I just stumbled onto
this new Kontakt library today and was impressed by how good it sounds for the price. It's a small string library consisting entirely of short, fast spiccato strokes for bass (x3), cello (x4), viola (x6) and violin (x8) ensembles with 3 microphone positions.
This just happened to fill a niche missing from my other libraries' articulations. And it's going for $49, which is pocket change in the world of string libraries. (Note: that's an introductory price that goes up to $79 on July 25th.)
Two caveats:
1. For some reason these samples are significantly behind the MIDI notes that trigger them, requiring you to offset the track backward by 30ms, 80ms or 127ms depending on which set of patches you're using. Because these offsets are precise, the timing is obviously on purpose, though I can't say what that purpose might be.
2. These are not dry samples, so you might have difficulty blending them with other string libraries. Just from listening to the demos I don't think that'd be the case for me, as they sound as though they'll blend well with my go-to string library (Kirk Hunter Concert Strings).
While you're at
performancesamples.com, be sure to grab the FREE
solo violin there.