Just downloaded and installed the Syconrized Special Editions and they sound wonderful.  however, I'm a little perplexed- while the new VL2 and Cello 2 show up in the player, I cannot find the Steinway D anywhere in my Sycron player....odd.... Anyone else having this issue?  

I started out with some VSL sample libraries about 10 years ago.  Since then I have collected more and more either the boxed editions or downloadable instruments to the point where I have a ton of sounds to choose from.  What I find timeless about these libraries is not only were the original samples recorded with such precision and programming, the VI Pro Player and MIRx additions make them shine even more.  

Legatos are easily the best to work with for quick passages,  Not having hall ambience built in to the sampled tails makes writing a lot more fluid and less clunky.  

While I'm not doing to pretend I don't use other libraries, I always find room for VSL products.  Sometimes a little bit, sometimes a lot.  There have been stretches where I used nothin but VSL and to great effect.

Bravo gents on your fine instruments.

David Coscina

Long time VSL user and advocate here.  Just stumbled across the Chord Presets in the Winds I library.  Wow!  Honestly these have given me new ideas about voicing chords and even chord progressions.  What a terrific creative boost.  

I'm also getting into Dimension Brass embaressingly after owning it since it came out.  What a powerful and flexible library.  

I still have 92 hrs left on my VSL Exploration kit license so I'm enjoying all of the libraries.  This was a great idea to get people more interested in your libraries.  To be able to really spend time working with the sounds is the best way of deciding whether you need them or not.  And because there are so many articulations, it really helps to have some time with them, not just a couple hours.  My only problem is I want them ALL!!!

Kudos gents.  Once again, you prove that you're an industry leader.  

I think it's a terrific program.  It's not quite where Sibelius is as far as plug ins and print options but as a compositional tool it's amazing.

Thanks for the response Paul.  It does look like they do exist for the 4 horns however.  That ought to suffice. :)

I was looking around the Products section for muted horns but couldn't find any for Epic Horns.  Just 4 horns.  Just wondering if VSL ever did release samples with 8 horns stopped or muted...

Does this apply only to the full Orchestral Strings or also Orchestra Strings from Vienna SE?

I don't have the full ORchestra Strings though I do own Appassionata full.  

David

I was an early adopter of DB and purchased it as soon as it was released.  However, I found I didn't use it much and it remained silent for a while.  Until this past weekend where I needed a beautiful chorale as part of a Christmas carol I'm composing.  My other brass libraries, while fine for epic film score styled work, didn't mesh with the delicate tapestry I was trying to weave in this piece and DB worked beautifully.  I also updated to VI Pro 2 and VE Pro 5 this past weekend and feel like all my VSL libraries (SE Plus, Appassionata Strings, DB, Brass I Extended, etc etc) all got a wonderful facelift.  

Just wanted to say "great job" to all the VSL staff.  I still find the performance legatos to be the best of any library out there as far as expression and control.  My VSL investment always repays me.  :)

I own Spitfire Albion as well as their Harp and I do love the organic sound of their library.  That said, VSL always finds a place in my music.  I find it still to be the best as far as over all quality, flexbility and sound.  No other library as a whole matches the legatos from VSL.  I don't regret buying any of the various products I've purchased from them over the years.  Albion blends quite beautifully with VSL IMO.

Well you still cannot compare by prices.  Sibelius first and foremost is a notation library.  VSL is a straight out sample library meant to be used in a DAW or notation program.  Most of its R&D goes to this and not the sound set.  Jon Loving has been doing some great work on sound sets for 3rd party libraries.  However, I fear that regardless of your RAM and processor, the sheer # of samples and articulations that the average orchestral composer needs is demanding on any computer system.  That said, when I load up a Classical Orchestra with the Sibelius sounds, I look at my activity monitor on my Mac and it shows about 5 gbs taken up for the sounds.  I have 15 gb so it's not even close to using up my RAm and I do also find it sluggish.  But I find the same with Notion or Finale as well when using their libraries.  

Personally I find a lot of the sounds from the new library to be quite good and miles better than GPO which just lengthened or shortened the samples it had rather than offering say, staccato, whole tone or half tone trills, coll legno, snap pizz, things like that.

But c'mon, is it fair to compare a built in library with VSL's full set which exceeds 500 gb?  No!  I love VSL but don't use it too much with notation programs because I find the qualities that make it so good are lacking when interfaced with Sibelius or even Notion.  I'd rather go with the built in set or EWQLSO Gold because it's a little lighter on the CPU.  VSL shines when you use it with DAWs like DP or Logic or even PT.  It's expressive beyond measure but this kind of programming needs the finesse of a DAW and not a notation program IMO.

So, really it's not fair to compare the Sibelius library with VSL.  If you want to compare it to NOtion's built in library, then okay.  They are comparable and I find some of Notion's performance playback of articulations to be more evolved than Sibelius 7 which still feels like it's working out the bugs...but Sibelius is a far better notation program than Notion will ever be, and that's coming from a Notion user since ver1.

I don't agree.  I think they sound better than EWQLSO to be sure but they still sound like samples.  And as a very long time EW enthusiast, I'm not buying this now although I won't rule out later on.  I have Dimension Brass and CineBrass which are fine for my needs.  

I still like Dimension Brass' way of tackling divisi, something neither CB nor HB has approached with the same elegance (although Mike from CS says CB PRO will have a nice divisi).  

