. Fortunately, they came through for me and I am glad I took them up on the offer.  

I like to drive synth parameters in Voltage Modular and I was pleased to see Arturia makes all the parameters available directly to VM's Plug-In Host module (much like in CbB's automation, I assume). This makes it much easier than plug-ins from other companies where CCs/Parameters need to be assigned in the plug-in first.  Not sure this makes a different to you, but for some it might also be a plus.

For example, I only have the demo version of Augmented Voices, but I can see, hear, and test (1) about 300 presets and (2) all parameters under Advanced. No need to assign the CCs within the plug-in first. 

BTW, I have an older PC and I have not found Augmented Strings (full) and Augmented Voices (demo) to be CPU hogs as compared with other plug-ins.

Edited July 16, 2022 by User 905133
clarification; BTW added

[abacab]

On 7/16/2022 at 12:55 PM, dubdisciple said:

I expect such an instrument to be a memory hog. I tend to freeze these types of tracks early on. 

Augmented Strings is actually not that much of a memory hog! For example, Augmented Strings + the displayed preset is only using 362 MB total. Augmented Strings is actually more of a synthesizer than sampler, so it's mostly CPU intensive. The installed sample library for the 300 presets is only a 2.5GB footprint.

So in theory, you could run dozens of instances of Augmented Strings loaded into your DAW tracks, as long as they were not all playing in unison, or simultaneously!

Here is the Augmented Strings library displayed by file/folder size on my sample drive. You can see that Arturia was very frugal with the sample sizes, unlike Soundpaint, LOL! ?

Edited July 18, 2022 by abacab