Regarding the RAM-Amount in use I was positivly surprised by the low RAM used by a complete orchestral Stringset with all Microphones. It seems as if they achieved some remarkable optimisation.

Whats next ?
.....Brass, Woodwinds, muted Strings
(later presumably some more for cinematic use intended Libraries)

Presumably they reduce the Pianobundle more than the Synchron Package, since the Pianobundle is in itself something new which  get insofar perhaps itsa own introductory reduction.

But if you already own the Synchron-Package, I assume and hope that finaly it wont make any difference if you buy the Blüther as Part of the Pianobunlde or as part of the SAynchron package.

Since you will have registered all Synchron products than in any way so if the Synchron-Package-reduction will be (as it normaly should be) more than thos of a smaller Sub-Bundle you should never the less be eligable for tha Synchron-Package-Reduictions since you simply have registered all its parts. Everything else would really make no sense at all and would be for them self a mess to administrate.

Hoiwever I consent, that it looks pretty strange, that the Super-Package-Reductions are less compared to those of the Pianobundle.

Thanks for adding the upgrade pricing after I asked for.

Originally Posted by: daviddln

Originally Posted by: fahl5

Now we are just waiting for Synchron Winds.

Yes. And Dimension Woodwinds would be nice too. And it's so great to see that VSL keeps creating new libraries for VI/VI Pro. I was afraid that they would abandon the VI Series.

Since Woodwinds (and Percussion) are scarcly used in larger sections to create notable ensemble effects like those which are quite common and characteristic for Brass and Strings, I think it has had a good reason, why VSL never produced Dimension Woodwinds or Dimension Percussion. (btw. Dimension Choirs would be perhaps much more reasonable). However the Concept of Synchron-Libraries will apply nevertheless very well on Brass and Woodwinds (perhaps even Solostrings useable aswell as Soloists, Parts of Chamberensembles or First Chair Strings of a section.
However to get Dimension-Strings in the Synchron-Player is absolutly great aswell for the Colorpalette available in the Synchron-Player as for a much more powerful usage of the very detailed variety which was already sampled for the dimension strings but until now in some aspects only quite complicated to use within VI.

However hold on to complete the Full Synchron-Orchestra.

Great News

Now we are just waiting for Synchron Winds. 

@ Synchronized Dimensionstrings I,II,III, - Upgrade

As far as I remeber well, there have been an Upgrade-path for the former synchronized Libraries.

I cant see any upgrade-Prizing, nor any Reduction for those who wants both Dimensionstrings III in both formats (VI+Synchron).. It would be kind to let us know how you pay tribute to those who alreadys bought the Dimension Strings in VI Format and again how you want to pay tribute to those most loyal customer who owns the VI Superpackage and the Synchron-Package.

@ Vienna Protecxtion-Plan for Super Package and Synchron-Package owners 

BTW: you should consider to spent the Super-Package Owners and the Synchron Package owners a free Vienna protection plan. Just an Idea but it does not seem to me to immodest and it would be very very usefull especially for those most loyal users.

In inspiring cooperation with Alan Belkin here is my Synchron-Version (Strings, Piano, Percussion and synchronized Dimension Brass) of his recently finished great

Pianoconcert #2 (2019) by Alan Belkin

Are we heading towards a recent release of Synchron-Solo (or First Chair) Strings?

Originally Posted by: musicos

Hi Fahl,

The Navarra is a great piece, very well done! Never heard that piece before.

Can you tell me which preset did you use with the VSL Steinway for that piece?

Thanks!

Thank you for your friendly reaction.

I've attached my own custom Preset already in a previous Synchron Steinway-Exploration-Posting

In general I do my own "presets" since I am trying to go for the most pure original recording. Thats why I tend to shape the ambiance of my recording exclusivly from the different available Microphonepositions of my full version.

Do not take me wrong, it is for a decent Studio of course realistic to, to have the ability to enhance the ambiance with additional Reverb and so I think it is in general quite reasonable, that the Synchron-Player and the Synchron-Pianos-Player offer that option.

