Stratum: Hybrid String Instrument for Kontakt by Cinematique Instruments

The hybrid slider is the main feature. Moving a single control shifts the sound between a symphonic string patch and an analog texture, which makes it practical for building hybrid pads and atmospheres without loading two separate instruments.

The real string side includes solo violins in regular and fragile articulations, single cello and bass patches, downsampled ensembles, and tutti layers of up to seven variations. Bow sounds and a bowed guitar are also included.

The synthetic side uses pure waveforms drawn from vintage instruments such as the Elka Strings, Solina, Prophet 5, Jupiter 4 and 8, CS-60, MiniMoog and JX3P, along with complex sounds and textures.

Stratum offers attack and decay controls for swells or hard starts, a subtle chorus, a wow and flutter effect for tape-style pitch movement, and drive and lo-fi processing for harsher or more colored tones. A cutoff control removes frequencies to change the tonal balance.

The reverb section provides eight convolution reverbs, or an algorithmic reverb when the ANALOG option is selected. The developer notes that these range from basic rooms to sound design spaces such as infinite and clouds.

MW automation can be assigned to the balance fader and the main volume, and the Dice function generates a random starting sound for experimentation.