Cheers Andi 

I hesitated, waiting for serious criticisms. Didn't see any; bought it. Now as happy as a pig in clover! Seriously, at this introductory price it's a no-brainer. (Hope VSL sees the light and keeps it at this price if not even lower; I believe it could then become a worldwide go-to library that everybody buys (if only there was an effective alternative to the key dongle).

Acoustics.

This is the first time I've been able to get some fairly authentic impressions of Synchron Stage acoustics, and I love it. In my fantasy it's what I'd build as my ideal scoring stage. Compared to Air (Lyndhurst) Studios in London, where the James Bond scores as well as a certain well-known British brand of sample libraries are recorded, Synchron offers the best-behaved acoustic foundation upon which further simulated reverb can be added to taste.

When recording, it's practically impossible to hide the acoustics of a converted large church - such as Air. But although Synchron Stage has superbly generous physical floor area and height, early reverb returns are beautifully tamed and civilised so as to linger just long enough to afford a good psychoacoustic sense of very generous stage space. The physical stage zone typically has a substantial effect on the overall sense of acoustic space in any concert hall; I doubt if there is any concert hall whose actual stage is physically as large and yet acoustically as well-behaved as Synchron.

Scoring stages have the word "stage" for good reason: they're not intended to provide the overall acoustical setting for all applications; they're usually just the foundation. If you want to hear the reverb late-returns of a large concert hall, large church, cathedral, or what have you, they can easily and effectively be added to Synchron's wonderfully polite, flexible and accommodating early-returns foundation, using your favourite reverb plugins.

Seating and Spatialisation

My biggest worry before buying SSPro was that it might have baked-in seating positions. It doesn't; phew! It seems all instrument sections were recorded centre-stage. In the factory presets, Power-Pan controls have been set up to simulate seating positions. Well of course the first thing I did was re-centre the various stereo mic channels and then apply binaural panning to set up my preferred stereo sound stage. I'm very happy to report beautiful results.

For each instrument section, using a mix of only the Mid stereo pair and Main (Decca Tree) stereo pair (each pair binaurally panned), I couldn't wish for better stereo width. I'm not yet sure about adding Main-C (Decca tree centre mono mic) to the mix; I don't sense any 'hole' or gap in the section centres, which was where the Decca centre mono mic was traditionally used for filling. Former Decca engineer John Pellowe described the effect of the Decca Tree: "localisation cues were missing but the sound was fantastic". Well nowadays we have binaural panning to provide good localisation cues, and oh my goodness, the Decca Tree sound is still fantastic.

The only minor quibble I have with the library's audio - though I'm still exploring this - is that Close mics seem to be very nearly mono and can tend to sound rather congested, claustrophobic and somewhat artificial. Perhaps it's a tightly-squeezed mix of several close instrument mics for each section, I don't know. I'd like a close-mic stereo pair for each section (instrument ensemble) to reflect the reality that the section has considerable width at close distance, but I'm aware it would entail some contradictory requirements for mic placement. I have yet to find a suitable use for the Close mic channel, but I'm super happy with all other aspects of SSPro audio.

Don't hesitate. Buy this library.

Nice work, Frederico, well done!

My one critical observation - just a slight intuitive impression based on having heard this piece countless times - is that the release of most if not all the notes seems a little bit on the 'soggy' side - i.e. a tiny tad too long. Analytically, whether it's because that's just how the library's release samples are by default, or perhaps because the reverb tail is drawing the note endings out somewhat too strongly, I couldn't say.

Anyway it's a very subtle thing and didn't spoil my enjoyment of your rendition of this great and lovely piece.

I concur with Plowman, there appears to be a small error in one of the factory presets.

In the factory preset: "01 1st Violins-14 Pro XF sus"; tree path: "Long notes/XFades/Flautando X pp/Pianissimo", the mapping of "Release" dimension keyswitches "Normal release" on F7 and "Soft release" on G7 coincides with Flautando voiced notes F7 and G7. The consequence is that Flautando note F7 or G7 will speak audibly if the dimension keyswitch F7 or G7 is operated while the "Dynamic XFade" dimension control is set to give Flautando a proportion of the mix.

Obviously the user can work around this either by moving the "Normal release" and "Soft release" keyswitches out of the way of Flautando notes F7 and G7, or else by restricting the highest-note keyboard mapping of Flautando voices to E7.

