It actually has nothing to do with music anymore. 

On a totally irrelevant note I wanted to say hello to Simon Raven and how much I have liked his music when I had the chance to hear it various places on the internet.  Really great demos but also memorable purely as music. 

O.K., sorry to interrupt the hostility and insults.  I'll get out of the way.   

Originally Posted by: William

On a totally irrelevant note I wanted to say hello to Simon Raven and how much I have liked his music when I had the chance to hear it various places on the internet.  Really great demos but also memorable purely as music. 

 

+1

I first heard Simon Ravn's music around 2002, when I was just learning about sampling technology, and was quite in awe of the realism and quality of his music productions. It was a surprise seeing his name here I went back and listened to some of his recent music....Here are a couple of nice pieces:

http://simonravn.com/media/Milo-TheInventor.mp3

http://simonravn.com/media/BB-HomeAlone.mp3

Sorry, completely off topic.

Originally Posted by: fahl5

Ok and now we finally all know "how to improve Synchron Strings":

1) bashing VSL for their Product

A side from all the ego trip posts, not a single person in this thread has bashed VSL products, you have a wild imagination fahl5, everybody here have all brought constructive criticism and appreciation to synchron because they believe in VSL and their dedication to improving their products, and I do mean everybody. People like William has been great supporters from day 1 and is still the greatest supporter of VSL, and many others as well in this thread, so cool it down with your preaching. 

Conctructive criticism does not mean bashing. Lean the difference.

Wow, Steffen, you really don't have any worklife do you. Way too much time on your hands obviously. You really should get a job. Or maybe go back and stare proudly at your degree diploma and render some more useless classical pieces. Your presence here is just getting more and more embarrassing.

What VSL should do to "improve" SyS is frankly re-record 80% of it. But they could do it at 40-50% of the time spent on the original and get a much better library.

They should:

- Record fewer dynamic layers. Half as many would do, the proof is in SyS that all those layers don't pay off.

- Record fewer different vibrato types. Non-vib and "espressivo" would be enough. Nobody likes the standard vibrato in the library it seems. Also, you don't need to do as many non-vib dynamic layers as you do vibrato. 3 nonvib, 4-5 vib would be plenty enough.

- Record less precise staccatos. And do both staccatos and spiccatos for better flexibility.

- Rehearse a little music with the musicians before recording the samples. And tell them to carry that into the samples as good as they can and not care about being too perfect, but more being musical. A little coaching should help on the sound, get more life into the samples.

- Then there is the sound. That is a tough one. The room sounds like it does I guess. But there are quite some ugly resonance going on. Don't remember exactly where but typically you get problems in the lower mid-mid end from 500-1200hz. Violins generally have some harsh stuff going on at 1500+3500hz but that's managable with EQ so I wouldn't focus on that. I would see if the room needs treatment to handle the lower frequencies.

That could be a "Synchron Strings - reworked". Still a huge undertaking but would take less than 50% of the time of the original library to do. That is the only way SyS will have a chance to become a great string library; doing re-recordings. Sorry, no way around it. And that probably won't happen - not for the next 5 years+. They might decide to go back and record another string library, but I am sure they won't spend so many resources to re-do and fix SyS 1.

Originally Posted by: fahl5

Originally Posted by: Simon Ravn

Wow, Steffen, you really don't have any worklife do you. Way too much time on your hands obviously. You really should get a job. Or maybe go back and stare proudly at your degree diploma and render some more useless classical pieces. Your presence here is just getting more and more embarrassing.

Bravo another splendid example of "constructive criticism and appreciation to synchron" this is so full of topic related pure facts and so free of ugly and aggressive personal insinuations, that I understand, that you are the one who really can help to make this world a better place. Wow!

I actually added to the post just after posting. But of course you are hovering over this like a hawk. But there you have it: My constructive criticism.

fahl5, it's not our fault that you're obviously incapable of reading comprehension, amongst other things. Your whole act here is incredibly cheap. All of the posts you stupidly picked apart and selectively quoted actually contained pointed and concrete criticism.

You're picking quotes out of context on purpose. Your mindset is that of an 14 year old child arguing on the internet. You're the only thing that's wrong in this thread. You're the only person who keeps coming back and pollutes the forum with more useless "contributions", and this whole thread would be 300% more constructive without your pathetic meddling and confrontational nonsense.

None of us here has any interest in arguing with each other. Our opinions on specific aspects of the library might differ, but none of that would stand in the way of a civil discussion. Without your transgressions, no one would be arguing here and you wouldn't see a single out-of-line post. Actually everyone's totally fed up with the bickering, but you wont stop, because William is 100% right - you're the type of sociopath that enjoys this kind of stuff.

