PRIMARIES / STRINGS explores solo strings as a fundamental colour in the orchestral spectrum. Notes behave like vibrant rays of light, merging together into abstract expressions of colour and texture.
With a focus on intricate performance, expanded techniques, and spatial exploration, PRIMARIES / STRINGS blends solo performances into rich, ensemble arrangements.
Spanning over 100 multisampled articulations and immersed in a variety of distinct spatial environments, each member of the string family — bass, cello, viola, and violin — provides a range of unique tones and experimental performance approaches, capturing an expansive gradient of emotive colour.
REFRACTED IMPRINTS
Beginning at our state-of-the-art Bristol studio, articulations were recorded as concept-led explorations, each capturing a naturally unfolding performance in hyper-detail.
Each articulation is a standalone exploration: a fluid, organic encounter — every note a freeform performance that disrupts the confines of mechanical reproduction. Space, silence and human nuance play an active role in shaping each sound, adding depth and texture that thrives in the margins.
→ WALKTHROUGH
EXPANDING THE CANVAS
Every recording was re-amplified through a series of iconic spaces and physical processes, transforming them into an extended palette of shade and tonality.
Each space unlocks a new perspective, refracting and imprinting its presence onto the string recordings, expanding the spatial palette of each articulation.
+ FUNKHAUS
The iconic Funkhaus studios in East Berlin, designed by Bauhaus architect Franz Erlich, was historically used as a broadcast complex for German radio. Its cavernous echo chamber is a cathedral of brutalist concrete and cubist angles, imbuing recordings with industrial reflections that are simultaneously haunting and beautiful.
+ REAL WORLD
Founded by Peter Gabriel, Real World Studios is renowned for its blend of natural acoustic environments. Its Wood Room offers a beautifully naturalistic resonance, with timber surfaces that create a warm, organic ambience. This space allows sound to breathe, imbuing recordings with an earthy, intimate character that feels both inviting and rich in texture.
+ EMT 140
The EMT 140 plate reverb at Bristol’s Invada Studios is revered for its lush, metallic bloom. Steeped in analogue recording history, its reflective quality gives the string recordings a luminous texture, full of vintage warmth and shimmering resonance.
+ BRICASTI M7
The iconic Bricasti M7 reverb unit is celebrated for its spatial authenticity, pure tonal clarity, and widescreen sophistication. Known for its crystal clear realism, the M7 preserves the warmth and character of the strings while enhancing their scale within an expansive hall sound.
FULL SPECTRUM PERFORMANCE
PRIMARIES / STRINGS is a full-spectrum collection of uniquely expressive string articulations.
It offers everything from layered, evolving textures to lyrical, flowing melodic phrases; from rich, resonant intervallic shifts to deep, cinematic gestures with booming low tones, haunting atonal slides, and percussive pizzicato swarms.
Space is deliberately built into each articulation, enabling phrases and dynamics to intertwine, creating a pointillist interplay where instruments complement each other in a layered, dimensional soundscape. This approach results in an arrangement where each instrument’s voice blends distinctly within the bigger picture.
The full capabilities of the articulations are realised in the EXPRESSIONS presets, enabling unparalleled emotive performance using the mod wheel. Beyond typical dynamic control, each preset creates dynamic gestural moments in real-time. This opens up a new level of natural depth to live performance, shaping sequences that adapt effortlessly to your control.
→ ARTICULATIONS
MORE THAN JUST SAMPLE PLAYBACK
SPATIAL
MODULES
EFFECTS
LAYERS
EXPRESSION
OUTPUT
The spatial mixer redefines a sound’s environment with an intuitive, creative approach to blending spatial perspectives that opens up new artistic possibilities. Sound sources are positioned within a virtual two-dimensional soundstage and from there can be immersed in rich reverberation, adjusted precisely through parameter controls, isolated for focused detail, or expanded to introduce the resonances of the recording spaces. LFOs and user-defined gestures add further dimension, enabling dynamic, physical movement throughout the space.
A KALEIDOSCOPE OF ORCHESTRAL MANIPULATION
Through a multitude of processing options, PRIMARIES / STRINGS opens up avenues of possibilities that blur the line between acoustic and electronic, organic and synthetic.
In over 150 sound-designed presets, the raw string sounds are transformed into a wide palette of reinterpreted textures, drones, statements, and synthetic pulses, each fully malleable ready to be explored.
→ PRESETS
IMPORT YOUR OWN SAMPLES
Simply drop a sample onto the interface to load it into the PRIMARIES / STRINGS engine.
Up to ten separate samples are supported simultaneously — five for each layer — or individual elements of the native orchestral patches can be swapped with custom samples. From there, samples can be pitch-shifted, mixed, enriched with effects, and transformed through the sound design engine into something entirely new.
SOFTWARE
Kontakt Player, Kontakt 6.8.0 (or higher)
Free Kontakt Player included
SYSTEM
Intel Macs (i5 or higher): macOS 10.15 or later; Apple Silicon Macs: macOS 11 or later (latest update); Windows 10 or 11, Intel Core i5 or equivalent CPU
SIZE
63.5GB samples compressed
CONTENT
106 individual articulations
80 expressions
139 sound design presets
