I want to hear those basses working hard, and thanks to the focused mic’ing, it sounds gritty and realistic. I made straight for the low strings and was delighted to hear the creaking of instruments, feeling almost tortured under such pressure of bowing. The new Power Legato, which is getting its first outing in Ark 4, is really usable and very aggressive. The strings kick things off, with a section divided into high, mid and low, and with that also comes additional patches containing further articulations and legato bowing. Where District 1 offers plenty of fullness and body, District 2 breaks things down into orchestral sections. The Power Sustain is very full on, but there’s less dynamic timbral variance here, in favour of raw power it’s cutting and suitably aggressive! As you move up from the middle register, the transition from male to female is handled nicely, and you can hear extraordinary power from the tenors as they push in their upper range. Mic’ing is again close and personal, with some really useful patches. I’ll be honest, the default sounds really good, so you’ll not be too concerned if you are fighting your computer’s RAM allocation.Įlsewhere within District 1, we find the Mixed Choir, which I was suitably intrigued to find had similar sonic credentials to the orchestral sections. In the case of the Full Orchestral Multi patch, it sees each set of mic samples add a further 0.5GB of samples to the memory allocation, taking us up to a full 2.5GB with all loaded. Three additional mics can also be added at this stage, offering further close-up action or ambience. Within District 1, default mic’ing options are initially set to Close and Tree, with the latter providing the ambience of the Teldex stage, which can be dialled in and out as required. Even more striking, and in line with Ark 4’s calling card, is the tightly focused sound there’s a real sense of first-chair focus, which can clearly be heard when switching to the mic settings page.

The Ricochet features the bow bouncing from the string, creating a very interesting and usable colour, while the Power Sustain brings us some hardcore bowing, which would have even Dmitri Shostakovich smiling. Looking at the String Orchestra patch, there are some real gems to be found. In each section, there are similarities to what we saw in the full orchestral patching, but with further articulation options. Moving on from the full orchestral setting and the sections are broken down individually to strings, woodwinds and brass. Further selections don’t disappoint, extending to Rips, Ricochet and a number of upbeat options, represented by single, duple and triplet entrees before the main note – but in all cases, firmly pushing toward the final note of the phrase.

Orchestral tools – metropolis ark 1