Arturia has by no means been identified for its recreations of acoustic devices (although, there are first rate pianos included as a part of its V Collection). And frankly, that’s most likely not going to vary after at this time, but it surely is branching out to orchestral and string sounds with a decidedly experimental edge. Augmented Strings is the primary entry in a brand new collection of devices from Arturia. The thought appears easy sufficient: take some orchestra and string samples, then “augment” them with varied synth engines and results to create one thing new.

The core idea is just like what Output affords with its Analog Strings instrument. The outcomes are a bit totally different, although. Where Analog Strings can get actually wild and chaotic, Augmented feels a bit extra grounded in what you think about once you hear “string instrument”. (Though, that’s to not say there are some attention-grabbing textures right here.) It additionally doesn’t give you fairly as a lot management over the underlying engine. In reality, from an interface perspective, it has extra in frequent with Spitfire’s stripped-down Labs collection.

There’s one big knob in the course of the UI for the Morph macro, and that’s surrounded by seven different macro knobs. Morph, is the beating coronary heart of Augmented Strings, although. Each patch is made up of 4 layers which may embody string samples alongside digital analog, wavetable, harmonic, and granular synthesis, and as you flip the Morph knob it blends between them.

The different seven controls additional form the sound, however don’t actually give you tremendous grained management over particular parameters. Only Reverb and Delay actually have clear labels, however even these aren’t controls over any explicit parameter. Other than that there’s Time, Motion, Color, FX A and FX B. Color tends to do some filtering and tone shaping, whereas Motion normally introduces some type of modulation, however what precisely they’re doing behind the scenes is a thriller.

For an organization that has made its title meticulously recreating classic synthesizers after which beefing them up with further controls and fashionable facilities, the shift to one thing purely preset-based is a bit odd. But on the finish of the day all that issues is the way it sounds, and Augmented Strings is certainly a win. It leans in the direction of the cinematic, with lush orchestral sounds usually brushing up in opposition to thick analog-sounding pads and subtly glitchy granular results. And I’ve even received to provide Arturia props for the background pictures that subtly shift and react as you play and tweak macro knobs. Everything feels effectively thought out and polished. Just be warned that it’s a fairly demanding instrument, and on a couple of events introduced my 2019 MacBook Pro to a crawl

If all of that has piqued your curiosity, effectively, I’ve saved maybe the most effective half for final. Augmented Strings Intro is free to obtain till April thirtieth.