You're ruining it for everybody, and you're making this forum an ugly place. This observation alone probably makes you glee deep down inside. You should be banned. Period. The only reason it's not happening is because you probably bought every VSL product under the sun. And it just shows how much the ignore function is needed.

A last comment on-topic, before taking a pause:

- I think VSL product management and development team is a very strong and educated one. I suppose they are perfectly aware of the limits and unexpected issues of the project. Anyway it's a pity we got the technical debate polluted by human factors, because our feedback should be very useful: every developer is abitually self-indulgent with his own baby, and even when the  issues are technically well known, still the customers feedback helps to prioritize and sort the space for improvement.

- the overal sound quality of the result, has unfortunately distracted the attention from the other interesting components of the Sinchron Strings project: the player and the patch structure. I think the idea and the software are powerful and good (e.g. the tree structure and the automatic coherence of articulations grouped by "playing style" etc.).

- I think some of the recording concepts were also brilliant and were providing immediate benefit: the dynamic uniformity and the rich variations managed by scripts. I suspect, as other did, that unfortunately some of the "news" like the auto-gain control or the wet-samples processing were creating artifacts the sound engineers and developers were not expecting and are not yet mastering. It's definitely the reason for the long development time and the delays. I still remember it was the very same with Dimension strings, and not all the issues with the samples of Dimension were finally fixed, but at least the VI Pro player and the final patches of Dimension strings arrived to the standard we all know, respect and love.

- Last but not least, I suppose, from some feedback of developers, and from the official communication of VSL marketing, that the hidden problem was and probably still is also human resources constrain: even working day and night, the amount of work the VSL team was facing with new projects and productions seems to be overwelming. I hope time will help to settle down the huge amount of news and refine the software and samples as they always did in the past.

Crossing fingers and looking forward.

Originally Posted by: fatis12_24918

 A last comment on-topic, ...:

Thank you, thats just the way the discussion could be made constructive.

I like the respect you show for the VSL-Guys. and consent this is defenitly a good starting point

Originally Posted by: fatis12_24918

- the overal sound quality of the result, has unfortunately distracted the attention

Yes I consent with others that this aspect is worth to discuss. I personally am not Tone-engineer enough to judge what can be done without recording. But I think it might be worth to reflect how the user can achieve more instantaneously the warmer soundquality some members her have asked for. If there is any way to configure the settings to achieve that result and also a way to make this result the first one gets when loading the patches before any individual tweaks are necessary, than it would be worth to search a solution for the requests about the sound.

as I already suggested earlier to become a bit more concrete in this aspect one might perhaps think about the "default settings"

• of the EQ's in the Mixerchannels '(which currently seem to me emphazie only the high ranges, while they reduce nearly all the the lower and mid ranges)
• the Legato might prevent from inappropriate selection if would be by default set to auto-speed
• Presumably the Regular Vibrato is for the most regulare usages the more appropriate one than the lyrical which seem to me better for low dynamics and slow movements.

Originally Posted by: fatis12_24918

from the other interesting components of the Sinchron Strings project: the player and the patch structure. I think the idea and the software are powerful and good (e.g. the tree structure and the automatic coherence of articulations grouped by "playing style" etc.).

- I think some of the recording concepts were also brilliant and were providing immediate benefit: the dynamic uniformity and the rich variations managed by scripts.

I fully consent in this aspect. And it is imho worth to keep that in mind.

Originally Posted by: fatis12_24918

I suspect, as other did, that unfortunately some of the "news" like the auto-gain control or the wet-samples processing were creating artifacts the sound engineers and developers were not expecting and are not yet mastering. It's definitely the reason for the long development time and the delays. I still remember it was the very same with Dimension strings, and not all the issues with the samples of Dimension were finally fixed, but at least the VI Pro player and the final patches of Dimension strings arrived to the standard we all know, respect and love.

I again like the very constructive attitude towards Problems like  that and do consent again completly.

in my humble opinion I think there are several articulation types which are wortth to be added or  completed in further editions:

• Sordini,
• sul pont,
• Harmonics,
• less extreme long Cresc. and decresc.,
• pfp in different durations,
• more sustained Sfz,
• another more passionate Vibrato type like we know from Appasionata

It no surprise for anyone here: I think it is defenitly worth to continue improviong and expanding this series as it is reasonable for the users to give a feedback for the direction of this further development.  I hope following Fatis exsample we will finaly get on the right path to support the VSL-Team with concrete Feedback and suggestions.  This is my contribution .