While as a Pianist I am looking for the right balance of intimacy and warm charming ambiance. To me it is like many other questions of taste to find the right point between to much and not enough. At least I think you definitly have to reduce Ambiance as long as you explicitly notice, that there is ambiance, but on the other hand you definitly should care for better ambiance as long as you notice that there is no or not enough ambiance:.

I personally believe espacially with solopianomusic that the different Microphone positions are able to provide enough ambiance to prevent the impression of lacking ambiance, but at the same time they allow to keep the amount of ambiance as subtle that it does not disturb the total attention for nothing else but the music itself.

I hope I was able to answer your question.

Ok my last Synchron-Steinway Explorations are no longer focussed on Composers in the Haydn/Beethoven/Czerny/LIszt-Tradition but provide some complementary recordings of 20th century Composers I used to explore the Synchron Strings.

Synchron Exploration 10

presents the tremdously as modern as brilliant

"Sei studi op.70" by Alfredo Casella.

Synchron Exploration 11

presents the Synchron-Steinway/Synchron Yamaha CFX-Version of my earliest Synchron-Percussion recording of (only the VI-Bösendorfer Piano Instruments have been replaced in my previous recording with the Synchron Steinway (Piano 1) and the Yamaha CFX (Piano 2))

Bela Bartoks Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion

I like the ability to present even those very brilliant Scores with pretty cristal clear crisp precision for this kind of intentionally unemotional but still highly ambitious 20th Century music.

The next Synchron-Exploration focusses the World First Recording of 15 earliest Pianopieces from the 17 Year old Felix Weingartner composed even before he became one of the famous Liszt-Pupils. Insofar it is not that surprising, that Schumann, Schubert, but also a bit Wagner, Liszt and Beethoven are already audible in those nevertheless inspired and lively late romantic characterpioeces.

It seems to me still worth to mention that Weingartner after being Successor of G. Mahler at the Hofoper in Vienna and for long Years Leader of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra belongs to the very few admireable german and austrian Musicians, who made from the beginning absolutly clear to completly dissent with the Nazis and their unreflected emotionalised behavior based on prejudices and hatered. So he found himself very early on those (nowaday most honorable) Lists of musicians who the Nazis decided to discriminate.

Here you can listen

the World first recordings of 15 Characterpieces (7 Sketches op.1 + 8 Tonepictures (based on Novells of Adalbert Stifter of the still adolescent young Felix Weingartner recorded with the Synchron Steinway.

I hope you like that if ever you mighrt be interested in late romantic pianomusic.

Another Student of Liszt is Isaac Albeniz

Navarra

Is published posthumus. Its large pianistic orchestrated melodies tend to be a kind of the pianistic equivalent to Puccinis orchestral Style in that time. A Piano(sampleset) which wants to convince with that kind of pianistic 'Verismo', must be able to sing.

Las Estaciones op.201

A seldom heard and played simple group of intimate characterpieces about the four seasons between late romantic and the early impressionism of the beginning 20th century.

Just a cute little nearly completly unknown and unplayed composition from my Prof's Teacher, one of the most important german pianists in the early 20th century.; who after studying with the Liszt-Pupil Martin Krause became the teacher of  Pianists like A.Brendel, D.Barenboim, P.Badura Skoda, J.Demus.

However his Sonatine seems to reject any conceptual sophistication of the 20th century modernism as it shows obviously very little ambtion to rival with the tremendous pianism of his own Teachers (Martin Krause) Teacher (Liszt) it is nevertheless well done cheerful funny music.

With its nearness to classical pianostyles it provides for my Synchron Steinway Exploration the chance to show how that samplesets sounds in easy tradtitional pianomusic textures.

Edwin Fischer Sonatine

In the sequence of teachers whose legacy I am glad and thankful to have received in continuing line from Georg Albrechtsberger up to my own Prof the Link between Franz Liszt and Edwin Fischer would be Martin Krause. But like Karl Heinrich Barth the Liszt student Martin Krause concentrated himself (like most of his well known Students in the early 20th century) on the challenge to interpret the exsisting Repertoire without composing additional own music.

