Review: Blisko Lite by Felt Instruments

Blisko Lite raises the bar for soft, intimate, textural strings. With authenticity at its core, this ensemble library goes all the way from dark and sinister to fragile beauty. It feels less like a mere composer’s tool and far more like an inspirational and unique instrument.

Jump to the Videos of Blisko Lite by Felt Instruments

Jump to the Demos of Blisko Lite by Felt Instruments

Review: Blisko Lite by Felt Instruments

Felt instruments are a new developer that have been regularly dropping superb libraries (and an ace filter plugin!) for the past year or so. They all focus on a raw and minimal approach to sampling, which belies the complex tonalities that result. With a mantra to do things differently this is certainly evident in both the choice of rare instruments to sample, or the unusual articulations recorded from more familiar instruments. They have even built their own bespoke plug-in, eschewing Kontakt, to set themselves even further apart.

Alongside some unusual keyboard and piano instruments the main line so far is the Blisko range of textural strings. Until recently you had to buy the violin, viola and cello separately to get a full section, but that is now changed with the release of Blisko Lite, which amalgamates those previous products into a wonderfully blended ensemble string section.

Presets

Blisko Lite normally sells for £179 from Felt Instruments

Thoughts

I have to confess I was actually first drawn to Felt Instruments by their classy visual aesthetics which just really connects with me. Having tried their freebie Wolno (1/2 speed piano) and bought their RYSO filter plugin I was very happy to discover that their minimal and nuanced taste in graphic design was echoed beautifully in the aural world. Blisko Lite only serves to reinforce this impression; it simply oozes atmosphere and emotion. The recordings themselves standout as some of the best textural string samples I have heard, and this is all presented in a brilliantly designed interface that includes some innovative features. The velocity dependant lengths for the Shape articulations, along with the modwheel controlled crossfading between the Moment samples, makes it incredibly playable.

Moments

There is little to grumble about here, but changing EQ and articulation volume could be a bit more intuitive, perhaps somehow moving control of these functions to the main page. I also found the volume between some articulations can vary quite a bit and the noise floor does creep up on the quietest samples, though by not employing noise reduction the nature of the recordings is preserved much better and personally I prefer this trade-off. Unlike Kontakt, there is no ability to purge unused samples to preserve RAM, though it’s not an especially RAM hungry library so not a big deal in practice.

It is worth nothing that if you are looking for a standard string library with legato and typical shorts this is not the droid you are looking for; Blisko Lite is purely textural and at times quite aleatoric. Likewise, if you are a tweaker and want to control all aspects of the performance this might not suit, as so much of those kind of variances are already baked in to the samples themselves.

This type of soft, evolving and experimental string sampling has been tackled by a small number of developers in recent years. The trend for these types of sounds in modern media scoring shows no signs of going away soon and with all things Blisko Felt are at the forefront of this niché. The fragile beauty here is pure inspiration and highly recommended.

Preferences

Facts

8.5 GB of samples

Watermarked download via Pulse, with free updates forever

Bespoke player for VST, AU and AAX

3 shape articulations with round robins

9 moment articulations, of which up to 3 can crossfade into each other

2 mic options (close and room)

1-3 players

Vintage hardware captured echo and reverb

MPE compatible

Sells for £179 plus VAT. Bundle package including Blisko violin, viola and cello
Is available for £269 plus VAT. Upgrading from Lite to the bundle is £135

Blisko Lite normally sells for £179 from Felt Instruments

Demos of Blisko Lite by Felt Instruments

Videos of Blisko Lite by Felt Instruments

Contributor Sam Burt reviews Blisko Lite by Felt Instruments
“Blisko Lite raises the bar for soft, intimate, textural strings. With authenticity at its core, this ensemble library goes all the way from dark and sinister to fragile beauty. It feels less like a mere composer’s tool and far more like an inspirational and unique instrument.”