Cinesamples Review

[Lorriane Nasuti]

Theymention on the site they've applied new sonic treatment to the samples, including better trimming etc. The overall sound seems smoother and cleaner, although I find the samples are still rather noisy, frankly. It's one of the gripes I've had with Cinesamples: their samples can be really scratchy when the mod wheel is dialed low, and there has always been a ton of ambient rumble and fidget noises (foot shuffles, clothing rustle, etc). That kind of stuff is still present, although it is reduced.

I tested the new ensemble spiccato patch in a project I had worked on a few months back. With the original CineStrings Core patch, I noticed a lot of low end rumble that really sounded awful and was hard to tame, and it forced me to swap it for another library (Musical Sampling's Adventure Strings).

I figured this would be a good test of their revisions, so re-opened the project and dropped the new CineStrings ensemble patch in there. It sounds much better to my ears - less rumble and not quite as thick on the low end.

It's really early in my testing, but I do find the mapping feature to be a bit confusing. I'm currently watching the new walkthru on the CineSamples site, so hopefully that will help. But I didn't find the settings intuitive.

I also can't seem to get the "double repetition" and "triple repetition" keys working for the short articulations, no matter what I do. I use this feature a fair amount, as it's great for really fast ostinato passages. I've reached out to Cinesamples support for help.

That's just my opinion, of course. I've still got stuff to figure out with the new interface, and it's one thing to test a library on its own, and another thing to place it in the context of a big project and see how it performs.

It costs $150 per year, an introductory price that will become either $200 or $240, depending on which page you look at. What you're buying is a licensing scheme where you rent sample libraries on demand and get to use them for as long as your subscription is paid up.

You'll still need the same disk space as if you were buying the products. The Musio software must always be running in the background, and your DAW must have an internet connection. Once installed, the instruments remain on your computer - but if you cancel your subscription they become unusable. Even though they promote "instant, endless inspiration" you'll still have to wait for the download and installation, which seems like an inspiration killer to me. Once you give them your credit card, your subscription will be automatically renewed unless you explicitly cancel it ("no refunds"). They can cancel you as a result of a DMCA takedown notice, which unfortunately is a common occurrence in YouTube land.

I'm trying to come up with positives. Being able to preview libraries before buying, maybe? You could pay for a $20 monthly subscription and spend the month testing various libraries. Automatic updates, that's a positive. Not that big orchestral libraries get a lot of updates. Potentially saving money, that's another plus. For example, you want to create a big orchestral piece and use all those pricey Cinesamples libraries - you could do it for $20 if you work fast. If later you want to make edits, you could buy another month for another $20.

I already had most of CineSamples major libraries, so for me this was a free upgrade. I agree with your general take on it. I don't like subscription models in general, and have ditched all of them (I had Composer Cloud and Adobe Creative Cloud for a bit, but cancelled them and have had no regrets about it).

Are you sure? I thought this was Cinesamples' version of Composer Cloud, i.e. you can 'keep' it if you bounce it. I could be wrong: I'm not interested in a subscription product, and haven't read the fine print.

Yeh, I read the entire license agreement (so you wouldn't have to). Sure, if you bounce the tracks it's now audio and beyond their reach. But they make it clear that they can pull the plug on you at their discretion. Not saying that would necessarily be a big issue, but it is an argument for buying libraries outright.

I think general resistance to subscriptions is pretty widespread. Remember when Cakewalk offered to let you buy SONAR in installments? Many users freaked out, mistakenly thinking it was a subscription model. Now we've got Waves going down the subscription path, and I believe they're going to regret it in the end. It's just one more way for Waves plugins to stop working, as if their fragile license scheme wasn't bad enough already.

Now we've got Waves going down the subscription path, and I believe they're going to regret it in the end. It's just one more way for Waves plugins to stop working, as if their fragile license scheme wasn't bad enough already.

I kind of see this as an experiment. Hopefully the movement won't encourage others to go down this route too. It's funny - back when I was starting out, I had some Waves collections in my wishlist. As time went on I ended up buying plugins from other developers for better prices (this was before the $29.99 movement). I ended up with enough such that I never did end up buying anything from Waves. I have some freebies, but I could never get myself to install them because of the licensing scheme and WUP.

CineStrings SOLO was recorded at the world famous MGM Scoring Stage at Sony Pictures Studios in Los Angeles. Recorded and mixed by veteran legend Dennis Sands, the CineStrings SOLO Library enhances our essential CORE collection with masterful performances and recordings of some of the greatest LA scoring musicians. This collection will function as an exceptional cinematic voice of its own in your sound palette. An expressly composer-friendly solo string library, CineStrings SOLO is intuitive, versatile and complements its predecessors beautifully in both usability and sound.

Cinestrings SOLO has a very intuitive and easy to use graphic interface with quickly selectable presets that can help you write, program and mix. You can tailor these settings to your specific practices. The Mapping page can quickly set you up for velocity, key-switching or MIDI continuous controller (CC) articulation switching. Our Mixer page allows you to quickly access our Full mix or the three other microphone positions. The Settings page allows for advanced control over each of these patches for sound design, programming and other useful features.

ARTICULATIONS PATCHES - The basic Articulations Patches by default include Spiccato, Staccato, Marcato, Legato (Standard and Espressivo), and Sustains. Some instruments also include Short Spiccato.

TRUE LEGATO PATCHES - What is True Legato? We sampled all of the intervalic leaps throughout the ranges, upwards and downwards, for each instrument. When you play a True Legato patch, it instantly analyzes the intervals you play, then plays the appropriate transitional leap between the notes. The result is a smooth and realistic legato performance.

EXTRA PATCHES - Some instruments include additional articulations such as Tremolo and Bartok Pizzicato (the string is snapped back onto the fingerboard), and Vibrato Crossfade. The Vibrato Crossfade (CC2) patches also function similarly to the True Legato patches, with the additional functionality of being able crossfade between the standard (STD) sustain and the espressivo (ESP) (more vibrato) sustain styles at any point using MIDI parameter CC#2. This added flexibility allows you to mix and match a STD legato transition with an ESP sustain, or an ESP legato transition with a STD sustain, all in realtime while playing.

SPLIT PATCHES - We have included every articulation as separate patches. They are derived from the master articulation patches and allow you to save memory space, for example, if you only need a Spiccato and a Sustain patch. While this may increase your track count, many composers choose to have several patches loaded and switch via track instead of keyswitch or velocity.

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