Vienna Symphonic Library Forum
Forum Statistics

181,959 users have contributed to 42,195 threads and 254,638 posts.

In the past 24 hours, we have 4 new thread(s), 10 new post(s) and 55 new user(s).

  1. Home
  2. Sample Libraries
  3. Vienna Instruments Libraries
  4. Full Libraries versus Special Editions

  • Full Libraries versus Special Editions

    S
    S

    I realize the full libraries have all the possible articulations and other options, but do they also contain more actual samples of the articulations that are in the Special Editions? Specifically, I'm wondering if the velocity crossfades are smoother? I'm generally happy with the expression I can get out of the SE libraries I have, but some patches are definitely better than others in this regard, and if the full libraries have more velocity layers to work with, that would be a major upgrading selling point for me.
  • C
    C

    The best place to look for this is in the respective manuals.  They'll give you a patch-by-patch descriptions of how many layers there are.  For the most part, legato patches tend to only have two velocity layers but a lot of the shorts and sustains have many more, as well as round-robin.

    One trick I use to get more smooth-ness out of things is sometimes I'll crossfade into a sustain patch.  Sustains tend to have in the neighborhood of four different velocity layers so if I know I'll need a swell somewhere either a dynamic patch can be used or I can use a sustain to get extra layers and a smoother sound.
  • T
    T

    Just to add what Casiquire said, the non-sordino appasionata have a special legato/portamento performance patch with 4 velocity layers. But these are the only legato pathces I can remember with more than 2 layers. But I don't own all of VSL.
  • S
    S

    Yes, browsing through the SE manual and the online specs confirm that. The SE Appassionata legato patches have two velocity layers, while the sustain patches have three. So I guess the answer is: it depends. 
  • J
    J
    last edited
    last edited

    @seanmccoy said:

    I realize the full libraries have all the possible articulations and other options, but do they also contain more actual samples of the articulations that are in the Special Editions? Specifically, I'm wondering if the velocity crossfades are smoother? I'm generally happy with the expression I can get out of the SE libraries I have, but some patches are definitely better than others in this regard, and if the full libraries have more velocity layers to work with, that would be a major upgrading selling point for me.

     

    The SE Libraries are sampled at whole tones then transposed sonically to make up for the half tone gaps.  The full libraries, OTOH  are sampled at half tones.  This transposition may expose flaws in the sampling since, technically, you're dealing with less samples when you try to crossfade. 

    I think that's right[^o)]
  • S
    S

    Ah, thanks, I didn't realize that. Makes sense, though.