As kind of a placeholder I present here three world first recoirdings of Pieces by the likewise Liszt-Student and Interpret of classical Pianorepertoire Sophie Menter (1846-1910) of which the Etude op.8 was explicitly dedicated to her good Friend and collegue Martin Krause,  Like Martin Krause Sophie Menter was not only a close friend of Franz Liszt but was also like Martin Krause nearly exclusivly focussed on interpretation of the Pianistic repertoire of which you can find still several of her Recordings in YT-Videos but none of any of her few own compositions. So here you can obviously listen them for the very first time, what brings my Steinway exploration even a step closer to that kind of less or unknown ambitious Repertoire I usually am interested most to realise it with dedicated Samplesets.:

Mazurka op.6

Etude en sixtes op.8

Etude op.9

Listening to those brilliant Pianostudies makes it a bit easier to understand why Franz Liszt called Sophie Menter the "best female Pianist of her Time".

Franz Liszt was obviously not only one of the most famous Pianogenius in history as other other musical genius he was at the same time a prolific advanced modern composer and a tremendously influencal teacher, transferring his own musical Tradition (drawing back over Czerny to Beethoven, Haydn and Albrechtsberger) to a remarkable number of great composers and Pianists like those later Berlin Pianoprofessors Karl Heinrich  Barth (Teacher of Heinrich Neuhaus , Kempff and Rubinstein) or Martin Krause (Teacher of Claudio Arrau or Edwin Fischer) a strong european musical tradition I am glad to have benefit with studying with an Edwin Fischer Pupil and receiving further advise in Masterclasses among others with Pupils of Heinrich Neuhaus and  Wilhelm Kempff.

For my Synchron Steinway Explorations I chose Liszts three Pianoworks based on spanish music which include with the "Rhapsody espagnole" and the "Rondeau sur el contrabandista" not only two of the most demanding Pieces of Liszt but balance them with "La Romanesca" a completly different very shy setting of an historic spanish melody from the 16th Century.  While the extreme difficulty of the first two limit the amount of people who currently are ready to play that music (Hi Valentina L., Hi Stephen Hough ), the Romanesca remains in its charming simplicity one of seldom heard the hidden beauties Liszt in large oeuvre.

"Rondeau fantastique sur El cpontrabandista"

"Rhapsody espagnole"

"La Romanesca - Melodie du 16ieme Siecle"

While the first two pieces encompass nearly the whole range you might ever expect from any kind of ambitious romantic Pianomusic the last one affords to remain sonicly convincing even a in most reduced musical texture.

In both directions I found as beatiful singing middle and high ranges as warm to powerful bass ranges aswell as a great balance over the range of available colours of the Synchron-Steinway quite usefull for this kind of music.

Hi huseyinmustu,

To be clear the Preset is meant for rendering the project. (while it even works life quite well in my System.) 

I dont know your system enough for any technical help, but if you experience performance problems while life playing you might perhaps consider using less microphone positions or even only the Room mix for playing and using the full preset for a refined mix and rendering of the recording.

I hope I was able to answer your question.

Originally Posted by: huseyinmustu

Fahl5 thanks a lot for the explorations, they are beautifully played and showing how beautiful instrument VSL Steinway-D is.

Also, thanks a lot for sharing your preset. If possible, can you let us know what is your system specifications? Can you tell us how much RAM is being used when you run this preset?

Thank you very much for listening and for your friendly response.

I run the VSL-Steinway on my 6 Year old DAW-System (i73930K 64GB RAM System and all Samples running on SSD's and ) but even for the full version, you will need only a fration of that RAM if you run your Library on a good SSD,

The Synchron-Piano-Player mentions 2,24 GB for my preset.

Carl Czerny who premiered Beethovens  5. Pianoconcert in the age of 21, was not only a prolific producer of Excercises to develop and refine manual dexterity but as Beethovens Pupil the most important pedagogic link between the most important classical Pianism and the most brilliant pianists of the 19th century of which he taught the most (Liszt, Thalberg, Kullak, Heller, Lescheditzky, and many other).

From Czernys witness we also know very detailed how Beethoven understood Bachs 'Well tempered Piano'.

While until now everybody seems to know the pianostudies very few dared to listen to the music the young Czerny composed and performed  himself, which unveils not only a tasteful and very inventive brilliant pianist, but at the same time an impressive virtuose master of the counterpoint.

And guess what Czerny is real a wholeharted viennese Composer not only born and living his whole Life in vienna so dont be surprised, that both Variations are based on original sweet Waltz-melodies.

I have had much fun to do Czernys until now so scarcly kown brilliant music. It turns out, that the overtone rich VSL-Steinway Samplesets fits great to let the sophisticated Figurations, Passages and pianistic textures shine.

If you are looking for real brilliance try to listen (or even play if ever you are ready for ) those great pieces:

Carl Czerny: Variations brilliante op.14

Carl Czerny Impromptus - Variations brilliantes op.36

Carl Czerny: Cappricio à la fuga op.89

I hope you enjoy that music as much as I had fun to do it.

Originally Posted by: littlewierdo

 so you can make a comparison between the 3 pianos. The difference is very subtle, and you'll need some good headphones / studio monitors to hear the difference,

My hope is that Vienna will re-record the Bosendorfer, in the same manner they recently did the Yamaha and Steinway pianos, because the demos of the Vienna instruments version they currently sell, sounds rather bland, flat, and muted to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2GYYV8JSqM&feature=youtu.be

I am quite sure they will ad a Bosendorfer Synchron Piano sooner or later and that give the chance to provide a comnparison not between the original instruments on which the samplesets are based on, but also between the samplesets themselve.

It might be interesting to hear at least someone with a good classical background perhaps like Stefan Mendl to seriously play classical music with the samplesets.. so thats what might be stuff for the next VSL Piano comparison YT-Video.

The third Steinway Synbchron Exploration focus Ludwig van Beethoven the most popular student aswell of Georg Albrechtsberger as of Joseph Haydn and at the same time a well known teacher not only of musicians like Ferdinand Ries or Carl Czerny.
To keep the ears open and unprejudiced by many previously heard interpretations of the same music I chose again two still ambitious, but lesser known compositions (hard enough for someone like Beethoven)

The Rondo Bb Major Kinsky-Halm Nr. 6

....belongs to the earlier pianomusic while it shares the vivid pianistic energy of many better known earlier Beethoven Pianosonatas.

The Fantasy op.77

....seemed to have been stil a bit more popular in the late 19th and early 20th century as it is today combining powerful pianistic eruptions with the deep silence of some of the deepest adagios we know from Beethovens Pianomusic.

If you would ask me, are Pianosamples in general ready to play seriously Beethoven, I would have strong doubts for the most available Samplesets,

If you would ask me only for the Synchron Steinway, than: yes this could perhaps be a Pianosampleset that might  do the Job.

(See the settings for this and all previous Synchron-Steionway.Exploration-Recordings in the Preset attached below.)

Originally Posted by: cm

thank you for the input so far - it turns up that we had to allow several filetypes to cover the various preset files so i'd ask you to upload them zipped if required (this is a just a one-click-action in Windows and MacOS).
nevertheless i'll forward your suggestion to the appropriate persons during our next webmeeting.

There are already quite a bunch of Filetypes allowed, and as far as I know, the Preset Filetypes are introduced by your own developpers, I can not imagine, that they might be webspace or Server power consuming, malicious or dangerous in any other way.

Of course I can upload in zip format, it is just a suggestion to make things for your own user-community a bit more comfortable, since I can't see any serious reasons which would keep you from allowinmg them.

I was asked to share settings and tried to upload my prest here, but it seems as if the Preset-Filetypes ar currently not allowed to be uploaded here, so I was forced to zip it.

Why dont you just allow to upload the Preset-File-Formats of VSL-Products to allow users to easily exchange their settings and templates?

Jospeh Haydn was not only a tremdous prolific Composer, but also obviously a good teacher, among his pupils Ludwig van Beethoven, Sigismund Neukomm and Ignaz Pleyel are still know for their music (as their pedagogic legacy has reached many good students and teacher of later generations.)

Haydns very clear, transparent and soulful singing pianomusic is compared to the music of later virtuosic Pianoheros much more concentrated, on the fundamental musical qualities. Without extreme dynamic contrasts or pianistic excesses it nevertheless affords a rich range of colors even in the dynamic middle ranges aswell as the singing qualities.

to focus on those fundamental musical challenges for the quality of the instrument I choose an

- "Arietta con variazione Eb Hob. XVII3 " which deserves it name for its most singing theme and an

- "Adagio non troppo G Hob. XV 22" an original piano solo arrangement by Haydn of the slow movement of his Pianotrio Hob XV 22.

