I'd like to add a few more observations.

  1.   Mix Presets. For a moment let's put ourselves in VSL's position - or indeed in the position of pretty much any and every maker of virtual instruments.

If you want your product to have an immediate positive impact on new and prospective customers, you'll want to provide presets that have instant appeal; served up on a plate with no effort required by the customer. And it's long been an industry cliché that your up-front presets will need some beautiful reverb to ensure they have that immediate, irresistible and inspirational je ne sais quoi. 

Moreover, the vast majority of prospective customers don't (yet) have the knowledge, experience, technical expertise, craft and skill-sets required to prepare their own fx, reverbs and configurations that can surpass the attractiveness of the maker's presets. So it's really no surprise to find that many if not most virtual instrument makers design their products with the majority very much in mind.

But potentially there's a serious downside to this marketing strategy. As Jordan Peterson said, "you don't get people to stand up on their own two feet and to adopt responsibility, if everything is given to them". Therefore, as the instrument maker, you must choose to what extent you want to perpetuate the myth that by buying and operating your ready-for-use products, your customers can automatically become succcessful music-makers; and, conversely, to what extent you develop your products and your relationship with your customers such that both you and they willingly engage in the long, intricate process of exploring, learning and improving design and use of your products.

In my opinion, VSL have struck an optimal balance in the very demanding ordeal of riding these two horses. Some customers may find the complexity of VSL's products to be puzzling or even annoying, whilst others may complain that not enough latitude or leeway is designed into their products for users' solutions. There is no way of pleasing the whole market in this particular field of endeavour.

  2.  Surround sound is not, I would submit, about to transform digitally-aided music-making into a new and higher stratum of artistic virtue. Recent history shows how few rock and pop bands made use of more than stereo for concerts and recordings (Pink Floyd being the most notable example). And in films, I recall seeing the first Star Wars in a central London cinema fitted out temporarily with very large surround sound speaker stacks, but can't bring to mind any other examples. I still recall Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon concerts in London's Earl's Court Arena, München Olympic Stadium, and Wiener Staatsoper; mostly the surround sound was about special effects. Those were exciting, thrilling and lovely experiences for audiences, but I think very largely due to the novelty value of surround sound. I'm betting it won't become more commonplace - especially not for orchestral music.

There have long been ways of configuring Silent-Stage libraries to produce surround sound. But the fact remains: it didn't become a thing.

  3.   Silent Stage vs Synchron Stage A. I see no cause to lament VSL's change from recording samples in Silent Stage to Synchron Stage A. For one thing, as noted by VSL, musicians tend to enjoy the sound of their playing in Synchron Stage A. Having worked on a contract involving me in use of an anechoic chamber, I don't imagine that musicians found the experience of sample-recording in the Silent Stage to be particularly helpful, gratifying or even pleasant. I'm all for making things as pleasant and as natural as possible for the musicians who render the samples we use.

The highly professional recording techniques used in Synchron Stage A of course include use of close mics to provide as dry a sound as possible wherever required. The residual acoustic ambience of these close mics can hardly be regarded as any kind of impediment for the vast majority of use cases.

Paolo, Richhickey's method of swapping L-R using Power Pan is very good. The Power Pan control itself does nothing in terms of signal-inversion (or so-called "phase-inversion"); I'm not sure why you're concerned about that.

The psychoacoustical realism achieved by the method comes largely from the direct-path L-R timing difference being reversed. That timing difference is one of the key factors that let our ears sense azimuth (known as the "precedence" effect).

Badibeat, if you have reproducible evidence that unseats the validity of my hypothesis above, please by all means do let us know. Meanwhile, my assertion that Voice count readout = number of velocity layers in the patch, still stands.

Sorry but I must decline your invitation to entertain conjectural rabbit holes. However, I would perhaps concede that my wording "... because for X-fade to work ..." could have been somewhat better conditioned, such as, " ... because according to my hypothetical model of the VI Pro Player VXF mechanism, for X-fade to work ...". And likewise, in your case, I'd suggest your assertion could be conditioned somewhat more explicitly, perhaps by saying, "... according to my concept of a conjectural velocity cross-fading mechanism ...".

