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OUT NOW: Haunted Strings 2 - Twisted Chamber Strings

So I bought and downloaded it last night, but it was too late to really play on it. I've just had a chance to check it out.

There are two NKIs, one for general playing with a choice of articulations that can be layered, and one with the keyboard separated out into different sections for effects. The available effects are good quality distortion, chorus, rotator, delay and reverb. There is ADSR and a choice of as recorded sound or processed through an amp or tape, or a mixture of all three. There are also variable options for glitching, pitch (in this case, introducing a variable amount of high pitched doubling), frequency cutoff (useful for quickly dialling the strings in or out) and resonance.

You can midi map and adjust vibrato, dynamics and expression for the main NKI; and expression for the effects.

For the main NKI, there are also two chord options, each of which divides the keyboard up into different chord-playing options.

The main NKI also has the Fear dial. Turn it up to change the playing style from fairly conventional to increasingly demented. Lovely!

This is all very similar to Haunted Strings 1, but greatly increased. The effects NKI is new, and there are now more articulation to choose from, and the Chord modes are new.

What seems to be missing is the note length/rhythm option - e.g. quarter notes, an eight note plus a sixteenth. Since I have Haunted Strings 1, I still have this available there. It isn't a great loss, as the overall effect of these options tended to get lost in the general sustained sound.

And how does it sound? You can get a very processed sound easily, great for that hybrid feel; and you can also get a very natural string sound. That string sound is much like you would get with a chamber string section playing these things as composed, without doing anything especially weird or textured; but when you layer the articulations (including things like 'Erratic Trem Sul Pont') and vary the vibrato, dial in some higher doubling pitches, you get a distinctive and suitably spooky sound.

This works for texturing and particular effects (especially the FX NKI); but it also works for playing regular musical pieces - albeit thrilling, unsettling, uncanny ones!

Marvellous job! I have a few Insanity Samples instruments now and they have all been wonderful at what they aim to do. And this is a major step up from the original Haunted Strings, so it was a very worthy update.
Hi Bee,

Thanks for the feedback, it's great to hear!

Thanks,
Billy - Insanity Samples
 
First of all congratulations on the release, I love the way the GUI follows from Neo Strings. Although I have noticed that there is no mention of an upgrade price for existing owners of Haunted Strings?
Hi there,

If you haven't received the mail out, drop us an email to [email protected] with your order confirmation of the original purchase and we'll get a loyalty code to you :)

Many thanks,
Billy - Insanity Samples
 
This is.like Christmas & New Year's Eve at the same time! Also, I appreciate the customer loyalty discount. Stay Awesome!
 
You should have had an email. If you don't have it in Promotions, Junk, or whatever, you could email them.
I got 20% off the intro price.
Thank you for the heads up Bee_Abney, it's much appreciated. An e-mail came into my inbox yesterday and I received my coupon for Haunted Strings 2!
 
Hi there,

If you haven't received the mail out, drop us an email to [email protected] with your order confirmation of the original purchase and we'll get a loyalty code to you :)

Many thanks,
Billy - Insanity Samples
Thank you Billy, I received an e-mail yesterday with a loyalty code inside so will make sure to purchase it at the end of the week, I must say the from what I have heard of the demos the sound is rich and dense! I love it, keep it coming! I think this going to take Insanity Samples up a notch to a more premium level of sample library production!
 
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Thank you Billy, I received an e-mail yesterday with a loyalty code inside so will make sure to purchase it at the end of the week, I must say the from what I have heard of the demos the sound is rich and dense! I love it, keep it coming! I think this going to take Insanity Samples up a notch to more premium level of sample library production!
Thanks for the kind words, your support is hugely appreciated! Onward and upward 🎶
 
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So... when you update this wonderful product PLEASE add a Reverse button on all articulations so that, at least, we can make the Gliss ups, also go down. :)

Also, please add more WAY SLOWER glisses.

Also, please add a TREMOLO effect.

Also, please make the Pitch knob have 4 times the timing it does now, as it is a bit too fast for my taste, and goes up and down in pitch bend too quickly which sounds a bit too much like a siren. Also, please have a separate reverse switch for the pitch.

GREAT product for the price!!!
 
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So... when you update this wonderful product PLEASE add a Reverse button on all articulations so that, at least, we can make the Gliss ups, also go down. :)

Also, please add more WAY SLOWER glisses.

Also, please add a TREMOLO effect.

Also, please make the Pitch knob have 4 times the timing it does now, as it is a bit too fast for my taste, and goes up and down in pitch bend too quickly which sounds a bit too much like a siren. Also, please have a separate reverse switch for the pitch.

GREAT product for the price!!!
Good ideas. I haven't checked to see if it is a locked library. If not, it should possible to add all of that. Failing that, they would be nice additions for an update.
 
🙋🏻‍♂️ 🙋🏻‍♂️ I'm loyal too !! 😊
Oh dear! The mail out will have gone to all that tick the following; 1. Purchased on our store (not 3rd party as the mailing list is unable to contact those directly) 2. Subscribed to recieve such mail outs. But fear not, all owners of the first version, regardless of where or when they purchased it, are eligible! Just drop us an email to [email protected] ideally with your confirmation email of the original purchase and we'll hook you up with your code.