Imho there are very few samplesets which are ready to convince in that kind of music The VSL Synchron Steinway seems to be again not bad .

I hope you like it

Since I have got the impression that VSL-Synchron-Steinway is good enough for some closer explorations of its possibilities, I have prepared again a little exploration-project. It is explicitly not meant as any kind of "Demo"-Project, since I dont have no need to sell or promote here anything. It is more kind of an audible feedback not looking to impress anyone with anything aiming to be in any way extraordinairy awesome, but trying simply to use the instrument in that way I personally use it  As far anyone knows the character of my interest you will know, that i dont tend to focus just on the most popular passages and melodies of the most popular pieces, but am looking for often enough even lesser known but still good classical music.

(To keep the range of possible projects a bit limited i decided to favour nearly exclusivly composers which do have a direct connection in the pedagogic transmission of music up to my own for me most important Piano-Prof. Dont take me wrong If you will find some wellknow Composers among them : while I live in germany and as many ambitious young musicians have been looking for the most interesting teachers available here in europe it is not  that surprising that I have found one. On the other hand here in europe since centuries many of the most important composers have been at the same time important teachers which have spread their knowledge on many ambitious pupils, therefor it seems to me not that unlikely that the direct living transmission of the musical heritage could have in some cases deep roots in musical history as for instance I was (like some others others here) lucky to benefit from. So please dont take me wrong with this selection it is just paying tribute to an tremendously inspiring and often personal relation between austrian and german musicians over the last centuries which seems to be still alive and prosperous.)

If you consider for instance how many of the Pupils of Georg Albrechtsberger are still well known in music history (like L.v.Beethoven, John Field, Ignaz Mioschelez, J.N.Hummel, Fr. Kalkbrenner, Anton Reicha and many more) you can imagine that it is not that astonishsing that even the pedagigic ancesters of my teachers reach back up to him. As a wellknow Master of counterpoint, that seems to me also for my Piano-exploration a pretty good starting point:

I chose a Prelude and two Fugues to explore the new Steinway, since, what nearly evry musician will do with a new instrument is improvising, some Chords, Figurations and scales to get a first rough overview of the sound as a whole in all ranges , tempos and dynamic levels. On the other Hand the Fugue makes the first challenge for a good piano, since each single voice should be able to convince with its own musical phrasing and expression by it self and the whole should be at the same time transparent enough to still follow each voice in his own melodic development even if the polyphonic texture becomes more and more dense.

here you can listen my first results:

Georg Albrechtsberger:

Prelude and Fugue in D-Major

Fuge on B-A-C-H

I hope you like it.

My first impression about the new Steinway at least is in short

not bad 

Originally Posted by: JimmyHellfire

You can of course set up a dimension control to velocity, but as there is no way of defining a threshold value, you end up with some random and nonsensical crossover point.

If I understand you right, than it would help if we would be able to define the valiue where the controler switches from one slot to the next.

It was already some month ago when I suggested something likely, meanwhile a bit more general but, it seems as if it would solve also your problem:

1) while we can at the field on the left side of each slot which Keyswitch triggers which slot, the same field remains currently empty when the List is controled by any other kind of controler. So I suggest, that exactly the same field which show us the corresponding Keyswitch, shsould likewise show the value, when the controler switches from one slot to another.

2) Currently aswell as the Keyswitches as the Value where a controler switches the slot are associated automaticly. I do not realy understand why that should always be necessary. If my first suggestion to display the switch-values as the Keyswitches are already displayed wold be realised, my next suggestion would be to allow the user to define those values by just clicking in the value and entering the Keyswitch or value we need as it is currentl for instance possible to change Volume values in the Channellist of the VE.. 

So basically I think we consent it would be great to allow not only automatically asigned Value but also the user to define them, I think that is exactly what is missing to allow you to customize the velocitycontrole to your needs aswell as you asked for.