Vienna Symphonic Library Forum
Forum Statistics

181,957 users have contributed to 42,195 threads and 254,637 posts.

In the past 24 hours, we have 4 new thread(s), 12 new post(s) and 54 new user(s).

  1. Home
  2. Sample Libraries
  3. Vienna Instruments Libraries
  4. VSL Strings - another comment

  • VSL Strings - another comment

    W
    W

    I felt I should write this in response to the previous thread, as I really like the VSL strings  - all the solo, chamber, orchestral and Appassionata.  

    I am not being paid to say this and somebody will probably accuse be of being a "fanboy" - that happened in the past - but how can you not be?  The sounds are tremendously expressive in their range, from the intimate solo to the absolutely HUGE Appassionata.  Also, the orchestral give you an enormous range of articulations that no one else has ever sampled.  The chamber are essential as well, both for their own use in small ensembles whether baroque or other, and also as divisi for orchestral/appassionata.

    There is nothing else that compares to these sounds, and so I felt I should respond because they are very inspiring to use.  I have been able with these great sounds to realize compositions that could not have been done otherwise.    Nobody else has even come close to this level of espression combined with realism. 
  • D
    D
    Hello. I agree that these sounds are excellent. I have the SE and Plus strings and extended Plus. I also have Kirk Hunter Ruby for EXS and Kontakt. As far as playability is concerned, for me, I use the KH strings much more lately. His system is just much easier to instantly play and keyswitch. Very nice sounds, too. Don't get me wrong. I do love the VI sounds. I also think the KH beats it for playability, unless I sometime take the time to figure out how to get a nice attack for real time playing. I'm using a Mac Pro Xeon machine. Dennis
  • W
    W

    o.k. - need to rephrase that...
  • V
    V

     The VSL sample interface is- in my oppinion- the best even compared to Kontakt 3.

    Of course, there are users that do not need all the articulations that VSL has to  offer. For serious orchestral work though, I dont see anything that comes close.
  • E
    E
    last edited
    last edited
    With interest I read the contributions in this thread (plus of course other ones related to a.o. this issue). Clearly owners of whatever library seem always to ‘believe’ in their product, so that’s why I think it is becoming really interesting if someone is expressing a kind of frustration after years of using a certain library in a forum like this one. Of course I am referring to Happy Tree Friend in his http://community.vsl.co.at/forums/t/19790.aspx.

    Also Dayadon is trying here to say that another library has a more suitable playability for him. In this respect I have to admit, that he is maybe just right. I use a.o. the SE plus (‘full’) version, but many times I just get better results with the Hunter Pro and Studio Stings than with the strings offered by the VSL, as well as faster.

    I have posted two requests for comments on arrangements for string orchestra here on this forum. I have received many nice comments on these issues (thanks again you folks!), but after all I was a little bit confused by the suggestion from many experienced midi orchestrators to combine patches from several VSL-libraries. Of course it meant to be a huge difference to do it or just not in liveliness and reality. But, it gave me a feeling however that using just only one patch from just only one library was insufficient. If opening a demo-midi file offered on the audio demo pages I often see more than 20 tracks in originally only a 4 or 5 part piece. The result is more than fine: what I hear sounds OK to me, but all these tracks are quite intimidating in a way.

    Referring to the Hunter strings, I have the feeling that a free, expressive and lush sound is quite easy to accomplish. Perhaps it has something to do with the miking at a bigger distance? At the moment there is a version with (adjustable) vibrato, related to volume settings.OK, there is no such a diversity of samples as in the VSL library, but, sorry again (if necessary), for example the possibilities of the WIVI brass instruments of Wallander just put all of this offered diversity aside: there not much which you can’t do with this product, to my surprise in a way.

    Please note that I am not meaning to offend someone here, but a discussion on the pros and cons of libraries is imho a way to improve possibilities for all of us, certainly form the point of view from users. Looking beyond the qualities of whatever favourite product is a part of an open discussion.

