  In this note I review the construction of higher-dimensional instantons and
heterotic NS5-branes on Ricci-flat cones from arXiv:1109.3552, as well as
fractional strings from arXiv:1202.5046. The focus is on methods and
interpretation. I show, furthermore, that smeared 5-brane supergravity
solutions on manifolds with holonomy G2 or Spin(7) can be obtained quite
generally by a conformal deformation of the Ricci-flat metric, whereas
Calabi-Yau and hyperk\"ahler manifolds require more sophisticated deformations
and a case by case treatment.