Yes indeed Sam, that's my current fav bad*ss plugin! (Sorry for any inconvenience; I avoided naming the actual devices in my original post for fear of being moderated for promoting non-VSL products in this forum).

Ever struggled to reproduce that heavy-as-hell, in-your-face cinematic drums sound? Like in, for example, the 30 second intro to this flashmob video shot in Wien Hauptbahnhof in 2019:-

https://youtu.be/HzIDVeQmYOo

For this, today's secret weapon is the clipper plugin. No more driving youself to distraction spending hours with transient-modifiers, sub-bass boosters, EQ, compressors, limiters, etc, etc.

Insert a clipper straight after an instrument you want to have maximum brawn. (Pro-grade clippers are available from Voxengo and SIR Audio Tools - the Voxengo has the edge in my book for its superior clip-rounding properties). And don't be shy; apply the scalpel as deep as you can before unwelcome artifacts become evident. Often it's amazing how deeply you can slice; the deeper the incision, the more beefy the resulting sound. Then maybe do some EQ and perhaps transient design also.

Send to one or more modern algo verbs of your choice. Compress (preferably with opto or RMS detection) the verb output hard to keep the tail inflated without having to use absurdly long reverb times.

Prepare to be amazed.

Fantastic 3rd library in the Synchron Percussion collection! Major props to Maestro Andi and the whole team - bravo e brava! From everything I've listened to thus far, I'm in no doubt that Synchron Percussion is indeed the world's premier collection of orchestral percussion samples.

It appears VSL have taken smart advantage of the Covid-induced worldwide downturn in the movie business, by allocating very generous Synchron Stage A time to the production of this library (harking back to the golden age of rock superbands). 

Looks like my bank account will get pretty skinny this year Lolol.

Circlingkailas, so sorry to have hijacked a big chunk of your thread on things you've not asked about. Alas, good advice can at times be very scarce in this forum, and on this particular topic of VI versus Synchron / Synchronized there's been a veritable famine! And so one just has to dive in opportunistically when diamonds like Seventh Sam pop in and post treasure! Hope his comments are also helping you with your concerns about woodwind and brass.

I'd add this. What's emerging here is that it's really a matter of considering 'alternative' libraries on a case-by-case basis now, despite that seemingly golden opportunity of reaching for the whole Cube. In short, it was always complicated; today it's very complicated. No blame; I believe it's just the nature of what we're all asking technology to do for music-making.

Sam, many thanks again - really good of you to provide so many considerations. It's all increased the agony for me, lol, but I welcome that. For me it's well worth agonising over this Solo Strings decision, and I couldn't have done it as thoroughly without your detailed contribution.

And guess what? I'm minded to go for the VI Solo Strings bundle.

This bundle (the only VI candidate I've been considering) includes Sordino, Violin II and Cello II. In short, the way I'm looking at it now, relative to Syz Solo Strings: -

  •   I'd gain Sordino; cut release in Fast-Rep for Violin II and Cello II; and clean Fast-Legato patches for Violin I;

  •   I'd lose multi-shorts; the scaling release sample feature; Dimension tree features; and Timbre Adjust.

When I first considered relative prices I totally forgot that Syz Solo Strings doesn't have Sordino! So now, guessing a list price for Syz Solo Strings II (all the Sordino articulations ported across - assuming VSL chooses to do it eventually), the VI route no longer seems the more expensive option in my case. Also, crossgrading to Syz later probably still wouldn't disfigure the monetary sense of going VI now.

Above all, the clincher for me was that I didn't want to risk going Syz and be left without Sordino for ages or maybe forever, and facing that dreadful "no sensible way back" feeling in view of VSL's one-way discount policy for crossgrading. (I've tried and tried, but haven't yet found a truly satisfactory way of simulating Sordino.)

Sam, thanks so much! I'm obliged to you for your meticulous comparisons, especially in the case of WW - by far the most useful comparison I've seen to date.

Right now I'm seeking advice while mulling whether to buy the VI Solo Strings bundle in the sale, or else bide my time until the next Synchron sale and forgo the VI version forever.

Though it would be more expensive for me to go the VI route now and crossgrade later, uppermost in my mind is the still matchless quality of VI Solo Strings.