    And why not a benchmark based on one a the same midi file? Just to compare results. As a professional guitar player myself, it occurred many times choosing a new concert guitar, that one guitar was obviously much more suitable for baroque music and another one just the right one for romantic music. Why not such a diversity for libraries? Anyone in for a “3 x 24 bars of Bach, Mozart and Brahms contest” here?
  • W
    W

    No i wouldn't be in for that because of other things that I'm working on, but you have the same sort of thing already with the demos.  I have heard no demos that even approach VSL strings.  What specific pieces of music are you talking about with other string libraries sounding as good?  I have not heard them - not one of them.  And I am quite interested in what is being done with strings. 

    probably the closest in quality is DVZ, but it is very far behind in basic timbral quality and has as its main selling point it instantly splits up notes into smaller ensembles or solo, instead of making the player think about what he is doing as an individual line. DVZ allows you to act like a chimp pounding on a keyboard and it will correct for your stupidity and ignorance of orchestration. So it does have that advantage.  Doesn't sound as good, but you can act like a chimp. 

    However, these other libraries you are talking about simply don't exist right now, at least as competition, for anyone trying to do something serious.  Though yes, the others are o.k. for more casual or generic scoring.  Probably the most intensive string demo you will ever hear are the Ravel string quartet, and the Vaughn Williams Fantasia  and both of these were done with VSL (Jay Bacal).  But if you wanted to create an A/B comparison there is a problem - the articulations are not even available in other libraries, so phony workarounds are necessary. 

    That's not to say I am uninterested in other libraries. Many companies, obviously, are working on the Next Big Thing. 

    One other thing also - you can no more use just one patch for strings than a group of players could use one playing style for an entire piece of music.  In any given piece, you will find dozens or even hundreds of separate articulations on one page of music, and that is why the VSL being broken down into many different individual instruments is so valuable. it is certainly not a sign that any one of them is somehow missing in quality.  It is simply in the naure of musiscal performances, especially with strings.
  • W
    W

    "The VSL sample interface is- in my oppinion- the best even compared to Kontakt 3."  - veetguitar

    I agree that the VI/VE interface is extremely  good - I was used to older, thankfully defunct software with its clumsy interface spread out horrifically over dozens of tracks sometimes for just one instrument.  But that is no longer the case with Vienna Instruments/ Ensemble interface which is simply brilliantly programmed.  So many of the ideas about implementing it are perfect for  musical use, and exactly what was needed but never available before in such a straight-ahead, intuitive setup. 

  • V
    V

     The Ravel string quartet demo is just unbelievable. There are simply no shortcuts to quality. You could never replace more than 100 articulations in Vienna  with a small fraction of that without sacrificing quality, well maybe next year you will. No, joking aside, the classic, romantic and modern orchestra repertoire is so incedibly rich, you can not reduce it to "that sound" which is just a very reduced and comercialized view that often enough reduces that mentioned repertoire to some fx sounds and other assorted cliches. That market is now served by symphobia ( "to create film music if you are in a hurry")
  • Mark SchmiederM
    Mark SchmiederM

    Now that I have moved beyond Special Edition and have cautiously bought a few strategic full libraries in each category, I'm not complaining as much about how much work it takes to get musical phrasing out of VSL :-). There really are an amazing number of patches and matrices that allow one to minimise part-splitting.

    Nevertheless, this is for tracking MIDI; not for live playing. And although I don't have to do much MIDI tweaking anymore to get very usable results from VSL, I would still like to see it set up better for live playing and live tracking. It's not that I intend to use a computer at gigs (I don't); it's just that one generally is more successful using the final target sounds while doing the original tracking (due to phrasing, etc.).

    This is more of an issue for me currently with the woodwinds and brass, as I reluctantly parted with my physically modeled Yamaha VL70m last week as I concluded that while it is great for live playing, the final results are just not of professional caliber (for the most part). The big dilemma though, is that I am unable to successfully map very much of the Yamaha WX5's MIDI controller data and other MIDI messaging, to VSL parameters in a way that doesn't have unintended side effects.

