On a fairly normal Xeon 12 core slave I used a single VE with all the DS in MIR.   I had experimented with separate channels for each player, but on this I did  just one MIDI channel for 1st violins, one for 2nd, one violas, one cellos and one for basses, and created separate humanized settings (which is now made easier with the automated settings now implemented). The VSL humanize is so good that it is no longer necessary to apply various tweaks to tracks, and so the 5 channels for all DS works as well as any other setup.   So the number of tracks is the same but only a few channels.  On that Althyria score I did a thread for  I  used this setup. 

Really  brilliant composition no matter what was used.  

"In real violins players also keep pressed one string, it can be allowed that one of sounds is not changes :) " - v ad im

That is not true.  It is only the pitch that is the same, not the audio.  A digital sample of a single note is the exact same waveform but a live performance is a different one every time.  That is what the correctly played performance trill is representing.  They work very well for doing this and allow varying speeds of trills.

The way to create a performance trill is either play one on the keyboard with slight overlap of all the notes or program one with slightly overlapping note values.  It is desirable as well to use some humanization in both timing and velocity.  

Thanks Tom and holywilly!

The style was not a particular composer but instead the "leitmotif" film score style that was used a lot in the 1930s-40s. I think the orchestration was inspired by the small ensemble used on Val Lewton films by Roy Webb who did really great impressionistic scores for those films.  

This has a lot of crossfade since the Dimension strings even though they are individual players allow perfect crossfades. It also has all four Solo strings and Chamber cellos along with the Dimension strings.  The mix was in MIR Pernegg with about -19 dry overall.  I used MIR EQ on the violins to get them darker in the high range, also harp and cello in the low range.  

Here are some excerpts from the score I did to "Althyria The Motion Picture" using all Vienna Instruments - Dimension Strings, Solo Strings, Solo Flute, Harp, Percussion.  The film is a small-scale psychological story, so I used very intimate sounds for the ensemble with the solo and Dimension strings, along with solo flute.

Althyria

I have encountered this exact same thing - a small problem but noticeable.  It is desirable to "lock" an instrument once it is set because they often get messed up in width or  level or whatever because they are so instantly "touchy" by default (a lot like musicians).   I will definitely switch that.  

I have just been doing transpose/pitch-shift if absolutely all articulations of 1st violins are needed.  People seem to have a bias against doing this, but in an orchestral context it is absolutely undetectable - especially with an ensemble. 

I missed your parenthetical on legato crossfade - I thought you meant just sustains. 

It would be conceivable  to program a combination of senza vibrato sustain after a legato transition especially since there is no vibrato on the transition itself and the vibrato after a transition normally starts a split second later.  One could use slot crossfade between sustain non vibrato and legato vibrato, crossfading right between the notes.  Though that would be rather awkward...

There are 2nd violins in Chamber Strings, though they are the transposed 1st violins and do not have quite as many articulations - mainly dynamics.

You can very easily create a crossfade  non vibrato/ vibrato by putting those articulations into a single VI and using slot crossfade to transition between them smoothly.    

These instruments are like later VI in not having sampled trills.  They have instead a "performance trill" which is a specially recorded legato with very smooth and fast transitions that allow a trill to be played - but you have to actually play it, not just hold down a key and get a trill. 

I actually like the older approach of actually sampling trills- for example, the Orchestral Strings have trills sampled up to major third intervals! -  but VSL decided to stop doing that.  

Yes I started using the 2nd violins patches with all of the strings - they are in Solo, Chamber, Orchestral and Appassionata - and rarely encountered the unusual situation of an articulation not being there, though there are some that are not converted. Mainly dynamics.  

No, you can load a non-pro version into pro.  It will play back and stay the same.  If  you save it though, the project will no longer load into non-pro or earlier versions as it is converted into the current pro version by saving.   

That's a good summary by Beat Kaufmann.

I would add that it is a little better to pitch shift down and transpose up when creating a second violin out of 1st. The reason is that vibrato is slowed a tiny bit, instead of sped up nervously.  Also the sound is a tiny bit darker which is desirable with sampled violins that always tend to be too bright.