But there's also the question of 'driveability' of VI versus Synchron libraries. It's a leap in the dark for me because I've no experience of driving VI Pro in the highly intricate and often high-speed 'slalom'-type circumstances of programming solo instruments. I'm therefore extremely curious to know - from anyone in a position to help on this - whether the VI Pro or the Synchron Player has any relative advantages or disadvantages in programming demanding solo parts - most especially in the case of solo string parts.

I'm not a MIR user (my apologies to Dietz), so that's not a factor in my decision.

Not sure what the 'sore throat' noise is but it disrupted my engagement with the music. It's high-mid-ish frequency and quite harsh; clearly noticeable between 0:54 and 1:05 secs.

My first reaction would be to try a dynamic 'notch' filter on it, or a de-esser might also do the trick.

An engaging piece, and very nicely rendered by you Paolo.

I recall hearing this quite often on the wireless in my young days so I guess it's probably his most popular work. (I can't think of any other works of Britten that I care to listen to for more than 10 seconds - he's usually way too geekily atonal for my taste. Lol.)

The flute seems to have a bit of a 'sore throat' at times, but other than that I enjoyed it all through. Well done!

Good question Paolo. I had the same doubts at first, which is why I just had to experiment straight away. My ear says yes.

I think the key is getting a good stereo spread from each mono signal, as I described. Having 2 different direct-path azimuth angles per side of the Decca Tree in each combined section, each then going into its own reverb plugin, helps enormously. (Vn 1 and Vn 2 together are heard through a total of 8 azimuth generators and 8 reverb plugins.)

It's probably also something to do with the continuous perceived movements within the resulting stereo field - my Vector stereo scope shows lots of seemingly random instantaneous shifting of azimuth around a fairly steady mean pan angle. Every single instrument can make its mark in that way.

It's not as effective doing this this with left and right sides of the Silent Stage stereo mics in VI and Synchronized libraries - the Decca Tree is a wonderful piece of magic! (That said, using the transpose trick with Silent Stage libraries does very effectively double the perceived number of instruments.)

Well, proof of the pudding is in the eating. I'm satisfied that I am indeed hearing a double-size string orchestra. But of course a public demo is the best proof, so I'm aiming to do a production of Sibelius's Karelia Suite Intermezzo (once I've got Situater into its new shape).

Sometimes you just have to have 92 string players on stage.

This is readily done by combining Synchron Strings I with Synchron Strings Pro, giving 28:20:16:16:12. Each of these doubled sections is able to do 2-part divisi authentically; even 4-part divisi at a pinch (avoiding the 2 parts of either SSI or SSP meeting in unison at any one time). And I'm aware I'll sometimes have to use a bit of ingenuity to work around the fact that SSI and SSP don't share exactly the same set of articulations and velocity layers - it's well worth going that extra mile.

Spatialisation is a doddle. I've just tried out a scheme using only the Main mics (Decca Tree sides), taking left and right each to its own dedicated pair of azimuth generators (HRTF) and algo verbs, so there are 4 direct-path azimuths and 4 verbs for each combined section of Vn1, Vn2, etc. I use the Berliner Phil/Karajan seating of Violins 2 stage-right. In this way I have a superbly authentic-sounding wide spread of Vn 1 and Vn 2 all across stage-front; no hole in the middle; no significant excursions into negative phase. It's big and really beautiful! 

I've only been able to do this since last night, when I took up VSL's very gracious special offer for upgrading my SS Pro (Full) and SS Elite (Standard) to the Synchron Strings bundle (Standard). And I just love SS Fx also!

Vielen Dank an dich VSL.

The bundle special offer expires in early October. So if, like me yesterday, you have SSP and SSE but not yet SSI, don't shilly-shally, GO FOR IT! You know you want to.

Overall, you've succeeded in moving this piece out of the unnatural mathematical realm of Equal Temperament and back into the natural, human, musical realm where it rightly belongs. And, paradoxically, you've achieved this by applying yet more mathematics, via electronic mechanisms. It's a strange world we live in these days, lol.

i still can't say I'm completely convinced at every moment in this piece - e.g. is there something a bit odd about the early part of he long-ish cadence from 0:44 secs? I don't know.

Sorry, wish I had time to do some analysis to help out, but I'm elbows-deep with Situater right now.

Anyway, you've reached an important (and probably unprecedented) milestone using Dorico. And of course it's never easy when you're way out in front! 

Keep up the great work, Paolo!

Thanks for your reply, Cyril.

Situater of course accommodates pretty much any of the usual combinations of keyswitches, articulation sets, MIDI CC automation and Logic's "fader message" automation. I'm currently using all of these in my work with Situater.

In the case of Syz Dimension Strings (complete), the template configuration example I've shown can cope with up to 4-part divisi, as I mentioned. In such a case, the user can either place two divisi parts in one staff, or keep each part in a separate staff, as I tend to do. Situater makes no difference in that respect. How would that be a problem?

When using Syz Dimension Strings, if there is never any divisi, and no changing between con sordino and sensa sordino, nor between regular, tasto and ponticello bowing styles, then of course one track, one channel, one Synchron Player and one staff can readily cope with everything that, say, the Violins 1 section is to play. However, where such changes are to be incorporated in a single piece, loading or changing sample-set presets in run-time is not, generally speaking, good practice - with or without Situater, nor indeed in any DAW or notation app. Hence all templates are configured to work around this problem in various ways. My template is no different in that regard.

There is of course the option - for those prepared to endure the tiresome clerical chores involved - of editing Synchron Player presets, in order to bring all required patches under the aegis of Dimension Controllers within one user-preset in one Synchron Player. Obviously the tradeoff here is between the work of editing VSL's library presets versus the work of editing a Logic-produced score that has some superfluous staves. That's for individual users to weigh up. My position is that I don't expect composers will want to risk wrecking their creative, intuitive, musical frame of mind by engaging in or worrying about IT-centric clerical chores. It might help if there was a respectable and trustworthy online repository for various user-edited VSL player presets of high quality and reliability.

I neglected to mention that Situater has a special feature for playing any instrument section polyphonically, such that the user can play keyboard reductions using, for example, horns, strings, or harp, etc, as desired - all properly intoned. For MPE synths and sample players, this facility is very simple to set up. But because VSL's sample players are not yet MPE, I have to set up 12 duplicates of one VSL player, then simply switch their Situater port to "Poly"; in this way the bank of 12 instruments can then be played as if one MPE instrument - keyswitches, articulation IDs, controllers and automation are automatically routed for all 12 instrument players.

But this special polyphony feature is intended primarily for sketching. Otherwise, the general rule (with a few exceptions such as harp and timps) in Situater is to treat each scored part as monophonic, just as they are in real life. Situater uses MIDI Pitchbend to produce orchestral intonation, so until VSL incorporates MPE, each VSL player can respond to only one pitchbend message at any one time, no matter how many notes may be sounding. Oh and of course pianos, organs and any other Equal Temperament instruments can also be used normally alongside Situater in Logic.

VSL's sophisticated sample set recordings, highly-skilled sample editing, and use of controllers/keyswitches, together with the relatively recent addition of articulation sets and maps in Logic and Cubase, have brought us beyond the old ways of scoring in a DAW. With that old method, a composer's original score in Cubase or Logic would be all over the place, pretty much with a separate track used for each and every individual articulation patch used in the composition. Then the orchestrater would sort out the mess and produce a proper full score and parts for the orchestra. And yet this old-school method lingers on here and there. For example it's still required by users who need negative track delays tailored to individual articulations, to compensate for inadequate coherence of individual voice-start and attack-development times throughout each library, or throughout their template of libraries.

Regardless of the quality of libraries in use, Logic's score editor is no match for Dorico, Sibelius, etc. For most if not all templates there will probably still be work to do before a presentable full score is produced from any non-trivial writing session in Logic. Situater and the template I've presented above certainly shouldn't make that situation any worse.

Markus, I very much enjoyed listening to this piece. I found it uplifting, engaging, entertaining and especially fascinating in its collage of styles.

Did I hear, in the first section, shades of the hauntingly beautiful tremolo strings and woodwind style à la Dvorak's 9th? And later on did I hear a very Russian romantic style - possibly à la Prokofiev? Perhaps you laid out, for the cognoscenti to recognise, a smorgasbord of several styles of great masters - and If so, I'm sorry I didn't measure up to the full test, lolol; though I did enjoy your styling and changes of style throughout.

