Nabeel Ansari shares his Comparison of Cinematic Strings 2 vs Cinematic Studio Strings
Earlier this week I was checking out the demos of Cinematic Studio Strings (CSS). The new library sells from Cinematic Studios (for $399) makers of the popular Cinematic Strings 2 (CS2) library. The legato sounded smooth and the demos showed a lot of character. I especially liked how the different legato transitions had finite ms offsets so there would be no guess work pulling your note heads forward to get a nice smooth legato transition.
Just a couple days later I saw my fb friend, composer Nabeel Ansari, who works as a Senior Associate Developer at Impact Soundworks, had used CS2 on a game trailer cue for the game SOLE. He picked up CSS and replaced the CS2 instances and then posted some comparisons of how CSS compared with CS2. He was kind enough to expand on the post and send me his audio and thoughts to share with the SLR readers.
“I spent virtually no effort moving it over, I just replaced all the CS2 nki’s with CSS nki’s and it just worked. Remarkable how playable it is with minimal programming. All I had to do was apply around a -100 ms offset to the tracks to get it to line up.”
Nabeel captured some screen grabs of each of his midi parts which I have posted at the bottom of the page as well as rendered out each of the 4 mic options for both Cinematic Studio Strings and Cinematic Strings 2 for us to hear bare with no other instruments – below.
MIXED MIC OUTPUT
Sole Theme – CSS Cinematic Studio Strings Render (Mixed Mic)
Sole Theme using CS2 Cinematic Strings 2 Render (Mixed Mic)
“Absolutely nothing was mixed, or tweaked. Everything was normalized to 0.0db mic volume, -6.0dB Kontakt nki volume (the default). No panning or EQ, no external reverb. What you hear is exactly what comes in the library when you launch it.”
CLOSE MIC OUTPUT
Sole Theme using CSS Cinematic Studio Strings (Close Mic)
Sole Theme using CS2 Cinematic Strings 2 (Close Mic)
MIDI file of the String Parts
OTHER CSS OUTPUTS
Sole Theme – CSS Cinematic Studio Strings Render (Main Mic)
Sole Theme – CSS Cinematic Studio Strings Render (Room Mic)
OTHER CS2 OUTPUTS
Sole Theme – CS2 Cinematic Strings 2 Render (Room Mic)
Sole Theme – CS2 Cinematic Strings 2 Render (Stage Mic)
Nabeel Ansari thoughts:
“I like the slow legato of CSS better, it feels more apparent and satisifying, but once they both come into full voicing in the theme, both libraries sound pretty amazing.
Just goes to show, CS2 is still an incredibly strong and good-sounding library. I don’t consider CSS a replacement for it, I think they both have a solid tone that’s useful depending on application. On a pure value perspective for the composer who doesn’t have all the money in the world, I’d recommend CSS to any newcomer simply because it’s a little more refined in the interface and has a wider set of articulations.
As a listener myself I agree with Nabeel’s findings and hope to get a chance to do an in-depth review of CSS to share with you sometime in the future.
Big thanks to Nabeel Ansari for sharing his comparison!
Sole Theme – 1st Violins
Sole Theme – Violas
Sole Theme – Cellos
Sole Theme – Basses
Thanks for the comparison. I found the Cinematic Studio strings have more vibrato and to my ear it sounds more “fake”. Perhaps if mixed with another string library it would sound better. I actually prefer the sound of the original library!
Thanks for your thoughts. Nice to see a differing of opinion to share on the page.
The vibrato is easily controllable on CC2. It doesn’t have legato transitions, but if you blend it in such a way that CC2 is slightly above 0 (maybe around 15-25), the vibrato is subdued under the nonvib sample AND you get the legato transitions.
The vibrato is easily controllable on CC2. Put it slightly above 0 (say, 15-25), and the vibrato will be subdued under the nonvib sample. You shouldn’t go completely nonvib otherwise it no longer plays legato transitions.
Both CC2 and CSS sound pretty close to being the same. From what I’ve read the CC2 has more articulations. I’m looking to purchase either CC2 or CSS, but not sure which one.
As a fellow composer I prefer CS2 to CSS. It’s perfect for prototyping because you don’t have to EQ a lot. It just sounds nice out of the box.