No biggie. I'm sure it'll be fixed in a future library update. :D

Certainly wasn't expecting this beautiful production. Very well done VSL!

And now my purchasing and construction plans are all back in the pot again!

I must admit I wasn't looking forward to using the transpose trick to double the size of my entire SyzDimStr library in order to get the big symphonic orchestra sound. Looks very much like I'll soon be saying "budge over, SyzDimStr, make room for your new colleagues in SyStr.Pro".

This year's Schönbrunn open air concert was a very different scene owing to tight pandemic restrictions. Nevertheless, the video shows that Wiener Phil. was passionately engaged in the program and their performance was as enchanting and inspirational as ever. This year's theme was LOVE, and so of course who better to conduct than the Maestro of Romance, Valery Gergiev.

YouTube video (1 hour 30 mins):-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSeH6pSmEw0&ab

Info and Program details on Wiener Phil. site:-

https://www.sommernachtskonzert.at/index_en.html#Header

Short answer: there isn't one - unless I haven't yet spotted the very latest and greatest be-all and end-all master keyboard that really can do what we require.

It appears orchestral library users mostly treat note entry and MIDI control as each requiring a separate hardware unit:- (1) an 88 note keyboard chosen for the price and feel you prefer, also providing many if not all keyswitches; and (2) a stand-alone MIDI control surface for all the other stuff. For the latter, user videos indicate there's a wide variety in use, ranging from the cheap and minimalist Korg Nano, all the way up to expensive, large-format programmable touch-screens. (In fact the NI KK S88 master keyboard, when configured to allow its built-in MIDI control surface to be set up and used in the ordinary way, can do barely more than a Korg Nano!)

I have a Novation 61 SL Mk II master keyboard stacked very closely above a Yamaha P-45 (whose own sounds I never use). The first thing I did with the Novation (now a discontinued product) is uninstall the AutoMap facility; because, somewhat like you've found with your S88, the damned thing is far too presumptuous and just tended to get in the way of everything all the time. The Novation keyboard itself does however incorporate a large, useful and flexible MIDI control surface which can be programmed without resorting to the dreaded AutoMap app - albeit with difficulty. Alas there's no 'total recall' or automatic context-matching without AutoMap, but I make do without. The Mk III is now available but it seems even more burdened with assumptions made for and about the user - hence I'm not tempted.

I'm still not where I need to be though. I'm currently looking at buying a Stream Deck XL (a box of 32 buttons), to help with controlling the nested-dimensions aspect of VSL's Sy Player.

I think the Novation 61 SL Mk II probably marks the end of the era in which users were able fully and freely to take charge of a fairly large and comprehensive traditional MIDI control surface incorporated in a master keyboard. Now it seems we're largely regarded as mere bots who should be using and doing what master-keyboard manufacturers expect or want us to be using and doing; I'd say they're heading down a Darwinian blind alley.

Without naming it here, I've been familiarising myself with a voicing-management app I've just bought. It's basically a MIDI front-end real-time polyphonic voice-distribution utility app that works with DAWs to achieve auto-divisi and to make some simple orchestration configurations amenable to polyphonic live playing.

The biggest issue I have with it is its grotesquely over-inflated price tag - I reckon it's at least 4x overpriced for what it is. Perhaps we're supposed to overlook that and just be grateful because right now there's no real alternative in the market. But in my view the developers (perhaps led up the garden path by their "authorised reseller") have done themselves no favours, because (1) the nasty pricing leaves a very bad and long-lasting aftertaste (creatives don't want that kind of odium associated with their tool kit), and (2) the app is certainly not rocket science and so there will be competitors before too long; then guess who'll be exposed and shunned as overly precious and greedy little piggies.

I took the painful hit in buying the app because there's no free demo (that I could find) and I needed to know certain technical things about it, having to do with my forthcoming Situater Environment Subsystem. Now that I've a clearer view of the odious overpricing I couldn't let it pass without posting some sort of warning here.

I'm pretty sure VSL could and should compete with this product, and produce a modestly-priced voicing-management app (perhaps sort of like VI Pro's Auto-Voicing on steroids) that would be excellent for auto-divisi and various 'auto-orchestration' tasks. Live polyphonic playing of templates with Sy Dimension and BBO libraries would be greatly assisted and enhanced; but of course the extent of the whole potential field of use cases is huge.

