I recently came across a music software company by the name of Applied Acoustics. While I wasn’t planning on purchasing anymore VSTs (I had decided I had all that I needed) I was curious enough to check them out. I am so glad I did. Mind you, however, not all you’re about to read is all puppies and kittens. I do have some reservations about this company that I think you need to be aware of.
Okay, so let’s start with what products I own. So far I have purchased three of them.
Strum Acoustic
Strum Electric
String Studio VS 2
Let’s take them one at a time.
If you recall from an earlier article that I had written, the main VST I used for strummed guitar sounds was the Revitar 2.0. At the time, I thought this was a pretty good strumming simulator. And don’t get me wrong, it still is considering it is free. But it has some serious limitations, the biggest one being that you can’t go from playing a major chord to a diminished 9th. You can simple major to minor and that’s it. And even that you need to jump through some hoops for.
Not so with both Strum products. Strum Acoustic is a VST for an acoustic guitar. You get a steel string and nylon string and some effects. There are plenty of controls for decay, hammer ons and so forth. It’s quite an intricate instrument. But the biggest plus over Revitar 2.0 is that you can play any chord in real time that a real guitar can play. So if I want to play a chord progression like C Maj7 – D Flat Dim 7 – G11, no problem. You simply play it on the keyboard and the software reproduces the correct fingering for the guitar playing the right strings with the right frets depressed. It’s downright scary.
And because of the performance controls that you have, you can get this thing to sound very close to a real guitar. To the untrained ear, you can’t tell the difference. If you’re a pro guitar player, you probably can and will. But if you’re hurting for finding a guitar player, Strum is the next best thing.
Moving on to the Strum Electric, the performance of it is essentially the same. However, as there are differences between acoustic and electric guitars in sound and how the sound is generated, so too are the differences between these two products.
For example, with Strum Electric, you have a pickup selector so you can choose which pickups the sound will be coming from. You also have your amp controls where you can set the drive, low, mid and high. You also have a number of different guitars that you can choose from including Lester, Strat and Telecaster. It also has some signature sounds like Hendrix Little Wing and a Carlos Santana lead and rhythm. And of course you also have FX that you can set and control.
Could they have put more into the Strum Electric? Yeah, probably, considering the VST alone is something like $200. I was fortunate the get the package deal on sale (both Strums) for something like $299. Was it worth it? Absolutely!
Let’s move onto the String Studio. This is one very unusual and different kind of instrument. It’s based on string modeling technology. Essentially, what you do is you take a string. You then define every attribute of the string such as how long it is, how thick it is and whether it will be bowed, plucked or hammered, such as with a piano. There are a number of parameters to do this. How many? Well, let’s put it this way. I am SO glad that this thing comes with about 600 presets because programming this beast requires a degree in something. I’m not exactly sure what. But it’s way over my head. Oh yeah, I can get some simple sounds out of it, but for anything complex, forget it.
But the sound is where it’s at with this thing. Because of the incredible control that you have over the design of the string, you can get sounds out of this that you can only imagine. Think about it. How many different kinds of strings do you have? Off the top of my head I can think of cello, piano, guitar, harpsichord, clavinet, harp, and bass. And that’s without even touching any of the ethnic stringed instruments like the sitar.
Now, take all the different types of strings that you can think of, the sounding boards for each one and the ways to generate the sound (pluck, now, strike) and mix and match them, like bowing a piano string or striking a cello string. The resulting sounds that this thing makes are amazing.
And the sounds are clean. There is something about modeling technology (not sure exactly how it works) that makes for a very clean sound. Maybe even cleaner than samples. Now, if you’re looking for thick dirty sounds like what you can get out of an analog box, forget it. This thing is not meant for that. So the “synth” sounds are kind of sterile, but usable in the right environment.
My only complaint about the String Studio is that it seems to be a little buggy when you start programming things and tends to lock up my Axiom keyboard. Oh, and about programming itself. There are no default patches. You have to pick something close to what you want and fiddle with the settings. Not my favorite way of doing things but it does save time.
As I said up top, not everything is puppies and kittens with AAS. It appears, at least from the shape of the forum, that this is a dying company or a dying product line. The forum is a ghost town. I can’t even get my registration validated so I can post. It looks like the last post was back in April of 2014. That’s about 2 months prior to this article. And there appears to be very little activity. Plus, requests for other product upgrades from years ago still haven’t been addressed. And it appears that none of their products are 64 bit compatible, which may be why I’m having problems with String Studio.
Because of all this, I was hesitant to even buy their products but I have to admit, emails to support get answered. I’m going to ask them what’s up with the forum and report back on what I find out.
So, if you want great quality products, AAS delivers. If you want the appearance of a stable company, that’s kind of up in the air as far as I can tell. But there is no question, this is great stuff and I’m glad I have it.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim