I know that this subject has come up before, and from what I can remember the response from VSL was that restructuring the product line would bring too much other additional costs (new manuals, packaging material).

I agree though that in my opinion it would have been a better idea to feature separate strings/brass/wood/percussion boxes with inclusion of the performance elements instead of selling the performance elements for all instrument groups separately in one box. Maybe an idea for the VSL team to take into consideration, it would make the Pro product line more consistent with the current Horizon releases which also contain performance elements.

And of course the idea of selling separate instruments would be great as well, but of course there would be much more additional costs for printing new manuals/packaging material.

Even though it’s a bit early I wish you all a merry Christmas and lots of inspiration for the coming year.

Well, it seems to pay off for Doug and Nick pretty well, as the number of orders for Gold are now well above 100 and still rising, with still 25 days to go.

For many people (including myself) the discounts now offered are a very strong stimulus to purchase the products. I probably would not have bought Gold at it’s original price point, and I think there are quite a lot of people who feel the same way. Furthermore, after ordering Gold, the upcoming Gold-upgrade becomes very appealing.

So, if VSL feels a strong urge to generate a Christmas sales hit and attract new customers, please, feel free to do so.

Not only that, but to have the nerve to come to a developer’s forum, while not having bought any of his products, and to proclaim that it is OK to steal his work because the money is lacking is outrageous. []
It this was the prevailing attitude among people, VSL would cease to exist. Sometimes people forget that there is a whole team developing the products, musicians have to be hired, so there is a lot of cost involved.

If you don’t have the money to buy a car, you don’t buy one. You don’t go out to the carpark of a VW dealer and drive off with one of the cars, shouting: “I’ll pay for it when and if I have the money for it!”.
Ripping off a developer is not a necessity but a choice, and a very wrong one, because it turns you into a thief.

Thanks for your explanation, Matthias.

I’m still doing everything the old fashioned way (soundcards, midi devices, cables etc.), and Max’s upcoming Giga Teleport looks like just the thing I’ve been waiting for.

There is something that is not quite clear to me about FXTeleport. GS requires that a GSIF driver is installed on the computer. Does the software for FXTeleport then come with a GSIF driver?
Another question related to this: for a music network, which gigaswitches are recommended (5-ports)? I recently read a test with gigabit network cards, and those based on a realtek chip performed very moderately, while the Intel cards excelled, so I assume there also is a difference in performance of gigaswitches.

Dave, were you able to run GS3 with impulse engine on your Athlon 1800?
I remember the Tascam site mentions the Athlon 2100 XP as a minimum requirement.

Maybe that's a nice idea for Herb to consider: integrating the performance elements in the packages for the instrument groups of the orchestra. Maybe even splitting brass and woodwind up into two separate packages.
It makes little sense that you have to buy the entire performance box for the entire orchestra when you need the strings only.

I must say that I also had expected the chamber strings to be in the same price range of the solo strings, it came as a disappointment that the price was almost twice the price of the solo strings.

The quality of the package is of an exceptionally high standard though.

Any chance on seeing an introductory offer? Or maybe a reduced price for a combination package?

Wonderful music, wonderful libraries, congratulations to the VSL team, and the composers of the demos.
It is so real that I find myself simply listening and enjoying the music.

Not a bad idea, solo instruments.

If the market for solo instruments is small, it might be worth some consideration releasing for instance the woodwind set from the PRO-edition including the performance sets as a Horizon release, and the same for the brass. Or, split them up in Horizon woodwind solo, woodwind ensemble, brass solo, brass ensemble, etc.

Buying a PRO edition is a large step for most since it is such a big investment, so offering a gradual path leading up to the complete PRO edition may not be such a bad idea. Already additions to the PRO edition are being released as a Horizon package, so why not go all the way?

Continued:

If I had eternal life on this planet I would not hesitate to make a bet with you for a VSL PRO Edition that if you let 100 monkeys hammer away on typing machines you will NEVER ever get a spontaneous copy of King Lear. I’d let them hammer away for two billion years, and although you will see words every now and then, sometimes even short sentences, but not a poetic narrative with a plot. By the time the monkeys come up with a copy of king Lear, a VSL PRO Edition will probably have come into existence spontaneously as well. Again, I don’t think so.

Computer games do not come into existence by coincidence, they are programmed. The reality of a computer game is created by the programmer who first designs the game and the appropriate parameters and rules (which can be likened to the laws of physics and the properties of matter in our physical universe), and by entering the appropriate code and compiling it he creates his virtual reality into existence. When you see the game it is possible to argue that it came into being by coincidence, but can you honestly say that you can believe that? I can’t, I see the hand of the programmer in it.
The way I see it, we are subject to the parameters of the original programmer (God) created for his creation, the physical reality, even our DNA is like a large, hugely complex string of bio-software code. You can look at it and say that it is just a matter of chance, but again I see the hand of a creator in it, like a bio-narrative with many developing motives.
The difference between our physical environment and a computer game is that we are not part of a computer game, and because we are not part of a computer game, it is easier to recognise and acknowledge the hand of a programmer in what we see than in the case of our physical environment, of which we are a part.

So, that is why I say that it would take much more faith for me to believe into atheism than to believe in an originator, God. If you believe a Mercedes can come into being by chance, you have more belief than I will ever have.
If it is true it can save you quite some money, though...

Again, I know I am waaayyy off topic, my apologies, but I gues that at some point in the development of the creation of this world you may arrive at the creation of 'glass & stones', somehow

Kind wishes, Jan

It is IMPOSSIBLE to say that with certainty, simply because you and all the mathematicians lack sufficient knowledge to make such an assumption. To state this would imply that you know exactly all the possible permutations with all possible constants and variables, and NO ONE does, but even if you did, there is another issue that makes it almost impossible for the universe to come into existence by chance, and that is the lack of a conscious memory of previous, failed attempts, so that with each attempt, it does not become more likely, the chance remains the same, I will expound on this later.