The Sy Player, especially when using large and complex libraries such as Dimension Strings (full), has taken us substantially beyond the familiar old ways of controlling virtual instruments.

One problem in particular I've been struggling with is how to provide convenient visibility of mappings between remote controls and Sy Player's computer-filing-system type of preset structure, without resorting to use of expensive external aids such as large-format programmable touch-screen devices, for example.

Then along came "Stream Deck"

I've recently spotted a small and fairly modestly-priced external device that strikes me as (potentially) heaven-sent for controlling Sy Player's multi-dimensional aspects while providing excellent visibility. This device, called Stream Deck, is essentially a grid of rather pretty programmable buttons - but with certain functional features that put it head and shoulders above other button-boxes.

Two of Stream Deck's great advantages are that it has a programmable 144x144 pixel colour display screen within each button, and also allows each button to be programmed as a folder (or sub-folder), offering access to plenty of nested dimensions - each of which in turn can access yet more nested dimensions.

From what I've managed to gather thus far, programming Stream Deck's buttons is very easily and simply done by using a nicely designed, user-friendly app provided as a free download by the principal marketer, Elgato. Many button images of various kinds are available in the app, and user-produced jpegs or gifs can be added to the app's stock of button display images.

Stream Deck's market originally was principally video streamers, especially gamers, hence the programmable button actions are typically about hot keys, launching or quitting other apps, triggering macros, etc. But now the app's functionality can readily be extended by a number of 3rd party applets, conveniently accessible and very easy to install and uninstall. One of these applets deals with programming buttons to send MIDI messages, either singly or in multiples; each MIDI message can be a note, CC or Prog Change. It appears that using Stream Deck in this way would to some extent skirt around the thorny issue of what type of remote MIDI command is best to use with Sy Player.

I'm still considering whether to buy a Stream Deck XL (32 buttons, just over £200 in Amazon); there are also 6-button and 15-button versions. I can't yet confidently say I recommend this device. I just wanted to offer this heads-up in case any pioneering IT wizards among you might fancy blazing a trail with Stream Deck in VSL territory - or if you already have, do please tell us about it.

Deleted by user - double posting

Gilles, overall I enjoyed this vivacious, swashbuckling romp, well done!

If I may, I have just a few constructive criticisms to offer that I hope would lead to improvement of some important aspects of your production. These observations came to me as I listened for the first time, and I'm fairly sure about them now that I've compared your work to the published film score production posted in YouTube.

1. Reverb is a little too strong; one consequence being that the lead brass seems too far back in the mix. I'd try a slightly drier setting and perhaps add some pre-delay, to help bring the lead brass forward.

2. The opening low brass "bed" sounded very odd to me at first - almost as if it's single notes bent downwards at the end. In the published film score production this low brass opening plays extremely short, tight and snappy staccato notes, but in your production these notes are only barely separated if at all. John Williams' opening few bars here are very important in preparing us for the spirit of the whole piece.

3. Some of the accompaniment parts are a little too quiet for a film score - especially a blockbuster adventure film score like this one. (Unlike the world of classical music, Hollywood has never been about making people strain their eyes and ears to take in the "background", lol.) It could be remedied with level automation, but if that's a bit awkward, maybe try some upward compression here and there, maybe even on the master bus. (Upward compression applies positive gain at levels below the threshold. Only a few compressors can do this, but for example I think it's possible with Melda Production's free version of MCompressor - see the YouTube tutorial on making custom compression curves with this plugin.)

Overall though, your piece allowed me to savour and enjoy the pace, verve and excitement conjured up by Hollywood's own 'Tchaikovsky'. Thank you Gilles.

Paolo, your use of NP as a rapid-prototyping or rough-drafting tool makes sense to me. I've sometimes used synths for the same purpose - though not as a regular thing.

I guess you're not at all put off or distracted by NP's sounds, just as I'm not put off or distracted by synths. Alas, lol, I know I'd suddenly have to veer off-course to try to fix some weird-sounding articulation-change etc in NP, so it wouldn't serve me as it does you. But there we are, we each have our own ways. Oh and amen to your last sentence.