Thanks,
Billy - Insanity Samples
 
So... when you update this wonderful product PLEASE add a Reverse button on all articulations so that, at least, we can make the Gliss ups, also go down. :)

Also, please add more WAY SLOWER glisses.

Also, please add a TREMOLO effect.

Also, please make the Pitch knob have 4 times the timing it does now, as it is a bit too fast for my taste, and goes up and down in pitch bend too quickly which sounds a bit too much like a siren. Also, please have a separate reverse switch for the pitch.

GREAT product for the price!!!
So, the library isn't locked. Reversing is easy enough. Tempo stretching and (artificial) tremolo shouldn't be too hard, but I'll have to check in to how to do it best. Altering the responsiveness of the existing Pitch knob, though, might be a bit much for me as it may involve the scripting. Three out of four is pretty good, though. And all of them could be done with a bit of research.

Still, it would be great to get those as options in the update.

Incidentally, I didn't have any problem with the responsiveness of the Pitch knob, but being able to alter its responsiveness would certainly be useful.
 
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So, the library isn't locked. Reversing is easy enough. Tempo stretching and (artificial) tremolo shouldn't be too hard, but I'll have to check in to how to do it best. Altering the responsiveness of the existing Pitch knob, though, might be a bit much for me as it may involve the scripting. Three out of four is pretty good, though. And all of them could be done with a bit of research.

Still, it would be great to get those as options in the update.

Incidentally, I didn't have any problem with the responsiveness of the Pitch knob, but being able to alter its responsiveness would certainly be useful.
Hello Bee,

I wanted the timing of the Pitch knob function to be 4x the time it is now when set to 100%, so if it takes say 3 seconds to pitch all the way up, then I wish for 12 seconds when it is set to 100%.

I do not know how to alter Kontakt's under-the-hood settings, but I would like to know how to do it if it is not too difficult. Can the alterations then be saved?
 
Hello Bee,

I wanted the timing of the Pitch knob function to be 4x the time it is now when set to 100%, so if it takes say 3 seconds to pitch all the way up, then I wish for 12 seconds when it is set to 100%.

I do not know how to alter Kontakt's under-the-hood settings, but I would like to know how to do it if it is not too difficult. Can the alterations then be saved?
Oh, of course, I see now. I was think8ng of manually controlling the shift. I think that may require some creative scripting. The most I’ve done is paste in occasional scripts made available by others. I’ll have a look round and see what I can fine.

For saving, you would just save it as a new instrument to avoid writing over the original.

I confess that I am still a beginner with these things, but I typically find reading around turns up something that gets the job done. Of course, I’ll share anything I come up with.
 
So... it looks like the Pitch knob is not time based like I thought, but perhaps just the amount of pitch change during a set time.

I really wish for there to be two controls here in the Pitch effect section. One as it already is, the other where the timing can be greatly changed.

:)
 
I really wish for there to be two controls here in the Pitch effect section. One as it already is, the other where the timing can be greatly changed.

:)
I havent found any strings with extensive focus on pitch manipulation. I guess this is a niche market to crack. There are a few pitcheed strings out there, but stil limited. I agree with you, really hope someone goes into this field.
 
I havent found any strings with extensive focus on pitch manipulation. I guess this is a niche market to crack. There are a few pitcheed strings out there, but stil limited. I agree with you, really hope someone goes into this field.
The reason I love SWAM Strings is that it gives basically complete control of pitch.

:)
 
Hi there,

So... it looks like the Pitch knob is not time based like I thought, but perhaps just the amount of pitch change during a set time.

I really wish for there to be two controls here in the Pitch effect section. One as it already is, the other where the timing can be greatly changed.

:)
You're right! The pitch dial is currently only for amount of pitch variation. But time control is a great idea, along with your other suggestions. I'll make sure they all go in the hat for possible future updates. As with all community suggestions, we'll try our hardest to include them, so long as they pass 2 basic litmus tests: 1. They work nicely in our experiments when testing new features, and 2. they keep the instrument true to it's core intention. For now, there is a solution at least where pitch speed is concerned... This is an easy non-script fix - there is an accompanying video demonstrating this:

1. Open the back end of Kontakt with the spanner icon.
2. Ensure you are viewing in 'expert' mode (via the top left tab along side 'file' etc...)
3. Select ALL groups. (Click the first group and then scroll down and click the final group with Ctrl engaged to select all groups).
3. Right click and 'set edit flag for selected groups'
4. Open the 'modulation' tab
5. navigate to the 'SINE' LFO at the bottom of the modulation tab. (This is the LFO dealing with pitch alteration.)
6. Adjust the 'Frequency' as required to taste.

All demoed in the video below with audio included. I use both an extreme version of the effect and a subtle one to demo the idea. This dial, at a minimum, will be added to the next update for sure. A very useful feature!



P.S - Might be wise to 'save as' a new patch whilst experimenting in this way. It's very easy to have something go very wrong in the back end of Kontakt that will effect the instrument's performance permanently if not!

Thanks for your involvement! Enjoy.
Billy - Insanity Samples
 
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