A symphony of Mahler is nothing compared to the complexity of the creation we live in, mathematicians cannot even make an accurate assessment of the chance of a universe with a planet like earth with it’s complex systems maintaining a perfect balance coming into existence by sheer coincidence, they lack the knowledge to make this computation, at best they can say that since possibilities are limited, the chances of the universe coming into existence as a result of coincidence approaches infinity, which is an absurdity.

There also is the recurrence of possibilities we have to take into account, so you are dealing with a chance that, for lack of sufficient knowledge, can be described as ‘approaching infinity’, which, if you think about it deeply, is a concept our mind cannot really grasp.
Just because a chance exists it does not automatically follow that it HAS to occur.
You may have a chance of 1:10 of picking the right number in the range 1-10, but you must not forget that each event has no memory of the preceding event, so that each time you pick a number, not remembering the number you previously picked, it may be that after 100 times trying you still have not picked the right number, because you picked nr. 1 fifty times, nr.2 twenty times, nr.3 fifteen times, nr 4 ten times and nr. 5 five times, and the right number was nr.9. Likewise the universe has no memory of any previous attempts, so that it consciously can travel new paths with each new try.
To state that this universe with the earth was inevitable and HAD TO happen is simply untrue, it is far, far more likely that it has and will never happen at all by chance.
So, even if the chance is, let’s say, 1: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 etc., even then, it gives an indication of HOW LIKELY it is that it will occur. So how can anyone possibly say, with this in mind as well as the fact that certain paths are travelled several times over and over again, that our universe HAD to occur? It makes no sense.

And with such an infinitely small chance, I can only repeat my original statement that the theory of an originating intelligence makes much more sense to me than betting on an infinitesimal small chance to occur, especially when the creation we live in shows so much patterns, like motives in a symphony. Just as I cannot believe a STRUCTURED symphony with thematic development will come into being out of itself, I cannot believe our physical surroundings with their properties (what gave them their property, what makes them behave in a certain way?) have their origin in chance.

Continued in next post

I’d probably say “..and a jolly Moses to you too”.

I have Muslim friends who also express wishes pertaining to Muslim religious celebrations, but I never have taken any offence at their wishes. I see their spirit with which they express their wishes, and THAT is what is important to me. You can express hatred wrapped in kind words and a smile, I used to have a colleague who was a master at it, so to me it’s not the words that is most important, it is the heart of the person uttering those words.
I’d hate to see yet another form of political correct speech, impeding anyone from uttering the words ‘Merry Christmas’, making it punishable with a penalty because it might possibly offend someone due to it’s Christian connotations. Especially when Christmas already has been commercialised to the extent that it has been taken over by a fat guy in red riding on an imaginary sleigh through the sky, whose message to mankind seems to consist of the immortal words "Hohoho".
It is so harmless, what do you think will happen when someone wishes you a Merry Christmas, that the person receiving those wishes will suddenly be converted to Christianity? In that case it is very likely I will be a Muslim in the near future. Again, it’s all in the mind, and I think you are blowing it a bit out of proportion. Suppose you are negatively disposed towards birthdays because they are culturally imposed and exploited for capitalistic purposes, should there be some committee dedicated to erasing the meaning read in the wish ‘Happy birthday’?
Reading your reply I see how you are putting a meaning into an otherwise kind and harmless wish that is not there on the part of most of those who express the wish. Even if the wish is spoken by a die-hard Christian, do you believe it is said in order to subdue and convert you, or simply to wish you some of the warmth they experience in their faith, and that they hope the same warmth will be part of your life also? I know it may vary from person to person, but I have never met anyone seeking to impose anything on me by wishing me a merry Christmas, or a merry anything. If you make the effort to step across the barriers of different religions/beliefs and look at the hearts of people you may see a kind and well meaning heart behind the wishes, and that is far, far more important to me. And in the cases you do not see a kind and well meaning heart, what I do is shrug my shoulders and wish them the best anyway.

I remember a rabbi (rabbi Soetendorp) saying during an interview that being a Jew is not the same as being a Dutchman, according to him it is more than that, it implies having shared roots in a spiritual origin and that being a Jew could not be separated from Judaism, so within that context I thought it was funny that someone not coming from a Judaic background should talk about God to a Jew who considers God to be a figment of the imagination.

Kind regards, Jan

Evan, instead of listening to your own filtering thoughts when someone wishes you a Merry Christmas, wouldn’t it be much easier if you just looked more closely at the spirit with which people wish you a merry Christmas? Being locked into a perception shell may prevent you from seeing the good intent behind the words, and isn’t the spirit behind the words more important than the words themselves?

You certainly have much more faith than I do, for me it’s much easier to believe in a Creator than to say the structures and laws of physics came into being by sheer coincidence, to me that is like saying if you jumble notes in a big jar long enough, suddenly a symphony of Mahler may emerge.
I don’t think so.
And I consider myself to be a realist also.
It’s funny that one of the 'gentiles' should talk about the existence of a Creator to a Jew.

My apologies for departing from the original topic. ops:

Best wishes, Jan

Is it possible to put together a string quartet demo featuring the instruments in the Horizon solo string release? The current demo does not really give me a good impression of what this library is like.
Thanks.

Jan

I don’t have an urgent need for a guitar library, but when I heard the demo of the concert guitar my jaw dropped to the floor: so very musical and like a real concert guitar.
I definitely HAVE to get this library, it’s nothing short of amazing, my compliments!

Jan