No it's Windows 10. 

Actually I'm not accessing it that way - I am using MIDI interfaces.  Very old-fashioned.   

I was wondering if it has to do with using it within a DAW - as I think I mentioned this is strictly done with the standalone version on a slave.  

I had the same good results using VE7 that MS mentioned from my latest project - a MIR mix of my Romantic Symphony.  It uses 923 separate articulations on 80 custom matrices performing very smoothly and loading quickly the following instrumentation:

8 Flutes 

5 Oboes

4 Clarinets

4 Bassoons

Contra Bassoon

2 C trumpets

B flat Trumpet

Cornet

2 Flugelhorns

8 horn ensemble dividied accurately into 2 or 4 divisi parts using a combination of 2 - 4 horn ensembles or 4 solo horn/Dimension horn combinations

4 Trombones

Bass Trombone

Tuba

Vienna Konzerthaus Organ

Timpani

Percussion ensemble

5 gongs

cymbals and anvil

glockenspiel

2 sets chimes

Harp

Appassionata Violins

Orchestral Violins

Chamber Violins

Solo Violin 1 & 2

8 Dimension Violins divided into 1 & 2

Appassionata Violas

5 Dimension Violoas,

Solo Viola

Appassionata Cellos

Solo 

Cello 2

6 Dimension Cellos

Orchestral Basses

Chamber Basses

4 Dimension Basses

There are already two updates - less than a week after the initial release. 

Anyway I notice a slight increase in idle cpu compared to last version of VE6 but absolutely no other issues - this is on a project inovlving 77 channels/VIs,  and 900 articulation sets within all custom matrices, MIR pro  on every channel.  Works exactly like VE6 except with all the new features. So this is one system not experiencing any of the issues reported here. 

Though - this is the standalone version - a single VE running 4 MIDI ports on a 12 core Xeon Windows 10 slave wth 64GB ram.  

I loaded the biggest project I have ever made, originally done for VE6 and it loaded perfectly in 7, plays back just as well with that great new feature of being able to instantly see the articulations on the mixer (very useful! - previously they are somewhat "buried" within the VI instances).  Also  the range of new EQ/instrument settings available is great to have.  There is no increase at all in CPU useage on my system.  

That is excellent Paul - this entire symphony is a fascinating picture of a time and place.  The way you combine the programmatic elements with symphonic form is so effective in all your pieces.    

Thanks Paul that is good to know.  

I never had this happen before, but I had uninstalled the original audio interface, put in a new one, then removed it because it was not working. So I re-installed the first interface.  However the new one showed up in the preferences list, even though it  was gone. I didn't see how to uninstall it in Windows 10 as it did not show up in the list of programs for removal, or any list of drivers I could find.  However VE still thought it was there and it was first of the list of audio port options.

A huge amount of work involved in this - congratulations on completing it!  I've done a similar job and it is not easy.  Best of luck with your work!

From what I can see - unless there is a hidden trick - the answer is no.

In similar lists of items one can drag the individual item to change the order - but that is not possible here.  

This would be a desirable feature because all I did was change an audio interface - something fairly ordinary to do.

Anyway it isn't terribly difficult to change all the port numbers on individual instruments.  

I re-installed some things, and in VE Pro 6 standalone the MIDI input ports changed their order of listing in preferences-MIDI.  So now the previous port 1 is port 2, etc.  

This completely screws up the port numbers for  all instruments.  Can the order of MIDI ports be changed in preferences,  so that you don't have to go  into each individual  instrument and change the assigned port?

That's just about what happened.

One thing that can be used is the "normal" range.  That is sometimes listed as being no higher than a G (treble clef third space C concert pitch) and no lower than a middle C (F below middle C concert pitch) or G (C an octave below middle C concert pitch).  A piece for intermediate school orchestra or band would never exceed those limits.  

Though I am a complete hypocrite constantly writing lip-pulverizing parts that I would quiver in terror just looking at, let alone playing...