Striiiings is the the newest instrument from UJAM and the first to venture into orchestral instruments. Offering a typically UJAM take on the subject it offers quick and professional sounding results but doesn’t try to offer the forensic control of the fully featured string libraries out there.
These fully featured string libraries offer full control over timbre and articulation and for the trained arranger or composer offer the appropriate tools to do what is a very skilled job. In his round-up of string libraries composer David Tobin highlighted his preferred tools. Amazing results are possible but these tools require a considerable learning curve to be navigated, to the the point where I can’t help thinking it would be easier to learn the play the violin! (spoiler - learning the violin is much, much harder!).
UJAM offer a way to access preset string patterns, with the same hands-on control found in the virtual guitarists and bass player instruments. Han’s Zimmer is a founder of UJAM and using access to his string resources UJAM have created something which is immediately playable and offers a simple, streamlined interface which allows strings to be played in real time with easy control over the dynamics and intensity of the performance.
UJAM Striiiings
World-class string section phrases, no string arrangement skills required.
Brand-new creative performance and sound design engine by ujam.
60 playing styles, more than 200 sound designer presets.
Recorded at Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Studios, produced by Boris Salchow.
So What Can And Can’t You Do?
The presets are great for ostinato and arpeggio type patterns, the content diverges from the purely imitative areas of “real” strings into pads and synth type textures as well as gated effects but I stayed purely at the imitative end of things and found the styles had plenty of variety. Using long sustained chords I found the attack a little long and advanced the MIDI so the chords landed more in time but apart from that I found I could get results I liked, though not always what I set out for, quickly. That is the strength of this product.
Any Negatives?
My biggest gripe was that I found the chord recognition didn’t go quite far enough. Quite a lot of the patterns they are harmonically restricted, often favouring just octave or octaves and fifths so other additions to the chord wouldn’t make a difference anyway but I found that the chords recognised were major, minor, seventh, sus 4, sus2, and diminished. No major or minor 7ths, no 6ths or 9ths, never mind anything jazzy. This frustrated me a little but the possibilities to create inversions and slash chords using the basses helps a lot. That being said, I’m probably a bit of an outlier in that my theory knowledge is fairly good but my arranging skills are not.
There’s a lot to like about Striiiings. Unlike lots of sample libraries the first impression of using this is great, you hold down a couple of keys and get instant results, the really good thing in that this stays interesting and useful much longer than a lot of other products with instant appeal have.
I suspect that Striiiings will be popular with people needing dramatic, exciting strings for short form video content and computer games. I don’t know whether UJAM are planning more additions to this category of products but considering they have subtitled Striiiings “Symphonic Elements” suggests that there might be more elements to come.
To find out more about Striiiings go to the UJAM website. Striiiings is available now for an introductory price of $119.