Create-compose and GilP, sorry but I'm sure you understand that VSL's forum is not the place to invite or proffer critiques of any particular midistration pieces based solely on non-VSL sounds. I stand by my posted opinion on NotePerformer and I prefer to leave it at that.

Having read the sales blurb and listened to the demos of NotePerformer, I'm frankly amazed to find it has any place at all among the workflows and technical accoutrements of VSL library users today.

I'll put it bluntly: the quality of the provided sounds reflect NotePerformer's cheap price tag; overall, the 'best' demos sound to me like performances on a hypothetical slightly updated version of a Mighty Wurlitzer cinema organ. I simply cannot get past the day-and-night difference in quality between VSL collections and NotePerformer's sounds.

I get the main technical and monetary advantages of using a hybrid of sampled and synthesised instrument sounds, as used in NotePerformer: dynamic articulation and expression changes can be ostensibly achieved using way fewer recorded samples. Also, no doubt the Wallander Instruments devs have done something quite clever with their AI-based automatic phrasing. And so I do kind of get why this product still sells today.

Nevertheless I still remember the often ghastly results, a couple of decades ago, of my best efforts to produce decent-sounding orchestral music from the primitive sample sets of those days. NotePerformer just tends to drag me back towards those days, seeming to make a mockery of the good, steady progress that's been made in the world of virtual instruments since then.

Hope you'll forgive me if I just sound like a sound-snob, but that's the truth of how I feel about NotePerformer. In working with virtual instruments I happen to believe the saying "no pain, no gain" still holds true.

I was appalled to hear that not only is Sibelius not designed to let you programme MIDI CCs, but worse (as I've just now discovered) it won't even let you alter individual note velocities! And then to make matters even worse, what if, like Create-Compose here, you dislike or even hate today's DAWs? Well, for starters that would appear to mean that your control of phrasing and expression in the piece you're writing would be ... erm ... pretty much absent, wouldn't it? Shame on the Sibelius app - Jean Sibelius must be turning in his grave!

But wait - all is not lost, thanks to Pieman. Hoorah for the "Graphical MIDI Tools" plugin that fills the unforgivable void in Sibelius. Now you CAN take control of phrasing, expression and other important stuff, directly from within Sibelius. Whoopee!

The presence/absence of the Humanize panel in the Edit tab is logical and consistent, Danny, though it's not spelt out explicitly in the manual.

The key is knowing that the Humanize panel operates only on one selected patch slot, whereas the other panels in the Edit tab can operate on either a folder slot or a patch slot.

What tends to make it a bit confusing is that there always seems to be one patch slot highlighted. However, to link the Humanize panel to a patch, the required patch slot must first be manually selected; then the Humanize panel appears and the selected slot is highlighted boldly. To deselect the Humanize-linked patch slot, click somewhere outside the Dimension tree; then the Humanize panel will disappear and the linked patch slot reverts to being highlighted less boldly. (Can't say I'm entirely happy with the visual presentation of this particular functionality, but I've become used to it.)

I've been extremely curious about the potential effects of adding soloist virtuosi to my Dim.String sections. So I've just bought Sy.SE1 to find out, and immediately added the two solo cellists to the Dim.Str factory Vc All Players preset to get a flavour.

And oh my goodness - it's as wonderful as I dared to imagine! The ear is somewhat seduced into believing all players in the whole section of celli are playing as beautifully and skilfully as the two virtuosi - or at least very nearly so. Also, like a top actor typically having an enhancing influence on the rest of the cast and crew in a drama production, these pro soloists inspire me to improve and take the best care I can in my midistrations.

Violin, viola and bass soloists will be added next. It's easy - just remember to add a new mixer strip for each soloist and assign the soloist's patches to the new strip (in Edit/Options panel while the patch is selected), then copy reverb and EQ from the other players' mixer strips if required. Humanisation is an option for the soloists of course, but right now I'm unwilling to do anything that might detract from their superb samples. Thus far I've encountered no compatibility problems, everything just works together. To make the most of the 'seduction' effect, the soloists may be given just a tiny tad more level than the other players in their section or subsection - while bearing in mind the soloists' sound already has somewhat enhanced presence, relatively.

In reality this would be an extravagantly expensive orchestra to run - impossible for most orchestras to afford; also a very unlikely employment ambition for six highly accomplished soloists. Ahh, the perks of the virtual world!

