SPITFIRE AUDIO Fragile String Evolutions

Delicate & haunting evolving chamber strings

A collection of long, intensely beautiful chamber evolutions, perfectly complementing our other evolutions libraries, while also thriving as its own compositional tool. Recorded in the dry, vintage craft acoustic of Air Edel Studios with the UK’s finest progressive string players, we have captured the more delicate, subtle aspects of each instrument by using a range of avant-garde techniques, giving you the tools to create the most realistic and spine-tingling string textures.

Presented in our own sophisticated GUI with an ingenious grid layout, you have an almost infinite number of configurations at your fingertips. The Spitfire team have also created a range of straight-out-of-the-box presets, offering you instant playability and inspiration.

Fragile String Evolutions

Spitfire handpicked a selection of the UK’s most progressive, avant-garde string players (4,3,3,3,1) to perform a series of evolutions — recorded to tape by acclaimed engineer Nick Taylor at the amazing Air Edel studios — using the finest vintage mics, Neve preamps, and a vintage Cadac desk. For this set of evolutions, we focussed on the more beautiful, tender and moving tonal range of each instrument, resulting in 48 instinctive, lengthy evolutions, with an abundance of possible combinations.

Previously known as Evo Grid 2, Fragile String Evolutions has focused on requests for both ‘traditional’ sounding evolutions, and ‘extreme’ evolutions which change more radically.

Our 2019 update transforms these evos by migrating them to Spitfire’s free and easy to use dedicated plugin. Spitfire Audio's Head of Product, Stanley Gabriel, has also created thirteen new presets to add to the existing ten. Choose between a whole range of signals, and in our updated version, use them in any combination, or all at once in any patch, for even more control. See our articulation list below.

The presets are an example of the range of possibilities that can be achieved through Evo Grid technology — from simple tutti patches containing all 48 evos spread evenly across your keyboard, to specially curated patterns. With a number of FX accessible from the front panel, this is a tool designed for producers, composers and sound designers looking to create spellbinding, award-winning material from the moment your fingers hit the keyboard.

What is an Evo?

Our recording expertise and acclaimed Evo Grid technology adds extra dimensions to each sample, offering you an instinctive, ever-changing kaleidoscope of progressive techniques. For the newly initiated, evolutions are hyper-long notes that change sometimes subtly and sometimes radically over time before looping, giving you unexpected results. Evolutions have become widely adopted amongst the composer community as the most effective means of easily writing music that is able to subtly change over time without melodic variation. These textures can be developed, shaped and processed further, offering you a rich range of possibilities.

Our bespoke, sophisticated Evo Grid interface, inspired by the EMS VCS3 synth, positions ‘pegs’ via an onscreen 12 x 48 grid arrangement, giving you access to recordings across 12 intervals, organised in a grid with an almost infinite number of possible configurations. Instantly select which evo (evolution) sits on each of those 12 key ranges, toggle your pegs, or hit "Feeling Lucky" to generate randomised Evolutions, replay the MIDI, and no cue will ever sound the same twice.