Style, and especially fluency in several styles, is an art in itself. Music can't really breathe and flourish without style. Rameau praised "the gentlemen of taste" over and over again in his famous Traité.

Very well done, and thanks for sharing this very attractive work.

Bravo, Paolo! An excellent choice for a demonstration of orchestral intonation.

The subdominant 13th in Bar 2 immediately got my interest (it's not that this simple form of the 13th chord is particularly needy of the tender ministrations of orchestral intonation, it's just that I love the chord, lol). So I listened avidly all through. My overall impression was delight in hearing your adroit rescue of Bruckner's trombones from Equal Temperament! Also I'd be very interested to hear what brass players make of it, if they give it a listen.

There was one moment where my ear sort of winced a bit; I don't know what it was, I haven't had time to go back through, find and analyse whatever it was. Maybe I'll find time later.

Overall, a fine piece beautifully rendered. And on top of that, you've broken new ground for Dorico, in using orchestral intonation for a brass-only piece. Very well done Paolo.

Nobody wants to stick their neck out. That's ok. I have a design in mind.

This template design would have a maximum of 10 VEP instances; 2 big ones with 10 ports each, and 8 small ones with 4 ports each; providing a total of 832 instrument MIDI channels.

Syz Dimension Strings is probably the most complex and yet flexible strings library on the market, and so it also serves as perhaps the most demanding and exacting case study for template strings configurations.

One of the big instances can easily accommodate a very comprehensive set of Syz Dimension Strings, including a mirrored set for size-doubling using the transpose trick. A 16:16:12:12:8 configuration in this case could be as follows-

  •  Permanent places for each of 4 divisi part subsections in each string section (Contrabasses usually would not go further than 2-part divisi, so some empty spaces would be left in the CB port).

  •  Permanent places for regular, sordino, tasto and ponticello parts in every section.

  •  Thus for example, one 'half-size' (8 players) 1st Violins port in VEPro would have places for these Synchron Players as follows:-

   Ch1: Regular (Ai);   Ch2: Regular (Aii);   Ch3: Regular (Aiii);   Ch4: Regular (Aiv);

   Ch5: Sordino (Ai);   Ch6: Sordino (Aii);   Ch7: Sordino (Aiii);   Ch8: Sordino (Aiv);

   Ch9: Tasto (Ai):       Ch10: Tasto (Aii):     Ch11: Tasto (Aiii);     Ch12: Tasto (Aiv);

   Ch13: Ponti' (Ai);    Ch14: Ponti' (Aii);     Ch15: Ponti' (Aiii);    Ch16: Ponti' (Aiv),

   where (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv) are divisi-part subsections.

   There would be another port like this for the 1st Violins size-doubling section, having (Bi), (Bii), (Biii) and (Biv) for each main timbre as shown above.

Please keep in mind that this Situater template is aimed at composition, rather than production. As such, it has full access to Logic's new "Live Loops" creative facilities on every instrument channel, whilst still using Situater's orchestral intonation. Nevertheless the composer's version may also be used to produce highly presentable professional mockups, despite having far fewer instances and ports available for alternative libraries, compared to the production version.

I'm redesigning the generic Logic/VEP template in my forthcoming orchestral intonation subsystem ("Situater") for Logic. I'll be offering two variants of Situater: one for composing and one for production.

The composer's version will be smaller than the production version, being inherently limited by Logic to a maximum of 1000 instrument tracks, given that full access to Logic's new "Live Loops" creative facilities is required. The production version will be capable of having up to several thousand instrument tracks, but without access to "Live Loops" facilities. I'm focused on getting the composer's version out first.

I'm currently working on the "Patchbay" for the composer's version. This patchbay enables each group of 16 instrument MIDI channels to be user-assigned in Logic to a VEP instance and to a port in that instance, simply by means of a couple of popup menus.

What I don't know and would love to hear about from composers, is this:-

In actual practice when composing, in whatever DAW, what's the highest count of instrument MIDI channels you've ever used in any one VEP instance?