Now I'm more than ever minded to bide my time until VSL put the full Sy String Soloists collection in nice big fat sale. Then I'll be able to fill out the Sy.Dim.Strings presets with all the compatible articulations of the 6 soloists, as well as having the whole library of these superb musicians for proper virtuoso performances.

[Deleted by writer]

[Deleted by writer]

Thanks Paolo. And good to hear someone else understands that aspect of live sound reproduction.

Sam, all cool, no worries :) And thanks for your interest.

Routing Trick

In my post above, routing may seem a wee bit obscure - I'm using a trick that I probably didn't explain as well as I should; also this trick might not be the best way to get optimal efficiency and convenience. But it works. Let me try to unpack it here. Sorry if this gets a bit over-lengthy.

I route each instrument's actual patch slot (for all of its articulations in all the various dimension) into a Sy Player mixer strip of its own. Because each Sy Player mixer strip must (I believe) always carry a 2-channel pair, I have to use the Balance control in effect as a one-sided "mute" button to stop the source appearing on both output channels of the strip. (You'll see why below.) I have all reverb removed from the Sy Player mixer.

So in a typical Sy Player mixer setup I have Player 1 on Mixer strip 1 ( Left), Player 2 on Mixer strip 2 (Right), Player 3 on mixer strip 3 (Left), and so forth.

Now here's the last bit of the routing trick. Simply for (I hope) best efficiency, I package each pair of adjacent players in the Sy Player mixer as a couple of independent mono streams, by assigning them both to one of Sy Player's 2-channel Output pairs. Thus I have Players 1 and 2 both routed to SyPlayer Output 1/2, Players 3 and 4 both routed to Output 3/4, and so on. The summing that results from this routing means that now Sy Player's Output 1/2 has only Player 1 on channel 1 and only Player 2 on channel 2; Output 3/4 has only Player 3 on channel 3, and only Player 4 on channel 4, etc etc.

I route these Sy Player 2-channel output pairs in a similar way through VEPro and back to LPX, where I finally extract each Player from each 2-channel stream using Bus Left and Right Input designators in a Bus/Aux array, such that each player's mono audio stream now hits its own mono-to-stereo Binaural Panner in a dedicated Aux mixer strip.

Why Binaural panning?

Unless I'm very much mistaken, VSL's Power Pan is a straightforward adaptation of analogue mixing console stereo panning and does not perform any Binaural panning functions. (If I'm wrong about this I'm sure VSL will very quickly put me straight in no uncertain terms - and then I'll have to wear sackcloth and ashes forever!).

Binaural panning is a simulation of how sounds from sources at different angles and distances arrive at our eardrums. It uses mathematical models to determine time differences between the two ears (the "precedence" model), and how the human head typically affects spectral levels of sounds arriving from various angles and distances (the "HRTF", or head-related transfer function model.)

By comparison, pan-pots only (and somewhat approximately) simulate level differences which serve as cues to tell our ears the bare minimum about source positions in the supposed stereo sound stage.

As for using convolution reverb for spatialisation, I'll duck that enormously complex topic for now, except to say that I'm inclined to regard spatialisation as principally and primarily a job for dry binaural panning (wherever possible) - helped, refined and beautified to a great extent by sophisticated convolution reverb techniques.

I discovered the stunning "precedence" effect for myself by accident around 1971, when listening to "Instant Karma" from a record player connected to one side of my headphones, and a tape-recording of the same record, connected to the other side of my cans. As I adjusted relative speeds of playback and the two sources came very slowly into and then past perfect sync, I was was gripped by the strongest sense of stereo placement and movement I'd ever experienced. My eyes involuntarily followed the apparent movement of the sound as it traversed slowly and majestically from one side to the other. I deduced it must have been due to relative delay.

Then in 2001, using Logic Audio Platinum v3.5 coupled to Reason v1 (used sort of like a crude forerunner of VEPro), I mocked up my own precedence-panners using delay modules. "One day," I thought to myself back then, "all panning will be done this way". So you could say I was well prepared when Logic introduced binaural panning.

I'd say that subjectively, precedence is the most potent effect in binaural panning, but HRTF effects certainly help. That applies in most cases typical for our endeavours, other than small and intimate chamber ensembles, where HRTF can play a much more important role.
 