    Fortunately, many of the VSL patches and matrices are able to infer musical expression and phrasing as well as articulation-switching, through clever cross-sampling and good programming. Some of these are the speed-oriented patches and matrices, which really do not have an equivalent in the MIDI world. In many ways, they compensate for not having appropriate actions to map to aftertouch, MIDI CC #3 (Breath Control), and less common MIDI parameters that most wind controllers can generate (for growl, etc.).

    As I have only begun working in earnest with the full string libraries this past week, after first focusing on the full woodwind and brass libraries, I have not yet reached the same level of proficiency with them, but am quickly finding that I am able to get more realistic expression, even with only one patch or matrix per MIDI part, than even with the best libraries and modules out there (I consider Kurzweil to be the Gold Standard when it comes to musically useful programming; bearing in mind that workstations/ROMplers are seriously compressed).

    The most critical problem I see in the strings libraries is that the portamento speed cannot really be adjusted. This has been discussed before, and I understand the reasons and that portamenti are directly sampled vs. pieced together, but I still think it would be better to have some flexible portamento than not at all. Sure, it will not sound as realistic as other parts, but certainly moreso than using an inappropriate portamento speed (as is currently the case). As a result, I bury those parts in the mix currently, even if they are meant to be key phrase accents.

    I have worked with a bunch of the other libraries, and don't find most of them remotely usable in comparison to VSL (e.g. the entry-level versions of EWQLSO, MSI, and any hardware-based solutions). The one exception was Miroslav Philharmonik, which I also sold a few weeks back (I had held onto it primarily for its brilliant chorus, but am satisfied for now to just stick with sopranos via VSL). The Breath Control support for brass and woodwinds was quite welcome, and the strings were easy to use, but the detail is lacking in comparison to newer material such as VSL. It is too bad they did not take that library to the next level, as it really represented the first real stab at musical realism in a sample library.

    Sample Modeling, and related technologies, show great promise for certain instruments, but I'm not convinced they'll have much succeess with strings. I still can't get usable results out of the two Garritan products (Stradivari Violin, and Gofriller Cello), but it could be due to my computer specs. Sample Modeling may improve upon those libraries and re-release them, but I wouldn't hold my breath, nor assume the technology will be applicable to ensembles vs. solo instruments.

    I continue to try updates to Synful Orchestra, but find it falls down quickly once applied to faster articulated passages such as in Mozart. A brilliant effort, but I'm not convinced it will bear fruit when it comes to serious orchestral renditions of challenging works.

    In my view, VSL is where it's at, and the future lies in additional programming with the existing sample set. Perhaps this is doable from the end user point of view, but some of it requires platform support (such as allowing more than two simultaneous parameter switches, and more ways to piece together multiple articulations so that assigning more MIDI controllers and MIDI parameters can produce useful results). Range-limiting could also be helpful (though this is partially doable via the MIDI vector graph, more control points would be needed).

    Sorry if this sounds rambly; I don't post often here, so may have tied too many topics into one response :-(. 
  • W
    W

    I completely agree with that, veetguitar.  I was also astounded by the Ravel quartet.  It is harder to do those naked solo voices than anything else.  Bacal faced the Balrog without flinching, and managed to survive.   Something few of us have done.
  • D
    D
    Hello again! Yes, I too hear the Vienna instruments as just incredible sounds. The best 'realistic' and full sounds I've heard, besides a live orchestra. Again, however, having only the VI SE and Plus Extended strings, I'm just saying that I personally prefer inputing my music in 'real' time. VI is very hard for me to work with in this regard, which is why I am finding KH much more pleasurable to play in the strings into any composition on which I work. Right now, I don't think I'll be using an approach that requires another process. I think I may try playing music into Logic with KH, then switch the orchestra sounds to VI. Regards, Dennis
  • E
    E

    Hi William,

    I must agree with you, that the Ravel demo is really astonishing. Fortunately for me, I recently bought the full Solo Strings library. Unfortunatley I don't have all the skills yet that Bacal has apparently plenty of. I hope that this will be a matter of time.