I worked on a piece the other day that used CineBrass but needed some good strings.  I own HS but frankly I don't use it.  Too much hassle and I need something that just works..  So I turned to Appassionata Strings.  Done.  Perfect.  Love the legato.  Love assigning the mod wheel to velocity x-fade.  Everything works.  I did a Herrmann styled piece a while back with CineBrass and I also used the Orchestral String trills from VSL.  What delighted me is that the harder the velocity, the faster the trill (at least it seems this way).  Briliant.

Can't wait for VI PRO 2.0  

I agree.  Demos from Guy Bacos and Alex Temple, both who extensively use VSL, are strikingly realistic, AND musically very solid.  So much stuff I have heard from other companies sounds just like a demo for a new piece of gear- flashy but with little substance.  I find VSL very real sounding and while I would love it if the Appassionata Strings allowed one to control vibrato depth like HS, it's not going to prevent me from using them MORE than HS because it doesn't take 2 years to load or crash because the PLAY engine is finicky....

I would also like for VSL to add the ability to increase vibrato on the fly like HS.  That is one nice feature that EW did.  Sadly, even with the update, I cannot use this library much.  It's just not working well for me.  VSL just works.  And at the end of the day, isn't that what we pay for?  

p.s. LASS works beautifully in tandem with VSL strings.  

I own VSL Appassionata Strings, SE PLUS EXTENDED, and also have the Exploration HD which in effect has all VSL libraries.  I also own LASS, and HS.  For conistency in sound and control, sorry but VSL still kills the others.  As far as work flow, VSL also gets my vote.  

Hollywood Strings can sound lush but there all sorts of problems in loops, inherent noises built in to some of the samples (background noise- SLOPPY!), problems with RR, voice robbing, all these things effectively make it unusable to me on a daily basis.  Sometimes I can get PLAY to play nicely but with HS in particular, it's a mixed bag.  The cello legato sounds nice and the ability to control the level of vibrato is indeed a nice thing.  However, let's be truthful here.  Claiming that PLAY or HS does things as far as controlling the sound over VSL VI PRO is just not accurate.  

I will reiterate a point that I feel needs to be underlined here.  I attend concerts weekly.  I'm very familiar with what a live orchestra sounds like also having some of my pieces played by real string players.  VSL consistently sounds like the real thing, not a recording.  EW stuff does sound nice but it sounds like a recording of a good orchestra, and not a live, real performance.  Also, no one has competantly emulated the performance legato that VSL started with.  Even project SAM, a company a love to death, has had some issues with their legato instruments on Symphobia 2.  

It's really easy to get all gushy about the latest and greatest sound library. But for sheer workability, I use VSL more than any other library combined.  I used it extensively on a recent documentary score and the composer I was working under (a fairly big player in LA) was so impressed with my cues and VSL, that he also bought up a bunch of VSL libraries.  And this guy orchestrates and conducts orchestras every day.

I have a Mac Pro 2.66ghz running Snow Leopard OS 10.6.5 and DP 7.22.  when I go to load up a multi patch in VI PRO (Dimension Brass auto divisi) it crashes DP every time.  What's going on?  It didn't do this on previous builds- but then again, previous builds didn't run Dimension Brass right so it seems my options are 1. Re-install an earlier build of VI PRO and live without DImension Brass or 2. Load VI PRO in VE PRO and decouple it with DP (it seems to crash DP when it's not) for the time being...

either way, it's frustrating...

I agree. Wonderful build and chord progressions.  Recalls a bit of Hanson to me more in its feel than anything in its melodic or harmonic content.  Would love to hear the whole thing when its done.

I got my Dimension Brass last night but haven't had too much opportunity to play with it yet.  I loaded some of the Matrix patches like autodivisi and they do sound good.  I will need to sit down with this library in order to master this but I can see the brilliance in it from the get go.  Glad to have it.

Simon, seeing that I also need brass for that film score sound, I'll do some raw demos whenever the hell my packages arrives.....Ilio is sloooooooooooowwwwwwww.

David

yes the U20 was great in its day.  Probably the keyboard I owned for the longest time.  Over 10 years before I traded up for an XP30.

Don't miss those days though.  With VSL, you can realize every music idea possible.

Yeah the rationale was that he was a college student and couldn't afford.  Jesus, the self entitlement.  when I was in university I had a U20 and Atari 520ST and got by just fine with that.  I almost told the guy to f- off and really wanted to report him to the administrator of the site but figured everyone can make a bad judgement so I just told him I wasn't going to give away software I bought.

Heaven forbid anyone actually pays for something these days.  I'm glad VSL uses protection keys.  It prevents cheapskates from ripping them off.  You won't believe the number of people who wanted me to give them Symphobia for free.  I paid $2700 for both and these #($*#($* want me to give it to them for free?  

The only thing that might be neat is if VSL ever has a server where you can try before you buy, like TrySound.com.  That's a nifty idea. Personally,  I got the Exploration Kit but it was a gift from a composer I'm working for so i didn't pay anything for it but WOULD have if he hadn't offered.

Dude, you're killing me.....

some parts are utterly realistic.  Very impressive. I like the tone of the brass.  Just checked my order....not in yet.  waaaaaaaaa.  C'mon Ilio, I needs my brass!!!!!