I'd guess it's less than about 100 for many if not most composers, but of course I'm prepared to be amazed!

Blimey, Paolo! Lol. I've absolutely no idea what your new presets schema is or might be but it seems very sophisticated! Hope you soon get your concept up and running - and without wrecking your eyesight, lol.

On the topic of intonation, I've always felt .. erm .. astonished that notation app developers have not seen fit to intone rendered notes as spelt in the score. As I see it, those apps offer, besides beautifully engraved staff notation, little more than a narrow evolution of the mighty Wurlitzer cinema organ, using modern sample sets rather than synthesis for rendition. It's just so very last century. Anyway, hope you get the additional MIDI controls you need from Steinberg and/or VSL before long, and then blaze the trail!

Paolo, your editing reminds me of the first technique I developed to achieve orchestral intonation with sample libraries. Instead of pitchbending standard ET-pitched samples as I do now, back then (20 years ago) I pre-tuned every sample and used multiple sample players, such that one of 3 pre-tuned orchestral pitches for each keyboard note was selected as required.

(Using that technique I mocked-up Wagner's Isoldens Liebestod, closely modelled on a Karajan recording. A friend couldn't always tell which was which when I flicked back and forth between my mockup and the recording without him seeing what was playing. But to be fair, he's a lead guitarist, lol.)

I abandoned the technique when I saw that the necessary sample editing would soon become too horrendously tedious to do, as sample libraries became ever more sophisticated in terms of articulations.

Today, however, Synchron Player's Dimension structure and controls offer some superb advantages that didn't exist back then. I see that it might indeed be feasible to use that pre-tuned-sample technique again now.

Is something like that what you have in mind now with your editing? Hope so - it would be a great adventure and a super benefit for notation app users!

Dear Guy,

first let me join your doctors, family and friends who no doubt have all been imploring you to take it easy now - even though, knowing creatives, I've a feeling you'll be taking little notice of that advice, lolol. But anyway, I add my thanks to God and medical science that you weren't taken from us long before your time.

Like everything else I've heard of your work as a composer - I do mean everything -  this new piece speaks so eloquently to my heart and soul. The Recovery movement brought tears pf joy as I listened. Altogether it's a beautiful and moving piece. Thank you so much for this and for all your works, Guy.

I remain an ardent admirer of your compositions - and I only hope you'll remember from time to time that your laurels are there for you to rest upon as, when and if it pleases and gives comforting rest.

Macker

Recently there was a comment about Elite Strings Vn1 and Vn2 appearing to be somewhat too far and too distinctly to the left:-

   "It's not so much the position of the violin groups, but rather the harsh separation from the entire orchestral ensemble as to left-right positioning. Since the violins 1 and 2 are left orientated, the entire violin group comes almost exclusively from the left. That is what I meant. In a 'real world' orchestral setting, even with that position, they sound through the full orchestra (left most, mid somewhat less and right rather weak but still present). That is not what I hear with the prerecorded positions, they sounds as if they are exclusively left."  (Jos Wylin)

Having now had a close look at this aspect of ES, I concur with that comment - although conditionally.

Of course when judging various aspects of spatialisation in today's orchestral sample libraries, it's rarely if ever possible for judgments to be simple, categorical or unconditional. For one thing, the question of the intended listener's position is always important. In this particular case, it would appear the listener is supposed to be fairly close behind the conductor's podium.

I believe it would help, should they feel it's sensible to do so, if VSL would declare - in each library's documentation - at least some sort of nominal intended position of the listener, and most especially if this varies according to different MIxPresets.

To get a close look at this In the case of ES, with straight-out-of-the-box Presets and MixPreset (05 ... Ambience Room-Mix,), I used two different makes of 'stereo scope' (displaying Lissajous figures in real time). These plugins indicate that the Vn1 section is indeed quite far over at roughly between -45 and -55 degrees of pan, with a somewhat narrow azimuth spread of stereo corona - this panning (but not the stereo width) being consistent with a fairly close listening position of no more than a few metres directly behind the conductor. For the Vn2 section, the indicators show somewhere between roughly -25 and -50 degrees of pan, with a much fatter stereo corona.