    So you see: I use different libraries for different goals. The solo strings are just unsurpassed at this moment.

    I'll try to post some audio demos as a reply on an earlier post asap. OK?!
  • W
    W

     mhschmeider

    Not rambly at all- you have a lot of experience.  I agree with what you are saying on the portamento - it would be good to have variations but since it is so difficult to record authentic legato/portamento this is not practical immediately.  Probably more variations will be recorded at some time, as with the L2 articulations?  However, there are  many choices already available, for example the legato, sul legato, a/b switching on portamento, 4- velocity legato.  Also of course, layering is something that has become very important.  The layering of legato solo instruments with Appassionata instruments results in the best string sound you will ever get sampled.  Especially there, you can vary the legato by differential mistiming, as well as using a sul legato on the solo with straight legato on the ensemble. 

  • E
    E
    last edited
    last edited

    Hi William,

    You wrote here: "....No i wouldn't be in for that because of other things that I'm working on, but you have the same sort of thing already with the demos. I have heard no demos that even approach VSL strings. What specific pieces of music are you talking about with other string libraries sounding as good? I have not heard them - not one of them. And I am quite interested in what is being done with strings....".

    As promised I’ll present you and other visitors now a small comparison test, speaking of the string libraries from a.o. VSL and Hunter.

    You can find this test page on:

    www.musesamples.com/testlib/test.html Furthermore other stuff: muted version by EQ and maybe a kind of adjustable VSL portamento patching? Who knows….. More material later.
  • W
    W

    I tried listening to your comparisons.  The problem is, they are too primitive and poorly played to be valid tests.  I was thinking of a really serious MIDI performance, such as Bacal's work with the Vaughn Williams or Ravel, as a comparison.  A simple unison line like that Bizet is worthless for the evaluation.
  • E
    E

    I tried reading your comment.

    If this is (or most certainly will be) your general tone on this thread I herewith withdraw any further posting. Links as mentioned hereabove regarding comparison issues before are closed from now on.
  • W
    W

    Sorry, I did not mean to offend - I thought this was supposed to be very simple, with the unison line.  But you can't tell anything with something that basic.  You shouldn't stop with the comparisons, as it is worthwhile to hear these things directly in relation to each other.
  • W
    W

    Anyway, to resume with the original point of this thread -

    There is currently no other sample library that even comes onto the same dimensional plane as the VSL string samples.  And people who insist upon expressing their frustration with string samples in general with VSL samples specifically are doing something rather questionable (edited for WFN (Warm-and-Fuzzy-Niceness - my original was obscene, then harsh, then offensive, then WFN). 

  • L
    L

    With all due respect to the KH "fan", I disagree completely about the KH libaries. IMO,they are way too ambient and not very smooth transitioning on many of the patches. Perhaps I need a bigger 'puter. I am working on that right now. I only own the VI Solo Strings Standard and I am soooo stoked by the sound quality and IMO the playability/control surpasses any other rompler. I just wish I could afford the CUBE!!!!! Droooooolllll!!!!

    Actually, I am trying to decide if I want to buy into the SE libraries,but in all honesty, after hearing the actuall full VI demos,it's kinda hard to not try and save up the money,but the world might end before I can do THAT!!!!  [8o|]

    luces
  • D
    D
    Hello. I completely agree about the VI instruments sounds! The best. The only reason I use KH is for the easier 'playbility' thing for me. I'm trying to learn some more about why VI strings has such a huge delay when playing in legato and sustain, for example. It's impossible for me to play these in live with other tracks, and keep tempo. I've watched the Herb videos, but he shows LOTS of articulations I don't see in my VI SE Plus instruments, and everything works great for him, of course. Here's what I'm working with: Mac Pro - 6 gigs memory. Separate hard drive for VI VI SE, with the Plus & Extended strings, including Appasionata. I don't like programming that much, but I'm willing to learn how to make it work! Dennis