Best I can suggest, Sam, is experiment for yourself with binaural panning and see what it does for you. You must of course decide for yourself whether it's worth the extra fuss and bother. Obviously I think it's worth it because I've already gone to all that extra fuss and bother - no regrets here. Of course it would help if I posted an audio demo, but alas I'm still some way from being in a position to do that. Nevertheless, I'll be interested to hear about your investigations, and about your approaches if you choose to go down the binaural road.

Two problems weigh heavily against using Program MIDI messages to control slot selection in more than one dimension (column) in one Sy Player. It appears you've already noticed the first of these problems, but I'll lay out both here for the sake of other readers who may not yet have got as far as you.

Problem 1.  First let's consider using MIDI Program to control 1 dimension only. Let's say this dimension has 8 slots, and you've specified Program 10 in the dimension controller box at the top. You send Prog 10, and the top slot selects.; then you send Prog 17, and the bottom slot selects. And each slot in between can be selected according to 1-to-1 mapping, as you'd expect. All fine so far.

But then you send Prog 9, or 3, or 0, and the top slot selects. Then you send Prog 18, or 20, or 30, and the bottom slot selects.

That's the first problem. Sy Player doesn't treat MIDI Program in the same way as MIDI Note keyswitches. Out-of-range keyswitch notes do not affect slot selection, but out-of-range Program numbers do.

So it's not feasible to control more than one dimension with Program by assigning each dimension its own range of Program numbers, because there's no way to make a range of Program numbers exclusive to one dimension.

Problem 2.  Even if VSL changed Sy Player's treatment of MIDI Program such that out-of-range Program numbers didn't affect slot selection in any one dimension, there's still another problem.

Assuming VSL had already made this hypothetical change, and say you have a piece of music in which MIDI Program is carefully automated such that it's controlling 3 dimensions in one Sy Player (strictly in left-to-right order of course). Then say you want to review or edit some part in the middle of your piece of music, and so you start playback at that point. What will be read from your Program automation at that point probably won't be what you expect or want.

This is because your Program automation sequence typically would have to deal with dimensions in left-to-right order, but if you then start playback from some point farther to the right, only the last Program automation value at that point will be read, which logically may not reproduce all the dimension slot selections appropriate to that point in the timeline.

Sure, you can always set the play pointer farther back to some point where you know the dimension control automation sequence from that point onwards will select all the required slots (or you could even switch off that automation and select slots manually), but how inconvenient would that be every time you want to start playback somewhere else?

"Solution".  It's best to use as many different classes of MIDI messages as there are dimensions we wish to control in any one Sy Player. (Each MIDI CC number counts as one class, Program is one class, Note is one class.)

Even so, then comes another issue that several users have already flagged up: it can be a very complicated and onerous chore to set up or modify automation for dimension control in many differently-structured Sy Players in a template or a piece of music.

This is because when using Dim.Ctrl (A up to H), setting the value of an automated MIDI CC message to select a particular slot means we must first know what range of MIDI message values will select that slot - Dim Ctrl always uses proportional mapping across the full scale 0-127, dividing the scale into equal(-ish) chunks according to how many slots there are in the dimension. That proportional mapping is great for X-fading in Parallel Mode; but for simple articulation switching, not so much.

Sy Player really is a paradigm-shift in the world of sample-based virtual instruments. As a result, our so-called "horizons of expectation" (or what we intuitively treat as "normality") have of course been thrown into a somewhat confusing state of flux. But as history demonstrates, successful innovations become "naturalised" in time. Soon enough no doubt we'll be wondering how the world of virtual instruments could possibly have got along before Sy Player! Lol.

Ah ha! I confess I hadn't yet read that little gem - had no idea that the Dimension trees and branches I've been copying and pasting are readable and editable. Very handy!

Many thanks Paul.

Ok, thanks Paul.

Ah well, some more rows, branches and presets it'll be for me then.

I've been feeling an awful lot of admiration and sympathy for the heroic editors who first put the Dimension collection together. After just a few weeks of user-level preset editing on my couple of Dimension libraries I think the men in white coats might be visiting me soon lolol.

All the best to you and the whole crew.

There's no way I've ever found to do that; not even when Kontakt or a VSL player is plugged into Logic directly. I agree it would be convenient if Logic gave us automation access to the plugin from within the plugin's Aux extension tracks, but it appears it doesn't.