Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars
Striking Strings Glissandi adopts a fairly sharp focus that is likely to appeal to the professional or semi‑pro composer community, who frequently reach for tools with a singular purpose in mind. This is the first unique offering from JASL‑Audio, a company presided over by Jochem Weierink, a talented film composer in his own right and clearly equipped with useful insight.
SSG includes just under 6GB of sampled content, divided up into four instrument patches. The first three are similar, represented by a Full String Ensemble, Lower Strings (Bass & Cello) and Upper Strings (Violin & Viola). This is not a Kontakt instrument for virtuosic legato lines, being very much geared toward the common dilemma of creating string risers in a controlled manner, where you want strings to naturally rise to a climax.
This ‘riser’ element is controlled from the Glissandi fader, located centrally within the Kontakt interface. Play a single note or chord, and fader movement upward will result in a rising pitch. It’s worth noting that at it’s lowest position the note is centred, but as it reaches its upper limit the tonal centre becomes more ambiguous. This does mean that the resultant climax is perfect horror‑fodder, but it is trickier to generate an exacting octave leap.
By default the on‑screen Glissando fader is linked to the modulation wheel. It can also be linked and coupled with the Dynamics fader, which increases the climactic quotient considerably. You can also maintain independent control, should you have a box of hardware faders to hand. Highlighting this crescendo even further, the Accent control governs the degree of re‑articulation at the point of note release, which beautifully places a pin on the end of any Glissandi phrase.
To the right of the instrument window, you dictate the articulation employed at both the beginning and the end of the riser. This is also available through keyswitching in the upper keyboard register, with helpful control of crossfade between the two articulations. This means that you can glide from a tremolo to a pizzicato, or a staccato to a sul pont, although in all cases, the tonal centre is chaotically obscured.
A basic mixer allows selection of signal between spot and Decca Tree miking. The Reverb fader only operates if an initial signal is present, as reverb is generated within the plug‑in, rather than recorded.
The fourth and final included instrument adopts a similar ethos to the initial three, but the resultant crescendo is geared toward a tonal cluster. This is another very handy effect which extends the instrument’s usefulness further.
The ability to dictate your own speed of rise and transition, along with control of dynamics and release, makes SSG pretty indispensable...
SSG offers an incredibly ingenious solution to the age‑old problem of controlling risers. The ability to dictate your own speed of rise and transition, along with control of dynamics and release, makes SSG pretty indispensable, should it be an effect that you frequently require. It lends itself perfectly to cinematic and tension scoring, but its focused detailing may exclude more mainstream use.