To change the listening position and/or the orchestra's seating arrangements substantially (most especially if preferring to have Vn2 seated stage-right), it generally means the user must replace factory MixPresets with his own determinants of spatialisation. But doing that, though certainly feasible technically in VSL libraries, is probably not what most users would be inclined to do. It can take an awfully long time to become familiar enough with spatialisation techniques and devices to go it alone. (And I speak from long and hard-won experience - which is still far from settled) So I'll not suggest anything along those lines here and now.

In this particular case of ES, given the very small numbers of players in each section, I'm inclined to think the factory default MixPreset yields Vn1 and Vn2 placements that are indeed somewhat egregiously too far over - more in keeping with much larger Vn sections but also where there's lots of space beteen them and the conductor's podium, neither of which seems apposite for the bijou size and feel of the very lovely ES.

Best simple workarounds? Sorry to say I haven't spent time on any, but perhaps others have. So if any generous souls choose to disclose their succesful experiences in this, and if VSL would add their advice, it would I'm sure be widely welcomed and much appreciated.

In the absence of detailed info on the topic, I'd tentatively guessed that this upcoming migration to a different licensing security system by both Steinberg and VSL was being driven entirely by Steinberg's new and rather secret strategy.

That is, until I found this little snippet in Steinberg's forum, dated May this year:

https://forums.steinberg.net/t/migration-from-elicenser-to-ilok/718648

So now it appears - please correct me if I'm wrong, VSL - that Steinberg and VSL are each going in their own direction on this matter.

And looking more broadly at opinions from user perspectives, I found this decent opinion-editorial by MusicTech sums it up nicely - for me at least:

https://www.musictech.net/features/opinion-analysis/steinberg-elicenser-whats-next/ 

So now I'm really puzzled by VSL's strategy of offering either iLok dongle or iLok Cloud but no machine activation. Much earlier in this thread, my take on VSL's move away from a dongle key was that it bodes well for VSL's future business. But now I'm not so sure about that - and I find it a bit depresssing. I'm certain I'm not alone in wanting VSL's customer base to keep expanding, since that can mean big benefits for both VSL and users. And I'd wager a substantial amount (indeed I'd probably bet the farm) that if we were able to poll a huge number of music tech users on their feelings about any dongle key, the majority would give it the thumbs down.

As for the idea of continuous Internet connection being required, I'm aware of the trend of ever more pushy and absurdly hyper-ambitious IT-centric corporations trying to "catheterise" the web into ever more punters (especially as we see happening in China). That's just another nasty, underhanded, slippery slope, and I don't believe they'll succeed in the long term. What may appear now as an unobtrusive and ever so helpful litle 'web catheter', might well eventually become more and more like 'enteral feeding' - somewhat like TV before Internet came to the rescue. But nowadays, fortunately, we've had Edward Snowden and others alerting us to the cynical, sociopathic, dark side of the web. Public resistance to the sly, underhand tricks will at some point become gigantic - perhaps even including colossal crowds with pitchforks and flaming torches turning up at various IT corporate HQs, lol. (Storming of the Bastille in 1789 was a weird historical glitch, out of the blue, right? Lolol.).

I don't see VSL as an IT-centric company at all; so why would they adopt the idea of the 'web catheter'? Who convinced them that that crock is a good idea and the way to go? Or is it perhaps just that there is no other viable off-the-shelf solution at present?

"You will need an iLok USB-key or an internet connection when using iLok Cloud. Machine activation will not be available for our products."

Thanks for that crucial info, Ben. It makes a huge difference for me. (And it's my fault for not taking the trouble to look up and learn about iLok's Cloud facility.)

While doing serious work with Logic + VEP + VSL instruments I disconnect from Internet. That's because I don't want Internet jibber-jabber triggering any new and possibly hefty processes in my system while I need every last ounce of my CPU power to be focused on the work I'm doing; and I do like to be free of all distractions while working (not to mention concerns about commercial snoopers gathering usage and who knows what other data).

So now it's looking like I'll have to go for the iLok USB dongle key option, continue to have one of my USB ports tied up, and continue to worry about the disruption if that thing fails.

In short, no benefit for cases like mine; just an awful lot of work and the price of a new iLok dongle to switch over to the new scheme.

Ah well. C'est la bloody vie.