Review: ARCO by Fracture Sounds
Pure and beautiful sound with a wide spectrum of color.
Extra flexibility with Mic Positions and Ribbon Mics.
Spiccatos are too slow and lack the bite to really be considered “Spiccato” by string instrument standards.
ARCO blurs the line between a string ensemble and a piano by giving users a piano’s timbre with the sustains and staccatos only attainable via bowing. While opening a piano and playing with the wires is not a new concept, ARCO takes it a step further by recording an ensemble of four with multiple articulations that mimic the basics of an orchestral string instrument.
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Review: ARCO by Fracture Sounds
ARCO by Fracture Sounds is a unique Kontakt instrument built on the idea of playing a grand piano with a bow. This idea blurs the line between a string ensemble and a piano by giving users a piano’s timbre with the sustains and staccatos only attainable via bowing. While opening a piano and playing with the wires is not a new concept, ARCO takes it a step further by recording an ensemble of four with multiple articulations that mimic the basics of an orchestral string instrument: arco, staccato, and pizzicato.
ARCO by sells for £99.00 from Fracture Sounds
Thoughts
ARCO’s interface does a good job of looking modern and clean with its flat design, but keeps things visually interesting with photography. There isn’t a whole lot to the graphic interface, but all of the most important controls are very visible and intuitive to use.
When you open up the Sustains patch, you’ll be greeted with this panel. The Mic mixer is very prominent with its 3 positions, mute and solo buttons, and on/off buttons. There is also a horizontal slider at the bottom that makes things easy to understand for those who may not know how mic mixers work. You can simply move the fader to close or far and the mixer above will automatically adjust itself.
On the right you can adjust dynamics, which is automatically mapped to CC1 (mod wheel) and texture, which applies some EQ to change the color of the sound. Release damping is also adjustable here so you can customize the length of the release tail. By default, the sustain pedal does exactly what you’d expect – but it has a few settings that can be chosen from a dropdown menu on the top right of this panel. There are some basic effects, including Saturation, Stereo Width, and Reverb, which are tweakable with single knobs.
Clicking the gear icon in the lower right will open some more detailed settings including more release options, dynamic range, sustain velocity and round robin behaviour, and a few different reverb IRs. These features are well hidden, but can really affect how you play or program this library. Don’t overlook them!
There are some minor differences in the interface for the short articulations (Spiccato and Plucks). There is no longer a texture knob or gear icon for the short, but the most important controls like tightness, damping, and reverb, are all there.
ARCO produces a very interesting sound. With all the resonance of piano strings, there is a HUGE frequency range in every sound. You’ll hear a warm and full low end topped by buzzy and sharp high frequencies with virtually every key stroke. You could say it has a very thick sound, however, with four pianos playing at a time, the buzzy high end can be a bit too much when playing chords. A little EQ or multiband compression holding down those frequencies can go a long way when playing ARCO polyphonically. For those who prefer it,, Fracture Sound also had the foresight to include bonus patches recorded on ribbon mics, which give an overall much warmer and richer tone. There is only one mic position on these patches, so if you’re looking to really dive deep into tweaking the sound, these may not be the right choice. But, for a very pleasing and welcoming sound right out of the box, the ribbon mic patches are a great choice.
There isn’t much to say that hasn’t already been said when it comes to the FX patches. The same pros and cons exist there. The only part of the sound that was a bit disappointing to me came from the spiccato patches. After hearing spiccato strings so often in modern orchestral music, some of us will come to expect really right, raw, and biting sounds in association with the word “spiccato”, but due to the nature of piano strings that ring forever, the spiccatos here are very washy and don’t have a lot of punch. You definitely can’t make tight and defined patterns like you would with orchestral strings. By going full close mic, no reverb, and damping all the way on, you can get something a lot closer, but you won’t be able to reach the same type of spiccato you’d get with a violin or cello.
That being said, if you’re needing a new timbre for lush chords and drones, you’re right in ARCO’s strongest area, and you’d do well to give it a try.
Facts
ARCO comes with 6 GB worth of 24-bit samples spread across 3 microphone positions, with bonus ribbon microphone samples for a different timbre. With sustain, spiccato, plucked, and FX patches, ARCO uses 6 main .nki files, which are compatible only with the full retail version of Kontakt 5.3 or above.
ARCO by sells for £99.00 from Fracture Sounds
