Is that an effective alternative to the NI product?Д¬an anyone tell me about more about Action Strings falling down on the job, a 'hot mess' etc. LASS also has a handy-dandy ostinato builder, too. I had to call it up just now, and in playing with it, it sure looks nifty. There's also the Ostinatum tool in Albion. It clearly isn't the same as what the same section would sound like in actual performance, but the results can be pretty darn good. In terms of 'authenticity', most of these libraries have round robins recorded of different articulations of different notes at a particular velocity, so that if you repeat the same articulation that you get a slightly different performance. Since there's a few options of brushed notes, shorts and spic articulations, you can load up a few different articulations and build a pretty convincing run through by playing it in, then distributing to the appropriate articulations. If you run an un-quantized ship, you'll probably be fine, but if you do any piano roll or quantized editing, some of the phrases are just pretty far off in their actual performance.ДЄlbion is actually pretty awesome for repeated notes. When it isn't, just like Nathan mentions, it can sound like a hot mess. When Action Strings is on, there's nothing better. Anyone like me who is trying to decide how essential this is can rake through the comments, and the options (Albion Spiccatos, for example, or the Orchestral Tool s'String Runs' Product, which I believe has come out since Action String was released). I went back to this VI Forum thread from 2012 (following) which includes the demo from Daniel James. On the other hand Action Strings seems to have a relatively limited number of articulations. If I never have to go through this nonsense again, I'll be delighted. For me it means multiple takes with a click track, quantizing, then going back and shaving the note length to make it all sound crisp.

I find one of the toughest things to do well is to record fast 'off the string' runs. As I ponder buying Action Strings from NI, I would REALLY like to hear from anyone who has bought competing 'String run' products, for instance from Orchestral Tools.

Using action strings